NicheBlaster.com

From what I’ve read in the past, one of the more controversial aspects of PPC methodologies has to do with search network keyword match types. Since the merger of Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN adCenter, the match types are exactly the same as those offered on Google AdWords: Broad, Phrase, and Exact. YSM was limited to just two and I often had difficulty remembering how the functioned exactly. Being so accustomed to how AdWords did things, it was a little confusing to use another PPC search engine that had a different syntax. Fortunately, things are now a bit more consistent after the “BingYoo” merger.

However, if you’ve read the previous posts in this series, you should know that assuming the AdWords and adCenter operate pretty much a like is to your detriment.

Though things on the outside may appear almost identical, things under the hood are constructed very differently. Keyword match types on adCenter do function very much the same as those on Google AdWords, at least with respect to the phrase and exact match types. If you’re not familiar with PPC keyword match types there a very good tutorials on this subject both on the AdWords and adCenter help pages.  Read more...

After looking over the last to posts in this series, I realized that my naming convention was a bit dumb – at least from an SEO standpoint. So I decided to tweak it slightly for a bit more variation. I’m still not too happy with it, but the heck with it for now. Let’s get on to the next part, which while rather basic, is still pretty important and should not be glossed over.

I recall being on a Webinar a few years ago where the guest was an AdWords employee. All I really remember from that Webinar now is how the AdWords gal kept repeating over and over how important it was to have a “well-structured account”. From what I could tell this encompassed everything from the account level on down through campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads. We’ve had the thing about relevancy also pounded into our skulls by Google that many advertisers adopted the one keyword per ad group method. This always struck my as sort of backwards. It seemed more logical to start out with a tight group of keywords and then prune it down until you approached a single keyword ad group. But this is all rather moot now as most advertisers I know have been kicked out of the AdWords program for all eternity.  Read more...

The primary impetus for me creating this blog was to showcase a few of the scripts that I use regularly in my own Niche Blasting efforts. These are all scripts that I’ve coded myself simply because there really wasn’t anything comparable out there either for free or paid. Many of the scripts I coded have to do with ePN since this affiliate program has been a consistent (though at times frustrating) money maker for me. It also has a lot to do with ePN having a very nice RSS product feed that supports affiliate links.

I hope that by hosting my scripts here, that I can not only get feedback and suggestions for improving them, but also help other affiliates with their own campaign efforts.

First up is is my ePN Research and Keyword Tool. I’ve used this script for several years now to scrape long-tail keywords from eBay listing titles to help build PPC keyword lists for my Niche Blasting campaigns. I’ve also expanded it to serve as a niche research tool, or “Hot Item Finder” to evaluate product niches on eBay. You can check out this tool and others as they become available from the Online Tools Page.  Read more...

To continue on with the first part of this series of posts begun with the basics of choosing keywords to use with an adCenter Search N/W campaign, this post will look at how to further expand keyword lists. One of the problems I consistently run into on adCenter Search is finding targeted keywords for my campaigns that will generate more than only a handful of daily clicks. It actually happens quite often, especially when I’m attempting to build campaigns for ePN items.

As an example, many times I’ll research a product niche and find that it’s doing briskly on eBay.com. It meets the criteria of having a lot of listings and the median final price is above $20. Some people like much higher priced items, but I don’t want to ignore items between $20 and $100 as they have done well commission-wise on ePN. A prime example of such an item is “American Flyer Trains”. Taking a look at the completed listings (need to be logged into your eBay account to view), it shows a healthy number of successfully completed auctions/BIN events.  Read more...

There was a time not that long ago, but seems like ages now, that on a typical day I could get 14,000 clicks from the Google AdWords Content Network. Compared to a lot of other AdWords advertisers that was a paltry amount. The thing is, it really wasn’t that hard once you found the high traffic keywords that could unleash a traffic gusher on the Content Network. Advertisers would then turn these very cheap clicks into gold.

There really wasn’t any limit to what you could drive these clicks to: CPA offers, ClickBank eBooks, eBay and Amazon product links, CJ, and just about anything else you wanted. My poison was parked pages with a bunch of ads plastered on them. Yes, times were good, but it all eventually came to an end like most easy money opportunities do. The lifetime AdWords bans were handed down and a lot of us went onto to exploring other PPC traffic sources on a deeper level.  Read more...

To say that there exists a love/hate relationship between the eBay Partner Network (ePN) and its partners is not an exaggeration nor resorting to a worn out cliche. Many ePN partners are thoroughly disgusted with ePN at present. Case in point: just this past week, there clearly was a reporting issue where transactions (Winning Bid Revenue and Buy It Now events) disappeared for several days from the downloadable transaction report. ePN has yet to address this issue on their partners’ forum.

There was also a delay in stats reporting at the end of last month. This happens occasionally and can easily be forgiven, but what made matters worse, was the message in everyone’s dashboard that read stats would be fully updated by “June 31″. Even a leap year wouldn’t help in this case and the message remained in place for several days. It seemed like no one really cared enough to correct it.

ePN partners have become so used to this thing happening that any drop off in their reported earnings throws them into full on panic and paranoia mode.  Read more...

I started a blog shortly after I started with affiliate marketing. The purpose was to document my experiences and progress in this field. I targeted the keyword “internet marketing journal” as the main keyword for the blog. I just checked, and I’m ranking at the top of page 5 on Google for the broad match version of that phrase. I guess that’s not too awfully pathetic considering I haven’t posted to that blog in over two years.

I’ve debated for a while now whether it’s worth the time and effort to build another blog around my online marketing experiences. The last thing I really want to do is start another blog and then let it drift away into oblivion. And the last thing the online community needs is yet another blog about how its creator makes money online.  Read more...