What Does The Yahoo & Google Partnership Mean for PPC Advertisers?

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 13, 2008

As most of you online marketers have probably heard already, Microsoft and Yahoo have stopped all talks for good and Yahoo may partner with Google to outsource their paid search. Yahoo has been struggling with paid search for years trying to compete with Google, and now eventually they are giving in paid search.

Personally, I’m not sure if this will be a good thing or bad and whether it will be a good thing or bad thing. I was thinking about how this could affect my campaigns considering I’ve had some very good success with Yahoo that I haven’t had with Google because of quality score issues for the most part. Yahoo has been good to me for the simple reasons that it was very different than Google in its paid search platform.

Don’t get me wrong, Google has proven great for me as well but it actually has kept me from launching some campaigns because of quality score issues where Yahoo has been less restrictive in that respect.

An example is an eBook campaign I have run. When I first launched it months ago, Google proved to give me results in terms of good quality score but no real conversions. Yahoo has always converted with lower cost-per-clicks. I spoke to a Google Adwords rep and she told me because of user experience, ebook sites are ranked with poor quality scores and bids start from $5.00. You may get away with a good or OK quality score, but I’m talking in general.

I’m not exactly sure how the partnership will be handled in terms of Yahoo panama disappearing or Yahoo just using Google for content paid search which Yahoo has lacked for…well, since always.

We’ll see how this affects us search marketers in the coming weeks.

From the Financial Point of View:

Who Has Americas Best Public Restroom?

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 9, 2008

Cintas, a corporation that makes bathroom supplies and products has launched a campaign to select the best restroom in America. The public can now vote at BestRestRoom.com.

Great marketing technique to go viral if it does.

What Makes a Public Restroom Great?
You may not have considered such a question before. But think about it. When you walk into an exceptional restroom, you know it. The cleanliness, the style, the amenities – it’s unexpected, but certainly appreciated. It tells you that the organization that created this inviting atmosphere must really care about you. A great restroom takes many forms, as you’ll see when you visit the ABR Hall of Fame.

100+ Friendly List of Free Website Submission Directories and Pagerank

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 9, 2008

I came upon this list on SEO2020.com and thought I’d put it up since people are always looking for free website submission directories. You should not go crazy submitting your site to every directory as it is important to choose certain directories and be selective where you submit your site.

A great place to also get directories is through forums such as Digital Point or even ask people in the industry you know.

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GoldenCan.com - Affiliate Data Feed Solutions

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 7, 2008

When it comes to affiliate marketing, there are a few ways we can run our offers as publishers. Personally, I’ve been backing out of affiliate/CPA networks and taking different routes. Currently I’m taking a liking to Amazon, they offer an incredible amount of options for affiliates (they call them associates) and they pretty much carry everything under the sun.

I found out about GoldenCan, an affiliate data feed solution which is very cool. I got an account and messed around with it for a little bit. The way it works is unique.

“4th Clickâ„¢ Merchants:
You will Share every 4th click with GoldenCAN
When you use a 4th click merchant, you share 25% of your traffic with GoldenCAN. For every 4th Clickâ„¢ generated from a GoldenCAN Integration towards merchant’s web site, GoldenCAN will replace your affiliate site id with its own and subsequently receive affiliate commission should the 4th Clickâ„¢ convert into a sale/order/lead. “4th click” does not mean 4th sale. 4th click may or may never convert to a sale. ”

GoldenCan has a good amount of merchants already such as Overstock, eBags, GoToBabys.com, and many many more. You already need to be signed up to these merchants for GoldenCan to work for you.

If you want to make your life easier and want a simple way to have feeds on your site based on keyword or a site, goldencan simplified the process for you.

So for example, lets say I want to create or have a digital camera store and want to have all digital cameras from Overstock and Amazon displaying on my site. I go to Goldencan, create a keyword based “store”, choose both merchants I want to work with, and Goldencan automatically creates simple code to place on your site which creates the feeds of digital cameras to your site.

It’s really one of the best tools that I have seen for publishers in a long time.