Exclusive Interview With Dino Vedo

I’m thrilled today to interview one of the top commentators on my blog, Dino Vedo! Dino Vedo is a very popular blogger in the affiliate space, I frequent his daily and have learned numerous affiliate marketing tips from Dino. Above and beyond his blogging expertise, Dino is a full time college student and a young millionaire. Very impressive stuff! It’s been a real honor getting to know Dino over the last year, he’s a great friend and business partner. I know many of you reading PPC Ian are interested in PPC careers. Dino is someone you’ll want to pay close attention to because he can definitely teach you some strategies than can help with your online marketing career. Without further ado, let’s get into the interview…

Please tell PPC Ian readers a little bit about yourself

I’m currently a student at University of Michigan and I’m super busy juggling both affiliate marketing and my school work. College life is fun, don’t get me wrong, but it can get quite overwhelming when you need to attend clubs, hang out with your friends, study for tests, and then check over your campaigns before you go to sleep! Most of my friends have no idea how to make money online, nor exactly know what I do. Most of them think the only way to make money online is to scam, but as we all know that definitely is not the case. Anyways, I’m studying in the School of Business at U of M, and later plan on transferring maybe to a different University as this will be only my sophomore year and I’d hope to get into a much more prestigious school to finish my studies.

How did you get started in affiliate marketing and blogging?

For me, it all began around 3 years ago, when I was just turning 16. My mom encouraged me to start selling stuff on eBay to make some money as I was always asking her for some and apparently she got sick of it. Ha. A good friend of hers was already selling a lot of things on eBay and already was well experienced with how eBay works, and agreed to help me get started. After weeks of selling some of my old stuff around the house, I came to see the huge potential in this and wanted to expand and make a lot more money just like any teenager at that time would. So I ended up going over to Liquidations.com and buying huge amounts of auctions in bulk, such as electronics and video games and who knows what else. On a per item basis, the items were being liquidated for only a few bucks, and I knew I could sell them for maybe double or triple for what I got them for. So that is exactly what I did, and in a few months I quickly became a eBay Power Seller, and before I knew it my basement was turning into a large scale warehouse! At that time, I was making a few thousand per month with minimal work. Sure you had to take pictures of the items and write descriptions and then ship and package them out, but I honestly did not mind as I liked what I was doing and was making good money with it as well.

But of course, after around a year of two of this, all good things came to an end. PayPal had limited my account and froze my funds inside the online account. Not only that but since they work directly with eBay, they had my listings closed, and my eBay account was put on hold. Now why did this happen? My eBay account was in good standing, I had close to 5K in positive feedbacks and close to 98% positive feedback. Well, at that time eBay was going through drastic changes in their policies, and numerous sellers were complaining. If you had an eBay account a few years back, I’m sure you can remember that the eBay feedback system was completely fair. By that I mean the seller and buyer both had the right to leave positive or negative feedback. But that was changed a few weeks before I got in trouble, and the reason, my best guess is (as eBay or PayPal aren’t allowed to tell you the reasons..) that I had too many bad reviews or ratings in a short time frame. Sure I was an eBay Power seller, but eBay at that time did not care, or was their system broke? I have no idea but they ended up limiting my account and ruining my business for a good month or two. I was able to get the account back after I had verified that the stuff I was selling was legit and after I sent numerous paper work to prove it.

So problem solved huh? Nope not at all. Since eBay closed my listings, some items were in transit and some were sold and not shipped yet. So what does eBay do for those buyers? They send them a message stating that the seller may have been fraudulent and they are investigating him. Wow thanks eBay right? So imagine what happened, I got even more negative ratings and feedback, some complained they never got their item when they paid, which at the time was true, but there was nothing I could do as PayPal froze my funds and said not to ship anything until the investigation was complete. So my eBay account was in horrible standing afterwards, and I could barely get a sale and ended up giving up after that, enraged at eBay.

As an entrepreneur at heart, I never admit failures, but rather look at them as opportunities to learn or to make something better out of it, and that’s truly what happened. I ended up reading about other ways to make money online, read tons of eBooks on various subjects such as internet marketing and blogging. Starting creating websites and products, and before I knew it I was making just as much, if not more than on eBay. Not to mention, it was much easier to do as I had no items to ship, and no customers to deal with! Now it was all just a matter of scaling up, learning more, and trying out different affiliate strategies to get traffic, whether it was paid or through organic searches.

How are you able to balance your coursework in college with Internet marketing?

This is definitely hard and I would be lying if I said anyone can do it. I do believe that anyone can learn internet marketing and make money online, but to attend college and do it at the same time? No definitely not easy to do and you can trust me on that. Being a full time college student and living there is hard to start with, but now add girls, partying, studying, more girls, homework, tests, more girls… alright I think you get it by now and see where I’m getting at.

But yeah, it definitely is hard to do, and I manage it somehow. I’m always in class multi tasking. I think that is the biggest difference from me and another student. I have my laptop whenever I got to class, and I’m always doing something on it, while listening to the instructor. Risky huh? It sure is but I’ve managed to listen and learn, while optimizing campaigns and reading up on new posts on blogs such as Ian’s! So take it from me, it can be done but its hard!

When you graduate, do you plan to get a job or pursue affiliate marketing full time?

I really don’t know about this one. I guess whatever happens, happens. I enjoy what I am doing now, so if I get job opportunities that are similar and I see that there’s a huge potential in it, I may as well bite. But to say that will happen anytime soon, would be a lie as I see myself being self employed and working from my own home/office for the next few years for sure.

What advice do you have for affiliate marketers in high school or college looking to make it big online?

Perseverance and determination is key in my opinion. I see lots of my friends wanting to do what I do, they start asking me what is best they do first and this and that. I’m a good friend so I tell them what to do and how to do it right. But after a few days of maybe losing money or not making what they hope, they give up and say its impossible and pointless. I think that’s the attitude of around 99% or so of everyone who tries to make money online and fails at it. So if you fail, look at what mistakes you made learn from them and try again. If it fails again, reconsider what you are doing and research a better niche or try something else. The opportunities are so vast, that if you give up it truly is no one but your fault.

What are your long term goals?

To make lots and lots of money. That and enjoy the internet lifestyle and all the good things that come with it. I really enjoy networking with people and learning about the successes and failures of others. It truly is the best way to further your understanding of how affiliate marketing really works and how to be successful. I also plan on expanding the niches I am currently in, develop a few authority sites, invest in more domains, create a few products to help people out, and who knows what else…

I also plan on moving out from Michigan as soon as I finish college or transfer. I hate the cold climates and would do anything to be able to live in a place like California, so you can definitely count on seeing me there in 2-3 years. Specifically a city such as San Francisco. I’ve heard lots of internet marketers are there and there are lots of things to do, both on the entertainment and business side.

What’s the future of Internet marketing?

The future is what we all make. Sure some say mobile and some say applications like on Facebook, but who really knows. There could be a shift in the mobile industry that changes it for good, maybe Facebook dies off, or maybe the internet and SEO changes? Most would say yeah sure, but if you look just a year or so ago, everyone was on Myspace and it was huge. Now in only a year, Facebook is bigger than Myspace and even bigger than Google in traffic. Would anyone have guessed this? So the future is really in our hands, and is truly what we make of it. With that, be the future and create something that will change it. I’m sure there is money to be made in that…

Check Out Dino Vedo’s Blog

Dino, awesome interview! Thanks so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, you’ve got some amazing stories, accomplishments, and true value to share with the online marketing community. PPC Ian readers, you’ll definitely want to check out Dino Vedo’s affiliate blog.

Images in this post © DinoVedo.com

PPC Ian’s 2011 Goals

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 2 19

Happy 2011! It feels like I was writing about my 2010 goals just yesterday. It’s truly amazing how quickly 2010 flew by. Looking back at my 2010 goals, I totally crushed them. Why? Two reasons: First and foremost I worked really hard. Second, I wrote them down. That’s right! I’m a huge proponent of writing your goals down. When you write them down, it’s a lot more likely they will come true. To that end, I have my biggest and most important goals written down on a small piece of paper that I carry around in my wallet everywhere I go. Moreover, I’m excited to write down my shorter term goals for 2011 in today’s blog post. I couldn’t be more excited and I’m wishing you a great and prosperous 2011!

Goal 1: Continue To Set Myself Up For Vice President of Marketing

Happy 2011

I wouldn’t be PPC Ian if I didn’t place my corporate online marketing career at the top of the list. After all, I’m the biggest advocate of the corporate online marketing career path around! I’m Director of Search Marketing at a large, public company, and I have my sights set even higher. 2010 was all about preparing myself for VP of online marketing. And, I did just that. 2011 marks more of the same, getting even closer to my goal of hitting the VP level. I couldn’t be more excited, the opportunity in the corporate online marketing world is unparalleled.

Goal 2: Grow My Affiliate Marketing Revenue By 5x

2010 was a great foundational year. I had the original goal of launching 6 websites, but I actually ended up launching about 80. It was truly crazy! Moreover, the original sites I launched in 2007 are firing on all cylinders. In short, I had a record year in terms of affiliate revenue. However, I’m setting my goals much higher for 2011 because I’ve figured out a system that works and have the history and foundation in place to make it happen. As such, I’m going for it: I want to 5x my affiliate marketing revenue (on a run-rate basis) by the end of 2011.

Goal 3: Focus On Fewer Websites

Goal 3 really ties into goal 2. 70% of my affiliate marketing revenue comes from my top website. If I want to scale my affiliate marketing revenue by 5x, I truly need to focus on my top websites because they offer leverage. In short, I want to focus on this top performing website and PPC Ian, spending no more than 10-20% of my affiliate marketing time (which is very low) on any other sites.

I’m writing this goal out because it’s going to be very difficult. I’m obsessed with domain names and have many in my portfolio with huge potential that are just waiting to be developed. I love developing new websites. However, this year it’s going to be all about focus in hitting my big goals. Also, I plan to rely on smart outsourcing to continue to develop my other websites with scale and efficiency.

Goal 4: Half Marathon, Here I Come

I really got into fitness and running in 2010. My wife and I consistently met with our personal trainer each and every week. Moreover, we consistently went to the gym and running. I’m in the best shape of my life. I even wrote on PPC Ian about how I ran the 5K San Carlos Fun Run. By the end of 2010, I built up to the 10K and ran two of them. 2011 is my year to run the half marathon and start building up to the full marathon. Running is so much fun: I come up with my best Internet marketing ideas while running.

Goal 5: Great Vacations With My Wife

It’s so easy to get caught up in the online marketing game. Between my amazing job and my affiliate marketing business, it’s easy to forget the big picture. Internet marketing is fun and addictive. In terms of keeping my eye on the big picture, I’m planning to take a multitude of great vacations with my amazing wife this year. The two at the top of our list include Hawaii and Las Vegas. We’ll probably end up going to Las Vegas multiple times. Fun times ahead!

So there you have it: My 2011 goals. I have them written down and now it’s time to start working towards them. What are your 2011 goals?

Image of 2011 Goals © nievesm

Exclusive Acquisio Interview With Marc Poirier

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 24 7

I’m a huge fan of Acquisio, one of the absolute best SEM Platforms around! I recently posted about Acquisio’s amazing Display Advertising eBook and highly recommend checking it out. Today, I couldn’t be more excited. I’m honored to interview Marc Poirier, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Acquisio! Without further ado, let’s jump into the interview!

Ian: Marc, thank you so much for interviewing with me. As someone who’s been following Acquisio for quite some time, I’m convinced this is going to become one of the most popular and exciting posts on PPC Ian! It’s a real honor!

Marc: The honor is all mine!

Ian: For my readers who are new to Acquisio, could you please give some background on what you guys do?

Marc: Acquisio is a performance media platform. Currently we provide more than 250 agencies with a complete solution to create, manage, automate, optimize, monitor and report on all of their clients’ campaigns across all search engines, saving them up to 90% of the time they spend on reporting to clients and preparing dashboards for themselves – it means going from 2 weeks per month on reporting to 1 or 2 days at the most. The other major benefit is the variety of automation tools available in the platform that lets Acquisio users automate campaign changes and boost performance results. Tools like the Optimizer, or the incredibly flexible rule-based system, and the easy to use and very powerful campaign automation algorithms, all of these can and do help our clients significantly improve campaign results while saving loads of time.

Ian: How about yourself? Co-founding a company as successful as Acquisio is quite inspiring. How did you get started in the SEM industry? When did you decide to start Acquisio?

More Than 300 Clients Leveraging Acquisio

Marc: I started in search a very long time ago, around 1997. I provided internet marketing services as a consultant to pay for University, but search was only a small part of my job as an internet marketer. In 2001-2002 I became obsessed with building websites that ranked well in search engines, did pretty well as an affiliate marketer, and in 2003 I founded Acquisio, which at the time was a pure search agency. As the business grew, our biggest pain by far became putting proper reports together for all of our clients, on time, every single month of the year. It paralyzed the entire company for 2 weeks at a time, which left our staff with very little time to do their jobs. We looked for solutions but at the time, all that was available on the market were bid management platforms, which we dabbled with, but they did not help us at all with the specific issues we had.

At some point in 2006 I knew we had an opportunity. We raised money, sold the agency business altogether, and took that money to hire the people we needed to get the first version of Acquisio in place. Originally it was basically a platform that provided our agency clients with a solution to consolidate their clients’ data from all search engines and to automate the entire client reporting process by leveraging gorgeous white label report templates. We launched officially in February 2008 and signed our first 2 clients who are still using Acquisio today. We have been quite aggressive at building out the feature set, and today we have more than 300 clients, about 250 of them are agencies.

Ian: That’s really great stuff! What an awesome story. I’m just about the biggest fan of SEM automation around. In fact, I can’t imagine living without it! What are some of Acquisio’s most popular features? How does the Acquisio SEM platform empower search engine marketers?

The Best Reporting Solution For Agencies, Period.

Marc: The most famous feature I think is the reporting automation system, it creates reports that look better than anything our clients have ever done before, and best of all, the reports are all prepared fully automatically, every day, every week, and every month, freeing up very important time their account managers can spend more time on campaign strategy and leverage to handle even more clients. We help agencies become profitable and scalable.

The KPI tracking is unique and provides highly useful insight. With its beautiful dashboard and incredible ease of use make it is a very popular tool.

The Only Real Rule-Based Campaign Automation

Of course all the campaign automation and bid management functionality is key and a huge reason for our success. I would argue we have the only real rule-based campaign automation in the industry. I have seen many black box systems that leave no room for the expert campaign manager to express their needs and have them automated. Ours is a business rule engine which we built ourselves and lets users create extremely sophisticated business rules based on absolutely any metric, meaning they can build rules to manage their cost per page view for example, or their cost per phone call. They can even use the rule engine to set the max CPC to any formula they can come up with. And for users who are reluctant to create their own rules, we implemented some pre-built rule templates they can use to optimize their max CPCs against hundreds of common business metrics, such as margins, cost per phone call, inventory levels, ROI, cost per conversion.

We also have fantastic campaign automation algorithms that help our clients campaigns reach their goals on any given performance metric.

Ian: Those are some true time saving and revenue generating features. What types of advertisers are best suited to leverage Acquisio? How about agencies? How about direct advertisers? What spend level makes the most sense?

An Ideal Platform For Agenices and Large Advertisers

Acquisio was designed for agencies – companies that have to manage multiple campaigns for multiple stakeholders across multiple accounts with different goals, budgets and strategies. Our advertiser clients are those larger companies who have these challenges as well. In my opinion, smaller advertisers are better off using a platform like Clickable, hiring an agency or doing things manually.

Ian: Sounds great. How about your pricing model? How does it work?

Marc: We take a small percentage of the ad spend on the media that is purchased through our platform – search, social and display. I definitely encourage all of your readers to check out our website. It’s loaded with valuable information including a page on pricing.

Ian: SEM automation is hot right now. It’s a dynamic and growing industry. What sets Acquisio ahead of the pack? What are some of the top reasons to go with Acquisio?

Marc: First off, our clients include some of the world’s largest and most recognized search agencies, as well as hundreds of smaller boutique agencies. In that specific segment, I think we win more business than all of our competitors combined, simply because of all of the work we have done to make their specific job as service providers easier.

Sample Acquisio Report (Click Image To Download Full Sample Report PDF)

So to answer your question, the most important difference is in the amount of time an agency will save using a platform that will completely automate all of their reporting for all of their clients. Imagine a typical situation where you have 6 or 7 account managers who spend the first 2 weeks of every month building reports. We cut that right down to 1 to 2 days at the most. That’s what we do for our clients. It’s very tangible. We make their business scalable, and most of all, much more profitable. Thanks to our platform, their account managers can easily double their capacity, which as far as I know is not at all the case for any other vendor out there. (Click here to download a sample Acquisio report.)

I think our competitors have mostly focused on managing bids to improve campaign performance, which I think they do quite well for the most part. We also do that very well, obviously. In fact, according to some of our clients who have used products made by the competition in the past, in many cases, the Acquisio rule system succeeded very well where others failed because it is so highly customizable and gives account managers so many more options.

Ian: I’m sold, those are some great reasons indeed! What’s in the pipeline? What are some of the next big things for Acquisio?

Cross-Chanel Tracking, Facebook, and Display Just Around The Corner

Marc: Cross-channel tracking and attribution and FB are in late Beta (I mean these things should be available to all of our clients in the coming weeks). Our display offering, which has been in the works for almost a year now, starts in January with a handful of clients. If all goes well, this should be available to all of our clients in Q1.

Ian: Those are some really exciting features. How about the industry? Where do you see the online marketing industry headed in the coming years? I couldn’t be more thrilled and am so happy I ended up in this exciting industry.

Marc: Search marketing as a discipline has transformed itself into performance marketing. As more and more channels follow search’s example and provide price discovery and biddable media, search marketers will add these weapons to their arsenal. Now we need to strive to understand the dynamics that exist between different channels and to learn how to build strategies that incorporate all media.

The Amount of Data Will Be Staggering

Also agencies and advertisers will need to start hiring data people – statisticians and mathematicians, database administrators, business analysts, people who have a knack for numbers and can make sense of the immense flow of data that is about to hit us all when we merge display, social, search, email and everything else into one platform. The amount of data available will be staggering, and so to help make sense of it all, platforms like Acquisio will be imperative for any serious agencies and advertisers managing so many online campaigns on so many different channels. Else, you will absolutely need to change your hiring practices and pick up a few less history majors and a few more PhDs in statistics.

Ian: Very cool. Marc, I’m betting a ton of PPC Ian readers are going to be interested in arranging an Acquisio demo. What’s the best way to contact you guys to learn more?

Contact Acquisio Today For A Live Demo

Marc: Of course, simply head over to our website, tell us a little about yourself, and we’ll book some time with you to answer all your questions and show you how the platform works with a live demo.

Ian: Marc it has been a true honor. What an exciting interview! I know this is going to be one of the top posts on PPC Ian. Thanks so much for everything. Any closing thoughts you’d like to leave PPC Ian readers with?

Marc: I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year filled with better data, deeper insights, improved margins and most of all, more free time to spend with your friends and families.

Ian: Thanks again Marc! PPC Ian readers, as you can tell, I’m a tremendous fan of Acquisio. It’s all about leverage: Getting more done with less, getting better results through platforms (as opposed to manual work). Leverage is where Acquisio shines! I highly recommend checking out this amazing search marketing platform today!

All Images In This Post © Acquisio
Sample PDF Report In This Post © Acquisio

Dot US Domain Spam Taking Over Yahoo

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 22 4

Let me start off by saying I’m a huge fan of dot us domains. Dot us is the ccTLD (country code top level domain) for the United States. It’s one of the few TLDs that does not allow private registration. The user needs to enter their full contact information for all to see who run a whois lookup. It’s really for that reason that I respect dot us so much. It’s a high quality TLD since there’s no way to hide!

Also, I’m a huge fan of dot us domains because they rank really well in Yahoo and Bing (Yahoo organic results are now powered by Bing). I’m not really sure why they rank so well, but I’ve got to think that the engineers behind the algorithm add logic that probably takes into account the fact that all dot us domains must contain valid publicly viewable whois information.

Recently, however, I have been seeing an unparalleled amount of spam in the Yahoo and Bing organic results, especially around product-focused dot us domain names. Below I’ll go through just one specific example. My takeaway: I’m still developing dot us domain names but am also treading with caution. The spam is getting bad enough that it could catch up with the TLD. I’m betting once Yahoo and Bing take notice, they’re going to take action. Now, I’m hoping they just address the violating sites, but it’s also possible they slap the entire TLD. We shall see…

Dot US Domains Are Dominating The Results

So, who am I competing against in the narrow dishwasher vertical on Yahoo and Bing? Is it the dishwasher companies themselves such as Avanti and Whirpool? No. Is it the big shopping engines such as NexTag and Shopping.com? No. Is it authority retail websites like Amazon.com? No. Surprisingly, I’m competing against a ton of strange dot us domain names that appear to be spamming the Yahoo and Bing search results. Check out the screenshot below and visit a few of those dot us websites. Most of them look the same. They are old school looking websites that include a bunch of AdSense ads and Amazon product feeds. As I navigate around, it’s impossible to find a privacy policy, terms and conditions, or even a contact us.

The really interesting part: A lot of these dot us domains aren’t even that good (they’re not expensive exact match domain names and don’t really have any resell value). It’s not really the root domain that’s doing the ranking. It’s the combination of using smart subdomains with the root domain that’s building keyword-rich domains which end up ranking for important keywords. I’ve been seeing these types of dot us domains across most of the product verticals in which I’m competing.

I’m Still Investing In Dot US Domain Names

I’m fascinated with this stuff! At the end of the day, I’m a huge fan of dot us domain names. I continue to buy and build dot us domains, especially in the financial services vertical. At the same time, I do wonder what will happen when Yahoo and Bing recognize the depths of the dot us domains taking over their search results. While I’m hoping they will just penalize these domain names, it could affect the entire TLD.

Image of US Flag © iStockPhoto – MistikaS

Three Easy and Practical SEO Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 20 11

I have been working closely with my friend, and domain industry guru, Morgan Linton from Linton Investments to develop custom niche websites across many services and finance oriented verticals. In fact, Morgan has developed over 25 websites for me so far this year and I couldn’t be happier with the results!

I’m on a roll with my niche websites because of the leverage I’m achieving through smart partnerships, and will soon have over 100 active sites. As I keep developing more and more sites, I have been learning some really great SEO strategies. Today, I’d like to share just three of these SEO tips with you to help you take your own niche sites to the next level!

SEO Tip 1: Exact Match Domains Offer SEO Advantages

SEO Tips

As someone with a portfolio of nearly 200 domain names, I’m a huge proponent of exact match domains especially with the dot com and dot net TLDs. It’s simple: If you have the exact match domain name, search engines will give your domain priority. Sure, you still have to work super hard in building out a great site, optimizing on-page SEO, and building quality inbound links (off-page SEO). However, we’re all looking for advantages over fierce competition these days and the exact match domain gives you that secret advantage! At this time, I’m really only building out exact match domains. Most of them are non-hyphenated domains, but from time to time I’ll go after hyphenated dot com domains such as Cheap-Desk.com.

Now, even if search engines change their algorithm and give no advantage to exact match domains (not likely in my opinion), I’m here to say that exact match domains have another benefit: They attract amazing anchor text associated with inbound links! Just think about it: When someone links to my site PetiteJacket.net, what anchor text are they likely to use? You guessed it, Petite Jacket.

SEO Tip 2: Leverage Smart Anchor Text With Internal Links

Over the years, I’ve gotten very far with my on-page SEO strategy. You’d be surprised: Smart on-page SEO and especially internal link structure can get you amazing results in search engines. As I built out my niche sites, I’ve made it a point of using great internal linking to show search engines which terms are most important to my site. As a simple example, my article about buying a motorbike jacket links back to the homepage of my site with anchor text Motorbike Jacket.

Even on the very homepage of this site, I link back to the homepage (in the top blurb) with the same anchor text. Now, you don’t want to go crazy, but a few smart internal links with appropriate anchor text can get you very far. Another tip: Never link back to your homepage with the anchor text "Home". Instead, use the name of your site. Of course, if you are leveraging an exact match domain name, the name of your site will be a highly desired term (this is why the exact match domain strategy makes so much sense).

SEO Tip 3: Create Tumblr, Live Journal, and Yola Accounts

While my first two tips are all about on-page SEO strategies, my final tip for today is an off-page one. All sites require inbound links to get recognized by search engines. It’s rare these days that you’ll rank well without at least a few inbound links (although this can happen with the right exact match domain name). However, it also doesn’t take all that much to start ranking a strong domain name. Recently, I have been having a ton of success with Tumblr, 350.com, Live Journal, and Yola. These are all great platforms that allow you to create accounts which can add great value to the user while linking back to your niche site. Just remember to post good stuff on your social media accounts, they’re an extension of your brand. So, there you have it: Three simple SEO tips that provide great leverage with minimal work!

Image of SEO Tips © iStockPhoto – Warchi

PPC Ian’s Internet Marketing Money Map

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 4 11

I’m super excited about today’s post, it’s an epic post in my opinion! I’m going to share with you my personal PPC Ian Money Map. That’s right – This is my personal one page map/plan for getting rich! It’s a map that I study and refer to daily to keep stay on track. Money is always on my mind, period. I wrote this out by hand because writing is power and will ensure my dreams come true.

If you’re in the Internet marketing industry like myself, you know how easy it is to get caught up in the day-to-day. Today’s all about taking a step back and planning for the long term. (By long term I mean 10-15 years out, I’m planning on retiring young and wealthy after all!) I couldn’t be more confident in my plan. It exploits the velocity of money, multiple revenue streams, diversification, passive income, earned income, equity in private and public securities, and so much more more. In fact, it would take thousands of words to fully explain this in a post so I thought that sharing the actual map would be so much easier (and more informative).

This plan is the culmination of years of studying money and is largely inspired by one of my favorite authors, Robert Kiyosaki. Please click here to download PPC Ian’s Money Map or simply click the preview image to the right!

For the remainder of this post, I will highlight some of my major points, but again highly encourage just downloading the free map because my words will not do it justice. I sincerely hope this helps in your own quest towards financial freedom.

Realization 1: Internet Marketing Is Not Pure Passive Income

Despite much hype but top pundits online, I have arrived at the conclusion that web publishing and Internet marketing are not pure sources of passive income. In my opinion, they are a hybrid between an investment (passive income) and a small business. I like to think this is the case, with the investment side really coming out strong in the long run (and with the small business aspect diminishing more and more in the long run). I’m starting to see this happen in my personal domain portfolio.

As a result of this realization, one of my big goals in 2011 is extracting half of my Internet affiliate marketing profits and flowing them into truly passive dividend paying stocks. This has been something I’ve struggled with so far as I have been reinvesting all profits from my Internet marketing business (and then some) back into my affiliate marketing business. Why? I’m obsessed with affiliate marketing and it has been growing rapidly. However, I need to remind myself that this stuff is not bulletproof and that it’s not truly passive.

Affiliate marketing has been a huge help in terms of diversifying my income streams and drives more revenue than my true investment activities at this point in my financial lifecycle. Moreover, I wouldn’t be where I am today in the corporate world without affiliate marketing, the education and learnings have been unreal. All things being equal, however, I’d prefer to have that same money coming from dividend paying stocks versus websites since that provides more freedom, stability, and ultimately time in the long run.

Realization 2: Earned Income Accelerates Passive Income

You hear everyone talking these days about passive income. You hear a lot of hype and there are so many people chasing the dream. Unfortunately, there also exists a lot of misinformation. The first source of misinformation is that Internet marketing is passive income. As explained in the last point, this is not fully the case in my opinion (at least in the short run). The other misnomer is that passive income is really easy and that anyone can do it quickly. I’m here to say that given the unprecedented number of people chasing the passive dream, earned income is easier these days for those with the right talent and skill. With so many people focused on passive, there exists an unprecedented number of earned income opportunities in the field of Internet marketing for those who are highly intelligent and willing to work hard. Is earned income easy? Absolutely not! It’s super hard! However if you want to have true passive income that matches your salary, it’s not nearly as easy as all the hype indicates.

If you’re an A player, my advice is to go for earned income as part of your overall money strategy. You will be able to learn so much from other people, learn invaluable leadership and people management skills, and accelerate your small business/affiliate marketing revenue and investment income. Moreover, you will have access to stock options and 401Ks, two fundamentally critical components of my investment strategy that would not be possible without a job. After all, I made it big in online marketing because of stock options in private companies that had major liquidity events.

Realization 3: Compound Interest Is Extremely Powerful

In crafting your own money plan, I highly encourage you to identify opportunities for compound interest. I have compound interest working in my favor in all areas of my money map. First, I consistently devote the majority of my time and hard work to my job. This has compounded tremendously over the years: I went from Associate of Search marketing to Director of Search Marketing in only five years.

In terms of my affiliate marketing endeavors, I have allowed the earnings to compound. I have spent all of my earnings this year building more sites (via outsourced projects that I have project managed). I now have about 80 active online businesses. Now, as mentioned before, I do plan to scale back and start funneling some of my profits into "real" passive investments in 2011.

Last, my investments are compounding by reinvesting dividends, investing in companies that grow dividends consistently, and also via equity appreciation (although I don’t care about equity as much since I’m in this game for cash flow). It’s really the compounding happening in my investment activities that will truly make me financially free in the 10-15 year timeframe and that’s why investing is going to be one of my top focuses in 2011.

Thanks again for reading and make sure to download PPC Ian’s Money Map!

Money Map image and PDF in this post © PPCIan.com

Kenshoo Interview (Part 3 of 3)

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 28 8

Hey Everyone,
Welcome to part three of my exclusive interview with Chad Baldwin, VP of Sales at Kenshoo, one of the best SEM platforms around! If you haven’t checked out part one or part two yet, I highly recommend doing so! Personally, these are some of my all time favorite posts on PPC Ian! Without further ado, I’m thrilled to continue this amazing interview with part three!

Ian: Chad, At this point, I’d like to transition to a few high level questions about the industry. First, I’d be curious about your perspective on the SEM industry. Where do you see us heading in the next several years?

Search Is The Operating System For The Information Age

Chad: Search continues to be the operating system for the information age. Understanding what someone wants is the cornerstone of all marketing. This is why Search is the anchor. I think that our definition is too limited today – basically, we characterize SEM as ads that are displayed after consumers type in a search box on Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

Search and intent-based marketing are becoming omnipresent though – re-targeting and cookie-exchanges mean that search intent data will follow the user around and be used to make ads more relevant. My hope is that this mechanism becomes more transparent to the user so that the value there can be more easily controlled.

Facebook and The Wisdom of Crowds

I think an interesting question is who defines what is relevant. Google has played a dominant role in this through advanced algorithms and the evolution of hypertext and semantic analysis. What Facebook is enabling with the like button actually paints quite a different story. Facebook is helping to re-organize the web based on a different principle – the wisdom of the crowds. A basic thumbs-up or thumbs-down. People are organizing the web for themselves. This is a very powerful idea. Put a social search engine on top of Facebook and you’ll start to see things get very interesting.

Ian: Chad, that’s really interesting stuff. Facebook is definitely a really hot topic right now. What is Kenshoo’s perspective on Facebook Ads?

Chad: I commented on this a little before, but our feeling is that the Social Web is here to stay. We’re very bullish on the opportunity here and already have a number of clients using Kenshoo Social to make money on Facebook ads. The targeting and creative capabilities will be unparalleled. There is lots to do here yet to make the ad platform sing, but Facebook is on a mission and we look forward helping drive their continued success.

Ian: Chad, at this point I must say I’m thoroughly impressed! I’d like to open it up and see if there’s anything else you’d like to share with PPC Ian readers?

A Question For Me: Direct Response Vs. Branding Campaigns

Chad: As a strategic thinker, Ian, with a good network of readers, I’d like to pose a question for the next round. With Kenshoo’s drive into multi-channel attribution, social (Facebook) and display, we’re seeing some very interesting evolution in terms of how marketers think about Direct Response campaigns vs. Brand Campaigns. I have been in a number of conversations predicting the full convergence of the two traditionally separate sets of objectives and tactics. What are your thoughts on this?

Ian: Chad, that is an awesome question and will definitely become the topic of an upcoming PPC Ian post! Chad, thanks so much for everything, this has been a true honor. I’m seriously impressed with Kenshoo and appreciate the interview! I know everyone reading PPC Ian will really enjoy it!

Chad: Thanks Ian. Appreciate the time to share some of what makes Kenshoo so special.

Evaluate Kenshoo For Your SEM Team Today

Ian: PPC Ian readers, regardless of your current situation (already own a platform vs. actively looking vs. more of a manual team), I highly encourage you to check out Kenshoo. As you probably know by now, I’m a huge fan. You’ll be amazed at what you see! If you’re interested in arranging a demo, you’ll want to reach out to the Kenshoo team via their website or by emailing info@kenshoo.com. Thanks so much for reading and if there’s any way in which I can help in your SEM automation decision making process, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly. Last but not least, please make sure to check out part one and part two of my interview with Kenshoo’s Chad Baldwin.

Kenshoo Interview (Part 2 of 3)

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 27 2

Hey Everyone,
Today, I’m thrilled to continue with part two of my exclusive Kenshoo interview with Chad Baldwin, VP of Sales. If you haven’t read Part One of the Kenshoo Interview With Chad Baldwin, I recommend checking that out first! Also, stay tuned, part three will be coming very soon! Update: Kenshoo Interview Part 3 of 3 is now live!

Ian: It’s really amazing how far the industry has come. Just a few years ago, SEM platforms did not exist. Now, I can confidently say that I’m more of a buy vs. build guy. In short, it’s a competitive market with a variety of great tools. What sets Kenshoo apart? Where does Kenshoo outshine the competition?

Chad: As in all healthy maturing markets, SEM is becoming verticalized and the first thing that any company needs to do is to understand their own needs and then look at solutions. There are the basics that everyone needs to do well. Reporting, campaign management, engine features – we have done the essentials really well. In Kenshoo, everything structured around natural workflows and intuitive design.

Kenshoo Accelerates From The Pack With Advanced Vertically-Targeted Features

Kenshoo really accelerates from the rest of the pack with more advanced features for targeted verticals. Sophisticated B2B, Finance and lead-focused companies love that our bid algorithm can work off direct CRM integration and decision based on lead-stage and downstream LTV. Multi-channel retailers appreciate our depth and breadth in inventory integration and strength in both national and local programs. Agency partners are driving us towards extensive cross-channel attribution capabilities and sophisticated modeling.

Having been in a number of leading companies in my career, I appreciate more and more that software is a marathon. A feature list is a snapshot in time, but it is the long race and the many legs throughout it that matter most. When I reflect on how we outshine the competition and what sets us apart, it’s easy to talk about some of the capabilities I’ve outlined above and say, "Wow, we rock in X, Y & Z…"

Kenshoo Hires The Best Minds and Most Passionate People In The Business

I think that the most important thing about Kenshoo is that we hire the best minds and most passionate people in the business. We have world class athletes that want to solve tomorrow’s problems. It is the character, passion and forward momentum of each employee in Kenshoo that sets us apart…for now and for the marathon. I am very proud to work within a company of such dedication and talent.

Ian: Chad, that’s great to hear! I’m an engineer and love companies with an engineering and analytical background. Could you talk a bit about Kenshoo’s team and your corporate culture.

Chad: Our strength is our people and our culture. The management team spends a lot of time thinking about this. Firstly, character flows from the top down. Meet Yoav, Alon, Nir. These guys are tremendous – each in his own right. They inspire a culture of respect, passion, collaboration, open and direct communication, stretching and questioning.

We’ve been fortunate to work with some wonderful companies like Zappos and Facebook and have learned much from the driving energy that is within culture. Below are a few observations and sayings I’ve heard repeated often within Kenshoo:

We love what we do and enjoy our customers. Kenshoo brings real meaning to the term "partner". We believe in our customers and dedicate ourselves to making them win. The level of our commitment around customer success is highly unique.
We want people to be themselves and share their talent. Kenshoo is not a place where you have to put on a different "face" when you get to work. There is much appreciation for the unique talent of an individual and we want that fostered. Be the best you and that is best for Kenshoo and our clients.
Face forward! Go tackle it. Whenever there is some challenge or issue in front of us, I always hear words that Yoav spoke to me the first week that I joined.
We support each other. We win or lose together. We hope to win … and we only lose if we’re not learning. There is a lot of respect inside of Kenshoo.
Creativity is simplicity.

You can probably tell that I am quite a fan of the family that is Kenshoo. We doubled in size last year and my deepest goal is to continue hiring the highest caliber of people around.

Ian: Sounds like a truly great place to work! By any chance are you hiring right now? If so, which positions are in the highest demand?

Kenshoo Is Hiring Aggressively – Submit Your Resume Today

Chad: We are certainly hiring – in all departments and in most every office. San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, London, Tel Aviv, Sydney, more. Postings are listed on our website and more to be posted soon. I think that every manager here feels that his/her open positions are the highest in demand.

Ian: That’s awesome! Readers, if you’d like to apply for a position at Kenshoo, please check out their website or simply send your cover letter and resume to jobs@ppcian.com and I’ll be happy to forward directly to Chad. I know Kenshoo is a true international company. Could you talk a bit about your global perspective. In which countries does Kenshoo have offices?

A Truly Global Search Engine Marketing Platform

Chad: We are a truly international company. We have primary offices in Tel-Aviv, San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, London, Sydney and satellite offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong. We are excited to open new offices in Europe later this summer. We have taken this approach to both ensure that we are close to our regional customers and can as well provide unparalleled global support to our multi-national clients.

Our product is also truly global. We support all major languages. We integrated with the major search engines in every country including Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia. Our system supports double-byte characters and all foreign currencies.

Ian: Now, I’ve got a hard question for you! With any SEM platform comes a fee. How do you structure your fees at Kenshoo? How do you compare to the competition? Any advice for folks looking at your platform and trying to rationalize the cost?

Chad: Our license is typically based on a percentage of media spend. The higher the media spend, the lower the percentage tier. We are a well-established leader and our pricing structure is competitive in the marketplace.

Kenshoo Has To Pay For Itself

In terms of pricing and cost justification, we work with customers to make sure that Kenshoo makes sense. We have to pay for ourselves, drive incremental revenue and lower operational costs. In the end, it all comes down to numbers and we have a great track record of driving results.

Ian: All of that makes complete sense. In my experience, great SEM tools can pay for themselves in a matter of months (or even sooner)! The cost savings and growth opportunities are astounding. Couple that with the fact that you’re creating a more robust infrastructure and you have a win-win situation. Chad, I’m sure you have an amazing list of clients these days. Could you discuss some of the industries that Kenshoo represents? Are you pretty well balanced or do you cater to some verticals more than others?

Chad: I am excited to say that Kenshoo is big enough at this point that we actually mirror the shape of the entire industry. I spent years as a product manager in SEM studying this market. It’s a real achievement to have earned such a nice blend of clients. Mirroring the industry, our top three verticals are retail (6 of the top 10 US retailers use Kenshoo), travel and financial services. We see growth in manufacturing, B2B and Education. We as well mirror how the industry is broken out between in-house management and agencies. At this point, we map to the industry breakdown in the US, EMEA driving results.

Ian: Kenshoo offers an interesting business model. You empower search marketers with an amazing platform while providing stellar service. Could you talk a bit about your account management team? How do they interact with clients on a day-to-day basis?

Chad: I think back to my earlier statement that our primary goal is to make a customer successful. We hire really talented and driven people. Our average number of years of experience in SEM is over 3 years. The Kenshoo platform provides tremendous power, focus and flexibility to a program… BUT you still need to know how to fly the plane. Just to be clear for the readers. Kenshoo is not an ad agency, but a focused technology provider. Our account management team ensures that the system is being used to its maximum potential to drive program goals.

Ian: Chad, amazing stuff! What an awesome interview! PPC Ian readers, if you haven’t checked out part one of my interview with Chad Baldwin, I highly recommend it! Also, please stay tuned – part three will be posted shortly! Update: Kenshoo Interview Part 3 of 3 is now live!

PPC Ian Hanging Out With Chad (2nd From Left) and the Kenshoo Team at SMX Advanced Seattle 2010

Kenshoo Team

Kenshoo Interview: Chad Baldwin VP of Sales

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 26 4

Hello PPC Ian readers,
Today is a tremendously exciting day! Following is one of the best posts on PPC Ian, in my opinion. I’m honored to interview Chad Baldwin, Vice President of Sales at Kenshoo. What is Kenshoo, you ask? It’s one of the leading search engine marketing platforms around. You may remember from my post about SEM automation and my video about pay per click technology build versus buy that I’m a huge fan of search marketing platforms. It makes perfect sense, I’m a Stanford CS grad after all. Moreover, it’s systems like these that have fueled the growth of my past companies, leading to amazing success! I’m going to tell you right out the gate that Kenshoo is one of my all time favorite technology platforms out there. If you’re in the market for an SEM platform (or even if you already own one), it’s imperative that you consider Kenshoo very seriously!

The team and story behind this company are amazing and the company has been growing at an unparalleled pace. Over the years, I have been very fortunate to build a personal bond with the team over at Kenshoo. Without further ado, let’s jump into this exciting interview! Today’s interview is part one of three, I’ll be posting parts two and three over the coming days! Update: Kenshoo Interview Part 2 of 3 and Kenshoo Interview Part 3 of 3 are now live!

Welcome, Chad Baldwin, VP of Sales at Kenshoo

Ian: Chad, thank you so much for doing the interview! It’s a true honor and I know this will become one of the most interesting posts on PPC Ian!

Chad: I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

Ian: Let’s first start with your personal background. How did you get started in this industry? When did you join Kenshoo?

Kenshoo Team - San Francisco Office

Chad: I started at J. Walter Thompson after college as the third employee of JWT Digital. I was into the Internet early and was lit about it. There I was an account exec, a producer, a coder, a designer – whatever needed to be done to get a site and an ad campaigns out. I launched some big sites and at one point owned California’s division of tourism which made the top 10 sites in the country. Pretty fun and dynamic.

After JWT, I decided to go to a direct marketing firm (Miller/Kadanoff) for a few years and learn about driving leads and direct sales on the internet. There I worked with Cisco, Netscape and Oracle and learned the value of databases, segmentation, targeting and leads.

Later, I joined Buzzsaw.com, an online project management start-up to lead the development of their website. Buzzsaw was acquired by Autodesk and I was drafted into the role of Product Manager. I loved analyzing needs and developing solutions with Engineers. I spent 5 years in product management in that early SaaS business.

Google Is The Operating System For The Free World

I was always attracted back to my roots in advertising and was fascinated by Google and Search. I remember thinking… Google is the operating system for the free world. I’ve got to figure out how to tap into the potential. I came up with a business plan to create an optimization system… and then went to Coremetrics to see if they were thinking of building out this area. I spent over two years there with a tiger team building Coremetrics Search. It was a great experience and got me steeped in multi-channel attribution and a deep understanding of online retail.

Kenshoo’s First US Employee

I was a 120% fan of search and was beginning to see a bigger picture where advertising and merchandising would become one. I thought to start a company focused on media-mix modeling against multi-channel attribution data. I was getting things together when Kenshoo, an Israeli start-up funded by Sequoia Capital, reached out to me and I got to meet Yoav Izhar the CEO. Yoav is quite a charismatic individual. Someone I could follow up a hill. I joined as the first employee in the US to build out the business here. Evolved to become head of North American sales. We started with one client and have grown dramatically since.

Ian: That is a really amazing story. As a career-minded individual within the SEM space, your personal career is one that I have been following closely! In short, I’m inspired. Now, let’s talk about Kenshoo! For those new to your platform, could you please give a little background? How did Kenshoo get started?

Chad: Kenshoo was founded by two engineers in Israel – Alon Sheafer and Nir Cohen. Alon is visionary and an artist. He has an eye for elegant design and a strong desire to know about all pieces behind something and how to improve it. Nir is a brilliant engineer – quite someone to meet and know. He’s totally Zen about his craft with a keen ability to understand many points of view and synthesize a direction. Once a problem is studied, he is discerning; an execution machine.

Alon and Nir first started working together to create a new type of Comparison Shopping Engine called Bazman. They built this tremendous crawling technology to scrape website content. They became practiced in the art of SEM – driving traffic to their site and generating revenue as an affiliate.

Dynamic Ads, AdGroups, and Keywords

After trying many technologies for SEM, they decided to build their own. This new system dynamically created ads, adgroups and keywords based upon a single SKU pulled from a website and could automatically deep-link the ad back to the page the content came from.

While working on their start-up, they met Yoav Izhar, an experienced entrepreneur and tremendous leader. Yoav assessed the technology, partnered with Alon and Nir and started building the business.

As Kenshoo grew, the opportunity to become a unique SEM provider became clearer and clearer. After putting up a lot of their own money to boot-strap the technology, they went to Arts Alliance and Sequoia Capital to accelerate the growth of the company. The rest is still being written.

Ian: Chad, that’s a truly impressive history. What are some of the main features and selling points of Kenshoo? Where does the platform really shine?

Kenshoo Drives Incremental Revenue

Chad: Kenshoo is awesome software. It’s built by search marketing engineers and the most robust system on the market today. There are many features in the software, but before diving into the detail, I think that the first measure of a system’s value is how much incremental revenue it can help a company drive.

There are many "dials" to refine a search program and we have a stellar track record of driving incremental volume and hitting efficiency targets. A few focal areas that are driving tremendous results for our clients:

Realtime Campaigns – In retail, travel and other long-tail businesses, Kenshoo is helping to automatically build out the tail by tying into backend merchandising and inventory systems to dynamically create campaigns. This drives higher relevancy, stronger coordination, and higher conversion rates. We’ve also seen time savings of up to 80%. This is a foundational aspect of Kenshoo’s software and helping to facilitate complete integration of merchandising and advertising.

Massive Campaign Management – We have focused on how to easily manage larger and larger programs. Customers tell us that they really love Advanced Search – a way to find any aspect of a campaign based on any criteria and do anything to it.

Bid Algorithm – The sophistication of our math is constantly growing. We have a team of PhDs and, with every release, the algorithm becomes more sophisticated and nimble. We have filed a number of patents and believe that our newest seasonality work is unparalleled.

Data Scoring & Reprocessing – This past year we have delved heavily into processing downstream and offline data. Financial Services customers and lead-focused B2B companies have helped us uncover more sophisticated ways of measuring value along the conversion lifecycle. We integrated with a number of data firms to make this easier for clients.

Ian: What are some of the newest and most exciting Kenshoo features? What’s been added in the last year?

Chad: There’s a lot that has moved forward with Kenshoo in the last year. I would say that I’m excited about four main areas:

Local – Kenshoo has been blazing a new trail in how search can be optimized on the local level. I think that what this team is doing now is a guide to what will be standard practice in years to come. How can the word "Porsche" be worth the same about of money in rural Michigan as it is in San Francisco? I think we will know in the next few years that location-location-location is also critical in search. The future of well-run search programs is more and more granular campaigns with robust mass management and optimization. I’m excited to see the next generation of innovation coming out of the Local team at Kenshoo.

Facebook Is Becoming The Operating System For A Personalized Web

Facebook – I’m really excited about our Kenshoo Social product. We are pushing lots of investment into this area and are very bullish on opportunities with Facebook. Facebook is becoming the operating system for a personalized web and going to create an environment with the most targeted advertisements around.

Kenshoo Universal Channel – Kenshoo now can manage multi-channel attribution data. We developed and launched a really elegant system that allows us to capture the click and cost data together. We’ve developed an open XML format for attribution data and are excited to bring this idea of open standards to the marketing optimization market.

Kenshoo is Blazing Trails With Its Forthcoming Desktop Editor

Kenshoo Desktop Editor – We are taking the most robust technology in the market and we’re also making it the easiest. With our new Desktop Editor, any Search Marketer can start day one and know how to fly the plane. Our editor scales to over 20x what Adwords Editor can do in volume and works across Google, Yahoo! and MSN. It’s in Beta now. So watch out world… it’s coming soon.

Ian: You probably know where the next question is going… What’s in Kenshoo’s future? Where are you guys heading? Any new features on the roadmap that you can discuss?

Chad: I wish I could talk about our futures as we have lots of exciting stuff in the pipeline, but working on a team comprised of many former members of the Israeli Defense Force, I’ve learned that keeping our plans close to the chest is part of competitive advantage.

We have much in store for the market. Kenshoo has established its leadership position in search and we are now looking to expand our footprint and bring additional value to our channels. We are undergirding our entire platform to understand customer value within a multi-channel environment – and to be able to optimize. You will see more expansion with Local and Facebook. You’ll also see a few surprises from us in the near future. Innovation (and late nights) is in our genes.

Ian: Wow! Chad, I can’t thank you enough. This is truly amazing stuff! Everyone, this is part one of a three part interview. Stay tuned, parts two and three will be posted in the coming days! Update: Kenshoo Interview Part 2 of 3 and Kenshoo Interview Part 3 of 3 are now live! Make sure to check it out! Don’t forget to check out Kenshoo. Also, if you’re interested in a job at Kenshoo, they are hiring aggressively. Please don’t hesitate to email me your resume and cover letter and jobs@ppcian.com and I’ll forward over to Chad directly.

My eBay Partner Network Earnings Rock

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 21 21

Hey everyone! As you may have noticed, I have been updating PPC Ian a little less frequently lately. It’s not that I’ve been slacking off, it’s just that I’ve been super busy. As you may remember from my 2010 goals, I set the goal to develop six new websites this year. Well, I’m actually on pace now to develop 75 plus. The best part of it? All 75 plus sites are amazing and deliver substantial value to the Internet. How is this possible? Stay tuned, I will be writing a post all about this in the coming months!

PPC Ian still remains a priority and I’m hoping to boost my post frequency going forward now that things are cooling down a bit. I’m particularly excited about today’s post about my October and November eBay Partner Network (EPN) earnings. You may recall that I posted about my Volatile eBay Partner Network Earnings not that long ago, back in early October. Well, the volatility continues, but this time in my favor!

My eBay Partner Network Earnings Skyrocket

It’s really funny! Just as I posted about my volatile EPN earnings in early October, things really started looking up. October was a strong month (compared to prior months) and I ended up earning $500.46. The crazy part of this is the earnings all came in during the first few weeks of October and then started tapering off like crazy. By the end of October, I was only earning a few bucks per day. So, the volatility was still there, it was just working in my favor a bit more. Want to see my earnings in October? Check out the first graph at the end of this post!

November has been even better than October. I’ve pulled in a solid $846.59 so far this month! While the month is not over, I do see my earnings tapering off just like October. Check out the second graph below, the month started really strong and then started getting weaker over time. The click volume has been somewhat consistent, and it’s really my EPC (earnings per click) that has been dropping over time. I’m definitely happy with my results in November and am hoping to break through the $1,000 mark, but definitely could be a challenge if I get back to that few bucks per day level. Again, make sure to check out the second graph at the end of this post to see a detailed view of my earnings.

eBay Partner Network Takeaways

My excitement for the eBay Partner Network is really taking off and I’d like to close out today with a few of my takeaways from this case study:

People love posts about earnings! My last post about my Volatile eBay Earnings got 14 comments and was even featured on the ever popular blog Make Money On The Internet by Chris Guthrie, one of my favorite blogs!
Don’t give up on eBay. When I wrote my last post about my volatile eBay earnings, I was definitely de-motivated with my earnings trends on eBay. While the volatility is still there, I’m now making some good money from it! These last few months tell me that it’s all about the long term and that seemingly permanent trends can and will change!
It’s all about profit and not revenue. The numbers shared in this post are pure margin. The sites on which I run the eBay Partner Network get all of their traffic organically (read: no PPC). That’s a bit ironic on blog called PPC Ian, but I’ll be the first guy to tell you that PPC does not make sense in all business cases. The sites on which I run EPN are information sites. I have found the slow passive income SEO strategy ideal for these types of sites. The net effect: I’m able to pocket all of my EPN earnings! This looks even sweeter when you combine this passive income strategy with a full time job. It looks even sweeter still when you factor in passive income from Google AdSense, Commission Junction, ClickBank, and other affiliate programs. I’m going to be writing a post very soon about my overall passive income strategy and how I plan to retire rich from leveraging multiple income streams.
eBay Still Pays On Conversions. About a year ago, eBay moved to their new Quality Click Pricing model where they smooth out commissions and pay on clicks (and not conversions). However, based on my experience, eBay is still paying on conversions, they’re just smoothing it out over clicks a bit more than in the past. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s just something to be aware of. When you drive conversions, you will see a spike in earnings like me. I’m hoping with the holiday shopping season approaching that my EPN earnings skyrocket as more people convert!

There you have it! If you have been observing lower earnings on eBay Partner Network, I encourage you to hang in there like me. Don’t forget to check out the graphs of my October and November (month to date) earnings below…

My October and November (MTD) eBay Partner Network Earnings

PPC Ian eBay Partner Network Earnings October 2010

PPC Ian eBay Partner Network Earnings November 2010