direct marketing question – game over?

July 25, 2007 on 9:02 pm | In Questions and Comments | 1 Comment

I just picked up your book. Great concept. Being a writer with good experience in print adcopy, I would like to give this a spin. I did some google searching on affiliate marketing and was deluged with a bunch of circa 2005/6 listings talking about Google changing the rules for affiliate direct search engine marketers, in effect making it harder (i.e. only one marketer per unique URL, no direct links to advertiser’s domains, using intermediate landing pages instead).

Pretty scary stuff, but I don’t recall seeing any mention of this in your book.

Can you explain what the sea change in the industry was about a year ago and what the practical ramifications are for someone like me looking to get my feet wet placing affiliate ads in search engines?

thanks,

-gb

1 Comment »

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  1. GB,

    The first rule change you mention (i.e. only one marketer per unique URL) is actually one marketer per unique URL, per search result set. Although much was made of the change at the time (and some still grumble about it) the change was largely for the better. I have made hundreds of thousands of dollars (maybe even a little more than a million, I’d have to check the date) since that change, without ever adjusting my strategy. The bottom line is, if you write the best ad, you should still find your ad working its way to the top of the sponsored results, although it may take a little more or less time than it used to before the URL policy change. I don’t think there is any need to adjust your strategy in any way to address this change. A lot of other experts will disagree with me here, I realize, but I am confident in my position.

    The other items supposedly changed by Google (no direct links to advertisers, forcing intermediary landing pages) simply aren’t true. Google does not force this, but some individual affiliate programs have taken these steps recently for just their own programs, most notably eBay last month, but many other affiliate programs continue to allow direct search marketing, and I continue to be profitable at it myself. The overall environment is not quite as rich as it once was, but there are still enormous opportunities.

    It may be wise to consider learning more about landing pages, in case the affiliate industry finally tips that way (it has not quite done so… yet), but at present their is still a lot of money to be made without them.

    Tony

    Comment by Administrator — August 1, 2007 #

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