• Speed PPC vs. Efficient PPC – Review & Comparison

    Building and managing good pay per click campaigns can be a tedious and time consuming task.  In today’s world of quality scores and click price penalties for poor performing campaigns, it is more important than ever to have tight adgroups with keywords, ads, and landing pages tightly focused around a single topic or phrase.  The old days of finding thousands of keywords, dumping them into one large adgroup and seeing what works is officially over.


    A number of PPC campaign management tools have sprung up to speed up the process of creating smaller adgroups and make the task easier and more efficient.  We decided to evaluate Speed PPC and Efficient PPC, put them to the test and see which one works the best.


    The basic concept behind these tools is that you take a high volume term or list of terms as your seed list, and expand your keywords by matching those terms against an expansion list of terms like City, States, etc…  This might be over simplified as both tools can be used with or without expansion lists.


    Efficient PPC Review (Version 1.1.0.3) from Web Monsters LTD.


    Efficientppc

    Efficient PPC was easy to get up and running, the documentation provides easy step by step instructions on how to utilize the software to build campaigns on Google using the Eficcient PPC software and Google’s Adwords Editor. 


    The Efficient PPC software comes with 8 expansion lists pre-installed: buy-words, capital-cities, cheap-words, colors, countries, months, us-cities, and us-states.  Additionally, through their member area, you can download the following 5 additional expansion lists: car-manufactures, car-models, domain-extensions-countries, domain-extensions-general, and toy-companies.


    I especially like Efficient PPC’s ability to mix and match up to 5 keyword phrase lists (seed or expansion lists).  Their use of insert tokens in urls and adcopy is very intuitive, and the software’s ability to set Google account settings to insure you limit your campaigns to a default 2,000 keyword Adgroups, and 50,000 keyword campaigns should come in handy.


    Efficient PPC has the ability to build campaigns for both Google and Microsoft AdCenter.  However, Microsoft AdCenter seems to have been added as an afterthought with little to no documentation or settings in the tool, other than a checkbox when building a campaign to create a CSV file for importing into AdCenter.  Efficient PPC does not currently support Yahoo Search Marketing or other PPC search engines at this time.


    Speed PPC Review (Version 3.0.11)


    Speedppc Speed PPC was equally easy to get up and running, and the documentation is a bit more detailed and may take a little longer to understand.  That is understandable, as the Speed PPC system is a little harder to understand and has a few more features.


    The Speed PPC software comes with 15 pre-installed expansion keyword lists: Action Keywords, Australia Cities, Australia Regions, Canada Cities, Canada Regions, Descriptive Keywords, Germany Cities, Germany Regions, Lead Keyword, Price Keywords, UK Cities, UK Regions, US Cities, US Cities (optimized), and US Regions. 


    Additionally, through their member area, Affiliate Pro members can download the following 19 additional main expansion lists: Australian Suburbs, Car Models, Cell Phone Models, Colors, Digital Cameras, Laptops, Motorcycle Models, Occupations, Perfumes, Routers, Top 1000 Actors, Top 1000 Books, Top 1000 Musicians, Top 300 PS2 Games, Top 300 PS3 Games, Top 300 Xbox Games, Top 300 Xbox360 Games, Top 500 Wii Games, and Video Cameras.  Plus, there are another 184 Geographic expansion lists with Cities and Regions of just about any country you can imagine!


    Speed PPC is setup into 3 different campaign building modules, Single Core, Dual Core, and Domain.  The Single Core takes a single core campaign based on a seed keyword list, The Dual Core campaign takes a seed keyword list and combines it with an expansion list, and the Domain module takes a seed list of domain names and automatically generates a list of 132 typo domain variations like wwwdomain.com and ww.domain.com.


    Speed PPC’s Affiliate Pro Membership also comes with 18 Landing Page template designs, easy instructions for passing and utilizing seed keywords and expansion keywords dynamically in your landing pages via PPC, and an affiliate database tool that enables you to import an affiliate advertiser’s data feed and dynamically pull product, pricing, and other data into your landing pages based on the keywords in the ad campaign.  These advanced features enable you to build truly optimized ad groups, ad text, and landing pages that carry the specific terms all the way to your landing pages and the actual products displayed on those pages.  Very powerful stuff!


    There are a few things I really like about Speed PPC.  First Speed PPC works with Google, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter, and many secondary search engines.  The software has a custom output file tool that will enable you to customize the output for any search engine platform.  Second, the tool has advanced ad options enabling you to create variable ad templates based on keywords.  Finally, SpeedPPC has the ability to create unique tracking numbers so you can choose to pass a number instead of your keywords in your urls.


    Which Pay-Per-Click Campaign Building Tool should you choose?


    Both Speed PPC and Efficient PPC will effectively get the job done.  If you are primarily working with Google Adwords and dabbling with Microsoft AdCenter, Efficient PPC might be a good choice.  It’s a little easier to use and quicker to get up and running on.  If however, you are working with Yahoo, Affiliate Data feeds, or want to take advantage of some more globalization and expanded keyword lists, Speed PPC might be a better choice.


    Efficient PPC starts at $156 for a quarterly subscription and goes up to $468 for a lifetime subscription.


    Speed PPC comes in 2 versions, regular and Affiliate Pro.  The regular version is $397 and the Affiliate Pro version is $497.  Both versions come with 12 months of free upgrades.


    Both come with Money-back Guarantees, with Efficient PPC offering 60 days and Speed PPC offering 30.


    Honestly if you are spending any real time managing PPC campaigns, then either software package is going to save you more than enough of your time to cover the cost.  Time is Money, so be sure to integrate one of these great tools into your PPC campaign building process, you won’t be sorry!


    Related Links:



  • Affiliate Marketing on Twitter, oh My!

    Scott Jangro posted a few blog posts about affiliate marketing on Twitter that have created a bit of a discussion.  Here are the posts:

    The 2nd blog post talks about a test I have been trying on Twitter.  Since my comment / response to his blog post apparently was too for his comment system, I thought I would create a new blog post here in response.  Here it is:

    When looking at the Tweets listed in Scott's blog post, I would say that one is probably crossing the line and the other one maybe not.  Since I did the tweets and have been playing around with this to see if it works, here is where I think the line could have been drawn.

    Origional Message:

    @DesignLady Dear Lisa, In that family of 3 how many boys and girls. I bet the girls are pretty like you.lol I am looking to buy a laptop.

    My Reply:

    Skeeter, What kind of laptop are you looking for? I got My wife got a PowerBook & She Loves it! http://cli.gs/macbookpro – @SkeeterHansen

    Replying to this one where the origional tweet was was cleary @DesignLady might have corssed the line, but it was not an automated response, was thought out and provided a real possible solution to her "I am looking to buy a laptop" statement.

    The other two that I responded to actually asked a general question looking for an answer to their followers and the twitter universe at large.  They asked a question, and honestly I think I gave them an honest answer that solved their question.  I think that is good marketing. Here are the other two examples:

    Origional Message:

    What company makes quality Aviator Sunglasses?  I am looking to purcahse a quality pair of Aviators.

    My Reply:

    Try Oakley http://cli.gs/oakley for those Quality SunGlasses you asked about! They are offering Free Shipping Too! @askinstructable

    Origional Message:

    I am looking to buy a Union Jack shirt. I found one for @20 and a lot os stickers. Oh and 5/17 tv on the radio @ house of blues. Sweet.

    My Reply:

    Magen, I am sure can find that Union Jack Shirt plus lots of other Union Jack Products at CafePress – http://cli.gs/cafepress – @magenprice

    Good affiliates, in my opinion, test out the new technologies to see what works and what doesn't work.  I have made a test here, and here are some of the results so far:

    Since Cli.gs gives you analytics, here are the links used an number of clicks today:

    http://cli.gs/macbookpro – 15 Hits (10 Humans and 5 Bots)
    http://cli.gs/cafepress – 13 Hits (10 Humans and 3 Bots)
    http://cli.gs/oakley - 17 Hits (14 Humans and 3 Bots)

    I am not sure about sales yet, but I tagged an sid of twitter on the links and will check that later.

    Also on Twitter I have played around with @dealzam which is a twitter account that sends tweets out as new deals are posted to www.dealzam.com, and @dealtwit that is a combined feed of dealzam deals, some goldencan coupon feeds, CJ's deal feed, and deals from other affiliates's coupon sites that have RSS feeds.

    Another program I have looked at recently is TwitterHawk, exactly the kind of bot that Scott talks about in this post, that will automate responses based on what people tweet about.  It limits responses to every 6 hours.  It's too early to tell if that will work or not.  It will take some tweaking to make sure the keywords are specific enough to generate good responses.

    The final twitter stuff I have been playing with are two websites http://www.afftwitlist.com - a listing of affiliate marketers on Twitter and http://www.politicaltwits.com – a site where you can follow what the politicians and pundits are saying on twitter.

    So there it is, those are the things I am currently playing around with on twitter.  Not sure if that qualifies me as the DB of the day, as Sam Harrelson tweeted.

  • Linkshare Fires Overstock.com

    Here is the origional Linkshare post from the linkshare blog, it doesn't seem to appear there any longer.  I pulled this from the rss feed:

    LinkShare Resigns Overstock.com

    from LinkShare Blog by LinkShare

    For the past seven years, LinkShare and Overstock.com have enjoyed a productive and mutually-beneficial partnership.

    However, we have been working together for some time to resolve a few mutual differences.  In recent weeks, it has become clear to all involved that we cannot overcome them.  As a result, LinkShare has resigned as Overstock.com’s affiliate network provider.  Of course, we will work to ensure a smooth transition for our publishers.

    As a pioneer in the performance marketing industry, LinkShare takes great pride in the breadth of our publisher network and the longevity of our retailer relationships.  We’ve served some of the biggest brands in retail for nearly a decade:

    • Avon (member since 1997)
    • Omaha Steaks (member since 1997)
    • 1800Flowers (member since 1998)
    • JC Penney (member since 1999)

    We also continue to attract today’s hottest brands, like Neiman Marcus, which brought not only its flagship store, but also Juicy Couture, Michael Kors, and Bergdorf Goodman.  Over the past year alone, Internet Retailer 500 brands that selected the LinkShare network over all others include:  eBags, Napster, Vans, Sam Ash, Chico’s and Dollar Rent-a-Car.

    Our network is strong, and our commitment to building lasting relationships across the LinkShare community remains firm.

    Kelli Beougher, Senior Vice President

  • Broad Match Can Cause Unintentional Trademark Abuse

    Lori Weiman does a good job laying out an important issue that many search markerters have fallen trap to in her blog post on Search Engine Land called "Does Auto-Matching Cause Unintentional Trademark Abuse?"

    "Google and Yahoo, by way of the auto-matching feature, can show your ads on keywords that you did not intend to sponsor."

    At imwave we have run into this a number of times.  With Google they will take your broad match terms and display the ads on competitive trademarks you didn't ask for or know they were going to choose.  Running a broad match term like "sneakers" doesn't mean you will only show up under terms like "basketball sneakers" and "tennis sneakers", but they may match your ad up to shoes, boots, sandals, or terms like nike, adidas, etc…  At Yahoo the situation gets even worse!  Not only will they start displaying your ad under these brand terms, they will actually sometimes adjust your ad copy (without telling you) to include these keywords in headlines so that they get higher click through rates!!!  This can be very annoying when you have agreed to follow strict brand guidelines, and then Yahoo decides they know better!

    What is the solution?  You can stop running broad and advanced matching, but that is going to leave A LOT of opportunity on the table.  The only other solution I know of is to work with your clients to establish a good list of negative keywords that you know you don't want your ads to appear on.

    I'd love to hear your experiences with this issue.

  • Skyline from the Buy.at Party @ Affiliate Summit

    Here is a short video clip I took with my Flip HD Mino video camera, the vegas skyline from the top of one of the Palms Towers on the deck of the Moon Night Club:

  • ExitJunction – A Great Way to Kill your PPC Search Campaigns

    I got some spam this morning from a new company called ExitJunction offering to pay you to show invisable ads on your website.  When visitors come to your site from a search engine, they will hijack the back button and show ads when the visitors try to click back to the search engine.

    One of google's rules for PPC search is that the back button must bring the visitor back to the search page, so there goes any PPC ads you are running with Google, I am not sure if the other search engines demand the same.

    If they are checking that for PPC, they might be checking that for SEO as well, so you might just kill all your search traffic to your site.

    What a bargain!

  • Happy Holidays!!!

    We just wanted to take a moment and wish all of our faithful wiseaff readers, a very happy and safe holiday season.  Here’s to a great holiday, a happy new year, and cheers to a prosperous 2009 coming up!

    Thanks everyone!

       

  • What is (should be) the Job of the Networks?

    I’ve debated this post for a while because it’s really calling out the some pretty basic flaws in the affiliate business.  But the issue keeps popping up and I have to express my feelings.

    What should be the function of the networks in the role of the affiliate space?  

    Seems like a loaded question and to a certain extent it is. 

    I’m not trying to raise the ire of any one network (or all of the networks), but I think there is a fundamental truth here that is often overlooked.
     
    Affiliate Networks need to focus on getting the basics right before they implement these crazy widgets and gizmos. 

    1) Track the Sales
    2) Pay Affiliates
    3) Provide all the necessary Reporting

    It's not rocket science.

    We work with a lot of different networks and there are good points and bad about each, but the number of network s that have problems paying commission and providing accurate reporting is amazing. 
    In some cases reports just don’t work. 

    In Linkshare for instance, some months you click on a payment amount to get the detail report and you get an error.  They seem to know about the problem and will fix it when you ask, but it keeps happening month after month.  This forces us to get a manual accounting.  To their credit they are prompt with that, but it’s still a pain.  Perhaps they should just fix the problem?

    In some cases the reports just don’t exist.  OneNetwork Direct is the worst.  They send a payment with no accounting of what merchants we are being paid for.  They have promised a solution for at least a year, but nothing.  So, every month when the check comes in we have to ASK for the detail.  Isn’t someone calculating these payments?  Someone HAS to have this info.  All I ask is that you give it to us with the payment.  We had a similar problem with PepperJam but in just 2 days they provided that needed report in their interface.  Kudos to Kris and his team.  Now if we could just get PepperJam to pay on a calendar month all would be well.  (Hint, hint)

    Share A Sale also doesn’t have this report in their interface.  They provide it manually each month when I ask, but it would just be nice to pull it off the interface.  Brian Littleton has told me he’s working on it, but my guess is it’s a bigger programming issue and that it is just easier to get it to us manually than fixing the code.  But again, a it’s a pain because I have to ask month after month.

    We have been hounding Google Affiliate Network for years about the length of time it takes to get paid by their merchants.  For some reason they don’t require pre-pay like other networks which we’ve been told is the main reason for the delays.  For a search affiliate like us, getting paid 60-90 days after the fact means that we are floating the advertising cost.  But worse than that is that there are critical reports in the interface that are missing.  We recently discovered that there is NO WAY to get a report of outstanding commission that have been earned but not paid yet.   So basically if you are not keeping track of your receivables you would have no way to know what commission you are owed and from what merchants.   And with the 60-90 day delay, this can get a bit confusing if you don’t have a good system.

    I have a hard time believing that I am the only one having these issues. 

    I know I have a minor in accounting… perhaps that may be part of the issue? 

    There have to be more affiliate companies out there struggling with these issues.  If you want to run a successful business managing receivables is critical.  I just wish that the networks would understand this and help us by solving some of these issues. 

  • Happy Thanksgiving!

    Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!  One of our employees sent this to me, and it made me laugh, I hope you enjoy it as well!

    Enjoy a “Big Bird” this year, and in uncertain times, remember how lucky you are and be thankful for the many blessings in your life!

    Happy Thanksgiving!!!

    Adam

  • Big News at Imwave this Morning!

    On Monday, November 3rd, imwave completed a deal to acquire move marketing’s performance search marketing business.  We just announced the deal this morning.  See the official press release here.

    This week we have been working hard to contact some of move’s top partners and transition all of the search and affiliate accounts and now we are excited to let everyone know!!!

    We are also extremely pleased to welcome Andre Colantuono to the imwave team as our new Director of Business Development.  Andre has been the business development director at move marketing for over 4 years, and brings a lot of industry knowledge, experience, and strong relationships.

    Now that the deal has been completed and the accounts have been transitioned we will be spending some time analyzing the campaigns and relationships to identify ways to utilize the different paid search marketing tactics of both companies to grow the combined campaigns for our partners.  At first glance it appears that move and imwave have taken some interestingly different approaches at building search campaigns, both of which have been very successful.

    So, fun times at imwave!  Stay Tuned…