On Jan 12, Google released an Affiliate Policy Change
to
their AdWords product. This newsletter is dedicated to
general strategies that will improve your affiliate
campaigns in light of these changes.
Specific Google Changes
The changes to the Adword Policy are simple and can be
described as follows:
1. Google will only display one ad in total for affiliates
and parent companies sharing the same URL.
2. Affiliates will no longer need to designate
themselves as affiliates in their AdWords ads
Purpose of the Adword Policy Changes:
1. To prevent the display of redundant ads for a given
keyword phrase
2. To improve the relevancy of Adword ads
3. To protect the value of Adwords ads in the future
Google's Perspective
Shortly after the announcement, Salar Kamanger, director
of product management at Google, was quoted as saying,
"The new policy, which will be implemented over the coming
weeks, is intended to create a cleaner interface for users, increase
the diversity of merchants represented in the
links, and reduce duplicate ads, all while recognizing the
important benefits affiliate marketers bring to the table"
Kamanger continues, "What's important to keep in mind is
that Google looks at two factors to decide which ad to show,
CTR and Max CPC. By improving the quality of your ad and/or raising
your Max CPC, you can increase the chances of your ad showing for
any particular query."
Kamanger also stated that Google won't give preference to
merchants over their affiliates, but will show the link
that has the highest ad rank, a rating calculated by
Google using the cost per click bid and the click-through
rate of the ad.
Most importantly Kamanger said, "Google will continue to
let advertisers use a destination URL that doesn't match
the actual landing page's URL." Thus, there will not be
a problem with a traditional destination url like
www.amazon.com and the affiliate link that targets the
specific product.
Finally, advertisers can still link to sub-pages within
a site, where appropriate. Kamangar uses the following
example, "There could be an ad that points to an eBay
search for an item as well as an eBay store that sells
that item."
Impacts to Affiliate Marketers
I don't think this will have a major impact on affiliate
marketers working without a website. Keyword selection
will become increasingly important, and some markets may
be impossible to crack. Although these changes will
remove certain campaigns, it is likely that it will not
account for a significant percentage.
The GoogleCash method is a vital guide to targeting and
succeeding in the niche markets. These niche markets
are often the most profitable. Greater research and
testing may be required to maintain your position, but
your cost per click should drop improving your return
on investment.
Currently, most of the competitors for a keyword phrase
are promoting different merchants. Even in cases when
four or five affiliates promote the same affiliate
program for a given keyword phrase, there are typically
two times that many competitors that promote different
merchants. Thus, the good competitors will still be
there, but there will be less poorly targeted campaigns
in overly competitive markets.
In the long run, preventing duplicate affiliate ads for
the same merchant for a given search term will improve
the quality of the Google Adword experience. This will
keep customers coming back for relevance without
repetition, and this will increase the potential for
future sales!
In my experience with some of my campaigns that have
been running for many months, I have seen other ads for
the same product and affiliate program come and go.
They are displayed for a few days, and since their CTR
is under .5%, soon their ads get disabled, and then
they are gone.
A few days later another person's ads will come and go.
This is because there are a lot of people that are quite
lazy and don't use all of the techniques of keyword
matching, negative keywords, and split testing. They
just do a copycat campaign for a keyword with a similar
ad and an identical merchant, but that's all.
So for my campaigns I don't think I will see a big
difference. In fact over time, there might be less
competitors.
Recommendations:
1.Watch your campaigns closely
a.Watch for drops in impressions
b.Watch for drops in sales
c.Watch for sudden increase in impressions
without a corresponding increase in sales
2.Improve keyword selection
a.Remove non-performing keywords
b.Split test various ad copy
c.Use negative keywords to improve CTR
d.Use misspelled keyword phrases
e.Use synonyms
3.Remove the "aff" tag from the ad copy
a.Expect an increase in CTR!!
4.Search for profitable, unoccupied keyword/url
combinations
5.Raise your budget if you have claimed a top
position and it is still profitable
6.Explore your niches deeply and consider
building mini-content sites
Seconday Recommendations:
1. Look for opportunities on other PPC engines
2. Build content pages to promote multiple products
3. Contact your affiliate managers and/or merchants to
negotiate your payouts
Concluding Remarks
Numerous strategies exist that will circumvent the new
policy, but beware as these loop holes will only exist
temporarily. Concentrate, on the long term viability
of your adword campaigns. Strive to be the affiliate
that commands the top rank for a merchant url for a
certain keyword phrase thus benefiting from the
competitors that will no longer be receiving impressions.
If you happen to be one of these competitors that lost
your place, then look for new keyword phrases within your niche
that are currently unclaimed or increase your bid to regain the
position.
Internet marketing is an evolving industry and changes
like this are likely to continue. If you focus on the
spirit of the changes and try to create ads that are
extremely relevant for the keyword you chose, then you
shouldn't have problems finding profitable niches in the
future.
Over the coming weeks, I will review the viability of
emerging strategies and products created to improve
campaign results. Some strategies will work better than
others, and I will try and discover the pros and cons of
each and report them objectively. Until then, improve
your campaigns little by little so as to maximize your
current returns.
Thanks and Happy Googling!
Chris Carpenter
http://www.AffiliateJackpot.com
** Please feel free to send this newsletter on to
a friend. **
To subscribe to this newsletter - send a blank email to:
gcnewsletter@aweber.com
|
