Entries Tagged as ''

Google Adwords Chat Support – Sometimes Great

Most of the time Adwords support chat is kinda spotty.  Today they were spot on.  (I apologize for the horible pun.)

Anuradha S: Hello John. Thanks for contacting Google AdWords. I’m happy to help you.
John: Thanks, I am happy that you’re happy to help :)
Anuradha S: That was a good one! I see that you have a question regarding the approval of image ads.
Anuradha S: Let me explain that ad reviews do depend on the incoming volumes.
Anuradha S: I will need to check your account.
Anuradha S: Would you mind waiting a moment while I pull up your account?
John: I’ll happily wait :)
Anuradha S: Thanks for waiting!
Anuradha S: I checked and see that the ads are under review.
John: I managed to stay happy the whole time.
Anuradha S: I will be happy to help you with the review of the ads and will run this past team.
Anuradha S: Thought I could use one ‘happy’ at least!
John: lol, if we were any more happy it would be illegal :)
Anuradha S: That is true!
Anuradha S: I hope that helped!
John: So, the ads are in review and I just need to sit tight till they are approved?
Anuradha S: I will get them reviewed with the team.
John: Thanks
Anuradha S: Is there anything else that you will need help with?
John: Not right now, I think that is it.
Anuradha S: Great!
Anuradha S: It was a pleasure chatting with you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to visit our Help Center. You can also print this chat transcript for your records. Have a great day.

I think being in a ridiculously good mood on my end helped.  I bet most of the time they just get crap like “you are too expensive” or “why u ban my sight, I not spamming” etc.  So if you have had a bad experience in the past, try again and be happy when you do it.  They will be happy too :)

Guest Post: Planning with girls is a “f- ing pain in the a**”

My first guest post ever (from an email):

Hi honey,
Is planning with guys a fpita? (f- ing pain in the a**)  Well, with girls it is!  With one it is bad enough, but with a group, multiply that by 100.  Ok.  So Dawn had been wanting to do a girls night out with me for a while, so I said, ok, sounds like fun, but twice she had to cancel.  We wanted to go to the Melting Pot… so instead she has her guy friend take her there.  Ok, not a big deal, she said we could still go if I wanted to go.  I said yes, I still want to go try out the Melting Pot.

So, we really had it planned to go this time.  We both got babysitters, arranged a time and this time Dawn made the reservation in time.  Ok.  Great.  But then Dawn invites two other girls to go with us.  I thought, ok, that will be fun.  So I went ahead and invited Angela since Dawn already invited two others.  Dawn makes the reservation for all of us.  Great.

Then Angela asks me if I can ask Kristen if she can watch her kids too with mine for the first hour until Dennis gets home and she will pay her for that, so I did and Kristen seemed happy with it.  Then two days later Angela decides to have someone else watch her kids instead so she wouldn’t have to pay for a sitter, so I said fine then, and had to get a hold of Kristen yet again to tell her never mind on Angela’s kids.

And then yesterday the two girls that Dawn invited said that they can’t go to the melting pot since they can’t be away from home for that long, so they can only go somewhere local.  WTF?  Seriously, that doesn’t even make any sense since they all had sitters that could stay out late.

Ok, so I am really bummed, and kinda mad that Dawn had to invite these other girls.  Ok, I thought, no big deal, it will still be fun to have a girls night out.  So Dawn asked me where I want to go and I told her DOES IT REALLY MATTER.  Seriously.  Whatever I say will not happen anyway.  I just want to have a night out.  Still bummed out about the melting pot though because I know you don’t like fondue so I couldn’t go with you.

Anyway, Dawn said she would call me back yesterday to let me know where we are going but it is tomorrow noon and I can’t even get a hold of her and we are supposed to be leaving this evening and I already have had Kristen lined up for almost a week now.  Well, Angela was pretty bummed out too that we weren’t going to the melting pot, so I thought to myself, owell, if this whole thing blows over and the other girls end up canceling because at this point nothing would surprise me, I guess I can always just go to the melting pot with Angela and it will be even more fun.  And then Angela calls me this morning and says she can’t even go tonight because she is not feeling well, ….UGGG!

So, now I don’t even know what will happen.  Girls are a pain in the ass!  Would a bunch of guys do that?

No, guys rock.  Can I post this on my blog (names edited of course)

Yeah, go ahead :)
Although I should tell you, all has ended well, amazingly!  Dawn just called me and she feels THE SAME WAY!  She told me she wants to ditch the other girls and just go with me to the melting pot!  I mean, that WAS our original plan until they started mucking it up.  So, she has already told the others that we are just gonna go with our original plan and Dawn is picking me up at 6:00 tonight.  She never did cancel the reservation, so we are all set to go!  Yippee!

But, you know what the best part about this whole story is?  Dawn tried telling me that she would not have invited the other two if I had not invited Angela, which is untrue since the ONLY reason why I invited Angela was because she had already invited the other two, so I said Now hold on, that is NOT how it happened!  And I told her word for word of our conversation and then she said, oh yeah, you are right,  I was the one who screwed up.   And then she apologized for inviting them.  haha Of course I am right!  I was not about to get blamed for something that I didn’t do!

So that being said, does this sound normal when planning things with girls?

How to make over $6,500 in less then 5 minutes

Woooo, fancy title claiming to make gobs of cash in no time at all.  Well the reality is you have to work up to this point.  Here is an example.  Say you are bringing in 90 leads a day with a payout of $2.50.   Not bad, not bad you say to yourself.  If you have a good relationship with your affiliate manager (and who doesn’t?) then ask for a payout bump.

My conversation went something like this.

8:55:46 AM Me: on another note, there are a few campaigns I am getting some traction on.  wondering if I can get a payout bump on them?
8:55:52 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: of course
8:56:00 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:08 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: you name the campaign and i’ll name the payout
8:56:15 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: <private cool stuff>
8:56:28 AM Me: this one
8:56:29 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:31 AM Me: and
8:56:36 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:38 AM Me: that one
8:56:40 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: ok
8:59:21 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: ok, on the <private cool stuff> i can go to <private cool stuff>
8:59:30 AM Me: cool
8:59:48 AM Super Affiliate Manager: and the <private cool stuff> 2.70

So now instead of 2.50 it is 2.70.  If the campaign sustains (if anything I should be able to get higher volume) that is ~90 * .2 * 365 = over 6500.  In less them 5 minutes.

I usually don’t ask for a payout bump unless I am providing a decent amount of volume and I know I can keep it up.  Nothing lamer then getting a payout bump and then dropping the campaign.

Stop thinking like a Marketer.. you must *be* the Consumer.

Here is what I mean by this.

Say you are promoting a product.  You need to stop thinking like the person trying to sell it.  “dog training” is a nice general keyword, but really your keyword should solve a problem.  “stop dog peeing on carpet” is a person looking for a solution.  The people looking for solutions are going to be much more interested in your dog training guide.  This concept can apply to just about any niche.

Here is another one

auto insurance quotes vs i need insurance vs i hate geico
look, “i hate geico” has zero ads right now.  Bet you get some killer CTR and conversions with links to someone who isn’t geico :)

But how do you know which will work and which don’t?  Easy.  Do all of them.  Yes *all* of them.  (caveman speak:Turn off bad. Leave on good)

Emergency Dentistry

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from my father asking if I could take him to an emergency dentist to get one of his teeth pulled. He was still waiting for the office to call him back.  I figured I’d call my dentist office, Stonehaven Dental to see if they had something sooner (especially since I had a plane to catch in a few hours).

They were awesome.  The owner (or one of the owners) of the place came down and met us there after hours; he did everything, the paperwork, xrays and consultation as well as pulling the tooth (when my Dad decided that was what he wanted to do.)  It was kinda funny watching them be certain which tooth to pull…  “Does this hurt?” followed by screams and involuntary spasms or a nope (depending on which tooth).  We were in and out in a little over an hour.

I kept the tooth.

Cheerleader Carwash Marketing (with pics)

Driving around this morning I saw a sign for a “free” carwash being held by some cheerleaders at a local High School.  My car was kinda dirty I figured, why not.

Turns out it wasn’t free… but hey, I am already in line a $5 “donation” seemed like a worthy cause :)

How this relates to online marketing.

  • “Free” or cheap offer that isn’t really free
  • Pretty people to promote your product/service

What do you care, pics below:

John Chow vs Shoemoney vs 45n5 vs Ian Fernando

Ever wonder what links from top bloggers will get you?

Shoemoney – 80 Visits (1 page) ~ 80 visits per post
John Chow – 69 Visits (1 page) ~ 69 visits per post    [ed note: 69 DUDE!!!!]
45n5 – 131 Visits (4 pages) ~ 32.75 visits per post
Ian Fernando – 75 Visits (3 pages) ~ 25 visits per post

This data is all from a 2ish month period from the first link.  You can even see which pages the link came from.  John Chow’s readers seem to stick around longer then Shoemoney’s though.  However Ian’s readers definately stuck around the longest.  Yet another data post :)

Edit: None of these were “GO HERE NOW” links.  They were just hotlinked text.  I would imagine a “go here now” link would get more traffic :)

Affiliate Summit East 2008

Day 1 started out with me talking about PPC engines for an hour.  Lots of people were there and there were some really good questions asked.  I had a blast speaking on PPC.  Then I went to the meet market and walked around doing the “networking thing.”

I ran into a bunch of friends while there.  Lots of good times.

Ian Fernando put together a great networking event that about 20 or so of us attended just before the Share A Sale party.  John Chow was there filming everything.  Not sure if everyone there wants their name mentioned so I’ll leave it at that.  (Was a blast)

The Share-A-Sale party was pretty good, although the consensus was that their party in Vegas was a lot better.  It could be that the boat was so much bigger or that it was kind of rainy and wet.  All in all lots of fun meeting new and old friends.  I even found a bunch of people right in my backyard (Salt Lake City) that I’ll probably be talking to later this week.

Day 2 – The morning was spend in the exhibit hall doing more of the same.  I got a cool skate board but then lost it somewhere :(   I’ll try to go and pick one up later if they have any left.  I am here now in the Anatomy of a Great Affiliate Program learning from Ian and a few other people.  (Mostly I am here to see what Ian will do :) )

So if you are looking for me, that is where I am.

Good Morning Boston

Well, here I am in Boston a few days before Aff Sum East 08.  This is what I see when I wake up.
View of Boston in the morning

View of Boston in the morning

Games Where Kids Have To Clean Horse Poop

So I am here loading data… My 8 year old wants me to watch her play the wii.  Sure.  I am not really watching, I am sitting in the same room working on my laptop.  Every now and then I’ll glance over and be a good dad.

This gives you an idea of what she wants me to watch her play.  Yeah I am an awesome dad :) But… I noticed something…

Yeah, that is right.  She is cleaning Horse poop in the stables as part of the game.  Seriously.. WTF?  What kind of game makes you clean Horse crap.  (Let alone any type of fecal matter)  I was busting out laughing and I still don’t think she gets why it is funny (to me).

So kids.  If you are really good, maybe one day your mom or dad will buy you a video game where you too can clean horse crap.