I just got this email -

Dear advertiser,

We are writing to let you know that your Google AdWords account has been disabled due to one or more serious violations of our advertising policies related to Landing Page and Site Quality. ?As a result, your ads will no longer run through the Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in the future. ?Please note that future accounts you open will also be disabled.

As part of our commitment to making the AdWords experience safe and effective for our users and our advertisers, we routinely review the landing pages that our advertisers promote through our search and content networks. ?If we find that an advertiser has submitted a landing page that egregiously violates our policies, we reserve the right to take immediate account-level action.

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content, and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted. Further, advertising certain types of sites will lead to immediate account disabling. ?These types of sites include, but are not limited to:

* Sites that charge users or collect personal information in exchange for a product that is never delivered
* Sites that charge for “free” software
* Sites that trick users into paying for fake or poor-quality content
* Sites that charge users for information that makes unrealistic promises of financial or personal gain
* Sites that install malware software on a visitor’s computer

Please note that this action is related to sites that have recently been advertised through your account. ?In a review of your account history, we found that your account had submitted a least one site that egregiously violated our advertising policies. ?Although you may have removed these sites since our latest review, advertisers that have a history of promoting these types of sites are still subject to account-level disabling.

You can review our Advertising Policies, including our Landing Page and Site Quality guidelines, by visiting: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guidelines.cs
You may also review the complete AdWords Terms & Conditions here: https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder
In addition, our FAQ about Account Disablings can be found here: https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164786

If you have additional questions or concerns not addressed by our policies or help center, you can contact support by replying to this email.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords team

It’s really funny as I haven’t touched the account for such a long time, and the only time I tried rebills on Google was when green tea was all the rage. I had a small stint with acai berry that quickly ended when I spent $100 in about 5 minutes. The little things like this really can come back to haunt you I guess. It is reminders like this that make me want to focus on quality, and while quality can sometimes be harder to convert, I think in the long run it would be more worth it (as you aren’t having accounts across all platforms shut down!)

I was asked:

“What is your opinion on using Google Content Network, and what would you consider as ?good results? (when it comes to CTR and conversion rate)? Did you have any success with the Content Network?”

Google Content Network is an advertising platform that allows you to use banner ads and text link ads on websites that have Adsense placements on them. The only thing you need to do to use the Google Content Network is have an Adwords account. Both search and CN ads can be placed via Adwords.

As far as my opinion on it, I think its a great place to get started with affiliate marketing. There is a bit of a learning curve, and with the recent crackdowns on affiliate marketers, Google doesn’t always make advertising on their platforms easy. I do know there is a ton of unfound potential, though. What I really love about Google content network is this -

• You can direct link to offers
• Ability to target by keywords and URLs (targeted placements)
• Banner ads can generate huge CTR
• It is cheaper than Google Search marketing
• There are millions of sites created every year that use Google Adsense to monetize themselves
• It is a good gateway in to media buying.

CTR and conversion rate is always difficult to talk about. You can have a campaign with ads that create a .1% CTR but a 25% CVR, or ads with a 25% CTR and a .1% CVR. It essentially comes down to how far you split test everything. Always, always, always split test! Banners, ad copy, landing pages, offers and new traffic, these will all help you find, essentially, the best EPC you can get on an offer.

If you are looking for a number on what kind of ROI I’m looking for, I generally will stop running things after a week if I can’t get it up to 25+% with over $1000 spend per day. If I can’t optimize it further, I’ll let it run on its own, because the margins are just too small to even bother with it. For ad CTR, this can vary depending on your target and banner design. Always split test these as they are probably the most important part of the campaign. An average campaign might see 1-3% CTR, but I’ve had some do much better.

Success on the GCN can be hard to obtain for a new affiliate marketer, but just like any other type of marketing, it takes hard work and good research to cook up something that really works out for you in the end. With persistence, you can turn it into a cash cow. And with every marketer and they’re mom hitting up Facebook, PPV, and media buying, you know the amount of affiliates on Google is decreasing. The only hard part is finding the right niche and targeting.

If you are in need of a tool for the GCN, I’d suggest Keyword Rockstar. I use it and it does everything I need to start up a campaign. It scrapes the Google Keyword Tool, sets up my whole campaign, finds targeted placements, and it can even create banner ads itself. Not sure if the owner of the product is allowing any more users, but you can join his mailing list and be informed when the next set of openings for the tool is available!

This question was received in my Ask Away post. There you can ask any questions about affiliate marketing and I will answer them with their own dedicated blog post. Alternatively, you can email me with your questions.

I’ve been all about Facebook advertising for a very long time. In fact, it accounts for probably 95% of my income since I’ve started internet marketing. It’s time to take my eggs out of that basket, and lately, I’ve been heading over to other traffic sources. I tried MSN and while it converts very easily, there is little to no traffic (However, with Bing, that will probably change). Yahoo is just a shit-pile of a mess that is profitable if you can stand to use their interface. Google search has lost me 100s in a mere 5 minutes. The Google Content Network is looking very promising.

What Google Content Network does is take all those websites that are running Adsense on them, and basically allows you to run ads on them. You have the choice to run text ads or image ads on these placements. Quality Score is, supposedly, based more off of your CTR (click-through rate) meaning that it is harder to get slapped than a search campaign. It is also very cheap. You can target niches that cost 3 dollars for clicks on search for 50 cents on the CN. Let’s get more in depth on some of these topics.

Text Ads vs. Images Ads on the Google Content Network

Text ads aren’t always the best choice. The problem is unlike search, where people are actively looking for something, people that see these ads are on a website looking through the information available to them. Text ads don’t always hit the right spot as they are very difficult to target right. Most likely, users aren’t in buying mood or looking to be sold anything as they browse these sites. Text ads don’t get a lot of attention. However, in some cases they can still be effective if you can target the right sites.

Image ads can stick out from website content a little better. Generally, you’ll see a much higher CTR with images, which will inturn increase your QS and decrease your click costs. Make sure you split test all your ads, and use at least 2 of each size ad to do so. This is because not every site will use just one size for their Adsense placements. Here is a list of ad sizes you should make:

• leaderboard (728×90)
• banner (468×60)
• skyscraper (120×600)
• square (250×250)
• small square (200×200)
• medium rectangle (300×250)
• large rectangle (336×280)
• wide skyscraper (160×600)

Set up tracking for each different ad and notice which one converts better. Knock out the ad that gets a lower EPC. One ad might get more clicks, but fewer conversions and a lower EPC due to this. If this is the case, split test a new ad similar to the higer EPC one until you can get the CTR up, otherwise you could put your quality score in serious jepordy. If your CTR stays too low for too long, Google will automatically stop running your ads unless you increase bid prices.

Lowered Click Costs On the Google Content Network

I’m testing the Google CN with one niche I tried in search. In search, I was paying about $1 – $2 a click. I’ve moved the failed campaign to CN and now am averaging 36 cent clicks. Thats quite a savings. However, it might take twice as many clicks as in search to get a conversion, I’m still saving money, but you have to realize, people clicking your CN ads aren’t neccessarily wanting to buy anything. Your landing page is very important for getting this done right. Your image ad should also be highly relevant and help increase conversions with a nice pre-sell.

Structure of a Good Google Content Network Campaign

The way you build your campaign is very important. You can choose to run ads on managed placements (you select which sites you want to run on) or let Google pick for you using keywords. Either way, use the 50-rule. Select 50 websites or keywords tops for each ad group.

Keyword groups need to be better organized. Google will use these to try and select a theme for each for each ad group, allowing for more triggers to pop off your ad. Make sure you build a decent list of negative keywords that won’t show as Google CN only allows your ads to be triggered by broad matching standards. This can help you increase conversions by knocking out shit that you know won’t convert. (Words like free, pictures, information, etc are good starters)

For each as, make sure you track them with a Google conversion tracking pixel. This will help you figure out what ad converted on what page. You can use Prosper202 for this, as well. I usually use a sub-id on the ad like ?=image-ad-1-{keyword}. This also helps me track what keyword fired the ad to pop-up on the page and whether or not that keyword converted.

The best way to get the most impressions here is to build a structured keyword list of more than 2000 keywords. Some people say don’t stop until you hit 5000, but I’ve had success so far with just 2000. Organize them into ad groups with 50 keywords per group and run this. Split test ads and landing pages. Notice what referrers (what domains) are giving you the most conversions. Organize these into another campaign and individually target those websites working for you. Optimize bidding for each site. Increase CTR to decrease your click costs. Then, get paid!

So the Google Content Network really isn’t that hard to make a profit from. The best way to start making bank is to just try it! My first few days on CN I’ll always fail and lose money, but if I stay persistent I can ussually make it all back within a week. One campaign I started running recently saw me lose 75% of my investment the first couple days. I am now breaking even after light optimization. Within a day or two, I should be running a very hefty and lucrative profit in my favor! Gotta love my job…

And for all you guys that need an excuse to jump into internet marketing, be sure to check out my blog giveaway with Tatto Media!

Google is a pain in the ass sometimes. I’ve got the most relevent landing page, and my main keyword gets a 2/10 SQ. Yeah effin’ right…

Before I was in the game, you could easily get away with a simple 1-page langer with no real content and just a big-ass button that says click here and get your ringtones sucker. You could even direct link. While you can still do that, you are asking for the big G’s backhand as soon as they catch on to your sneaky ways.

Google is continuously modifying themselves to the point where they will only allow real content sites to start bidding on terms. This means we need to think more SEO-conciously when setting up landing pages. There are simple ways to do this like adding terms and contact pages, sending out a few links to reliable, huge content sites, and maybe using a blog post or two, but this really isn’t enough.

What do all SEO specialists want to their site. Links, links and links. The more links you got, the more reliable Google is gonna think you are, and this effects your Google QS. Before I started getting into that mindset, I was rockin 2 – 3/10 QS. I now have steady 5/10, 7/10s and a couple 8/10s. There are some easy ways to boost quality score and gain links so lets go over them.

My favorite way, which will get you good link juice for Google fast, is RedVirus’s Social Link Submission Service. Send him $25 bucks via paypal, a list of anchors and decriptions you want used, and you’ll have 100 fresh links ready for your landing page. This is what constantly gets me a better QS. Make sure your anchors for the links are relavent to your keywords for maximum benefit.

Another similar service to use are directory submissions. These are indexed slower, though, but you can ussually get a lot of links for a small price once they do start showing up. I just skimmed across DP and found a few reliable people submitting sites to 1000 directories for about 10 bucks. I haven’t tried it as directory submissions aren’t always known for reliable, seo-friendly links, but its cheap and you can always use another domain name if things get fugged up.

Article submissions might work as well. Lots of places to use that will submit 1 article to a few hundred article directories for the same effect of website directories.

Your best option would be to use a relevent, backlinked, old domain name though. While its the best option, they are hard to come upon. You don’t want to use a old pedegg domain name for your shamWOW landing pages. However, if you start stumbling upon used domain names you might see some worth building a new Google campagin for.

That’s all I’ve got to talk about now. Sorry for the delay in posting. I was away over the weekend at Koh Chang. 18 people in a two bedroom, mosquito filled bungalow. The ocean was nice, everything else… not so much. Hehe.