Category Archives: Making Money

Google AdWords Automatic Payment Declined

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Had a first this afternoon, apparently Google AdWords notified me that my bank denied the credit card on file for automatically making Google Adwords payments.  This denial of payment immediately put my currently running ads on pause and put my account in default until action was taken.  So, I immediately contacted Fifth Third Bank to see what was going on.

According to 5/3 Bank my they authorized the transaction and confirmed that the payment had went through.  After a brief conversation I also confirmed that my account was in good standing and there was no reason to put my account on hold, all transactions have been authorized and would be so in the future.  Keep in mind, this account has used the same payment method for over a year, payments going off without a hitch every month, but now supposedly declined.  Time to call Google.

I've never called Google before, so I was concerned my experience would involve being on hold for hours and get someone who's accent was difficult to understand over the phone.  Thankfully, neither of my perceptions were accurate, I actually spoke with someone within 2 mins and the person was fluent in English and spoke knowledgeably about the issue I was having.

Unfortunately, the customer service rep at Google I spoke with didn't have an answer for my problem.  His best suggestion was for me to wait 24 hours, without offering any other solutions.  After pressing he agreed to send me an email to reply to, which I was instructed to send proof that the transaction went through.  The bigger problem, my account remains paused until this issue is rectified, unless I want to risk being double billed and add more forms of payment.

Anyone else gone through this problem with automatic payments being denied in their Google AdWords account?  Think it will work itself out in the next 24 hours?  I guess we will see, I'll update back here.

Google Merchants Datafeed Error

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So, I've been using the Google Merchants and having success through Google Shopping, up until a few weeks ago.  Now, I'm still getting clicks, and my products are still showing up in search, however I'm getting datafeed errors.  The reason for the errors is not very clear.

On the Merchants dashboard it states that all of my products have errors, which need to be fixed.  The link below the announcement takes me to my datafeed quality report and states to fix the problems listed below.  Only problem, there are no problems listed below.

Google Merchants Datafeed

Datafeed Quality

Yahoo Advertiser Closure Fees

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Ok, so I know I haven't used the Yahoo Advertising service in forever, but actually closing my account and taking my money?  Apparently, if you don't use your Yahoo Advertiser account for so long, they close it down and steal whatever money you had setting in the account, up to the $25 closing fee.  Not a lot of money, but considering how awful the return was, I'd suspect Yahoo is making more money from closing accounts than retaining customers.

Somehow, according to the email correspondence from Yahoo, the account had remained inactive for about 24 months.  2 years!?  Hell, had no idea I even had an advertising account for that long.  However, goes to show how much potential the Yahoo advertising network had for me, personally.

I understand the need to close the account, but I was given no notice of the impending doom.  Perhaps 30 days or so to let me spend my remaining few dollars would have been nice.  It's frustrating, because unlike Google Adsense you are required to preload your advertising account at Yahoo, instead of being billed every month.  So, add funds, stop a campaign halfway and BAM, dollars resting in an account you forget about for 2 years.

Lesson learned and a warning to others.  Empty that old Yahoo advertiser account.

Reddit Self Serve Advertising Review

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I've decided to do a brief review on Reddit self serve advertising, which allows you to create your own sponsored link and get it published at the top of Reddit.com or on sub reddits. The ability to post on subreddits only, allows for extremely targeted traffic. For example, posting in the Technology subreddit would be a great place to advertise computer components or anything tech related you are interested in selling.  However, for my first self serve ad, I choose for it to be ran site wide.

I chose to advertise my Auto News site, in an attempt to increase readership and more importantly RSS subscribers.  I was not selling anything directly, so I can't quite recommend Reddit as a place to get sales...yet.  However, I did find that I got some fairly cheap visitors to my site, who were generally interested in my content, using bounce rates as a gauge of interest.

Setting Up Your Self Serve Ad on Reddit

For starters, getting an ad setup is very easy and probably requires less than 5 mins of work.  The ad buyer simply needs to choose where they want their sponsored link placed, add a thumbnail image (not required), and add a link Title.  The buyer is then allowed to choose whether they want to allow for comments, which could possible make or break certain types of ads on this social bookmarking site.  I chose to not allow comments.

After your sponsored link has been created, simply input the amount of money you are willing to spend per day on that Ad being shown.  One downside is that sponsored link placements can only be placed 24 hours in advance, no immediate gratification.  Then you chose how long you want your self-served ad to run, allowing for the budget you entered previously.

How Reddit Self Serve Advertising Works

Buying a sponsored link on Reddit does not guarantee a certain number of clicks or views.  Reddit will take the total amount of self serve ads for the specified day, then break it down by who bid the most.  The link views are then shown based on the amount you are spending.  For example, if two advertisers picked the same day and both bid $100, each persons sponsored link will be shown 50% of the time.  If one buyer would spend just $30 per day and the other spend $70, the first person's ad will only be shown 30% of the time, regardless of how many click sit actually generates.

Reddit does a good job of showing you how popular certain days are, so it's possible to get a ton of views for next to nothing on low self-serve ad traffic days.  I choose a day through the week which had little advertising, so I feel I got a good value for my money.

My Experience With Reddit Self Serve Ads

I ran my ad for 3 days and spent a total of $60, which obviously equals the minimum $20 per day budget.  This self serve ad campaign resulted in 25,708 unique views of my sponsored link and 722 unique clicks through to my site.  Again, I wasn't selling anything direct, so it's hard to gauge, other than bounce rate, how well these visitors would convert.  However, I think it does a good job of showing the potential traffic from such a small investment.

Ultimately I ended up with an extra 40 RSS subscribers and I've received return visits from people who most likely bookmarked my site after clicking on my sponsored link.  I was happy with the pittance of an advertising investment and look forward to testing out some new landing pages, seeing what converts, and finding out what Redditors are actually buying.

The Future Of Reddit Self-Serve Advertising

My guess is that self-serve advertising on Reddit won't be around for much longer.  Recently they posted on their official blog that they are hurting for money and while the self-serve advertising is nice, it's not enough to pay the bills and expand Reddit.  To be honest, it's a bit insulting that the engineers of Reddit are holding on their hands for money, instead of going after other viable advertising opportunities.  Hell, we already provide all the content, now they want some of our money?

Again, I'm going to try and start another sponsored link campaign, this time with a product for sale.  I'll be back soon to post the results.

Reddit Self Serve Advertising Results

Reddit Self Serve Advertising Results

How To Find A Niche Market

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The first problem that needs answering for affiliates is how to find a niche market.  Sure, there may be plenty of affiliate programs out there, but finding a niche market, accessing it's ability to generate revenue, and then contemplating how much traffic you can generate stems from just one thing.  Which niche market you choose.

What's Important

Traffic is probably number one on the list of requirements for finding a niche market.  Whether you are looking for a high traffic niche or focus on building sites around a lot of low traffic niche's, traffic is your concern and how it molds your website.  The amount of traffic you intend on receiving will dictate if you build a store, blog, forum, or combination of all.  Furthermore, depending the niche market you find, developing a thin site just might not cut the mustard.

Competition is the next point to access.  It doesn't matter how broad the niche market is if there are thousands of competitors.  Any piece of the pie will eventually be divided up, but a low competition niche will allow you to control a bigger market share.  Of course this is assuming you know how to properly market, promote, and then convert that traffic.

Are search visitors in this specific niche looking to buy or just browse.  Some niche markets have a lot of traffic, but the majority of hits are just people looking for info on an item they will never buy.  This typically will apply to very high dollar items or products that need a lot of tire kicking before being purchased locally.  To find a profitable niche market, try to find that widget that people are actually buying online or at least stem off side products to support the primary niche.

Find A Niche Market

The first place I start when looking for a market I'd like to compete in is eBay Pulse.   eBay Pulse will provide the top 10 watched items on eBay, broken down by category.  eBay is the largest online auction website in the world, so it's a safe consider these results relative to what people are searching for on Google and other search engines.

Next, take this information to the Google Keyword Tool, which can even be used if you don't have an Adwords account.  Here you can enter the general popular product you found on eBay Pulse and be given a mess of similar searched phrases and keywords.  More importantly the keyword tool will also give you the estimated amount of searches done Globally for the month and even Local searches.  This is the most important tool for judging traffic.  In addition, a rough estimate is given on ad competition, which does not necessarily represent the competition in the SERPs.

I regularly utilize the Google Keyword tool to find a niche market.  Usually I'll enter a broad niche keyword, then follow the lower searched keywords and phrases to find a market I may not have previously been aware of.  Then I give a lot of attention to searching the keywords and phrases on the actual Google search engine.  After accessing the competition on the first page of results, I see if I judge if I'll actually be able to compete.

Usually I'll shy away from a niche market if I don't already have a website with some sort of authority in the field.  Not a stead fast rule, but it allows me to jump right into a niche market and start competing immediately, but building off links from my already popular website.  Of course, my portfolio of websites would never grow unless I ventured out of my comfort zone, but still provides a good starting point.

Online tools to convert the traffic you receive from your Niche Market:

Associate-O-Matic - Recently updated Amazon store builder.

eMotive Interactive - Affiliate network that focuses on CPA commissions.

Niche Site Platform - Store builder that pulls products from Commission Junction, eBay, Amazon, and more.

Unlimited Income From Referrals

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Have you been looking for an affiliate network that would pay you a percentage of commission based off the revenue earnings of your referral?  Motive Interactive is one of the leading edge affiliate networks that focuses on CPA programs.  Imagine, being paid a commission because a referred visitor entered their zip code into single field submit website and BAM you earn a whopping $3.75.  These types of programs exist on the Motive Interactive network and most importantly they pay handsomely for referred publishers.

How it works is, for every publisher you refer to Motive Interactive, you will earn a 2% commission off of their revenue.  For example, if you refer a publisher that earns $100, you will net $2 for doing nothing.  As you can see, the more you refer, the more you earn for setting on your bum.  These are life time commissions, no end date like other affiliate networks.

It's a win-win referral.  You help someone find a quality affiliate network to start generating revenue off of and Motive Interactive pays you for your efforts.  Start earning money with Motive Interactive now and as usual I wouldn't bother with a positive review and affiliate link if I didn't use the program myself.

Motive Interactive Affiliate

Associate-O-Matic Update, The Amazon Store Builder

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Perhaps you have forgot about the affiliate tool known as Associate-O-Matic or AOM, but it hasn't forgot about you.  The creators of the once popular Amazon store builder software has continued to update their software and offer some great new features.  Since I started using this affiliate script 2 years ago it's gone through a number of updates and everyone has improved usability, features, and opportunities for commissions.

If you are not familiar with Associate-O-Matic, it's a script that automates building a store from Amazon products based on your keywords.  AOM features a number of customization options, from design, searches, home page listings, and even custom pages.  The software itself is very diverse and can allow for unique niche store pages to be built.

On May 25th the Associate-O-Matic team released an update which enabled parts searching through Amazon automotive.  I've personally experienced an increase in conversions from this little widget that I enable on all my store pages.  You can see an example of the Parts Finder feature in Associate-O-Matic in my Key Ring Store.

Yesterday, on June 11th the AOM released yet another update which squashed a few bugs and enabled a new design function.  The AOM update allows options for rounded corners in your store.  But it's not just cosmetic updates this time around, AOM version 4.4.1 also utilizes the latest Amazon API.

I'd recommend anyone download Associate-O-Matic and add it to your arsenal of affiliate site building tools.  There is a free version available, but 10% of your clicks will use the AOM Amazon affiliate ID.  The paid version of AOM is just $99 for the first year, then $20 thereafter, which includes all updates and added features.


Associate-O-Matic

Niche Site Platform $15 Coupon

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September Coupon Code Update: WIZARDSPECIAL

Simply enter 'WIZARDSPECIAL' into the coupon code section at purchase to receive $20 Off.

Still haven't had a chance to review the new piece of affiliate software I purchased a few weeks ago, but Niche Site Platform has released another coupon code.  This Niche Site Platform coupon is good for $15 off.

In addition, buy the product and become an affiliate, because Ben Johnson is paying out an amazing 50% commission on all of his products.  Which also means, do me a favor and buy this alternative to BANS, so I can earn up to $43.50.  Consider it a thank you for turning you onto this coupon code.

$15 Niche Site Platform Coupon Code : E47C6846F0

As mentioned in my previous post with a working $10 NSP coupon code, there will be a full review coming soon.  I'm just working out how I want to approach such a diverse, multi-use, tool.

Also, keep in mind I do not refer any product that I don't personally use to make money.  So thank you in advance for using my affiliate link to purchase the Niche Site Platform product.

About Niche Site Platform

Niche Site Platform ExampleNiche Site Platform (NSP) is an all-in-one store building solution for multiple affiliate networks.  NSP is able to build stores based on keywords you enter to automatically link to products from Amazon, eBay, Commission Junction, Link Share, and more.  If you used Build A Niche Store, then you will be familiar with the layout and the method to build store pages.  It's a great replacement for BANS, since it allows you to build off of other networks, instead of putting all your eggs in the eBay Partner Network basket.

In addition, the NSP script is installed as easily as any WordPress blog and comes complete with an administrator panel back end.  No experience is necessary to start building professional looking affiliate stores.

That's the short and the sweet, expect a full Nails Blog review soon.

Niche Site Platform Coupon

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September Coupon Code Update $20 Off: WIZARDSPECIAL

Simply enter 'WIZARDSPECIAL' into the coupon code section at purchase to receive $20 Off.

Niche Site Platform Coupon Article

I'm a sucker for buying new tools to automate my affiliate marketing and site building, so you can see why Niche Site Platform appealed to me.  I just purchased the script today, but already I'm noticing how it can help diversify my affiliate earnings, at least from a phpBay and BANS perspective.  It has a lot of things in common, but it's also providing me a new outlet to automate my CJ, Linkshare, and Amazon affiliate link building.

The normal price for Niche Site Platform is $79, which is supposedly marked down from over $100.  The Niche Site Platform just launched at the end of April, so I was surprised to find a working coupon code.  The coupon is good for $10 off the purchase price.

Niche Store Platform Coupon

$10 Off Niche Site Platform Coupon - A7BAA9090F

Those familiar with BANS will feel right at home using Niche Store Platform and for the price it's hard to pass up.  Also, buying NSP now will allow you to get ahead of the curve of all the site spamming and the inevitable ding from Google in the upcoming year.  Be an early adopter and buy Niche Store Platform now, you won't regret it.

As a reminder, I don't promote any products that I don't personally use.  Although I've just purchased it, I'm already pleasantly surprised with the possibilities.  Expect a full blown review of Niche Store Platform in the upcoming days.

[box type="info"]New coupon code! $20 OFF Enter the coupon code WIZARDSPECIAL. Coupon code good only for a limited time, so buy now. I'll update again when more or better coupons become available.[/box]

Clickbank and EzineArticles.com Tips

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Clickbank Logo

Considering promoting Clickbank hoplinks on EzineArticles.com?  There are a few things to consider before spending a lot of time on producing content, that will likely get rejected if you don't follow the rules.  The number one rule when trying to promote affiliate links through EzineArticles.com, is that they are not allowed.  But there are ways to place links within the resource box, that will give you a commission if a visitor clicks through.

How To Add Affiliate Links To EzineArticles.com

EzineArticles.com LogoGenerally the only way the reviewers at EzineArticles.com will allow affiliate links are when the link is sent to a top level domain.  A Clickbank hoplink is not considered a top level domain, so we'll have to setup a redirect.  To do the redirect you will have to own a domain and have it hosted on a server running PHP.

Let's assume your domain is LotsAMoney.com and you want to redirect to RapidMassTraffic.com, which pays a healthy 60% commission.  Well we can't use that ugly url I used in the link on this post in our resource box on EZA, so we'll have to actually use a link to LotsAMoney.com.

To redirect to the RapidMassTraffic.com site you will need to upload an index.php file to your domains folder.  MemWG.com has a phenomenal how-to showing exactly what code needs to be included in the index.php file to properly forward to the programs landing page.

The end result is that you are linking to your own domain, but then the visitor is immediately forwarded to the program you are affiliating for, with your affiliate cookie in place!  By linking in this way we are allowed to place affiliate links in EzineArticles.com without being rejected.

Recommended EzineArticles.com Affiliate Article Format

There has been a lot of discussion on the Digital Point forums discussing the best format to use when promoting a product through article creation.  I ran across a tip in a thread following one persons exploration into article content bombing at EzineArticles.com where he submits at least 10 articles per day.  Below is the format he uses and what's recommended for the most successful conversions.

  • See what is the primary feature of a product I'm promoting (what seperates it from the pack).
  • Write an article talking about a problem that the product is for.
  • Close the article by talking about how this particular product will help fix the particular problem they're having.
  • Put a short and sweet resource box encouraging them to click and learn more about the product.

Using this format within your articles gets the readers attention and then helps them along to find out more information.  Keeping them interested for when you send them to the affiliate products landing page is important. Focus on conversions.

Create Your Own Landing Pages

This is a very tricky concept and one that I've always struggled with.  For starters I'm not good at building landing pages and second I believe the absolute shortest route a visitor needs to take to make a purchase is the best.  Me adding my own landing pages in the mix just requires extra clicks for the visitor to complete a transaction and allow me to get paid.

That being said, there are plenty of affiliates out there that have received a lot of success by building their own landing pages, which were linked in the resource box at EzineArticles.com.  Additional benefits include having a page that is spidered by search engines and will eventually provide additional traffic from search engines, instead of going through your article on EZA.

Lastly, remember that the best methods are kept secret, so test, test, test and find out what works best for the particular niche you are creating articles for.  Working every day to create content and spreading your affiliate links all over the web will lead to success down the road.