It is the busiest time of the year for retail sales, and traffic on the sites I run AuctionAds on are all up, but guess what? AuctionAds has been performing like crap ever since ShoeMoney sold it. I don’t know if it is because Media Whiz has been spending all their time on their other advertising product ShoppingAds. Maybe it is because Google gave them a big kick in the balls when they chopped PageRank on people selling text links. Who knows. All I know is that AuctionAds have been sucking for a while now. Click through rates have gone down the tubes, sales suck, and worse, any kind of relevant ads are impossible to get. I am going to take a close look at November’s numbers and decide if they should have any more of the real estate on my websites. Looking at it quickly today, I highly doubt that I will keep them on any sites, except maybe as alternate ads. Sad to see AuctionAds rise and fall so quickly. Perhaps I will take another look at them in the New Year and see if things have improved.

Now that we live in the post Google slap where websites have been penalized for selling text links we need to find an alternative. While there is no doubt that the text link market will not be dying anytime soon, it will be heading underground and prices will be rising. If you are not really interested in going in that direction there is an alternative, Scratchback offers websites a virtual tip jar where people can purchase links on websites that display the widget.

The whole idea behind the widget is that people are not really buying links, but they are actually showing you some appreciation for your hard work. In return for them tipping you, you gracious show their link on your website. The links the widget shows are all nofollow, so Google should not have any problem with the links on a website (at least until Google changes their mind about that).

They offer multiple designs for the widget, and offer to customize the widget for you if you send them them the images. All you need to do is download the artwork, change it and send it back.

Webmasters can set their own price for the links so there is no complicated or mysterious algorithm that determines what the links should cost. You also have the choice of manually approving links or allowing them to approve them. Currently Scratchback is taking a 10% cut of the tip. So if your tips are set at $1.00 you will get $.90. Better than the 50% that some other services take. This might change when the service comes out of beta.

Perhaps the feature I think is the most fun about the widget is how long you decide the lips should stay on the widget. You can choose from 24 hours, one week, one month or the default auto bump. I like the auto bump, because it should just keep rotating the links as people tip you. I would love to see a tip war going on.

I only have a couple of things that I would like to see changed or added. First, I think the widget looks ugly. Maybe it is just me but even if you custom design it you are stuck using the same size graphics. They need to make it possible to customize the widget so it does not look so, well, ugly. Second they need an affiliate program. According to their blog one is on the way.

Overall Scratchback could be a great way of adding another way of monetizing your website or blog. If you use Scratchback leave a comment and let us know what you think of it.

Well I have been checking in one DealDotCom the past few days, and I have to say I have not been impressed with the crap stuff they have been selling. Things seemed really hopeful when on the second day of their doors being opened they had a copy of the WordPress Affiliate Pro plugin available.

For those of you who don’t know me very well, I am cheap. I fully admit it. I like to blame it on my Scottish heritage, but to be honest I know it has nothing to do with it. I just hate to spend money on things I know I don’t need. I was not convinced that I needed to spend the money on this plugin to manage my affiliate links. But after looking at the website for a little while and some of the added features that the plugin offered I thought I would lay out the cash to try it.

I have to admit I have been totally pleased with the purchase. One of the great things you can do with the plugin includes the ability to manage your affiliate links. This is great, because not only am I cheap I am also lazy when it comes to changing links. You can enter in a keyword or phrase and it will automatically be replaced in all of your posts. This makes it much easier to manage links that you enter in repeatedly and you will only have to change the link in the plugin control panel if and when the link needs to by updated.

The plugin also takes care of two other aspects of linking that I really like. It will automatically create the link for the keywords or phrase that you enter, which means you no long have to type in your opening and closing anchor tags (<a href="#"></a>), and this just saves me time and reduces the chance of me making a typo. The biggest plus is the fact that the plugin uses a 302 redirect on the link, so it should not pass any PageRank on to the affiliate link. That is as good as a rel=”nofollow” on all of the links that the plugin creates. So if you are linking to Wikipedia regularly you can make sure that they don’t get any PageRank passed back to them. (I picked Wikipedia because they started using nofollow on all of their external links. What comes around goes around).

Because the plugin does use a 302 redirect you also get some very interesting statistics to look at. You can see which keywords and phrases are the most popular across your blog and what page/post they have clicked through from. You can then compare that data with your click through data with the affiliate. Very useful. Overall it provides a nice way to track your affiliate links and find out where they are performing best.

I have been very pleased how well the plugin works. if you are at all interested in doing affiliate marketing, or if you just want to find a better way to manage links to the same website take a look at WordPress Affiliate Pro. I think you will find it is well worth the money to try it out on your WordPress blog. If you want to know more make sure you check out the videos on the WordPress Affiliate Pro home page. They walk you through some of the basic usage of the plugin.

I was having a discussion with a client a couple of weeks ago about affiliate marketing and what programs might suit their website the best and gave them a great deal of information about some of the affiliate networks that I have experience with. These are the networks that I deal with on a regular basis and have had success with or know others that have had success with them. Each network has its advantages and disadvantages and being a part of multiple networks can bring a varied source of income to your website.

Commission Junction

If you have a website that you want to tie in with eBay, Commission Junction is your best friend the number of merchants that are a part of Commission Junction makes it quite likely that you will find a merchant here that will fit in nicely with your website. If you are just interested in joining the eBay program, you might want to consider just using AuctionAds instead of joining Commission Junction. It makes it much faster to add eBay ads and links, even to search results pages. For example to create a link to Indiana Jones hats in AuctionAds took me a couple of minutes. In Commission Junction it takes longer.
Advantages: Has a large list of companies to join, including some of the biggest companies on the internet like eBay and Yahoo.
Disadvantages: Finding programs to join can be difficult mainly because of the size of the network. Commission Junction also has web services you can use to pull products from, problem is it is one of the worst web services I have ever used.

Linkshare

Linkshare is a good network, and pay regularly. They also have some of the companies I like to deal with personally, like TigerDirect.
Advantages: A large list of companies to promote including some well known names. Some merchants have xml feeds you can use.
Disadvantages: Like Commission Junction it can be hard to find the merchant you want to use. I have also tried contacting merchant on Linkshare and have never gotten a reply.

Shareasale.com

Shareasale is a great network. In fact it is one of my favourites, partly because you can find some very interesting and innovative products there. Rhett over at Rockstarpoet for example uses Shareasale to promote the store he likes to buy t-shirts from called Uneetee. They sell t-shirts for one day, from one artist. That is a cool idea and the t-shirts are very unique. You won’t find stores like that on Commission Junction or Linkshare, at least I haven’t.
Advantages: You can find some interesting merchants to promote. Some merchants have XML feeds that you can use to integrate their products and services into your website.
Disadvantages: Harder to find good quality merchants to promote.

Clickbank

To be honest I don’t really like Clickbank. I know some people that promote products from Clickbank and do a great job of it. My problem with them is that so many of the products on Clickbank are bad ebooks. Depending on your site though there might be an ebook that you would want to promote that would fit your website perfectly.
Advantages: A large list of products to promote.
Disadvantages: Many of the products are poor quality. Check the products out closely before you start promoting.

Azoogle

I have applied at Azoogle a couple of times and never hear back from them. I know there are people out there making good money with Azoogle, like Shoemoney, but I have not had a good impression of their service so far. I have enough to do and don’t have the time to chase after them. I was tempted to try them again lately though because Blockbuster is part of Azoogle and I was interested in promoting them.

Amazon

While the Amazon affiliate program is not a network, the fact that they sell so many products makes Amazon a good program to join. It does not take long to find something from Amazon that you would want to promote to people on your website. Amazon is also great for making product links in your content. For example, I am very much looking forward to season four of Corner Gas being released on DVD, so maybe someone will buy it for me for Christmas. You can promote your favourite books, cds, dvds, video games, build custom aStores to integrate into your website and much more. There is always something that you can link to at Amazon. Amazon also has one of the best web services that I have dealt with to create entire stores of Amazon products.
Advantages: It is Amazon. They have a good brand and people know, and hopefully, trust them. One of the best web services I have used.
Disadvantages: Amazon links are everywhere.

Conclusion

These networks should get you started in affiliate marketing. The key is to find products and services that relate to your website. It can be more difficult than simply placing a contextual ad on your website, but the payouts from affiliate programs can be much better once you find the right program(s) to promote. Also, these are some of the major networks, there are many websites that offer their own affiliate programs that you can join to promote their specific product or service, just look for an affiliate link on your favourite websites where you like to buy from and sign up. Often the affiliate sign up links are placed in the footer. The key is to keep up the promotion. It can be hard if you don’t get any sales in the first mont, but over time the sales add up and before long you have regular checks being mailed to you.

Here are some excellent blogs that you should read if you are interested in affiliate marketing.

• CPA Affiliates
• Dosh Dosh
• Earners Blog
• Lee Dodd

I did a review of AuctionAds back in June. Since then Shoemoney sold his portion of AuctionAds to Media Whiz, the same company that owns Text Link Ads.

In the month since the sale there has been a flurry of activity it seems from AuctionAds. First new web 2.0 style ad formats with nice big bold colors and large borders. I am still not sure how I feel about them. I like the classic style a little better because they fit into the same ad spaces as other ad networks.

Next they have increased the referral payouts from 2% to 5%, for the first six months that after the referral joins AuctionAds. This is good news since the 2% added up to close to nothing. I wish the time line was longer, at least a year (or permanently), but the raise will help publishers make more from referring new publishers.

They have also started giving new publishers a $25.00 bonus just for signing up. This puts people half way to the new payout minimum of $50.00. Publishers that have not had a payout yet also qualify for the bonus so if you have signed up but not gotten a payout yet, check your account, you might have some free money!

Other news includes a new design for the AuctionAds website, several back end improvements that has improved uptime and an overall improvement in the response of ads. Personally I have had some good return from AuctionAds. I like how quickly I can use it to link to products on eBay. I am also a member of Commission Junction and the eBay program there, and I tend to prefer the ads from AuctionAds over the program at Commission Junction, mainly because of the ease of use. It is good to see AuctionAds improving, hopefully they will have some more new ad layouts soon in the Web 2.0 style to give publishers more ways to integrate them into their websites.

AdSense has released a new feature for AdSense ad units. They are now allowing webmasters to have rounded corners. Webmasters can now choose from square, slightly rounded and very rounded corners. You can choose your corner style under AdSense setup when you create your ad code, of course you would need to have the border turned on so the curved corners will show. This might help the ads blend in even better on websites that use rounded corners for other boxes on the site. You can read more about it over at the official Google AdSense blog.

Nice to see Google trying to catch up with some trends in design. Now if they would just get rid of that darn Google logo. I was undecided about it when it first came out, but the more I see it the more I wish it would go back to the way it was.

Several of my clients are non-profit groups and it is always interesting to work with them because they are trying to achieve something that is greater than what they can do with what they have. They want to change the world for the better. From small church groups, summer camps or large national organizations they all can use a little help.

Thankfully here in Canada people can give to their favourite charity online through Canada Helps. I have used Canada Helps to make donations to several charities over the years and it is a great service and very easy to use.

Making a donation is simple: a donor chooses a charity (or charities), identifies any special requests associated with that gift (memorial designations, specific project requests, frequency of gift, Gift Card, etc.), and begins the checkout (or payment) process. Once the donation has been paid for, the donor receives an immediate, secure PDF tax receipt, issued by CanadaHelps, by email. CanadaHelps then disburses the funds (less a 3% transaction fee) to the designated charity, along with any special requests associated with that gift, and in the manner the donor specified at checkout.

If you feel like helping out a good cause look no further than Canada Helps. If you are a webmaster of a non-profit make sure you link to your information page in Canada Helps to make it easy for people to donate to you online. You might not get hundreds of thousands in donations, but every little bit helps.

Are there similar organizations in other countries or is this unique to Canada? If you know of similar organizations in your country leave a comment with a link.

AuctionAds (affiliate) has been around for three months, has gained 17,000 plus partners and is still growing. I joined AuctionAds shortly after they started. I heard about them thanks to Shoemoney, who is part owner of AuctionAds.

If you are not familiar with AuctionAds it is a unique advertising network because it is built on top of the eBay affiliate program. The ads themselves are items available for sale on eBay, chosen by the keyword(s) you enter. Unlike cost per click advertising, like Google AdSense, where you would get paid for every click on an ad, this is cost per action advertising. Meaning, you get paid when someone clicks through the ad and performs an action on eBay, such as a user winning the bid on an item, using a Buy it Now, or creating a new user account on eBay.

AuctionAds in some ways, bridges the gap between affiliate marketing and advertising and offers publishers an easy and quick way of offering their users and readers eBay auctions that are related to the content of their website. You could join Commission Junction and sign up for the eBay affiliate program and offer similar ads to your users, but AuctionAds does the hard work of finding relevant items for sale from eBay and displaying them in standard size ad formats.

The biggest reason to use AuctionAds is the commission level. eBay pays a percentage of the revenue depending on the amount of revenue that is generated. If you join the eBay affiliate program on your own and generate a total revenue of $99, you would get 50%. Getting to the higher commission levels can be difficult on your own. To reach 75% you would need to generate over $3,000,000 on total revenue. Not easy for a small publisher with a few sites to reach that level of revenue. Using AuctionAds though, with over 17,000 partners and growing it has a better opportunity to reach the higher commission levels because of shear numbers. This benefits all the partners since everyone will received the higher commission level. This means that even the smallest publisher will make more money because they will be a part of a larger group that can reach the 75% commission level.

In the last three months that I have been running AuctionAds I have found that they perform as well as Google Adsense ads. I have found that they perform slightly better on websites that have a natural tie in with a product. You need to let them run for a little while before deciding if you want to keep the ads on your site on not because there is a delay between when someone might click through and when the auction ends and they win. It means it is not as instantaneous as some other form of advertising.

Some things that I hope will improve in with AuctionAds includes a better reporting section. I find the flash graph difficult to read. Perhaps if they split it into two graphs. The URL Converter that allows you to make links to any eBay page works well, but it would be nice if there was a method to track impressions for those text links. The code wizard works well, but I would like to see the campaign creation available on the single page code creation page as well. I dislike wizards and would prefer if it was all on one page. It would also be nice if the colour picker on the code generator opened right beside the icon on the page, instead of a new window. Perhaps I am being picky, but these little things make all the difference when you are quickly wanting to get your code for your site.

Over time I expect AuctionAds will start to outperform some other forms of advertising. There are also some great tips on how to optimize the ads on the AuctionAds Blog, so be sure to read through the posts there after signing up.

Update: I found something else that AuctionAds could improve on. They should start to compress the javascript code. This is a common from most ad providers, like Google, and it would decrease load times for the ads. My guess would be that document size could be cut in half if not more.

Vivien over at Inspiration Bit gave me an opportunity to write a guest post for her as an honorary final prize. I took the opportunity to write a summary of eight ways that you can start to monetize a blog. It is a post I have been wanting to write since I started this blog so it is nice to finally finish it. Head on over to 8 Bits On Making Money From Your Blog to read the post.

Well I got back from a great week off in Calgary last week and I am starting to work my way through the back log of things that accumulated while I was gone. One of my daily routines is to check in on how my websites are doing, usually that includes traffic stats, advertising and earnings. I was pleasantly surprised that while I was away traffic for many of my sites was up overall 2% and earnings were up 3% for the last 7 days compared to the 7 days before that. This is certainly not the norm. Usually when I go away traffic and earnings take a slight drop. Nice to know that I can take some time off and still have some income coming in. One of the great things about making money from the Internet.