Google recently announced that they have agreed to purchase DoubleClick for 3.1B from two private equity firms. Not a bad return for the private equity firms who took DoubleClick private in April of 2005 for just 1.1B.

DoubleClick is the largest provider of online ad technology. They help advertisers to purchase and track online advertising across the Internet and enable publishers with large amounts of traffic to sell their site's ad inventory and track that as well.

In June of 2004 DoubleClick acquired Performics, an affiliate network and management company and search engine marketing agency in an all cash deal totaling between $58M and $65M.

Now, seemingly in an effort to acquire the DART ad technologies and publisher relationships, Google has also acquired an affiliate network and search engine marketing agency that consequently gets paid by their customers to help them perform better in Google.

Google recently dipped their toes into the affiliate business with the launch of their CPA advertisements through the AdSense network, but clearly the ownership of a search marketing agency could be a huge conflict of interest for the search giant.

So what will happen to Performics? That is going to be the hot question floating around the affiliate community. Will Google integrate the affiliate network and search agency into their business or spin them off?

My guess is that Performics will be spun off or acquired. Perhaps AOL will scuttle their Tradedoubler deal when they see a Gem like Performics on the block.

What do you think? Should Search Engines be allowed to own an SEO and SEM company?

Yahoo get's an early jump on Valentines Day with their heart logo:

Nice Job Yahoo!


Update:

Today Google and ASK updated their sites as well, here are their logos:

See Google's Prior Year's Logos

And ASK.com adjusted their search button to the following today to get in the Valentines Day Spriit!

Of Course no spriit from MSN Live. Still as bland as ever...

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

Wow! When we went to the Affiliate Summit conference in Las Vegas, Karen White, the Affiliate Manager for the Wynn Hotel, was nice enough to get us some complementary tickets to see LeReve at the Wynn. Now I much more of a comedy guy, and when I first read about the show, I was a little skeptical about seeing a show about "Dream Sequences", I thought I might doze off myself, but from the first moment the show opened, I was enthralled with Le Reve and couldn't take my eyes off the action. It's one of those shows that you just have to see to believe. My guess is that's why Karen wanted us to see it for ourselves. Smart move. If you are going to Las Vegas, you just have to see LeReve. It's hard to describe with words, so take a look at the following LeReve preview video if you have a few minutes, you won't be disappointed.

Don't miss LeReve playing at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas!

Thanks Karen!

Microsoft will showcase a good selection of Digital Advertising Breakthroughs at their Third Annual Demo Fest this week, their two-day gathering on Microsoft's Rednond campus.

Microsoft will showcase nearly 60 technologies at various stages of develpment. Their latest digital advertising beta tools are available at http://adlab.msn.com.

“The technologies showcased at Demo Fest will help create unprecedented opportunity for developers and search engine marketers like the Keyword Services Platform,” said Tarek Najm, distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft adCenter at Microsoft. “KSP is a service that provides a framework for researchers to plug in advanced algorithms in the form of building blocks to be consumed by developers for building sophisticated advertiser applications.”

Developed by the rapidly growing team of more than 120 Microsoft adCenter Labs researchers and engineers, technologies displayed Wednesday are all designed to help provide the best advertising experiences for users, advertisers and developers. They include the following:

• Keyword Services Platform. The platform provides a set of Web service APIs related to keyword technologies, including keyword recommendation, forecasting, categorization and monetization, enabling developers to build more intelligent applications for online advertising and beyond.

• Commercial intent detection. Advanced keyword analysis helps differentiate consumers who are looking to make an online purchase from those who are searching for information about products or performing other tasks.

• Large display feedback. Vision-based technology creates interactive public displays that can measure the size of the audience, as well as track audience gestures and estimate demographics.

• Social video sharing. This next-generation video sharing solution features a synchronized “commenting” technology. The introduction of novel in-video, synchronized comments enables a new level of interaction between users, opening up the video as a medium for collaboration.

• Content classification: By accurately analyzing and matching the Web pages included in search results, Microsoft adCenter Labs technology helps increase the probability that the ads displayed during Web searches are relevant to consumers.

A complete list and explanations of the technologies showcased at this year’s Demo Fest can be found in the Microsoft adCenter Labs Advanced Tools fact sheet at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/adCenterBreakthroughsFS.mspx

The message to competitive search engine companies is clear, innovate or perish!

Has anyone else noticed that Google Adwords slows down to a crawl around lunch time? I am sitting here at about 12:20pm trying to create an ad, and it appears that the entire system is hanging up. I had the same issue yesterday.

Maybe Search Engine Markerters work harder during their lunch breaks?

Adam

Jeremy Palmer, from QuitYourDayJob.com put together a great online tutorial on how to use PHP to cloak your affiliate links. I highly recommend taking the time to watch and learn.

Jeremy does a great job of explaining this in their simplest forms, thanks Jeremy keep up the great work!

Also, if you haven't read his book, be sure to check out High Performance Affiliate Marketing. (Maybe I should have cloaked that one? )

Hitwise reported today that the share of US Internet searches for "gift cards" surged 109% for the week ending December 16th, 2006 vs the previous week as online shoppers looked for last minute gift ideas. Some of the fastest growing Gift card searches include "american express gift cards" up 184%, "itunes gift card" up 69%, and "visa gift cards" up 19%.

“For the second year now, we’ve seen a pattern of increased searches on gift cards as Christmas day approaches,” said Bill Tancer general manager of global research at Hitwise. “This year branded credit and charge gift cards dominated top searches as gift givers opted for the most flexibility for their gift recipients.”

Now that shipping deadlines have mostly passed, online shoppers will probably start looking at digital / email-able gift certificates that can be purchased right up until the last minute.

Happy Holidays!

Ok, I saw it coming, the new chain letter 2.0 has arrived and it's called Blog Tag. It's a little more fun and informative. On December 10th, Jeff Pulver started a little game of Blog Tag. The concept was to tell 5 interesting things about yourself and then "tag" 5 friends and see how fast it can spread. It has quickly spread across the Internet, and I am honored to have been pinged in just 6 days. Thanks Vinny! I'm not sure I can compete with Rock bands and 8-ball and chess championships, but here are 5 things you may or may not know about me.

1. In July of 2001 I was diagnosed with Leukemia, and I have just past a big milestone of being in remission for 5 years this November.
2. When my first son, Addison, was born in 1996 I setup a camera on his crib so his grandfather could check in on the crib over the internet. Addison's Cribcam was the first of it's kind and was covered by tv stations, newspapers, and radio stations around the country. It was even covered by Tom Brokaw!
3. I love to play Poker! I'm not as good as I would like to be, but I'm always up for a game. In fact one time I went to a business meeting where some of the attendees were late flying in, and we stuck up a poker game using a deck of cards from the Hotel and M&M's as the Poker chips!
4. I'm an early Internet entrepreneur. In 1993 I started York Pennsylvania's first for profit dial-up BBS that evolved into York PA's first commercial ISP. After several acquisitions starting in 1998 Cyberia is now part of Earthlink
5. Finally, like Vinny I too have had my likeness manipulated by bored designers! Vinny I really do like your Vinny the Poo:
   
   
   Here are a couple they did of me when I worked at Network Solutions:
   
   The "Viener" Donald
   
   
   Yes, Potse is me!
   
   
   Can you Sing - YMCA!
   
   
   Mini V
   
   
   Busta V
   
   So, Vinny, sorry to say, Vinny the Poo might be only the beginning.

So I guess it's my turn to tag some others to keep the party going. So, David Lewis, Beth Kirsch, Stowe Boyd, Chris Abraham, and Bob Parsons, your it!

Rand Fishkin, the CEO and Co-Founder fo SEOMoz.org, had the opportunity to sit down with Venessa Fox, the Product Manager of Google Webmaster Central,.at the SES show in Chicago. It's always great to hear some questions answered right from the source

Here is the the video:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's been another great year, and as we move into the affiliate marketing busy holiday season, where many eTailers earn 50% of their revenues, it makes sense to take a short pause and remember all the things we have to be thankful for. Here are some of the many things in the Industry that I am thankful for this year:

1. The Affiliate Networks - I am thankful for the affiliate networks who have created platforms that enable affiliate marketers and merchants to quickly and easily start a business partnership at a click of the button, so that we can quickly test new programs and find the ones that are going to work best for our businesses. It would be hard to image the cost in time, legal fees and technology expenses needed create each and every one of these relationships on our own. Thank you Affiliate Networks!
2. Google - I am thankful that Google has created platforms that enable affiliate marketers to make money. From Adwords, and Adsense, to Google Analytics and the now in beta website optimizer product, Google continues to innovate platforms that enable affiliate marketers to earn money for both ourselves and for Google in the process. Thanks Google!
3. Affiliate Managers that "Get it!" - I am thankful for the many affiliate managers who truly take the time to understand the technologies and many different ways that affiliate marketers can promote their services, for the affiliate managers that truly understand that more is more in this industry and that less is less, and for the affiliate managers that understand and embrace the ongoing change that exists in this space. Thank you!
4. Affiliate Marketers - I am thankful to my fellow affiliate marketers who I have gotten to know at industry conferences. It is truly a dynamic and fun group, and having worked in other industries, I can honestly say that the affiliate marketers that I have meet are some of the smartest, brightest, and most entrepreneurial people I have meet in any industry. I am honored to be part of this group. Thank you!
5. Fun Holiday Logos - Finally, I am thankful for fun holiday logos, maybe someday we will actually see one from Microsoft....
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Previous year's logos

I got an email from Pool.com today listing their "Hotlist" of domains for sale, and was interested to see that in today's list there was a domain for Yahoo and a Domain for Ask. Here are the domains and prices.

fuck-yahoo.com - Current Price = $200

askonline.com - Current Price = $11,500

Not sure what to make of the fact that these domains are available for auction or at these prices though... Thoughts?

In March, I write a popular Blog entry entitled "5 Easy Steps for Building a Professional Affiliate Site" where I went through a step by step approach on how I build the site Language-Learning-Software.com to promote Rosetta Stone's Affiliate Program.

Today, Art, left me a great comment asking me how things were going with the site since March of 2006. Sometimes you need a little nudge to go back and really take a look at how the site has progressed and what things you did during that time to promote the site and try to continue to make it successful.

Since I shared the story of the site's creation, I feel it's only fair to share some of the results (good and bad ) and interesting things I did and lessons learned so that you might be able to take some interesting takeaways for your own affiliate sites.

Paid Search:
I created a paid search campaign promoting learning Spanish and learning French and linked those campaigns to the corresponding pages. Unfortunately the costs per click out paced the conversion rates, so I lost some money with the test. I would estimate a loss of a couple hundred dollars. This test showed me that the conversion rates were not very good, and that I will need to re-consider the design of the site, and or the promotional copy to better turn visitors into buyers.

Additionally, with the recent quality score changes, the prices Google wanted was even higher, so I have pretty much stopped paid search for this specific site.

Language Translation:
An article from Joel Comm turned me on to a little language translation script called Translation Gold (Link through Joel Comm in appreciation for his turning me on to it, Thanks Joel!) It was easy to add this script to my site, and with a click of a button it translates my pages into 9 major languages. I thought this would be great for a site basically helping people learn different languages. I added that tool in August, and now most of my top referring sites are from overseas, and my top referring keyword is something my browser doesn't translate, I think it's Chinese! What a wonderful world!

Expiring Domains
Since I was looking for organic traffic, I decided to explore some direct type in traffic as well, I did some research on soon to be expiring domain names that had the names of the languages I was promoting in them and came across the domain "chineseso.com". I ran the domain through Mozzel's Domain Name Pro software and identified that it has a few decent inbound links, so I acquired the domain in October after it expired for $60 through a SnapNames auction and setup a 301 redirect to the learn to speak Chinese page of the site.

Today when I was going back to see how the site was doing, I saw a HUGE discrepancy between the reported page views in Google Analytics vs. my hosting providers analytics program. I ran an error page report and figured out that my 301 redirect wasn't setup perfectly. I was trying to direct all the traffic to a specific page using the following command in the .htaccess file:

Redirect 301 / http://www.language-learning-software.com/learn_to_speak_chinese.html

I had assumed that this command would redirect ALL incoming pages to that specific url, but a closer look at my logs indicated that it was adding on the extra page names at the end creating page like language-learning-software.com/learn_to_speak_chinese.htmldvbbs/. One page had over 202,722 error pages in October alone! So initially I went back in and added a ? to the end of my redirect argument so the page would be chineses.html?dvdbbs and that seemed to work, but then I decided to look a little deeper. If this domain is driving that much traffic, let's take a closer look.

Utilizing Archive.org and Google's translation tools, I discovered that I had acquired a domain that used to be used for the Mainland Undergraduate Association website. Since the site is in Chinese, I decided to link the traffic to the Chinese version of my home page, kindly provided by Translation Gold. Now the traffic should be going the site instead of error pages. I also added the following argument to my .htaccess file to make sure I capture any future error pages:

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.language-learning-software.com/chinese.php?u=http://www.language-learning-software.com/index.html?

I will probably watch the traffic and conversions for another month, and if that huge amount of traffic doesn't turn into conversions, I will start exploring other alternatives for the high traffic domain I acquired. Clearly it's worth a lot more than the $60 I paid for it!

I would love to hear your comments and suggestions.

Adam

Chris Carpenter, the write of the ever popular Google Cash eBook, has been working on an update to answer some of his customer's latest questions about the changes going on at Google.

Chris was just about to release his 3rd edition of his book as well as an update entitled "the Landing Page Special Report" when his office caught fire. See the pictures below:

Could this have been a coincidence? Could it have been one of those funky Sony batteries that have been being recalled left and right? Or could be some interesting tidbits in his new book that Google doesn't want you to know about?

Maybe Google is Evil after all. Maybe Matt Cutts has created an undercover hit team? I better stop writing before I get targeted for demolition...

So what can you expect in the 3rd Edition of Google Cash?

• A Google Slap workaround explained with video - (This is totally original and as far as he can tell, he's the only one doing this!)
• "Landing Page Special Report" - a 55 page special report on building high performance landing pages.
• "Adwords Rumors Crushed" - a 43 page special report on systematically improving your Google. Adwords Campaign results.Mp3 audios of both special reports.
• The Google Cash 10 Day Action Guide - A 10 Day Action Guide with daily action steps, checklists, and helpful insights.
• Detailed instructions on how to obtain and use a domain effectively.

If his incites are anything like his original eBook, I will be grabbing a copy as soon is it comes to press!

Enjoy!

Adam

US Sites are seeing more International Traffic. How are your international ad campaigns going?

comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today released the results of a study showing that 14 of the top 25 U.S. Web properties attract more traffic from people outside the U.S. than from within. Among them are the Top 5 Web properties in the U.S. -- Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft Sites, Google Sites and eBay.

"As Internet usage outside the U.S. has grown rapidly from a small base, the U.S. share of the world’s online population has fallen from 65 percent to less than 25 percent in the last 10 years," said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. "The fact that more than three-quarters of the traffic to Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft is now coming from outside of the U.S. is indicative of what a truly global medium the Internet has become."

With all the hubub about Google setting up the political action commitees, you would think they would have some time to come up with a cute election day logo. Heck, the do one for every other special day they can think of! Well, I guess Yahoo get's the kudoos this year!

Ok, so I procrastinated on deciding who to vote for today, I have been busy with my affiliate business. So I thought, hey, wouldn't it be nice to find out of there are some local politicians who get search, maybe they would be the ones to vote for.

So I said to myself, "Self, if there is a local politician doing local PPC advertising, they got my vote!"

It wasn't to be this year. Other than the term "vote" which came up with an ad to join the libertarian party, there were no candidates to be found. I typed in "who to vote for", "Virginia senator", "Virginia senate", and finally I thought I had stuck gold, I typed in "Virginia Candidates" and was presented with an Ad!

Alas, the ad was from FabulousDomains letting me know that VirginiaCandidates.com was for sale. I clicked through and it's selling for $1,100. I hope the sell it!

So to the Candidates in the next race, looks like all the terms are up for grabs on Google for $0.05 per click. Might be a lot more cost effective than some of those TV Ads!

So I'll have to ask my wife who to vote for again this year. Darn!

MTV Takes a Step into Economy 2.0

In January of this year, I wrote about Economy 2.0 on ReveNews, the new virtual economies being created in online games like Second Life and World of War Craft. Now MTV has teamed up with There.com to launch a new multiplayer universe, Virtual Laguna Beach, based on the hit MTV reality show Laguna Beach.

Users of VLB and There.com can create and sell avatar clothing items, vehicles, home furnishings, and buildings through There auctions where they can earn "Therebucks". Several third party sites, like tbux.com, have setup exchanges where you can convert Therebucks into US Dollars.

Are you spinning your virtual gold into dollars? I would love to hear your story!

The Halloween season is looking pretty good for retailers. The Washington post has released a story about a recent study from the National Retail Federation indicating, among other things, that nearly 2/3 of American’s plan to celebrate Halloween this year, up from 1/2 last year!

The average person plans on increase spending by over 21% this year with an average spend of $59.06 on Halloween, weather on Halloween candy, Halloween costumes, or Halloween Decorations according to the NEF, this is up from $48.48 last year.

As far as decorations go, Halloween is the 2nd largest decorating day after Christmas. 67% of American's plan to purchase Halloween Decorations this year. 60^ plan to buy costumes this year, up from 53% last year.

Look forward to a good Halloween Season!

Trick or Treat!

At Commission Junction University (CJU) in Santa Barbara today, CJ announced the launch of their new web services initiative. Web Services is CJ's availability of APIs that will enable publishers and advertisers to access product catalog information and create web applications. As part of the rollout they have announced a contest for the best application developed with Adobe Dreamweaver, the winner will get Adobe Studio 8. Also with the launch comes a developers forum where the community can interact and discuss applications.

The API availability is a great step in the right direction, but falls short by stopping at product catalog and link searching. Publishers looking to automate their businesses will be disappointed in the lack of access to financial and sales data. Hopefully this will come in 2007.

For more information about CJ Webservices, visit http://webservices.cj.com

Vinny's company, Clicks2Customers, sponsored Ben Edleman to research the effects of anti-spam and anti-virus protection software on affiliate network cookies that are used to track customers who return and buy from the merchants after the initial click.

As you may know, many merchants offer 30, 60, 180, or more return days in their programs so that affiliates who generate the click to the merchant can still be compensated when that customer returns at a later date and completes a transaction.

Vinny wanted some independent research to determine just how many commissions his company was potentially losing out on by these programs who automatically delete cookies. The answer is a shocking 30%!

Ben Edleman has put up a web calculator program that can help companies determine the payouts the intend to pay their affiliates and show them exactly how much more they should pay to take into consideration these non-tracked sales.

Beyond merchants paying more to compensate for the evitable washing of these network cookies what else can be done? Vinny suggests allowing affiliates to use their own sub domains and CNAME them to the networks rather than the generic network domains that are being employed today. I have heard other potential solutions about having the merchants actually deliver 1st party cookies. I believe linkconnector does this today. The report actually points out this kind of private labeling could be a good solution:

"Private labeling offers another alternative tracking model. Suppose a merchant allocated a third-level host name to its ad system, e.g. linkshare.dell.com. Then the ad system could set cookies within the merchant's second-level domain name, and the merchant could retrieve such cookies later, as needed. This approach is used by DirectTrack (among others). "

Clearly this is a big issue that the networks and merchants should look at closely. The report clearly shows that the larger the network the bigger the issue, with Linkshare being in the worst position. (see chart below)

Where will all this lead? Personally, I might take a harder look at DirectTrack merchants and the Kolimbo network and maybe Linkconnector as well. Perhaps merchants who are not legally bound to stay with one network (linkshare often ads this to their contract) should consider setting up a directtrack solution as well to test the differences and offer affilaites who are conserned about the 3rd party cookie washing issue an alternative.

What do you think?

Additional Links:

The Full Report

Vinny's Comments and Findings

Revenue Magazine's Article

David Lewis' Article on Revenews

Affiliate Networks Most affected:

Amazing, MSN is the first major search engine to devote time to working with an affiliate network, such as Tradedoubler. I received this mail a few days ago:

"Microsoft adCenter and TradeDoubler have teamed up to offer you an exclusive opportunity to work on an inside track with the Microsoft adCenter service and product! Mindful of the historic lack of communications, and recognition, other search providers have offered affiliates in the past, TradeDoubler moved quickly to help affiliates and Microsoft adCenter get off to the best possible start. During our discussions, it became quickly evident what affiliates bring to the search space"

This is the first time I've seen such a collaboration - and it's about time! With MSN playing catchup with Google & Yahoo, I think they're more willing (*desperate*) to focus on opportunities that the other players have ignore - ahh...the beauty of competition...

Last week I posted an article on ReveNews that sparked quite a bit of discussion. I pointed out Yahoo's new Coupon shortcut where they are pulling coupons and posting affiliate links to the stores offering the coupons at the top of some of their organic search results. I further hypnotized that this could be the beginning of Yahoo and other search engines getting a taste for commission revenues and indicated that I thought it could lead to them looking for more ways to turn the organic listings into commissionable links. The basic theory goes that since the search engines are just large publishers with lots of traffic, and since their goal is to make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for, and since they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize revenues, then it isn't too far fetched of a concept to think that search engines could identify which companies had affiliate programs available, and turn the standard "free" links that currently point to these sites into "commissionable" links. Why not get paid for the traffic.

Well as you can imagine this sparked a lot of discussion. At last count there were over 56 comments and growing daily.

Then today, I friend of mine pointed out a posting on Search Engine Watch's Blog saying they had discussed the coupon links with Yahoo and that Yahoo was aggregating coupons and rebates from multiple sources for these links. Additionally Yahoo let them know about a new shortcut that links to their internal shopping engine for search terms that include the word cheap, like "cheap plasma tv":

This is one more indication that search engines are starting to test using their search results to push traffic to revenue generating sites "and / or" internal monetized properties. This is what Google Base is all about as well.

Clearly the free lunch for merchant traffic via search engines will get harder and harder to come by, and search engines will continue to look for ways to enhance the user experience by manipulating the results to get customers what they want faster, as well as through sites and properties that will earn the search engines more money.

As much as people might like to argue about it, this is clearly the natural evolution of search engine results.

Is it the end of affiliate marketing, NO! Is it an opportunity for savvy affiliates and affiliate managers to cut specialized deals with search engines, ABSOLUTLY!

Ever since Google changed their policy to only showing one ad per display URL there have been A LOT of affiliate programs issuing new policies forbidding affiliates for direct linking their search engine ads to their affiliate program. Honestly I think this has been a BIG mistake by affiliate managers, and has hurt many programs.

Vinny did a great write up outlining some of the issues in his Revenews article, "Search Agencies vs. Search Affiliates". If you haven't had a chance to read his article, I suggest you do so, I would consider this one a must read for any scenarios affiliate manager.

I have been communicating with an affiliate manager about this very issue, where the company has decided to now allow people to link directly to their url in search ads, and his comments were as follows:

For now, the company had decided to take this stand. I was told that our affiliates that do search marketing are not targeting the tail end but the head. If they were targeting the tail end, I was told that we would be more than happy but that’s not what’s happening.

My response was as follows:

I think what happens is that affiliates start by testing the head to see if it can be profitable, especially on brand and misspellings, once profitability is proven than and only then are these top affiliates willing to expend resources to building out a full scale campaign that targets the tail.

Even so, if you are paying for search marketing and are paying for affiliates, if they both bring in sales they should be able to compete to see who can bring them in most efficiently for the company. All things being equal if the company and the affiliate are bidding on the same terms and driving traffic to the companies site, ie same display url, the company should have the advantage since they are earning more for the sale then the affiliate is. In this scenario the affiliate’s ad will only typically show up either on terms where the company isn’t bidding, or where the affiliate’s ads are better performing.

Once you take the ego’s of the internal search teams and the profit goals of the outsourced search marketing agencies off the table and look at things from a maximization of the company’s total sales and earnings basis, this should really be a no brainer.

Google's latest update to their quality scores also provides an additional reason why companies should consider allowing affiliate to directly link to their sites. Since Google is looking at the ads and giving a quality score rating to the landing pages, the typical content links and quick landing pages that used to work well in Google are getting much harder. Affiliates need to build out more substantial sites with higher Google PR values if they want to have sites that are considered "Good Quality" by Google. When an affiliate is linking directly to the merchant's site through the affiliate links, Google is looking at the Quality and relevance of the Company site. In most cases, this should be a higher value than the typical affiliate search arbitrager will be able to achieve on their own. So by allowing direct linking, you could be reducing the cost per click for your affiliates, thereby giving them more room to promote your company on more terms or bid higher on terms they have found to produce.

Clearly allowing direct linking in your affiliate program combines with the right search affiliates should equate to more sales for your company.

Food for thought... I would love to hear your comments!

comScore released their monthly qSearch analysis of the major search engine activity with the heading that Yahoo registers a moderate share gain for the 2nd consecutive month. When you look at the numbers, you see that from June of 2006 to July of 2006, Yahoo went from 28.5% market share to 28.8% market share. Yet a further look at the numbers shows that Yahoo is of 1.7% from July of 2005, dropping from 30.5% market share to 28.8%. I guess it's good to celebrate small gains, but let's not lose site of the big picture.

comScore also notes that Google's share declined 1% from the previous month dropping from 44.7% to 43.7% market share, however on a year over year basis they are up a whopping 7.2% from 36.5% in July of 2005, to a commanding 43.7% in 2006.

Clearly there may be some small monthly shifts in market share which "COULD" single a possible change in where the market is headed, but the year over year figures clearly show that the Google juggernaut is still rolling over the competition.

Today we have a returning Guest Blogger, Lee Gientke:

Regular readers of the blog will know me from my posts about migrating from CJ to LinkShare and my subsequent love of LinkShare. Well I’ve done some migrating of my own to a company called LeadPoint. One of the reasons for my move was an immediate fascination with LeadPoint’s business model and my belief that lead generation is the next frontier for affiliate marketing.

So you are thinking, well here we go, Lee’s just going to push LeadPoint like a spammer pushing Viagra and Rolex watches. All I have to say is hold on a sec and hear me out.

Traditional lead-gen programs work by taking a lead and reselling it a number of times. Take for example, LendingTree, i.e. “When banks compete, you win.” If you are a lead-gen affiliate, take a step back and think about this tagline and ultimately your commissions. LendingTree makes their money by taking your lead and reselling it five times. Some lenders and brokers are willing to pay in excess of $50 for a refinance lead. So quick math says 50 times five is 250 less your commission of X leaves them with a big piece of the pie and you the affiliate a crumb to nibble on.

Now imagine that equation turned around with you the affiliate getting LendingTree’s share of the pie. If you are a smaller affiliate who generates one lead per day, you are thinking that’s impossible, no one will buy my leads other than LendingTree. If you are the affiliate who generates 500 leads a day, you are thinking I have enough leads to sell to a Wells Fargo or a loan broker but then I need to hire a sales staff to chase those guys but I don’t want the overhead to crimp my margins.

Enter LeadPoint. LeadPoint works very much like the NASDAQ or eBay in that we are a real-time trading floor where buyers and sellers – irregardless of size – can meet to trade their wares 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on a real time basis. This means that the small, one lead a day affiliate has access to major lead buyers like Ameriquest and Priority Student Loans and the big affiliate is able to offload as much volume as they can produce without the overhead and hassle of a sales force. LeadPoint maximizes and monetizes each transaction by selling the lead up to four times and charging a small trading fee off the gross revenues. In real terms, this means sellers net 30-50% more than any other lead generation programs. And as a marketplace, you will never be competing against us for ad space.

To help the seller, LeadPoint has come up with some really cool innovations to further monetize your marketing efforts. One of these is a toll-free phone number that will transfer your mortgage lead to a loan officer after the lead is qualified via a series of computerized prompts. Major media conglomerates like the New York Times are leveraging this technology to monetize space in both online and offline channels. But it gets better in that you don’t need to be the New York Times to do this. Can you say cable TV commercials with your phone number and URL advertising your new mortgage company? Or how about direct mail or print advertising? With LeadPoint at your side you can have a home-finance company and never talk to a single customer. The same applies for our other verticals.

By meeting at an exchange like LeadPoint, both the buyers and sellers interests are protected and maximized. The sellers benefit because LeadPoint is able to guarantee payment and maximize their revenue by selling the lead multiple times. The buyers benefit because they are buying leads that have been quality verified and the number of times a lead was sold is controlled. Lastly, everyone benefits because the cost to facilitate this exchange is low. In short, both sides get all the benefits of selling direct with none of the hassles.

So if you have dreams of a new Bentley and a house in the Hamptons swirling in your head, give me a call and I’ll get you going. We are now actively trading leads in home finance (English and Spanish language), debt management, student loan consolidation and some other B2B verticals with payday loans, automotive, and a dozen other service verticals coming by the end of the year.

Lee Gientke
Business Development Manager
www.LeadPoint.com
310/209-8662
lee.gientke AT leadpoint.com

Has Google finally gone off the deep end? Now that Google has been accepted as a Verb the company has started looking at ways to protect their brand to make sure it doesn't become as generic as Xerox.

Apparently Google doesn't want to go the way of Xerox and have people saying things like "I Googled that hottie", instead they would rather say that "I ran a Google search on that hottie".

Hmm.... I think that the term "to Goggle" someone has pretty much been engrained in society at this point, and it's kind of like trying to stuff toothpaste back into the tube once it has left.

Maybe Google will sue Merriam-Webster for including the term in the dictionary.

Perhaps Google just want's to be on record as having put people on notice that they don't want to become the generic term that culture has already made them.

I'm going to go Google the term "Genericide", oops; I mean perform a Google search on the word "Genericide". Oh crap, I'll just Yahoo it.

James Martell has recelntly announced he will be offeting his Affiliate Bootcamp training via the Internet. In typical James Martell fashion he has provided one of his professionaly written articles to explain the program and provide links back to his site:

By Kellie Fowler

James Martell to Kick-Off First Ever Online “BootCamp” Training Via The Internet: Students Build Sites from Comfort of Their Own Home in Engaging, -- One Evening Per Week, -- For Eight Weekly Sessions

The 8-week curriculum will be delivered one evening per week for eight weeks, with each "night-school" style class dedicated to one of the eight steps outlined in Martell’s top-selling downloadable Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook

More and more families are struggling with debt – be it escalating mortgages, credit card debt, or trying to save for a child’s education or retirement. The truth is that day-to-day living has become more expensive and keeping up is a battle, and most people have all but given up their dreams of finally getting ahead.

But this just doesn’t have to be the case.

In fact, there is a legitimate, proven way to make money – whether to simply supplement your current income or to provide a full-time income for you and your family, and it’s called affiliate marketing.

And perhaps one of the Net's longest running affiliate marketers, James Martell, who has been teaching his tried-and-true moneymaking techniques to people just like you for well over seven years, is now making his infamous live BootCamp training available via the Internet.

This means anyone can take advantage of this eight-week course to ensure they achieve financial freedom once and for all.

The first-ever Affiliate Marketers BootCamp Online "Night School" Edition will begin Thursday, September 7th, with Martell coming into your home “live” through an engaging, real-time online conference room. The 8-week curriculum will be delivered every Thursday evening for eight weeks, with each night-school style course dedicated to one of the eight steps outlined in Martell’s top-selling downloadable Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook.

Normally delivered in three consecutive days in Martell’s hometown of Surrey, BC (Canada), the BootCamp materials and live instruction have been further broken down to ensure online BootCamp attendees fully grasp each of the eight steps, and can have the time to apply these and ask Martell questions in the live question and answer sessions held at the conclusion of each evening course.

When asked about her experience at Martell’s most recent BootCamp, attendee Julia Mahler said this: “The past 3 days were truly amazing. I learned SO much, became re-motivated and re-inspired to continue my publishing business, I've lost sight of my dreams over the last couple of years - I can see them again now. Thank you!”

Martell, who, until recently, was not convinced that online classroom technology would allow him to effectively and efficiently deliver his instruction via the Internet, has earned quite a reputation as a teacher. His students fly from across the world to attend his three-day BootCamps and regularly report significant increases in their sales (and their paychecks) after jump-starting their online efforts with Martell’s eight-step methodology.

For Martell student Roman Gill, a true paid search expert, the difference can be seen in the development of his websites. “I received significant value in walking through your methodology to develop quality websites that rank high in the search engines naturally. Many things to absorb and try to implement our web strategy,” said Gill.

Martell student Laurie Watkins found Martell’s information top-shelf and his delivery to be exactly what she needed to get her online business on track and keep it there. “First class! Great presentation, excellent stage presence, (and) good use of time. Well done! Keep up the good work,” Watkins said!

And online BootCamp attendees are sure to concur, for Martell’s new online conference room will showcase Martell as he walks through the same videos he uses in the off-line BootCamp, with real-time audio and more.

Much like the original BootCamp, which started in Oct. 2005, the online BootCamp is targeted to new and experienced affiliate marketers alike, to those who already have Martell’s newly released Affiliate Marketing Handbook - "2006" (THIRD EDITION), and are looking for the extra push they need to get up and running, and to “newbies” looking to break-into this exciting and profitable career.

In fact, these are the very reasons the original BootCamp was started and why it continues to boast sell out crowds.

It all began when Martell’s students asked for something more. They wanted to spend time one-on-one with the successful affiliate marketer. But the demand far exceeded anything one person could handle and so Martell set out to teach to his infamous eight-step approach to a number of people at once, all the while maintaining the personal, one-on-one experience his loyal students requested.

And the BootCamps were a hit from the get-go.

But Martell continued to hear from students who were unable to travel the distance to his hometown or unable to take time away from family and other obligations, or who simply could not afford the trip and accommodations and therefore could not take advantage of the very offer they asked for.

So, back to the drawing board he went. And, once introduced to an online conference room that could be used to deliver his training in the same one-on-one atmosphere, while allowing people to attend from their homes (foregoing travel and expenses), he knew he had another BootCamp winner.

And, as expected, the response from students has been overwhelmingly positive, not only because of the convenience and affordable costs it allows, but because Martell’s online BootCamp packs years of his personal research, development, and experiences into eight evening sessions, making it a truly invaluable investment.

Attendees can expect Martell, who has tapped into more than 60 different industries and boats nearly 100 specialty shopping sites via the Web, to use his robust online conference room to show exactly how to:

• Get And Stay On Track
• Research Topics
• Work with Web Publishing Software
• Choose Templates
• Plan Site Maps
• Develop Keyword Lists
• Use His Keyword Density Formula
• Choose Merchants
• Arrange Hosting
• FTP to your Server
• Submit to Search Engines
• Work with Authors on Elance
• Arrange Quality Inbound Links
• Monitor Traffic
• Manage Site(s)
• Adjust to Online Change
• And much more...

“Martell’s BootCamps are excellent, in depth and informative", explains BootCamp attendee Howard Hood. “Martell clarifies content in the manual and proves we all have the knowledge and abilities to succeed in affiliate marketing.”

For more information, and for class schedules, visit: http://www.affiliate-marketers-bootcamp.com/.

About The Author

Bill Schnarr is a successful freelance writer and a seasoned professional providing valuable insight and advice to those looking to work from home based business. His numerous articles offer real-life tips and techniques to those looking for a way out of the rat race.

As much as Microsoft would like to keep their customers using Internet Explorer, they have succumbed to the pressure to support Firefox, a browser owned by competitor Google, that is growing in popularity due to its speed and plug-in support. This could be a new trend for Microsoft, perhaps in their struggle to win the search war, they will neglect the browser war and assume they have already won.

On that note, I heard that Microsoft was thinking about force pushing an upgrade that would upgrade IE users to the latest version 7 along with their standard "Critical Updates" that some people have their computers set to install automatically.

Interesting times...

Second Life has been on for forefront of what I call Economy 2.0, where people are making real world cash buying and selling goods and services in the virtual worlds of massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Today I received an email from Linden Labs, the makers of Second Life, indicating that they have moved to a totally virtual affiliate model. Here is how it works:

1. You have to have a Second Life account to be an affiliate of theirs.
2. Your new affiliate URLs will be tied to your Second Life Accounts
3. You will receive 1,000 Linden Dollars for each Premium account referred.

So no more US Dollar Payments for affiliates, you will have to play to be paid....

Interesting... Thoughts?