Today’s ad serving post on Shoemoney.com– what WASN’T said
I saw 52 comments on my guest post today on Shoemoney.com. This was one of the longest posts I’ve done. And I’m pleasantly surprised by the feedback there– only one hater, who tried to broadbrush all affiliate bloggers as folks who actually don’t make any money, but exist to prey on noobs. And even that person came around to note that not all affiliate marketers are scammers.
The folks who left comments were from broad walks of life– from running a site for chiropractors (charging up to $550 CPM rates– that is not a typo), to a work at home mom, to affiliate managers, to our buddy Daehee who coached the team that won the Google Online Marketing Challenge last year. There were the typical range of comments from folks who don’t know what PPC stands for, folks who noticed how long the post was, to folks who got some value.
But the most interesting thing is not one of these comments, but what WASN’T said. I didn’t see anyone from the ad networks or any ad serving engineers post comments. The truth about scrubbing is something that large affiliates keep to themselves. Same is true for ad networks that employ a form of “boost” to favor low performing ads on the network– great for the advertiser, but a penalty paid for by publishers who make less money. We could spend hours on the tricks that are employed by ad networks, in a sort of Mason’s handshake for the uninitiated. Do most ad networks scrub? Yes. Is this a legitimate practice? Yes. But do most ad and affiliate networks also scrub in unethical ways? Yes.
A lot of affiliates were asking about a more in-depth post on scrubbing. Rather than go into all the ways– which is something I couldn’t do, because there are so many that I don’t know, too– it’s better to just say that you should look at your earnings. So what if they take 30% out? Perhaps they are paying you 50% more per lead so it backs out better than the other offer. Sure, you could ask that the advertiser place your pixel on the page– close to their pixel (since position on page matters). And you could get your AM to swear that you aren’t getting scrubbed– yeah, the check is in the mail.
So the answer? Just look at eCPM. Don’t worry about payouts (that’s a sucker play) or other metrics. Understand that CTR x eCPC = eCPM. And with CTR holding equal, then you want maximum eCPC, which is the payout times the conversion rate. So if the conversion rates are the same for an offer across two networks, you’d take the one that has the higher payout. But often the same campaigns sending traffic to the same offer page will convert differently between networks. Scrubbing is not the only reason, but the primary one. So choose according to what makes you the most– run a primary network for the offer, but reserve a small portion to run on the other network, so you can check for discrepancies between the two. If you have a lot of traffic, it’s only smart to do that.
I believe that smarter pubs will join LeaderClicks. If you believe that eCPM is the true measure of earnings, then sign up. If you think that lead payout or eCPC is what to shop for, then join another network. We’ll be releasing a series of tools to let you rotate ads between us and the other guys to keep us honest. Or write your own script– it will only take you 20 minutes. Most of the networks who run social inventory are absolutely fleecing publishers. I won’t mention names, but these folks know who they are and what margins are set for the street payouts. We could play that game, too, but think that in the long run (and in internet time, that’s 6 months), the market will eventually figure it out. I want to be ready for that shake-out now— I want publishers to ask the right questions of their ad networks, so they can make informed choices about who really does pay better– not who says they pay better.
I am 16 years old and though I enjoy a decent standard of living, you won’t see me renting office space on Madison Avenue, hiring a bunch of empty suits, or holding contests with glamorous prizes— these are all things for show that actually eat into both network profits and publisher payouts. The pie must add up to 100%, so you do the math on how that dollar of gross revenue is allocated. We have a small team of less than 20 people, primarily engineers who work on ad serving, plus a few analysts. We’re self-funded, but have more money than the average start-up, since we’ve made a fair bit doing affiliate marketing ourselves. I’d like to think that this gives us a better understanding of the publisher point of view.
In a future post, I’ll talk about some of the things that our ad server does, such as Dynamic Social Ads, where we personalize ads on the fly based on user profile information. And there are cool statistical techniques where we match offers against groups of people with common traits. We could go on and on crowing about how we have “proprietary” black box voodoo magic Google SocialAdFriendPageRank secret sauce– but really, it’s just about who pays you more money, pays on time, and is fun to work with.
So sign up for our social ad network (or if you have other inventory, that’s fine, too), use promo code “HARRISONSENTME” and I’ll send you a free LeaderClicks T-shirt when you do at least $100 in earnings. Oh, and the shirts are PIMP!
Hi Harrison,
Interesting post today on shoemoney. I’m just learning the ropes at the moment but am a little confused. In your shoe article you state the CTR x eCPC x 1000 = eCPM but in this article above you state CTR x eCPC = eCPM. Can you clarify which it is? Trying to learn all this without having setup any network accounts or ran with a single ad yet (My blog isn’t even live yet lol)
Thanks
Comment by PhotoKungFu — September 20, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
You’re right, forgot the 1000 in the second example– good catch. But the concept is still the same. A penny an impression is a $10 CPM. And a 1% CTR with a 10 cent eCPC is a dollar eCPM.
Comment by admin — September 20, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
I got royally scrubbed by a Linkshare merchant for a sale of $15,237. Not a typo. The commision on that one was more than $1,000.
It was on the non commisionable list with the mention “(4) Return Days Exceeded”.
This merchant has a 365 days cookie so I don’t think there is a big chance for that to happen.
So I create a transaction inquiry log and after 10 days they responded: “Denied : Order Credited to Another Channel”.
Yup, that’s it…
Comment by Pex Cornel — September 20, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Would you please disclose the price for LeaderClicks membership? I hope it is not like “you can’t afford it, if you are asking.”
Thanks,
Comment by Houshang — September 20, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
Sorry kid, that was my post. You fall into the affiliate blogger who never made the big bucks but blogs like crazy like some maven to take advantage of the desperate get rich quick greedy sucker noobs. You never made any real big money, you hope to make money blogging by taking the money of wide eyed wanna be noobs.
You are just another internet silver tongued pos that proves the internet has allot of scammers that need to be eradicated.
I don’t care if you are 16 or 99, your type disgust me and pollute our internet. You bring nothing original to the internet, that is why scum like you revert to attempts of clever scams.
You blog only gets traffic when hoemoney lets you post on his worthless blog and his minions check your scammer ass out.
Comment by HeyKid — September 21, 2008 @ 12:28 am
Prove you make the big bucks then we will take your posts serious.
You call me a hater, damn straight, I hate internet bull shitters, scammers, and liars!
You have a gift of gab, but you never back it up. Just another internet wanna be maven.
Comment by HeyKid — September 21, 2008 @ 12:34 am
The scrubbing part really caught my attention. The only real way to deal with it is skip affiliate networks altogether and concentrate on getting offers from the sellers themselves. With a large number of such offers, you can then rotate them to minimize inventory waste and since there is no middleman you will also get a higher eCPC.
Now further still, if you have a link cloaking system in place with a decent tracking software attached, you can measure CTR on your own. All that you have to do afterwards is check for discrepancies and measure eCPM. If something goes amiss you can simply drop the offending ad.
The downside is that you would need to do a lot more work to find these offers, but hey it’s a trade off worth the trouble.
Regards, George
Comment by George Cozma — September 21, 2008 @ 4:35 am
George,
You’re right on— and I checked out your blog. Very informative SEO posts! Want to guest post here on cpashare.com?
H
Comment by admin — September 21, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
What’s up w/ the haters?
“HeyKid” sounds super bitter. D-Bags will be d-bags, I guess.
Harrison, you da man.
Comment by Garrett — September 21, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
I didn’t really get that term scrubbing that much. Is it really like affiliate networks are taking something from you? or is it just like affiliates are taking back something because of fraud/errand leads?
Comment by Melvin — September 21, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
HeyKid sucks balls, man you are soooo annoying, the point you don’t seem to get is that 50% of the people commenting here know each other irl and know exactly that the counterpart makes a ton of cash. The only one who has to prove himself that he is in the fucking position to call someone else a scammer is you buddy!
Comment by Marc — September 21, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Here is how the kid operates on this blog, he makes very complicated lingo posts that he knows the average wanna be get rich quick reader will not understand. His hope is that the noob will think he is some kind of genius but is too stupid to figure it out for themselves. Then the noob will sign up for his scam in hopes that the kid will do all the rest.
What a friggin Joke you scammers are! What a joke you fools who buy this crap are! This crap is so old!
Comment by HeyKid — September 22, 2008 @ 12:27 am
Hey kid, if you do not like my comments then just delete them before your bitches read them. I lol off at how I have rattled you and hoemoney’s cages. I guess I have pissed off the snake pit.
Comment by HeyKid — September 22, 2008 @ 12:31 am
What does PPC mean?? I’ve never heard of that word before.
Comment by Ryan Eagle — September 22, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
test comment
Comment by netsol — October 13, 2008 @ 4:12 am
Hi!
Comment by Justin Shaun — October 13, 2008 @ 4:16 am
thanx!
Comment by netsol — October 20, 2008 @ 9:14 am
Guests post are really fine but your post was great. It was the first time when I heat about your blog
Comment by Outlety — December 3, 2008 @ 1:52 pm