Nada Collar

People often ask how to track conversions of keywords. And occasionally someone mentions that you shouldn’t forget that you can use dynamic entry of keywords into your URL in Adwords. CPA Affiliates recently posted a good example of how to track your keywords using the dynamic keyword variable in Adwords.

As mentioned in the comments of the CPA-Affiliates post, the problem with using keywords in your URL’s is that you might be showing the merchant how you are giving them traffic.

I like to use Excel to create URL’s with my own tracking information. This can work with your own landing pages and a script such as shown at CPA-Affiliates, or with tracking from some networks (such as the Shopper ID at Commission Junction).

1. Arrange your URL to have the tracking information at the end. www.domain.com/abc.php?fu=bar&sid=tracking_info
2. Paste the base URL into Excel A1. Remove the tracking variable. ie www.domain.com/abc.php?fu=bar&sid=
3. Pick a base tracking number, this number is going to increment for each keyword, and will start with some letters to help differentiate different campaigns. For example aa100. Put this number in B3
4. Get all your keywords and dump them into excel starting from C3, going down to Cxxx. Make sure your grouping still works after pasting, If the quotes disappear, after you paste, go to the bottom of your keywords (while selected), and there should be a little pull down button for paste options. Select “Text Import Wizard”, and on step 2 un-tick Space as a delimiter, and change text qualifier to {none}.
5. Auto fill your tracking numbers starting with your base (aa100). Select it, grab the lower right corner of the cell and drag down column B until you get to the end of the keywords you added in column C.
6. In D3 add **. Using Auto fill again, drag it down to match with the bottom of your keywords. Copy this whole column into F3. These columns will match the Adwords syntax “keyword**bid_price**URL”
7. This step shouldn’t be needed but for some reason Adwords won’t let me use the default bid by leaving this column empty (even though they say it works). Put your default bid price in E3 and drag it down to the bottom of the keywords. Make sure they are all the same value and not incrementing Of course you can change any keyword to any bid you like.
8. In G3 type =concatenate($A$1,B3). You should end up with your URL shown: www.domain.com/abc.php?fu=bar&sid=aa100.
9. Auto fill column G. Select G3, click in the lower right corner of the cell and drag down to the bottom.
10. Select your whole table and paste into the Adwords Keyword Editor. You can paste up to 750 keywords.

Good Luck.

There are more details on selecting different URLs for different keyowrds on the Adwords help page.

Update: Here is a template where you can setup a few things and hey presto its all done. URL Builder. It’s slightly different to my guide:

•  enter base URL
• enter default bid
• enter first (Base) SID
• enter keywords (see earlier comments with tips for pasting)
• drag (autofill) the columns to match keyword list

What is Google planning with regard to paid links? Matt Cutts has a post requesting people to report paid links using the webmaster spam report tool. The post has opened up a can of worms. Matt is stating that they would like the information to try out some new algorithm’s they are working on, but the writing is on the wall (on a side note: we need a modern version of this statement. “The writing is on the server”?)

• Either Google wants to remove paid links from their PageRank algorithm.
• or They want to rule the paid links arena with their new embedded link ads
• or all of the above.

Passing PageRank
Matt has basically said that you should not pass PageRank with any paid links. And while people have been calling Google hypocritical (since they essentially are the biggest paid link provider out there) I guess they are missing the point of passing page rank. Many large pay for a link networks out there are javaScript and hence don’t pass pagerank. They are all about the traffic. Text-link-ads and others are more about PageRank (and also traffic).

The response?
So far Text-Link-Ads have not made a comment about Matt’s post. Many people have commented on Matt’s post about the issues they see with it, but most are quick knee jerk reactions.

• Google is being Hypocritical. (yeah well, not directly but…. yeah)
• SEO’s will put out of jobs. (huh, I think not)
• April fools joke? (no)
• Penalize competitors by reporting them (since everyone does it)
• We are being asked to rat out others to help Google make money.

The less knee jerk reactions (but still negative)

• many site ONLY make money from paid links. And the links are relevant and hand edited. What are they to do?
• Google have said this is ok in the past.

And the positives:

• I’ve been waiting for this. Thanks
• Now the mom and pops can have a level playing field with big-budget stores.

Interesting Notes
The only real valid comment we can make right now is about the lack of information as to what is a paid link, how we should be using them, and what Google is planning to do with this information.

One commentor (Michele ) introduced the concept of rel=”paid” (to be honest I think it wasn’t something Michele would like, but it seems like a good suggestion to me).

Another commentor (Everett ) pointed out that hand crafted ads should be ok, but automated ones shouldn’t be. I like this, but from a algorithm point of view… ouch.

Conclusion
The idea is nice. It means that in theory relevant content is able to rank higher. But if you ask me the whole PageRank concept is broken now anyway. It has got to the point where things are popular because they are popular. Who will link to the brilliantly written page that nobody visits because its number 3000 on the SERPS? In my opinion blogs have taken off so well because of this problem. If you can build a readership by having unique opinions then you can grow, but in established markets where opinions count for less (and thus a blog won’t get a readership) it is starting to require significant time (and thus money) to get into the SERPs.

Given that, maybe Google are shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe PageRank ONLY works because of paid links. Someone who wants to get into the game can seed themselves by spending some money and then see how they go on the SERPs once they get seeded. Without the paid links they might never have bothered in the first place.

Interesting thought to ponder, but its way to big of a problem to ever really know the answer.

Update: I’ve been waiting for response from some bigger names on this one. Quadzilla has pointed out that everyone has joined his black-hat ranks. Maybe they are all sitting back to see how the ball lands.

This is certainly a form of revenue sharing that I didn’t see coming. Sonopia have just launched a DIY MVNO (Do it Yourself Mobile Virtual Network Operator).
They use Verizon as the carrier and provide a service whereby you can setup a network and receive 3%-8% of the revenues generated from the users you enlist on your virtual network.

It would seem ideal for non-profits, schools, community groups etc as a fund raiser. I imagine that will be its core market.

I can only imagine the schemes that are going to pop up around the internet for using this service. Although I suspect that the type of schemes would be - get your commission back etc - and the type of people that sign up for such a scheme are more likely to buy the cheapest service they can find (which would not be Verizon)

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reviewed the service and came to the conclusion that their user experience was a little lacking. It seems that its difficult to use their website for creating or managing a network. They will certainly need to fix this issue if they want to stay out of the TechCrunch deadpool.

I have not tried to setup a network but two immediate problems I see with their service relate to the user experience also.

1. Plans?
There are no mention of plans. I’d be interested to know what kind of plans they will offer, but I don’t want to sign up to find out. Maybe they are relying on the Group itself to inform its customers about the plans, but it would be nice for some sample plans for general users.

2. Association Validity.
How do I know that the Sonopia Group is run by who it says it is? If I got some marketing material from that association then I could assume that everything is legit. But if I just look through the list of available Groups then I could be giving my money to anyone.

I assume that the associations list on the front Sonopia page (National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Association) have been enlisted by Sonopia themselves. However they all have pages on Sonopia NOT on their own sites.

If you go to “Join a Sonopia” you see a listing for World Ocean Federation. How do you know that it really belongs to World Ocean Federation? Has someone just picked a well known charity and is hoping to cash in?

Sonopia, please make associations add a link to their own websites with news about their partnership with Sonopia. Then I can be more confident that my money is going to the World Ocean Federation and not John Smith of Las Vegas.

Mitch Harper at HarpzOn.com writes about getting more website traffic. I was reading his post today about commenting on blogs that don’t use the rel=”nofollow” anchor tags to get more traffic. It occurred to me that removing nofollow from your own blog might actually be a way to get more traffic also.

So I am going to try it as of today. As long as there is some method to stop spam it seems to make sense to give a little in return to your readers. I figure its another method of revenue sharing. And I think the whole blog community should start doing it.

Right now I get very little traffic. I comment on various blogs and get small amounts of traffic from all my comments, but I have yet to top 100 visitors in any day. And I have yet to receive a single comment. I haven’t really tried anything to help this (like all the methods Mitch is describing), mostly because I have no spare money to try the methods he has described.

Anyway, I might not have the exposure to really determine if this concept works, but hey what the heck its worth a try.

Free PageRank, come and get it! Hey, if you really want some pagerank, leave me a comment AND digg this article. That way your link will get more exposure when this story goes crazy.

Shoemoney has an article about these sites that promise free stuff and then make you fill in ton’s of forms and shell out money to sign up for things. The article was written be someone who wished to remain anonymous and sent it to Shoemoney to print. He seems to think that these companies might be owned by ValueClick, but there is no reason why that association is made (other than the fact that ValueClick don’t seem to be in this market).

I’ve done some digging and I think either Mr anonymous is wrong, or multiple people have the same software that is generating the same code.

First take a look at the source code of these sites. They are obviously all related as they have the same source code, the same terms and conditions, and yet as Shoemoney points out they have different domain registration information. Why would you do that? Maybe if you have something to hide?

taken from Shoemoney’s article:

1) http://www.consumerdirectsavings.com

Registered to:
Inner Concepts (innerconcepts@gmail.com)
297 Kingsbury Grade #D
PO Box 4470
Stateline, NV, 89449-4470
US
775-588-0161

2) http://www.freelawntractor.com

Registered to:
eSolutions Media (admin@esolutionsmedia.net)
4001 Kennett Pike
Suite 134
Greenville, DE 19807
US
866-670-9043

3) http://www.webrewardscentral.com

Registered to:
Inc., MarketLabs.net (admin@marketlabs.net)
MarketLabs.net, Inc
40 East Main Street
#333
Newark, DE 19711-4639
US
866-348-3896

Now I started searching for some of the things in the code and tada. I got a hit. Search for get_demographic and you get a nice link from the FTC. Oh look its about a similar company, bestrewardsaround.com. Same code.

The link shows documentation of ads that don’t conform to some settlement from a company called Zango Inc. And guess who owns it…. None other that Mr Keith Smith and Daniel Todd, formerly known as 180Solutions Inc. Sounds about right.

Seems to me they are trying to hide from their past as it might frighten too many victims.

Of course there always was a relationship between ValueClick and 180Solutions. Maybe Shoemoney has more information than I have found.

There must be people dying for this to happen. It was announced a while back, but we still haven’t heard much about it.

Maybe that performing arts degree will finally make more than minimum wage?

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a deadpool of companies that have backed up and gone home. Are tradional music label’s about to fall out of the sky all around us and into the deadpool?

I just read at Mashable about Snocap and Pump Audio getting together. Snocap (from Napster dude Sean Fanning) sell mp3’s and provide revenue sharing for MySpace users and imeem users for their help in selling songs. Pump Audio provide licensing etc for independant artists.

I’m not sure that this venture in itself is going to destroy any big music labels, but I can see the mix of independant artitsts and revenue sharing totally destroying the music industry as we know it.

MP3 provided the means, but revenue could provide the power. Think about it, what do music labels provide right now? Advertising and networks. They can pull the strings to get the music played. They can spend the $$$ and get people to know about it.

With music marketing going down the affiliate route, companies like Pump Audio providing the help on the legal side, and Snocap and others providing the distribution, whats left? Nada.

Bye Bye Mr Music Label. Let the Google bidding war begin (well no more so that it already is).

I’m not sure whats going on with YouSayToo.com and TrendyFriendy.com. They/It seem to have a multiple personality disorder (look at the About page). YouSayToo and TrendyFriendy seem to be the same site, but can’t decide which name they would rather.

Anyway, its a social site for writing random crap and commenting on other random crap. But they have a revenue sharing model so its worth a mention. Similar to most forums (which they kind of are) its a 50% our Adsense, 50% your Adsense. They have a rating system and if you fall below a certain level then your adsense account is no longer used.

Not too bad although I would think tying Adsense accounts to your own content would help increase the general usefulness of the content.

I have just read an article on TechCrunch about online booking companies. These are companies that are trying to be more than just online table booker’s (like OpenTable). They are aiming to provide a service for the many types of business out there that require bookings.

Anyway, it got me to thinking. What benefits could restaurants (and other businesses, buts lets just say restaurants for now) get from online booking. The obvious is more bookings, but I thought, well they only have so many tables (or employee’s since all service businesses are constrained by employee’s). So why would they want to pay money to get reservations when they already get them for “free” over the phone?

Then it occurred to me, imagine if you could be an affiliate for a restaurant. Suddenly it could be well worth the effort of some personality to recommend a restaurant. Suddenly a restaurant could be booked 2 weeks, 2 months in advance. That means suddenly you could charge twice as much for a meal, attract the type of people that spend more on everything. Profits could double, triple, quadruple. Well you get the idea.

Since I wrote my thoughts on Google’s Pay-Per-Action I’ve been trying to think of some PPA ideas outside the box and have come up with a few. But the most interesting thought I’ve had is using PPA/CPA in place of CPC. What if I can determine if a reader came to my site via a PPA link? (I must be able to otherwise how would PPA work). I could make that my action. Sounds stupid since its just CPC. But what could I do with that added control?

• I can know at any second EXACTLY how much money I have spent.
• I could try and filter what I believe to be click fraud. It might affect my ranking, but I can weigh the pro’s and con’s and find a balance. At least my money is going to those who deserve it.
• I could pay for traffic that actually wants my site (ie by waiting for 3 internal page views, or something similar) . That way I can control the relevance of traffic I am paying for.
• I could dynamically adjust how often I notify Google to keep my ranking exactly where I want it. That way I only pay what I absolutely have to pay. Why get top ranking if 4th or 5th is better (and where I want to be).
• I could only notify Google if my visitor clicks on an Ad (makes aggregation a sure thing doesn’t it)

Some of these sound great and… well those last few just open up a can of worms now don’t they? I don’t want to even think about what I could do if I wanted to push the ethical bounds even further.

update: I already mentioned this in my first post, but it seems to be a common misunderstanding around the blogosphere, so let me address “basic” action fraud as Michael Arrington did. Google ranks ads by how much money it makes them, so CPC and PPA can exist together and Google can still decide which one makes them more money. So, if I don’t tell Google about the actions with the hope that I can get free advertising, then it’s the same thing as having a 0% click through ration (CTR). That will never get you any traffic. I am trying to point out that you can now control that click through ratio.

Right now I can see five solutions for these last problems:

• PPA never makes it to search. Probably not something Google would prefer.
• A publisher has direct control over what ads run. Seems like they already do, but its not a great solution from Google’s perspective as its not the most efficient. (and its just not the Google “algorithmic” way of doing things)
• Two tiers of affiliates, those that must use a Google supplied action page, and those that are big enough to trust that can supply their own actions. Ouch.
• Strong filtering of PPA landing pages to try and remove any unwanted activity.
• Hope that the positives outweigh the negatives and live with it.

None of them are great, and I think the last two are what we are going to get. It seems to me that Google might have a product that is much less scalable than Adwords. Of course Adwords has click fraud but yet it has been a phenomenal success, so maybe we will just have to live with PPA schemes.

Looks like an opportunity to me.