Let’s do a little math. If you figure there are 100 people competing to sell 1 product on Google. Let’s assume there’s 100 sales created, 1 sale per person selling it. Since Google makes up 75% of search lets say it also is 75% of the sales, so there would be a total of 133 sales. Of the 100 people competing on Google, about 25 would most likely be advertising on the other search engines. So that 33 sales will be split among 25 people, so greater than 1 sale per person. Therefore making more $ per advertiser. Are these hard figures? No, they are based on several years of SEM experience and from conversations I’ve had with many people in the industry. Google tends to cost more per click (Yahoo is expensive too), and other places are far cheaper.

The real lesson for this do not count out the other search engines, play with them if you are going to do PPC. I ran a campaign on Yahoo, Google and Ask. My least competitive market was Ask, and my lowest CPC was Ask, and guess what my highest conversion was Ask.

So just take a look at everything else around you. Google is great, but when you’re trying to sell remember do not overlook any possible customers.

New figures out on search advertising spend from Efficient Frontier show Google continues to dominate the market, stats that will no doubt complicate the company’s goal to gain approval of its deal with Yahoo on search ads. However it is interesting how in Japan, it’s a much more 50/50 market split with Yahoo, showing that Google does have weaknesses.

For the second quarter of 2008, Google had 77.4% of the search advertising spend, according to data tracked by Efficient Frontier, which manages ad campaigns for a wide variety of large advertisers. The data covers 23 billion ad impressions and 390 million clicks. Google’s share includes a small percentage of contextual ad spend (which is not search), as does Yahoo’s. You can see these broken out in the share chart below for Q2 2008

Read the full article here: http://snurl.com/30bxy

If you’d like to learn more about searchengine and generating traffic head over here: http://snurl.com/2zcr6

When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc…) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website – done through the following methods

1)Pay-per click systems  basically, the affiliate displays adverts on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on that website

2)RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing partners well with this form of online communication

3)Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legit advertising sites

4)Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations)

5)Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions

6)Email lists – legit email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc – NOT spam

7)A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised

8)Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing sort of set up.

It’s a form of revenue sharing or commission based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing,” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing and therefore many companies prefer to use the term “performance marketing”. Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason, many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing (amazon.com is a good example) and it has now become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in many of their plans.

There are three types of compensation methods that are associated with affiliated marketing. The first type is Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per Mil (CPM.) Basically, the affiliate earns by how many clicks the advertising on hisher site generates, or by just having the advert published on the website. But because of click fraud and many other questionable tactics, CPC is no longer the general form used for affiliate marketing. Generally, companies now either use CPA (Cost per Action) or CPS (Cost per Sale.) The first is based on how much the advert generates interest by the clicker to actually buy or register at the advertised site, the second is based strictly on sales. In other words, an affiliate is paid if the clicker actually purchases something on the advertised site.

First where do your ads show up?  In Google they show up across the top or the right side.  The top ads are are generally in a lighter background to separate them from organic results.  The advantage of using PPC is to force your site to be seen even if it doesn’t have Organic Rankings.  It is important to understand that even with organic ranking you can produce far more sales using PPC in conjunction with it.   A report from Atlas stated that if you have a PPC ad you are likely to make “2 sales” and organic linking “1 sale”, having both you make “4 sales”.  While I haven’t seen this myself, it is a reliable source and I’ll take that to heart.

Google forces you to bid for positions, but they do not tell you what you need to get into the top spot.  They use some level of black magic to determine who gets top slot.  They look at Ad Copy, Landing Page, Bid and Click through rate.  Now if you have a high CTR and high quality others you will actually pay less than your “Bid”.  Also you can big less and get higher position.  It all gets convoluted, but you need to make sure you have a high Quality Score in Google and you’ll reap the benefits.  (post questions on adwords if you have any and I’ll answer the best I can)

So now you’ve placed your bids, you can choose to have ads show up on Google, their search partners or in their content network.  The content network is by far their largest audience, but it also their more dangerous place for click fraud so if you are going to use it, watch it very carefully and you can restrict certain sites from displaying your ads or you can chose to show your ads only on certain sites by url/placement.  But unfortunately many good quality sites that have adsense do not have this option turned on (TURN IT ON!).

A couple of key items are to make sure you have a strong ad, and strong url to send people too.  Many people working with affiliate marketing will try to send people to the same url. So now they are all competing for the same property.  (Google, Yahoo etc will only allow one ad per url to appear).  Later on I promise I’ll go over landing pages, url’s and ads for ppc and other advertising.  My experience is very different than most so hopefully people will gain some knowledge.

Key things to keep in mind, you’re shirt needs to stay on  your back you need to MONITOR your campaigns or you will lose a LOT of money.

Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos and 11 Days To List Profits. He has unveiled a new videos product – “Michael’s Traffic Videos” which covers everything to do with traffic and comes with 100,000 instant ad credits and a tailored Fast-Track To Traffic Action Plan.

We managed to grab some time with him recently and quiz him on his favorite topic – traffic.

You’ll get a lot out of this interview including a killer 40-page E-book on traffic that Michael has written to help you avoid the Top 20 Traffic Disasters!

So let’s get started.

Q. Firstly Michael, thank you for joining us today in your busy schedule.

A. Hey no problem. Good to be here.

Q. We all know that traffic is important but could you just explain a bit about traffic for the beginners out there?

A. Sure. Traffic is the lifeblood of any business online. Without it you just die. We all know that. But what a lot of us don’t realize is that just like everything else on the Internet traffic changes very quickly. That is, the methods of getting traffic are changing all the time and that’s where people get caught out.

Q. What do you mean by “caught out”?

A. Well people fall into the trap of thinking that just because they know one or two traffic generation methods that they are some sort of traffic master. In reality just because you know how to start a pay per click campaign or a little bit about search engines doesn’t make you anywhere near a traffic expert. I’m trying to spread the word that there is a massive array of traffic tactics that most people aren’t even aware of, let alone using or mastering.

Q. Can you give us some examples?

A. Sure. Offline for example. You might immediately think that getting traffic is a purely online activity but the truth of the matter is that there are lots of things you can be doing offline to get people into your website. And it’s usually these sorts of areas that are being under-utilized and therefore there is less competition for that traffic as well.

Q. So by offline you mean advertising offline?

A. Not necessarily. That is one method, yes, but I’m thinking of more creative ways to get people into your website. It all comes down to the fact that having asked people on my list it came as no surprise that most people want to know about free rather than paid traffic sources. I’ve had to become an expert in free ways of getting traffic in my time online.

Q. What do you mean – I thought you were running a successful online business with lots of cash flow?

A. I am. But it’s not always been this way. When I first started out in 1995 I had nothing. No money to play with. Just my own initiative and imagination.

Q. So are you saying you’re against paying for traffic online?

A. No. No I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that, especially when you first start out, you always want to focus on the free methods. You get the traffic in for free, make some sales and then you can reinvest some of that money into paid methods of getting traffic. This speeds up the process.

Q. So what particular offline methods are you referring to – can you give us some examples?

A. There’s one tactic I used that costs nothing to implement, is relatively quick and ended up getting me thousands and thousands of targeted visitors into my websites. When I’ve shared this tactic with other marketers at seminars they’ve started laughing and slapping their foreheads when they saw how easy it was. They were also embarrassed that they had failed to use this tactic. It was quite amusing.

Q. So are you going to tell us what this method is?

A. No! (laughs) It’s in my course! I truly believe in rewarding those people that are most eager to learn so instead of giving away all my traffic tactics in interviews like this I’ve put some of them in an E-Book I’ve written. It is free though if people want to get it.

Q. So how can people get hold of it?

A. It’s called “How To Avoid The Top 20 Traffic Disasters” and you can get it by going to Michael’s Traffic Videos – you’ll see it mentioned on that page.

Q. What’s in it?

A. Well I really wanted to raise the bar on a free E-Book so I spent a lot of time creating it. It’s 40 pages long and stuffed with juicy content on what NOT to do when it comes to traffic. As far as I’m concerned too many people out there tell you what you should do but not what you shouldn’t do. That’s where this E-Book comes in.

Q. Okay. I think we’re about done is there anything else you want to tell everyone?

A. Just that if they are serious about getting more traffic into their website they need to goto Michael’s Traffic Videos and get that free E-Book.

Q. Cool. Well thanks for your time Michael and speak to you soon.

A. My pleasure. Speak soon.