[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Giveaway ends in 14 days!
We haven’t mentioned it in a while but here’s a reminder…
If you’re planning to be in Bangkok for Affiliate World Asia, we have a cool giveaway for you.
Here’s what is up for grabs.
A quiet dinner at a high-end restaurant with Kelly Sheffield, Andrew Payne, Paul Jeyapal, Depesh Mandalia and Van Oakes. The reservation has already been made, it’s on us of course!
That’s not all – the winner also gets
- An AWA 2018 ticket
- 3 months of AdPlexity for free
- 3 months of ThriveTracker with 66% off
- 2 invitations to Affiliate Business Club’s event in Bangkok
All you have to do is enter here.
And if you entered already, don’t forget you can earn 25 more entries per referral!
Google really doesn’t want to pay a $5bil fine
Alphabet challenged a record 4.34-billion EUR ($5 billion) fine imposed by European Union antitrust regulators three months ago.
According to the European Commission, the reason for the fine is that Google had abused its market dominance since 2011.
Google forced manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and its Chrome browser together with its Google Play app store on their Android devices.
The EU antitrust authorities said the company also paid manufacturers to block the installation of rival Android systems.
The complex case could take several years before judges rule on it, so we will update you in 2023.
But Google does want to launch a censored search engine in China
The codename for it is Project Dragonfly.
It’s meant to be Google’s step back into China, following all the Government censorship laws.
Google is in a somewhat bizarre situation, at least we think. They say they want to not do evil, yet are OK with putting their name and technology next to probably the most comprehensive censorship list in the world.
Internally, it seems they want to paint themselves as “the lesser evil” and as part of their plan to be ready when the so-called opening happens.
Ben Gomes, Google’s search engine chief, said “We have to be focused on what we want to enable. And then when the opening happens we are ready for it.”
At least it’s an easy decision when it comes to the company’s bottom line – being able to serve ads in China will bring some nice padding to Alphabet’s pockets.
And to show that Google is not against any and all kind of censorship, have a look at…
The Good Censor – Leaked Internal Briefing from Google
The name already will cause many “WTF?!” reactions. What most will be thinking is “How can censorship be good?”
And you’re right – that’s what the presentation is about. How do you balance two incompatible positions? How do you balance free-speech and restrict the spread of malicious content from bad actors? Where do you draw the line?
We clearly don’t have the answer so we’re not even going to try.
For Google, it’s actually mandatory to find an answer. And here’s the full presentation where they present research on the topic.
It’s 85 slides so you might wanna buckle up before you go through them.
They go from the ideal case of a completely open Internet to the reality of today, that only 25% of the users live in countries where the Internet is free from censorship. And even that does not mean there are no rules.
This situation in which companies are forced to censor but also criticised for doing so is also why there’s such a mess when it comes to ads policies.
The slides don’t tackle paid advertising but reading through them, you still get the clear picture that Google, and most other big companies, don’t actually know the answer either.
But they’re spending much of their time and resources in finding it. And we, as advertisers, have to keep on top of this so our campaigns don’t get hurt by this.
New ad effectiveness tool from Facebook
Facebook unveiled a diagnostic tool for agency partners in its Facebook Marketing Partners (FMP) program.
The new tool, Creative Compass, is designed to better measure the impact of ad creatives. By looking at key elements such as visual aspects, brand association and fit, partners will be able to better understand how likely people in their audience are to take action after seeing an ad.
Depending on how well it works, it should give you a deeper level of creative indicators to evaluate your ads than Relevancy Score, which only provides a number between one and ten for each ad.
Facebook is testing Creative Compass now with selected FMPs, and plans to make it available to all partners in 2019.
Facebook also announced two expansions of its partner program.
Facebook Marketing Consultants, a new partner category for individual marketing professionals beyond agencies. And Facebook PRO, which expands the FMP program to include smaller agencies who haven’t historically qualified to become FMPs.
SPONSORED
NUTRA TALKS
Tips, tricks and case studies straight from Everad.
Different affiliates tell different stories. But it’s a no-brainer that Native and Facebook are the main sources for driving traffic to nutra offers. And for getting the highest ROI possible, of course.
That said, let’s not forget about Google Adwords. This powerhouse can bring crystal clear leads (with highest approval ratio) and can scale – a lot!
The art of running campaigns via Google is not that easy. So, let’s define how we can test the shallow waters with a low-risk strategy. And we will start with the brand bidding for COD offers.
Targeting your campaign only to the brand name of the offer can give you various benefits. Click price is extremely low and CR is stellar – people are already seeking for that product so it’s natural. Which leads to huge EPC & profit and close to no effort in optimization at the same time.
Here’s the standard framework for launching search campaigns by brand:
1. Choose the offer you want to promote and take the clearest lander. This will help you to pass the moderation and run your campaign without any cloaking. It is better to start with weight-loss products, so as they are closer to white than to grey.
2. Make 3 ads with different text messages to split-test them. As soon as we are bidding only for brand name, there is no need to optimize campaign by keywords – as you can see the results in AdWords.
3. Rollout this strategy to other offers and niches. Some offers can give you fewer leads. That’s because it depends on several factors like global traffic, including organic, reviews, etc… But you can find your cash-cow or make enough leads from multi-offers promoted!
One of our affiliates used to buy clicks for $0.25 when OmegaSlim offer was freshly launched. That’s another lesson. Make sure you launch your campaigns immediately after new offer went public.
In that case, you can take 1st or 2nd search position hassle-free.
So back to this affiliate. Within several months he was able to deliver 3822 clicks. With CR around 6.80%, those clicks converted into 260 approved leads that brought him $5,239 in revenue.
Since his ad spend was even lower than $1000, we see 448% ROI by the end.
He had 70% approval ratio. Traffic quality matters and always pays off with more conversions!
Now, the only challenge left could be the language. Don’t worry! Everad always helps affiliates with professional local translations. All you have to do request it and our AMs will provide all the texts for free.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Panic at the… Stock Market!
At least that’s what the news says after the S&P500 dropped ~3%.
You should really not take your money advice from some random marketers that write a newsletter but… The news websites don’t do a great job at that either.
Here’s our take on it. There are people who make a living predicting the next financial crisis because it’s a freeroll.
When they’re wrong, people ignore them. When they’re right, they will be viewed as geniuses.
“Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day”
Some people are broken clocks for a living.
Just make sure you take risks you can afford when it comes to investing and don’t make rash decisions based on short-term fluctuations.
Will some crisis happen again? Sure. When? Nobody knows. Maybe now, maybe in 5 years.
Bonus: There’s a rather popular assumption by some crypto-geniuses that crypto goes opposite of the stock market. Well, you should check what happened in the past 24 hours.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]