At this time I explore the potential of PPC marketing (I do PPC marketing for a year or so, but I do it in a moderate way, attracting new visitors to my websites, not promoting CPA offers or doing arbitrage) and PPC arbitrage – it is better late than never.

I admit that I am a bit discouraged by other webmaster posts that PPC arbitrage is coming to its end: the market is oversaturated and the search engines (primarily, Google, of course) do not want to bear with that anymore. But hopefully, I will be lucky to achieve some experience and success with this marketing technique before it is outdated.

I have recently read a case of successful PPC marketing (or: PPC arbitrage? Are they synonyms nowadays?) from Jeremy Shoemaker. It is hard to imagine how he generated 200K keywords, but there should be some automated way.

In the process of my research of PPC marketing technique I have come across the term the webmasters mention in their posts discussing PPC arbitrage: ‘smart pricing’. I was sure it is a term invented by some web site owners, but was enlightened that it originates from Google AdSense FAQ:

How smart pricing works
We are constantly analyzing data across our network, and if our data shows that a click is less likely to turn into business results (e.g. online sale, registration, phone call, newsletter sign-up), we may reduce the price you pay for that click. You may notice a reduction in the cost of clicks from content sites.

We take into account many factors such as what keywords or concepts triggered the ad, as well as the type of site on which the ad was served. For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.

Google saves you time and hassle by estimating the value of clicks and adjusting prices on an ongoing basis. With improved smart pricing, you should automatically get greater value for clicks from ad impressions across our network, all with no change in how you bid.

Another smart pricing explanation for newbies like me comes from Jensense:

Smart pricing is triggered by all sites/ pages, and affects your whole account. So one site that is impacted heavily by smart pricing and another that is barely touched by it will balance out the overall impact. It doesn’t just take the lowest/ highest and use that.
Smart pricing adjusts once a week.

Your entire account is smart priced the same, it is not site by site.

EPC depends on the market area, not a fluctuation of site-by-site smart pricing. So because your EPC varies per site does not mean you are smart priced differently, it just means that advertisers are willing to spend a different EPC for each.

Summary: As I run Google AdSense on all my web sites and smart pricing is likely to affect my entire account (not site by site approach) I will thoroughly contemplate before experimenting with Google arbitrage.

[tags]google, adsense, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]

Once you see your websites become profitable you feel great satisfaction. You realize that the hours of your work were not wasted in vain. From this moment on you have two ways to go with affiliate marketing:

a. You can scale your profitable activity up once you know how to make your website type profitable. Just make a few similar websites in different niches or focus on this website adding new content and features on a regular basis. Or

b. You can test other techniques in affiliate marketing that you know work great with other webmasters, but you had no time to try.

In my opinion, it is the second way to go. The reasons are numerous:

- you diversify your income sources;
- you feel more confident;
- you reduce your risks that in case your current profitable algorithm expires you will have to start from scratch;
- you learn new things, get new ideas, make new contacts;
- you are likely to find ways to earn more than you are doing currently

It is a good idea to make a list of things to learn and try with your profession. The list is not fixed and you can modify your plan according to the situation – you can add new emerging techniques to try and delete the ones that are outdated or inefficient you know from the people you trust.

Every person has his own experiences, level of skills, etc. My list of things to try in Internet marketing includes at this time:

- PPC arbitrage
- Landing pages
- Data feeds (a nice place to learn some basics is here)
- E-mail newsletter (it remains the best way to keep in contact with your audience)
- MySpace marketing (am I too late to the game?)
- Test with new website types to diversify my portfolio
- Actively experiment with AzoogleAds offers

Summary: I guess every person needs a sort of a plan to progress and to keep up with the time.

How much time can the plan like this take? I think each technique will take probably a month or so to get a good idea how things work. And then it is necessary to track the results.

It is not the only work that I have to do, so I think I will be through by the summer of 2007.

[tags]learning, marketing, myspace, ppc, ppc arbitrage, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]

Every person in affiliate marketing looks for best affiliate programs. And they try to get this information in many ways. I have posted on my affiliate income from miscellaneous networks. What are your ways to find out the best affiliate programs to generate maximum income from your websites?

- Start with testing what types of affiliate offers work with your traffic. Here I again refer to my stats.

- Join the most popular networks (if you are not sure what the recent buzz is – check forums or find the blogs you can trust).

- Browse the network offers (as a rule they provide information about best performing ones).

- In order not to miss indie affiliate programs explore websites that are directories of affiliate programs (but these directories are rarely updated and nobody deletes inefficient programs) and include offers from companies that run their affiliate programs in-house. I am personally skeptical of this type of programs. The company should be with a brand name and among the industry leaders to make me to sign with it.

- Make a research of your top competitors (preferably, leaders in your niche): they are likely to keep their affiliate offers updated. See what offers they promote, what types of advertising they combine on their pages etc. This is one of the greatest advantages (and at the same time disadvantages) of the virtual world – you can learn practically everything about your competitors without much efforts and funds applied).

Summary: Best affiliate programs are something different for each webmaster. And you should revise your advertising mix now and then. New players, new leaders, expired offers, etc. I think you should consider your website monetization as a separate kind of your weekly routine.

But do not spend much time working on this while you have low traffic. Even top offers do not work if you have no visitors – a tip from my experience (though it is so obvious, you would feel tempted to place maximum offers, but of no avail).

[tags]what are best affiliate programs, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, home based job, earn your living online[/tags]