New Dating Offer for Affiliates : BrowseMyPics.com

Over the past year Dating has been one of the strongest performing categories for FireCyde. It’s one of those niches where people are actively searching for the offers. While this creates high volume lead situations, competition in the space keeps margins razor thing for most.

Our involvement in the dating niche and great relationships with industry leaders have allowed us a chance to be heavily involved in the creation of a new free dating site called BrowseMyPics.com. You could say this is a dating site for affiliates, by affiliates, that focuses on a fun user experience while delivering high quality matches based on compatibility by leveraging our partners’

Months of analyzing test data, polls, and wacky experiments have yielded a lot of surprising information. High conversion rates are a natural result of giving people what they were looking for. We’re ready to accept a small number of experienced affiliates who can reliably send 50 leads/day minimum. Check out the current landing page and submit our affiliate application if you are interested and capable of meeting the volume requirement.

Twitter’s Traffic Climbs to Record Levels

Twitter is flirting with the top 10 sites in the world based on Alexa’s traffic ranking system. Perhaps most people don’t realize Twitter is still putting on record growth because the Fail Whale hasn’t been making many appearances lately.

The novelty of Twitter may have worn off quickly for the original generation of twitter users, but the masses are finally discovering how to use twitter and overall activity is higher than ever for every metric.

Twitter traffic rated by Quantcast over the past 12 months:

Simplified mobile applications, integration into popular sites, and real time search result placements in Google have dramatically boosted exposure for the millions of Tweets posted daily.

How I get down on Twitter:

TweetDeck – hopefully you’ve already tried this yourself. Easily manage multiple accounts on multiple social networks, auto-url shortening with stats integration from bit.ly, and tons of custom layout options.

Web based clients:

Hoot Suite – great aggregator options allow you to manage multiple accounts with ease. Follow only the topics that you’re interested in with ease. The best feature for me here is scheduled Tweets on multiple accounts.

TwitterFall – posts fall onto your screen for whatever topics you choose. Uses different color backgrounds for tweets from different searches you’ve setup . It’s very hand to follow breaking events or trends.

Find me on twitter @jaytoddmartin

Facebook Ad Disapproved: Negative User Feedback

One of the few drawbacks of dealing the Facebook self-serve advertising platform is that some entire successful campaigns can be disabled if the ads receive enough negative user feedback.

The typical message advertisers see when ads are disapproved goes something like:

“This ad has been disapproved due to negative user feedback concerning the ad’s content. Ad quality and user feedback have always been important considerations for Facebook Ads, and help determine which ads are served to users. In general, ads that receive negative user feedback through both automated and manual reports are less likely to be shown to users, and may be removed from the site. This ad should not be run again in its current form. We appreciate your understanding.”

The new twist in this story is that I’m starting to see this disapproval message on ads that haven’t even ran yet!? Campaigns that have never been started will occasionally have a few of these “Disapproved due to user feedback” messages. These ads will in no way be related to any other ads I’ve previously created or ran.

As most FB advertisers know, there are dozens of anomalies like this every month as Facebook’s advertising platform continues to evolve. Personally I embrace the horrors.

Will Affiliate Networks Abandon DirectTrack?

Publishers are starting to hate DirectTrack. The reason has nothing to do with the quality of the software (it’s top shelf) or the design even at this point (we’re all used to it by now), it’s because a ton of networks have gone out of business lately that had been using direct track.

You probably can think of a few yourself. Those slimey networks that bought a $50.00 template for their website design and never even bothered to replace the default headers and footers to make it match their site. The people that were sure they were going to make $5 million so licensing DirectTrack seemed like a good idea.

Either DirectTrack has lacked in evolution or affiliate networks have lacked the understanding in how to implement new features. Even if the features are there somewhere, it’s hard to find them, much less use them. Any cool data DirectTrack does generate is formatted in a way that just makes it seem cheap (you don’t get the feeling you’re dealing with a $100 million/year company at least).

I don’t think networks can establish a true edge in this market if they share their core platform with dozens of close competitors. Am I the only one burned out on DirectTrack or am I just bad at choosing networks.

What’s your opinion?

Key Traits of Great Affiliate Managers

What is the difference between a lame and kick ass affiliate manager you ask? What tips do I have that may help AM’s get more volume from publishers? You’re about to find out in my quick list of key ingredients for great affiliate managers.

Knowledge of the industry
Every affiliate manager should start their job by being forced to run a few offers until they are profitable before they run out of money. This is probably the only way an affiliate manager can ever really understand this industry. Affiliate managers need to know what average conversion rates are for different industry segments, understand the basic prices publishers are paying for ads, and figure out a fair way to stand in the middle and take just enough commission off the top to make what they are doing worthwhile to both the advertiser and the publisher

Respect and understanding
Don’t try to act like an expert all the time. Treat your publishers with some respect, they are why you make money. Consider the person may have been awake 36 hours straight making you and her/himself money before you act like you are too busy dealing with other stuff to care about his account today. Smart ass statements are amplified 20x when you’re exhausted, so don’t accidentally make someone irate just because you’re not thinking before you talk.

Communication
Can I call you from 8am til 1am 7 days/week and get a call back relatively quickly? I think most of the real money in this business is made in very small windows and quite frankly having an affiliate manager that answers the phone all weekend is a necessity. Most of the volume comes during the weekend, how is it that this is the time almost every affiliate manager isn’t working? Instant messengers and mobile numbers are a given.

Execution
There aren’t many things that come “standard” in affiliate marketing. Affiliate managers that turn around quickly on the never ending stream of questions and requests will have the happiest publishers. I feel like our affiliate managers are high level members of our marketing team and I hold them to our own operating performance standards. If you are ever unhappy with your Affiliate Manager a quick call to the network can generally get you promptly reassigned.

Transparency
Affiliate managers need to be as transparent as possible with their publishers. Think of yourself as sports agent for traffic players. Publishers will feel like they are getting a fair deal if they know the numbers. If I know how much a network is making per lead it generally keeps me from shopping around. If you’re taking so much per lead that you never give your publishers straight answers on your own internal payouts you won’t be around for long. The industry is changing.

Would Facebook Users Disapprove Head-On Ads?

If you advertise on Facebook, you’re probably starting to see a few ads being disapproved because users didn’t “like” them.

Facebook is making an effort to deliver ads that users will enjoy, to enrich their online experience, and make Facebook the warmest blanket on the internet for everyone to snuggle in.

As a human being, I think this whole concept of user reviewed ads is interesting. As an advertiser and marketer, the whole thing stinks!

The highly effective and very annoying Head-On commercials that annoyed millions of people across the country would never have been possible in a user reviewed approval system. Does that make these ads and products are somehow wrong?

If people don’t like my ads because they slightly offends them or tweak their interest in some ironic way that makes them uncomfortable should they be able to disable my ad across Facebook’s entire network?

I think if Head-On had to rely on Facebook ads they’d go belly up. FB is probably ready to drop more sanctions than the UN vs Iran on anyone who gets massive amounts of ads disapproved because of “negative user feedback”, so watch your step.

TechCrunch Disrupt Impresses with Live Video

Thousands of viewers are enjoying the Live and Recorded video streams from TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference. Disrupt, being presented in New York City on May 24-May26, will be broadcast live on TechCrunch’s LiveStream Channel. Streams will be recorded and archived so you can view the various presentations and events when you have time.

The first day of the show debuted a cool visual user feedback system. Attendees were assigned a certain amount of “play money” to buy and sell “play shares” of the companies presenting during today’s conference presentations. Real time charts were displayed showing the value of different companies shares as people in the audience bought and sold shares based on the information they were receiving. This is a very cool way to see what the audience is really impressed with. A prize will be awarded to the person who holds the most play money at the end of the show.

The range of start-up companies presenting today was impressive. During the panel I saw, Viewers saw all kinds of start-up companies ranging from Databasing, Financial, Music Software and more industries.

An expert panel was on hand to ask questions and throw in their 2 cents. It is interesting to see these business ideas picked apart. There are many good tips being thrown around that should help folks strengthen their own presentations. Overall the mood of the conference is very fun and light hearted.

Watch it yourself here.

Google AdSense Accounts Disabled Before First Payment

Recently one of our web hosting clients had her Adsense account disabled right after she crossed the minimum payout threshold so I examined her Analytics and asked about her click-thru rates, if she had ever clicked her own ads, etc. I did a quick search for “disabled Adsense May 2010″ and as expected found a ton of results. What I wasn’t expecting were so many mom and pop websites with seemingly legitimate and hurt web site owners begging Google for even a one line reply about why they were not going to get paid.

The volumes of complaints about Adsense posted in the 24 hours before I started searching was a real eye opener to the potential for fraud from both publishers and from Google.

Could Google steal more traffic this way than anyone else online? I can’t think of a single company in a position to hijack more surfer clicks than good old GewG ;-) The funniest cases I’ve seen are where Google disables Adsense accounts because of fraudulent traffic and Google themselves are the only source of traffic for the account owner.

It’s just good business for Google to review an Adsense account’s quality before sending the first check. They must protect their advertisers and their integrity – I want and need them to do this. I’m more concerned they can use this review window to save themselves a ton of money, and get rid of many small advertisers that aren’t moving the needle with any serious traffic. No one knows what % of publishers get their accounts disabled once they meet the minimum payout level, estimates I’ve seen are sky high. Of course the check is never sent if the account is disabled.

To be honest, from a business standpoint as an advertiser on Google Adwords this is awesome. Every time they nuke a publisher’s site we can keep the traffic and not pay for any of it. I still wonder if Google is crediting back ALL of the money I’ve spent with webmasters they refuse to pay (pesky gewg!).

As a human being, I feel bad for all the legitimate folks who worked hard to grow their revenue to the payout threshold only to have Google kick them in the mouth. What’s the lesson here? Google is evil, but unfortunately so is everyone else. Diversify your revenue streams so you get screwed less directly by advertisers and ad networks.

Lemons Or Lemonade: Did you get screwed on Adsense and you’re sure they are ripping everyone off? Stop crying. Start advertising on the content network and grab your share of the free traffic you know they aren’t paying anyone for!

Clickbooth and Neverblue Advertisers Listen Up!

Many advertisers are neglecting to supply popular IAB banner sizes to networks when they sign a deal with them to push their offer to the network’s affiliates. As a publisher this means I can’t add some of the best offers to my Neverblue and Clickbooth Rotators because there are no 250×250 sizes available.

For many years I overlooked most of creatives supplied by advertisers on networks I use. As rotators have become easier to create, manage, and measure I have began to incorporate them into some of my blog themes. Other affiliates are doing the same.

Publishers
Rotators make testing offers simple for publishers! Anytime I’m on an affiliate network’s site checking stats and see a new viable offer I can add it into rotation on 3 or 4 sites with just a few clicks for a quick test. If any show promise I can then take a closer look and dedicate time to researching it’s potential. Setup a rotator and deploy it on a site next time you get a chance.

Affiliate Network advertisers
If more people test your offer, you’ll inevitably get more volume on it. Because many advertisers are neglecting to use popular banner sizes this will just be another advantage to put in your court, supplying good banners is just good common sense anyway. Learn about all the popular IAB sizes (300×250, 250×250, 468×60, 728×90 125×125 deminisions at the very least).

Affiliate Network owners
As the major networks continue to develop better rotation systems the gap between the haves and the have nots is going to grow quickly. If Neverblue can automatically optimize my banner positions for ecpm it’s likely I may show less of your ads.

Will matter more to everyone soon
At our agency business we do not use any network hosted rotators because they simply aren’t smart enough yet. Most affiliates generally will have their own tracking and optimization systems as soon as they can afford it. Still, there are smaller sites and personal blogs (like this one) where advertising optimizations isn’t the focus of people’s time. Imagine 171,000 tumblr users including an optimized rotator in their blog theme, etc.

Whoever can bring a hosted intelligent auto optimization system to the table first for banner display will be rewarded hugely. If you’ve already found it, please contact me so I can get in touch with them! ;-)

Recent Facebook Advertising Performance

Facebook’s self serve ad platform has had a giant impact on many businesses and individuals. It continues to be a great tool to reach targetted users, but maybe it’s not quite as great as it was earlier on.

Facebook users are spending hours online each day. Once they have been on the site for 45 minutes and consumed 1100 ads they are not very likely to click your ad. If you have a very attractive, high click-thru rate ad, Facebook will notice your ad has great performance and then they will start rotating it to individual who are less likely to click.
 

• Example: If you are bidding $1CPM and your ad has a .50% Click through rate, you will receive 5 visits for a cost of $0.20 each. Facebook doesn’t want to be sending such cheap traffic out, so they will start rotating this high click thru rate ad to users who’ve already consumed 1000s of ads and are less likely to click. Your click-thru rate then drops to .20% and now your effective cost per click is $0.50 each. You’ll notice ads that show high CTR after they are initially approved fall off a cliff once FB’s system recognizes it. Sometimes I think their system is showing the same ad to the same users over and over to try to lower the amount of traffic they are sending out.

This allows facebook to control the amount of traffic they are sending advertisers, it also allows them to control the prices we must pay per actual click regardless of what bid type you are using.

Facebook traffic quality Has Plummeted As Game Participants Consume 1000s of ads per hour without engaging.

Yesterday Facebook sent out a letter to advertisers detailing a further drop in CPM bid ad performance because of new adserver upgrades. Cost per Click ads are becoming more productive on FB lately and their letter indicated ads bid on cpc basis will continue to run in higher value areas.

To me this means they are going to prevent CPC ads from running in a lot of the game and app areas where quality is lowest and the quality of CPM will be total junk. Has overall performance gotten so bad that they must seperate the two types of bidding to isolate certain areas of Facebook’s site from affecting ad quality? Why not let advertisers pick which areas their ads run in ? Will Facebook ever offer frequency capping options?

Personally I’m optimistic as we’re continuing to find great ways to make our ads produce. The game of Facebook Advertising Unknowns is won by experimenting and finding out the answers for yourself. Try creating a CPC and CPM version of the same ad and see which one offers the best performance. Repeat this test every few weeks so that you have barometer on performance shifts between bid types.