Can you make $10k a day promoting CPA offers with SEO?

In my last post I received a lot of feedback about the value of SEO versus PPC. After seeing how heavily the “gurus” push PPC, I did not expect many people to agree with my point. But apparently, a large percentage see SEO as an excellent complement to PPC for driving traffic to affiliate offers. It is evident that those of us who are SEOs are less vocal than our PPC-only counterparts. Thanks for your feedback.

One of the comments that caught my attention was that of “nickycakes” where he implies that only with PPC can you make a substantial income, because he has only heard PPC super affiliates are earning over US $10k a day.

NickyCakes:

Sorry, but quick results is not the only reason why PPC is better. SEO can’t even come close to the scale that PPC can. It’s nearly impossible to scale SEO no matter how long you wait for your pathetic results. I’ve only ever heard of one person who made more than 10k a day on SEO and that was if you averaged out the sale of his giant financial affiliate site. I know dozens of people who make well over 10k a day with PPC who used to do SEO and gave up because it’s simply not even close to as profitable.

- Mar 24th, 2009

At first I was going to respond in his and other similar comments, but I felt that a proper response would require a separate blog post. So here it is.

First of all, I think I asked the wrong question in the title of this post. The right question should have been: “Can you make $100k a day promoting CPA offers with SEO?” What???? Yes, that is the right question. Let me tell you why.

Organic search listings can get as much as ten times the attention (and clicks) than paid listings.

According to Enquiro’s eye tracking study, organic search gets the lion’s share of the attention of searchers. Jim Boykin of WeBuildPages studied the data from AOL’s leaked search query logs and came to the conclusion that the #1 listing can get as much as 42% of the total clicks in the search engine result page. Compare this to best case scenario of 5% of clicks on the right hand side where the bulk of paid ads are displayed.

In theory, this means that if you can make $10k a day placing ads on the paid search network, you could potential make $100k by ranking for the exact same keywords in the organic results. Now, of course, this is much easier to say than to do, so I will give you a concrete example. But first …

As you probably noticed, I said “search network”. It is not surprising that few affiliates making a significant amount of money rely on ranking for the first few paid search ad spots given how expensive they are. Most successful affiliates spend their time more productively and cost-effectively fishing for inexpensive keywords in the content network or by seeking out the often overlooked, but highly converting keyword phrases.

Another thing to consider is the fact that many of the less successful affiliates like to boast about how much they make and tend to exaggerate because they are not able to prove their claims convincingly (for competitive reasons obviously ☺). The truth is that most successful Affiliates and merchants who are making obscene amounts of money don’t see the benefit they get from bragging about their results. The ones who are quiet about their results are usually the ones who are making the most money and don’t want to drive unnecessary attention and competition to their ventures. Just ask Matt Inman!

I’ve made $10k per day as an affiliate doing just SEO

Now, let’s move from theory to practice. Not to brag, but I can say with the confidence of personal experience that you can net more than $10k a day as an affiliate. I did just that a few years ago with a single web site, when I was ranking #1 for “phentermine” in Google and Yahoo. This has been confirmed by a respected third party. I prefer not to comment about how much I’ve made since then or how much I make now that I am both an affiliate and merchant. I can tell you, that when you scale your affiliate efforts and become a successful merchant, you multiply your profits. The development of my product, RankSense, cost me a few million dollars and all the funds came from my affiliate marketing ventures.

You can do this too!

There are several ways you can do this, however I will focus on explaining how I did it personally and how you can too, by following the methods I used and modeling it for your own efforts.

How was I able to make so much money from obscure keyword such as that? Why didn’t I try to rank for a keyword that had significant more searches like “weight loss”? Would I have been more successful if I had taken that approach? The short answer is a big “NO”.

Tip #1: Brand search keywords are the most profitable keywords—period!

When somebody is searching for a specific brand of product, they’re the closest you can get to buying such product. They already know their problem and think that the searched product is the solution to their problem. Most of the time, they are only looking for the cheapest price. You don’t need to do any selling. You simply need to convince them that you are getting them the best deal.

The worst conversion rate I got was 15% and could easily convert at 28-30% by simply displaying price comparison tables.

Now, combine those insights with a very hot niche like weight loss, a product with high demand such as Phentermine, crazy payouts with lifetime refill commissions and you have a golden opportunity. Unfortunately, the product is not longer available for sale on the Internet without a personal visit to the doctor. As I mentioned in my previous article, all opportunities have a small window where you can make the most money. Savvy affiliates study trends and try to seize opportunities as they appear.

Unfortunately, some merchants won’t let you bid on their brand terms in paid search, but there is not much they can do if you try to rank for their brand on the organic results. I’ve seen a few merchants who follow back all your links and request the web site owners to remove their brands from their page, but that is the exception. Most merchants are not that smart ☺

Tip #2: The most competitive markets are where most of the money is!

Many “gurus” recommend that you go to the obscure niches that few people care about because you will see results faster. Then in order to scale this, you need to find more obscure niches and do the same. You find dozens and hundreds of such niches and your profits will add up. This approach makes a lot of sense until you actually try to put it to practice. You will soon realize that each small niche is like starting all over again from scratch. The market research part of affiliate marketing is the most difficult part and it takes effort to get it right. Get it wrong and you will lose a lot of money.

What I prefer to do is to target a big profitable niche, a niche where there are a lot of people spending gobs of money to solve a perpetual problem like weight loss and then I divide the niche in sub-niches and work on the sub-niches, one at a time. I take this approach even when I have identified a single product I want to promote. I first go after the less competitive keywords, “cheap phentermine” instead of the more highly sought after keyword “phentermine”.

Tip #3: The brand hijacker technique!

Now, let’s say that you are trying to promote a really good offer like “PureCleanse Detox (#2117)”, with a awesome payout, great conversion rate and high demand niche, but the brand searches do not generate enough traffic. Here is what I do.

Have you ever seen the product pages in Amazon, where they recommend related books and some of those books get as many sales as the original item on the page? Why? Well using my technique you can do the same.

You can search for competing products on the same and similar categories that have more searches per month, then create affiliate pages for those products and add a section to your landing pages where you recommend the alternative or complimentary solution; which is in fact the one you ultimately want them to take. I recorded a Webinar last year where I explain this technique in more detail. You might want to check it out. You can access a recording of the live event here on my blog, HamletBatista.com

Conclusion

You can make a lot more money with SEO than you can from PPC, if you know what you are doing and you are targeting the most profitable opportunities. Do that and your profits will soar! Let me know what you think in the comments.

PS: If you want to learn more about my techniques, I will be sharing more super affiliate tips and specifically how I got to the first page of Google for “Viagra” and kept it there for couple of years, at the new must-attend Affiliate conference; Affiliate Convention, June 18 & 19 in Denver, Colorado. Put it on your calendar and make sure you do not miss it.

After a 25-hour travel day from Tel Aviv, I am back in the familiar settings of my office in Santa Barbara. Even though I was in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Israel two days ago, it now seems like a world away. I’ve been thinking a lot about Affilicon over the last 24 hours and wanted to share some thoughts.

First, this is the second Affilicon conference – the first was less than a year ago. You’d never know it. The event has a maturity and a polish to it that rivals some of the most well-produced events that I’ve ever attended. The facility was top-notch, the food was far and away better than anything I’ve ever had at a conference and the staff was courteous and professional. Combine all that with the fact that the  registration was one-third the cost of most other industry events.

Second, let’s talk about the content of the show itself. Like every conference you attend, there were some speakers and sessions that just weren’t that interesting. There’s no way to eliminate that completely. Unfortunately, in our industry I’m finding that trend more and more. Too often events get speakers with “names” that show up and give us all a bunch of vague jargon that doesn’t help anyone. Not so at Affilicon. The vast majority of the sessions I attended were built with practical applications in mind. Presenters used specific examples and answered really tough questions from the audience. If you were an affiliate attending this event – and the vast majority of attendees were – you left with a stack of good notes that will help elevate your business to the next level.

The only advice I would offer is to look at renting a car if you attend next year. The conference facility is located in Airport City which is about 30 minutes from downtown Tel Aviv where all the hotels are. A cab to and from the event runs about 135 Shekels, or $35 US. That can get pricey. My advice would be pool your money with some friends and rent a car.

The final thing I want to say is about the founder of Affilicon, Itay Paz. I met Itay at Affiliate Summit West in January. Since then you’ve seen him doing field reports for us all over the world on Relevantly Speaking. He’s one of those people that just radiates a warmth about him. Besides being very knowledgeable about the nuances of international affiliate marketing, Itay has a way of making everyone feel valued and important. You feel like you can trust him. I believe that is the single biggest reason for the success of Affilicon.

I want to extend my thanks to Itay, his wife Anat, Udi Netzer and the rest of the team at Affilicon for making it possible for me to attend. I hope to see you all at next year’s event.

Each year one of our staff is reconized and honored by their peers at MediaTrust. The 2008 award (albeit five months overdue) goes to Geofferson Marcy for setting an example to all for living our core MT beliefs and business culture. Geoff has made great contributions to the MediaTrust family members, our business partners and the industry. He’s demonstrated great leadership and sets an example to us all in team work, integrity, ethics, coaching, collaboration and proactivity. His contributions have made a meaningful impact in building and improving our company and industry. Thank you for you insight, ethics, dedication, passion and inspiration. You are a mentor to us all!

Your Family Members,

MediaTrust

MediaTrust CEO, Peter Bordes, Featured in BusinessWeek Article: CEOs Who Use Twitter

I’ve been with MediaTrust for just over two years. I was hired to outline and execute all facets of MediaTrust’s emerging and social media activity. This occured at a time when Twitter and Facebook were still niche services and companies were still trying to wrap their heads around the concepts of podcasting and online video. In short, two years ago was an eternity for social media.

Why am I telling you this?

Peter Bordes is the reason I have my job. He had the vision two years ago to see what social media could become. He knew that this was exploding into something that would change the way that business is done. Peter has always believed in transparancy, open dialogue and two-way communication and he knew that in order for MediaTrust to stay competitive and be a leader in our industry, the company would need to dedicate resources to building our social media presence. 

Over the last two years, we’ve launched a successful blog about the industry of online, and specifically, performance marketing. We’ve produced over 60 episodes of our video program, Relevantly Speaking, and we’ve adopted and encouraged Twitter and Facebook usage throughout our entire company.

These milestones were made possible by the vision of our CEO, Peter Bordes. It is incredibly validating for me that a publication like BusinessWeek recognized and highlighted the vision of Peter and other CEOs like him. You can read Peter’s portion of the profile HERE. You’ll notice he’s in good company alongside people like Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh, Alltop’s Guy Kawasaki, Mashable’s Pete Cashmore and Forrester Research’s George Colony.

Congratulations to Peter for being recognized, but most of all for his vision. We can’t wait to see what he dreams up next.

Sourcing Data from Co-Registration Sites is Like Dealing in Sub-Prime Mortgages:
Proceed at your own Risk

I don’t mean to simplify the reasons for the current sub-prime mortgage mess, but I see some telling parallels for email marketers who source data from co-registration sites.

1. Both are too good to be true.

Applicants were enticed to apply for unaffordable mortgages by the promise of low — or no – short-term interest rates and the promise of increased equity from higher and higher house prices (Buy now because it is going up!).

Similarly, sub-prime data-collection sites entice people with the promise of free stuff. What most do not say are all the steps, time, and information that the subscriber will have to provide before meeting the requirements for these gifts. Even the folks who muster the energy to complete the application process, will undoubtedly be less than appreciative when they receive seemingly endless streams of additional offers from email marketers.

2. Both follow the money.

Mortgage credit representatives are commissioned on the sales they bring in, not who they turn down – even though an appropriate rejection is positive to the bottom line in the long-run. A good mortgage company, will have a credit department that will use readily available risk metrics to scrutinize the mortgage opportunity brought in by the sales representatives.

Email marketers, however, have a much more difficult time to accurately assess the quality of subscribers and generally must rely more on the reputation of the co-registration company: How long has it been in business? Does it have good referrals? What does thesign-up site look like? Would subscribers really want to receive content from you? Most co-registration agreements are priced around the number of subscribers provided – the more subscriber names, the more revenue generated. For the co-registrar, not for you.

If you are not asking the right questions, you are not going to achieve email deliverability and marketing success. What’s worst – you risk involving yourself into legal problems (e.g. CAN-SPAM) should you not do your homework.

3. Both use bad data.

Contributing to the sub-prime mortgage crisis was that loan risk assessment checks — debt-to-income ratio, credit history, long-term prospect of meeting interest payments — were ignored. Similarly, email marketers often don’t evaluate the data suitability from a co-registration site. Is a check done to confirm that the email address is valid? Is a check done to validate the accuracy of the data (e.g. does the zip code fall in the state indicated?); how many other marketers are receiving the subscribers information?; what information is collected? What content is the subscriber truly interested in receiving? You will not cultivate a good company and IP reputation with AOL, Yahoo, and the other ISPs you are sending to if you send to the wrong people, uninterested people, or non-existent people.

4. Both are – er, sorry, no bailout for email marketers.

Sure, governments are stepping into the breach with bailouts for mortgage lenders and investment banks. But if you use co-registration names, don’t be expecting anybody to bail you out anytime soon.

###

Andrew O’Halloran is manager of privacy and ISP relations at Cypra Media, an authority in permission-based email marketing and email delivery, based in Montreal. He may be contacted at a.ohalloran@cypra.com.

(Photo by Shawn Collins) 

Last week at ad:tech, MediaTrust hosted a panel called: Performance Marketing–Getting the Most from Your Marketing Dollar in a Tough Economy.

The panel included: Steve Schaffer (Vertive), Jarvis Mak (Havas Digital), Peter Bordes (MediaTrust) and Kelly Powers (Zazzle)

It was moderated by Neil Strother of Forrester Research.

There was a good sized crowd gathered and they seemed to really want to get down to the nuts and bolts of how to make performance marketing work in a practical setting. Below are some quotes (paraphrased) from panelists and attendees:

“Affiliate programs will scale better if they are paid equally to other customer acquisition channels.” - Steve Schaffer, Vertive

“Brand awareness is not enough to drive your sales.” - Kelly Powers, Zazzle

My favorite question was asked from the audience by Stephen Smyth. He asked “Is there a metric you can put on brand safety?”

Wow. That got me thinking – how can you effectively track numbers and trends on your brand’s safety? Does anyone have a formula or theory on how this could be done? Seem’s like a business waiting to happen. Can you imagine what Fortune 500 companies would pay for that knowledge?

I digress. 

If you were at the panel, you witnessed an engaging discussion about why companies should consider performance marketing. We also got some perspective from companies actively engaged in the space including Intuit – who said they have increased their spend year over year, but have relied on fewer trusted networks – and Zazzle – who said that execs sometimes see affiliate marketing as something that is frowned upon.

That’s what I took away from the panel. If you attended, tell me what your take was…

For someone who doesn’t eat Chinese Food I’ve always been fascinated by the Fortune Cookie. It has a mysterious power on everyone at the table and it either offers each patron a glimmer of hope, a poke of realism or utter confusion. Personally, I like – “Help I’m a prisoner in a Chinese Bakery!”

Looking at what I do for a living – hunting for great offers for Advaliant – I would like to offer you the opportunity to construct your own fortune cookie today. Read the Fortune Cookie messages below and post back the collective fortune advice that you would give to Affiliate publishers.

“Little and often makes much.”

“Many a false step is made by standing still.”

“Every excess becomes a vice.”

“Your skill will accomplish what the force of many cannot.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what you have. See you at ad:tech.

At first glance, this post may not seem like it has much to do with performance marketing, but look a little bit deeper. With the barrier to entry getting lower each day, online video is being used everywhere to promote companies, products and services. When used correctly, it can be a very powerful engagement tool. The problem is most people don’t get the fundamentals of how to shoot their content properly.

If You Want to be Taken Seriously, Shoot Like a Pro

We’ve been doing Relevantly Speaking now for almost a year and a half. If you’ve followed it from the beginning, you’ve surely noticed some technical improvements and some major shifts in the approach we take to the show. However, one thing has stayed the same – we follow the basic principles of proper shooting technique. People constantly stop us at shoots and ask us about the gear we use. Yes, gear helps make your final product better, but all the best equipment in the world can’t make an incorrectly shot video better.

The biggest mistake I see in other video is people looking into the camera while being interviewed. Usually it’s because the person running the camera is also conducting the interview so they end up having the interviewee talk directly to the camera. Here is an example of what I mean. THIS IS WRONG! When you are interviewing someone, they are talking to you, not the audience, so they need to be looking at you. Watch a clip of Bhaskar Roy from Qik. Do you see how Bhaskar is engaged with the interviewer and not staring into the abyss of the camera? 

There are times when you should look directly at the camera. As a host, you’ll sometimes be talking directly to your audience to set the tone for an interview or a clip. In that instance, it is important for you to be addressing the camera and your audience, like Christopher Smith does in this clip.

So, one last time: If you’re interviewing someone, the interviewee always looks camera-left or camera-right, but not directly at the camera. If you’re hosting a show and talking directly to the audience, then you look directly at the camera. Make sense?

Now, I know what you’re going to say “But Scott, what if I’m by myself holding a camera and doing the interview. Where should the interviewee look and how can I pull this off?” 

Good question. Glad you asked. Here is a great example of how CT Moore does it in an interview with Jonathan Trieber. He setup a tripod and did the interview in front of the camera. Another option, instead of getting in front of the camera you could simply stand next to your camera and interview your subject that way. Like this interview with Ryan Sommers.

At the end of the day, we’re all trying to make our video productions as good as they can be. Yes, things like good sound and proper lighting are important – but sometimes you can’t control that. You can control how you choose to shoot your interviews. Even if you have a Flip Mino HD camera, get yourself a cheap tripod and take a few extra seconds to do it right. If we want new media to be taken seriously by the mainstream, then we have to act (and shoot) like professionals.

I’d love to hear your comments.

In my last blog post, AOL’s Launch of Its New Reputation System, I wrote about DKIM and the role it will play in AOL’s domain sender reputation system. There is as of recently another reason to pay attention to DKIM: Yahoo now requires DKIM as a prerequisite to participate in its new Complaint Feedback Loop (CFL) program.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) complaint feedback loop (CFL) programs are one of the most important tools available to the permission-based email marketer. Registering for these programs helps ensure that you are kept in the loop whenever recipients generate spam complaints through clicking on the “This is SPAM!” button.

I can’t overstate the value and importance of registering for ISP complaint feedback loop programs – it should be done before you send out even your first message. If you choose not to sign up for such a program or ignore the feedback information, you do so at your own peril. I guarantee you that the ISP in question is monitoring spam complaint data very closely and this will affect your sender reputation (IP and/or Domain).

In a nutshell, the fewer complaints, the better your reputation; the better your reputation, the better your deliverability, and therefore the better ROI you can achieve as a result.
Complaint data – Analyze, learn, improve.

Most permission-based email marketers take the right approach and remove subscribers who complain. In fact, your email delivery system should be able to automatically process the feedback notifications and unsubscribe the complainer from your list database.

There is, however, a whole lot more information that you may want to consider from CFL information that can benefit your overall email-marketing strategy. Here are just a few examples:

• Trend Analysis: Here the idea is to look at the aggregate spam complaint data for trends. For example, a spike in complaints may signal an error somewhere such as the wrong list being used. Similarly, a sharp drop in complaints (usually a good thing!) may ironically signal a technical problem such as a blockage preventing reception of the feedback complaint notifications; a system error in processing them, etc.

• Creative Analysis: You may be sending content that recipients want to receive, but if they don’t recognize the message (e.g. poor choice of ‘From’ line, ‘Subject’, or no alt-text to describe the blocked images) they may complain. Similarly, if the opt-out link is difficult to find, the recipient may well choose the path of least resistance – clicking on “This is SPAM”.

• Segmentation Analysis: For example, you may be receiving data from many different sources. By correlating the SPAM complaint metrics to the data source, you can gain a better appreciation on each segment’s interest and preferences.

Again, the above are just some areas where complaint metric data can prove insightful – and we haven’t even touched on other performance metrics such as opens, clicks, unsubscribes, etc.!

Get in the loop!

AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft Hotmail, Comcast are among some examples of ISPs that have sender complaint feedback loop programs in place. Be warned, though, that the names of these programs, applicant prerequisites (e.g. DKIM), and processes vary according to ISP.
Navigating the registration and configuration for each ISP’s complaint feedback programs can be frustrating—particularly for those new to email marketing—but well worth the investment. Get help if you need to because in the end CFL information is vital way to keeping in touch with your reputation as a sender.

The online community of bloggers has grown tremendously and more mom and pop businesses are catching the wave. Companies are creating a blog where not only can the public express their two cents, but businesses can also put a face to their brand, increase their credibility, and build a loyal community. On my last day at SES:NY I decided to take the blogging track and learn more about how to build the right brand awareness online as well as engage readers enough to act. If you’re new at blogging such as myself, what is the first concern? How do I grow my readership? The “Blogging for business” panel had some great tips and somewhat harsh realities on this subject. A great blog does not happen overnight; it takes time to gain trust in readers so that they don’t only return once, but they return again and again. Jennifer Evans, Director of Social Media at SiteLogic and Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Guide mentioned the importance of finding other successful blogs out there in your vertical, commenting, and engaging their readers so they may want to visit your blog. I wouldn’t say “stealing” is the right term for this, but I think it’s a great way to put your company out there via other blogs and also connect with fellow bloggers who have the same interests as you. Also, once you gain a strong readership, the cycle will reoccur and you’ll find newbies to the space commenting on your blog to do the exact same thing. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing also said to make sure you’re leaving comments of value in order to spark interest. This is the audience you should be targeting for your readership.

Not only have bloggers taken over the Internet space, so has online communities. Barbara Coll, CEO of WebMama.com Inc. emphasized how search engines love niche online communities because it’s such a fast moving environment. I also sat in on Barbara’s solo panel “Online Communities: a bonanza of content for searchers and search engines,” which is one of the newly created discussions at SES. Using the example of Dell as one of the best online communities for business, Barbara mentioned how starting new threads can be good for keywords; however, multiple comments from one thread can be a search nightmare. Speaking of nightmares, there needs to be a transparent moderator involved, whether it’s the company itself or outsourced. And please make sure to retain those negative comments. Deleting them can only do more harm than good.

Also food for thought: would you want searchers to click on your company domain or online community/blog first? Personally, I would want them to click on their main site above any community – after all we are trying to sell a service before a rating.

My final thought on SES:NY is this. If users trust your content, so will Google.