The Secret Yahoo Doesn’t Want You to Know

May 7th, 2008 Tim White

Yahoo is great, but they have a secret and they’re not talking about it. Every month advertisers waste tens of millions of dollars because of it. How much are you losing?

When you signed up to advertise on Yahoo you probably thought your traffic was going to come from www.yahoo.com, right? The answer is that a majority of your “Yahoo” traffic is coming from Yahoo.com, but anywhere from 25-40% of it is coming from Yahoo’s search partners. So if you are spending $1000 with Yahoo per month, you are wasting between $3000 - $5000 annually! The good news is that you can do something about it immediately.

First, a little bit of background. Yahoo search partners are websites that send targeted traffic to your website within Yahoo’s sponsored search program. This is good for Yahoo because, through these search partners, they are able to generate millions of dollars in additional revenue every month. Yahoo pays these partners a percentage of the click revenue generated from their websites. In theory, this additional source of traffic is good for you (the advertiser) because of the additional traffic these partners are able to provide. More traffic, more sales, right? Not necessarily. (more) »

Posted in Blogging, Conversion Tracking, Lead Capture Pages, Marketing Mistakes, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Yahoo! | No Comments »

Yahoo! and Google Ads - Do It Yourself or Hire An Expert?

May 6th, 2008 Tim White

Yahoo! and Google don’t care whether you set up an advertising account by yourself or hire a professional. Thousands of business owners have opted to do it on their own and paid the price (whether they knew it or not). Here are the top 5 reasons to hire a professional:

1. Although it’s pretty easy to actually sign-up with Google and Yahoo!, it’s also very easy to waste thousands of dollars once you get started. Although there is a cost associated with paying an expert to set up and possibly manage your accounts, they will save you a lot of money and headaches.

2. Your online advertising accounts are only part of your overall marketing campaign. A professional can help keep your cost per sale or lead as low as possible by providing expert advice in other important areas such as domain names, web hosting, lead generation pages and follow-up. (more) »

Posted in Conversion Tracking, Google, Lead Capture Pages, Marketing Mistakes, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Yahoo! | No Comments »

Top 10 Internet Marketing Mistakes

May 4th, 2008 Tim White

There are dozens of mistakes you can make trying to promote your products or services online. Here are the top 10 that I have encountered with clients:

1. Doing it yourself to save money
2. Not having a clear vision about your goals
3. Having a website that’s confusing to the customer
4. Hiring the cheapest vendors
5. Being too conservative
6. Focusing only on Google
7. Not tracking your results
8. Not using email marketing
9. Not backing up your website or files
10. Choosing a long or confusing domain name

and one more bonus mistake…

11. Being unwilling to change (more) »

Posted in Blogging, Conversion Tracking, Google, Lead Capture Pages, Marketing Mistakes, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Yahoo! | No Comments »

Cut Your Google Costs by 50% in 30 Seconds

May 2nd, 2008 Tim White

How much are you spending with Google per month? $500? $1000? $5000? For the most part, Google really does try to look out for their advertisers, but there’s one thing that they do that usually isn’t in your best interest.

When you sign up to advertise on Google, you think that that’s exactly what you’re doing, however, by default, your ads will also appear in two other places other than in Google’s search results. These are Google’s Search Network and Content Network. The Search Network consists of websites such as Earthlink.net and AOL.com. The Content Network represents those sites participating in Google’s Adsense program, such as Plentyoffish.com

Here’s the problem: While there is a lot of click fraud in Google’s search results, there’s a lot more in their Content Network. So what’s the best way to deal with this? A quick solution is to simply opt out of the Search and Content Networks. You do this simply by unchecking two boxes. (more) »

Posted in Google, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Yahoo! | No Comments »

Are You Tracking Your Cost Per Lead?

May 2nd, 2008 Tim White

One of the most powerful yet overlooked tools that Google and Yahoo! offer is conversion tracking. This tool can very accurately tell you how much you are paying per lead or sale.

Most advertisers spend too much time worrying about what they are paying per click rather than per sale or lead. Of course you want to keep your cost per click as low as possible, however, conversion tracking helps you determine how aggressive you can be (per click) and still be profitable. For example, if you don’t know how much a lead or sale costs you, you might be bidding conservatively to keep your costs down. But what if you doubled your average cost per click and tripled your profits? Wouldn’t you want to do that as much as possible? (more) »

Posted in Conversion Tracking, Google, Lead Capture Pages, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Yahoo! | No Comments »