Been worried? Were you starting to think about calling out “International Affiliate Rescue” to find the erstwhile authoress of Affiliate Stuff? I certainly got that impression when I dashed into the house today after 7 days of no internet access, put on the kettle and with shaky hands, switched on my beloved internet once more. Before the first stats page had finished loading, up pops Kieron telling me he didn’t vote for my blog in the A4U Awards so I could go letting tumbleweed gather about the place!

Sorry, having just been on a 365 day holiday, I absolutely had to nip off for nine days more of R & R. This time I went up to the remote North of Scotland with my Mammy and Daddy. Hence, there was no real internet access and a radio silence resulted. Probably for the best really. I’d only have been up all night wailing and gnashing my teeth looking at my desolate affiliate commissions during the postal strike!

I’m now back, and my wrists have duly been slapped… I promise to blog furiously for a week to make amends!

In case you’re interested, here’s a picture of Lossiemouth. This proves certain critics of Scotland’s weather entirely wrong!!

Here’s the first of the questions I got in from blog readers about those burning issues newbies need to get to grips with!

“Hey Kirsty, thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

Great down- to-earth blog!”

Some affiliates do create one ad per key term using the Google Adword editor. However, you don’t necessarily have to do this when you are first starting out. It would be perfectly acceptable for you to create an adgroup bringing together similar keywords / product areas that would be covered by your ad text. This is the strategy I tend to follow.

Also, you could use dynamic keyword insertion to make sure that the ad title was always reflective of your target search term. If you haven’t heard of this handy dandy Adwords tool, you can basically place a command in your ad which will dynamically place any of the search terms in your adgroup in the title of your advert in response to a search made by a potential customer in Google or one of Google’s search partners.

Clear as mud? Don’t worry. Kirsty shall explain!!

Below is a screen shot of the dynamic keyword syntax in action within a fictitious adgroup yours truly created for illustrative purposes: –

Basically, by inserting the {Keyword:Search Term} operator in place of the title you are asking Adwords to show the search terms listed in your adgroup as the title of your ad. The alternative text will be shown as the ad title in the event of a search term falling outwith Adwords 25 character title limit, so it is important to make it as relevant as possible to maximise click through rates.

For further reading on adwords dynamic keyword insertion see Google’s own guide here.

I hope this helps a little, and good luck with all your new PPC campaigns with swish dynamic titling!

If you haven’t yet booked your pass to A4U Expo and you’re put off by the £279 price tag, Kieron has a great and easy to enter competition over at his blog to win one.

It’s open to affiliates only (he’s not paying for merchants or networks to get in – they get enough from affiliates, lol). All you have to do is tell Kieron what aspect of the 2 day event you would most be looking forward to. To enter, just leave a comment on his blog post about the contest.

I’m not entering because I already bought a pass for myself and the lovely Duncan at the early bird rate of £179. So, instead of leaving a comment on Kieron’s blog I will tell you all here what I am most looking forward to: –

Um, well anyone who knows me really well will be in no doubt that any section of the event involving me getting free drinks will be a firm favourite. However, over and above my love of alcoholic beverages I have to say I’m really looking forward to catching up with all my affiliate chums after a year out of the loop. I felt pretty isolated from the industry on my travels, and can’t wait to really get my finger back on the pulse over a drink or ten (see? I managed to bring alcohol into it again!!). I’d quite like it if I managed to catch hold of Kieron for long enough to enjoy a strawberry daquari too… but I suspect he’s going to be a popular guy at the event.

Get A4U Expo conference information here.

Hey hey!

Well, I’m just kinda getting back into the swing of things here at Affiliate Stuff HQ (AKA the dining room in the house where I grew up!). Obviously the old blog posts have been quiet for a wee while what with all my world wide larking around, so I’ve been getting myself all settled in and up to speed with affiliate issues old and new.

I was thinking that the posts in which I publicly answered the questions of people who had e-mailed me (with their permission) had turned out to provide some really pertinent answers for newbie / wannabe affiliates desperately trying to make sense of the huge amounts of affiliate information which is broadcast on all freqencies. Researching and understanding the mystic art of affiliate marketing, and more importantly separating the internet wheat from the chaff, can be hugely confusing.

So, with that in mind I’ve popped all the previous posts into a new category appropriately named “Ask Kirsty“. I’m now chucking the floor open to anyone who wants to ask me a wee question. I’ll answer it on the condition that you know I’ll publish it on my blog. Obviously if I get two similar questions I’ll sort of group them together.

Ask away guys! There’s a Contact Form with your name on it!

So here I am, frantically PPC’ing my little affiliate heart out to catch up on my Christmas preparations. As I mentioned in a previous post I have 90,000 Adwords listings to upload.

So yesterday morning I proudly present my 90,000 listings lovingly created with affiliate blood, sweat, and tears. What does Google tell me?

WTF?

So I duly try again later. And again. And again. And again. In fact, I was still trying at 10pm last night. This morning I decided to delete everything and start again with smaller chunks of upload. The first chunk of around 10,000 listings went up no problems.

“Oh well” I thought. “Perhaps I just needed to cut things down a little.”

This afternoon, I duly pulled another chunk of 7,500 from my beautifully crafted PPC spreadsheet. What does Google say to me about my relatively modest request?

AAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Modesty forbids me from actually detailing the rest of what I said when this happened again. Needless to say if there was a swear jar in this room there would be enough money in there for a trip to 2 to Barbados. Now, don’t get me wrong.. when it’s bloody well working Adwords Editor is enormously powerful and saves a huge amount of time by giving you the ability to set ads, adgroups, and keywords within a spreadsheet before popping it into the Editor for upload to your Google account. I regularly upload thousands of listings with a graceful ease.

But oh great PPC gods. Why today? Why now when I have so much to do?

Well, imagine my delight yesterday on my first day back in dear old Blighty as I staggered from my bed at half past twelve in the afternoon and checked my e-mails with bleary eyes. In my inbox was a lovely e-mail from those fine chaps at A4UExpo informing me that Affiliate Stuff has gotten into the final 5 in an award at the inaugural A4u Awards which are being run at this years event.

Affiliate Stuff has been nominated for “Affiliate Marketing Blog of 2007“, which is an absolute honour and a thrill considering how young this blog really is. So, to all of you who voted for me I would like to say a heartfelt thankyou, it’s great that people like reading my sometimes random gems of affiliate marketing knowledge and were impressed enough to nominate me.

So What Now?

Well, there is now a second round of voting on A4U to determine the winners of all the various category nominees. The nominations are only open to A4U Forum members. My esteemed fellow nominees are as follows: –

AffiliateBlog.co.uk – Fraser Edwards
Here.org.uk – Kieron Donoghue
Mooseontheloose.co.uk – Paul Wheatley
MorleyMouse.com – Dan Morley

Nominations close 5pm October 5th 2007.

It’s an absolute honour to be classed with these guys, so I already feel like I have won a prize this week. If you aren’t a member of A4U and would like to vote for anyone in the best blog class I would urge you to join up. Not just for the sake of voting, but also because it’s a great community with genuinely helpful people looking out for each other.

What a welcome home!

Well then… I arrived back home 2 nights ago and have been in a jetlag induced limbo ever since. I perked up today though and am now furiously working on my Christmas strategy.

Coming home after a long trip (or even a two week holiday) can be a bit of a sharp bump back down to earth. However, as I never get sick of saying – I really do LOVE my job.

So exactly how does one kick start the old motivation after a bit of a break? Well, I made a short post about this before, after a few days off over in Perth, Australia. However, that’s not quite what I am going to be up to this time. The Christmas silly season is looming, and my trip has put me behind the game. Therefore, there has been no easy first day for me. Far too much money to be made for that carry on.

In case it interests anyone, here’s what I’ve gotten done (with some identifying features removed, I don’t want a couple of hundred pals on the same search terms as me) since 5am this morning from the plan I set out for myself last night!

1 ) Order wireless router (gods, I’m having to stay with my Mother for a while and she doesn’t have wireless. We can’t have THAT!).

2 ) Re-Jig & Re-start PPC campaign for a clothing merchant I did well with last Xmas.

3 ) Create 45,000 PPC listings for a gift merchant I did well with Xmas before last. Of course, I haven’t gotten them put up because Adwords editor gave me a stern talking to when I tried to get it to upload my excruciatingly huge file. It said, “Look Kirsty, you might have gotten over the jetlag but it’s my day off. Bugger off.”

4 ) Re-Jig & Re-start PPC campaign for another clothing merchant I did well with last summer and forgot to switch on last Xmas (and this summer). Look, I’m quite forgetful and I was out in the sun a fair bit!

5 ) Check out possibilities for a merchant I get the odd largish commission from which is generated from a long forgotten organic site. Discover they don’t allow direct to merchant PPC for me to perform a wee test on them. Flip the bird at the PC. Get told off by Mother.

6 ) Scold Duncan for ten minutes about some real or imagined crime (look I’ve been up since 5am, I’m in a terrible mood).

7 ) Go back to work after apologising to Duncan.

8 ) E-mail 3 different merchants with promotional questions.

9 ) Create 5,000 search terms for a merchant who has kindly allowed me to resume display URL activity so long as I avoid impacting their in-house effort. I’m thrilled too… it was always a big earner for me before the rules of engagement changed.

9 ) Sit and look expectantly at computer.

10 ) Contemplate navel.

11 ) Realise I’ve just done as much work as I did most weeks when I was travelling.

Phew!! And so you find me on my dear old blog getting my communications with my dear readers up to date. I’m desperate for a cuppa, but I think Duncan is avoiding me for some reason.

Here’s one last picture of where I am now. This is the village where I was born, and right now I can’t think of anyplace better to be!

Viva Las Vegas folks!

Would you believe I’m in my bed for the afternoon with a chest infection? Bah! I think all the travel is finally catching up with this tired affiliate. Despite being ill, I’ve been having a cracking time kicking about in Vegas. I’m in bed now so i can go out to the Bellagio again later, lol. I knew how many casinos there were, but I can’t believe how often you seem to end up in one without ever having meant to.

We’ve given the slots a bit of a go, and after having lost a grand total of $4 between us, I’m at a bit of a loss to work out the attraction of gambling to so many people.

So look, if you are a gambler.. why not give some PPC a go. It’s a bit like gambling. You work out which merchant you think may be a sure thing, place your chips on the right keywords, and watch the cash multiply. The odds are stacked in your favour in this game (well, some might dispute that just after a Google slap!)… so why leave it to luck I wonder?

Right… I’m off to set a few wee sure PPC bets on the go. Least I’ll be guaranteed to cover my bar tab!

Here’s a snap of me out shopping with our pals in Vegas!

Aloha Folks!

Well, I’m so knackered from all the sightseeing we have been doing in Hawaii I’ve barely had time to worry about getting this Google slap sorted out when we get home. It’s hard to think straight when you’re travelling long term, which is one of the reasons I really am looking forward to getting back home and really immersing myself in the world of affiliate marketing again.

I wasn’t exaggerating at all when I said I eat, sleep, and breathe affiliate marketing. So despite having had the most unbelievably amazing trip I’m starting to feel a little starved of my affiliate marketing fix. Now, that’s how you KNOW you’ve a job you love… you can’t wait to get back to it!

However, let’s not put the internet cart before the horse here… I’m still travelling away furiously and Duncan and I are cramming in so much to our visit to Hawaii that we’re constantly knackered!

We spent 5 glorious days on O’ahu… Waikiki was a big, big culture shock after quiet and laid back Fiji… oh, but the prices on clothes the Americans get… I could barely control myself. I did the British thing and made a big tit of myself in Macy’s saying to Duncan in a loud and disbelieving voice, “LOOK! DNKY jeans! They’re only $79.99!!!! Is this price right?”. I then walk about 3 feet, “F*ck! Look at these Levis! They’re $28.99. That’s nearly free! Should we buy another bag??” Oh, how the shop assistants loved me, lol.

Here’s a picture of me taking my leisure on Waikiki… I felt dead, dead cosmopolitan. Except when I got out of the water and compared myself to my size 0 bikini clad fellow beachgoers.

We’re now in Volcano on Big Island… Duncan and I are both volcano freaks so visiting the Volcanoes National Park has been an absolute thrill for us. Our only disappointment is that alas there are currently no lava flows within hiking distance

Here’s me making the best of it by kicking about down a big hole in an old lava flow. To really have an authentic idea of what it was like there you should now dash off and get a vial of sulphur dioxide. Got it? Right. Now uncork and inhale deeply. Nips, don’t it?

It’s at times like these I realise how lucky I am to be a travelling affiliate!!

So you’ve been Google slapped eh? You are not alone. I had some extremely lucrative landing pages Google slapped last week. They probably represent a good 40% of my income at the moment. Ow. There’ll be a few less strawberry daquaris in Vegas for myself and dear old Duncan I can tell you!

This is my 4th largish incident with good ‘ol Google in my 4 year career as a full timer.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected I have to say. I knew they wouldn’t pass muster for long… I’d simply disguised the affiliate nature of the page. I’d hoped they’d hold out till I was home as I’d no time to create the amount of content required to get them compliant because of my travels. But hey ho… this is the nature of affiliate marketing these days!

Sounding a bit too cheerful am I? No funeral dirges, wailing, gnashing of teeth or general anger at Google? Nope. This game is about risk and reward. The rewards are great… but sometimes the risk will inevitably catch up with you.

So How Have I Insulated Myself From Google Induced Cardiac Arrest?

Anyone in immediate dire straits looking for a Google liferaft should move on now. This isn’t about a quick fix, it’s about planning and preparation.

What’s The Plan Stan?

1 ) I know EXACTLY how to fix the current issues and move forward. Nobody can tell you about that better that Kieron in his article about creating iron clad Google Adwords Landing pages. It’s really, really important not to stick your head in the sand when you hear them affiliate rumbles in the jungle about an impending algo change. They are often well founded. Although I’ve not been able to keep up with my content creation, I have kept an open mind about moving on and constantly improving my content.

The moral? Always innovate. Affiliate marketing is a constant process of learning and change. Don’t get left behind.

2 ) I don’t have all my eggs in the Google basket, or the landing page basket. That way, these little Google curve balls can’t send me racing off in the direction of paid employment. Gah!! I get cold sweats just thinking about that one. I’ve always got enough running on direct to merchant and other PPC engines to make sure our lifestyle is assured.

3 ) I actually have enough money for Duncan and I to live quite happily for 2 years sitting in the bank. I NEVER live up to the standard of the money I’m earning. I save it, and spend about 25%… still a great lifestyle and this removes any financial stress during a Google slap. Alright, that one is easier to say than do guys and gals, but it is something every affiliate needs to think about. Our finances are volatile. Don’t get lulled into a false sense of spending security when the good times are a rollin’!

4 ) I’m pretty confident in my own ability to get my 40% back within 3 to 4 months. Why? Because I always have some extra revenue ideas up my sleeve. I plan and think 6 months ahead at all times. When the Google slap comes crashing down it’s off to the notebook to dredge up all my current ideas and get cracking!

Perhaps this will help you in the future. It’s certainly helping me right now. It means we can still go to Vegas for a start!