Harry Blogs

Yesterday, I prepared myself for the Microsoft adExcellence test and cleared the exam. Now, I am a Microsoft adExcellence member. If you are in to search marketing, then I would recommend you to go through the tutorials and clear the test. To become an adExcellence member, you need to pass the test, manage at least one AdCenter account and agree to their terms.

I won't say if the test is easy or hard. No test is easy or hard and it depends on your preparation for it. If you have not prepared yourself for the test, then obviously the test will be hard for you. I passed with well above the passing percentage of 80%. My experience with Microsoft AdCenter helped me clear the test. Now, I am looking forward at getting Google AdWords certified in a few days.

Lately, I have seen many companies miss the most vital part of online marketing. This section of online marketing is called Brand Marketing. This post is now about what is Brand Marketing and how to do it. I am talking here about How Brand Marketing has affected me and lot of other Indians. Just read below and let me know how it has affected you too. I am listing down some examples of brand marketing here.

1. Online Games - Before Facebook came in to existence, most of the Indians used a portal for playing online games. The website for same is Zapak.com. Even today lot of people directly type in Zapak.com when they need to spend their time playing games.

2. Travel & Hotel Booking - Without a doubt, MakeMyTrip.com leads everyone. Whenever I think of looking for a nice Holiday package or booking of flight tickets, the website that immediately comes to my mind is MakeMyTrip.com.

3. Online Shopping - eBay.in and shopping.rediff.com are the only websites where I do online shopping. There might be a third odd site but whenever I think of buying anything online, Rediff Shopping and eBay are the first palces to check out.

4. News - Rediff.com is the only place I go to whenever I want to see whats happening in a Cricket match or want to know about latest happenings.

There are many other examples where people just type in the URL when they think about a service or a product. The reason why people do this is because of the kind of branding that is done. If people start visiting your website without researching on something then you should consider yourself as a successful brand.

Brand marketing is different then the regular PPC marketing. Brand marketing requires lot of research and reach which can be very easy if done properly. I'll discuss more details on brand marketing and the right way of doing it in my upcoming posts.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine and He was telling me about how people are using fake celebrity profiles and making huge money out of it. I do have an twitter account and I know about ways to make money with twitter which was explained earlier on my blog. Lot of people who pay for tweets are usually looking for people who have more followers from the US and the UK. This makes lot of sense because these are the people who spend lot of money when it comes to buying stuff online. The point here is that it is quiet understandable when someone creates a fake Britney Spears or Tiger Woods profile, gets thousands of followers and makes loads of cash by advertising.

Taking this topic further, my friend was telling me how he missed the opportunity of creating fake Bollywood star twitter profiles. I was like WTF! What would one get by creating such fake profiles unless he/she has a website related to Bollywood and is making a few cents advertising it. I decided to have a look at all the 'So Called Bollywood Celebrity profiles' and if I can learn how they are making money by creating and using such fake celebrity profiles. To my surprise, I did not see any of these fake celebrities making any posts which were ads or something that would make them money. The sad thing to see was that people are actually talking to these fake idiots thinking as if they are the real celebrities.

People following these fake celebrities obviously do not know so something called as a verified twitter listing. Twitter has this process where it can verify whether a celebrity is real or fake. It seems they do it by calling the person and verifying his/her identity. The only bollywood celebrity I know who has a verified listing on twitter is Priyanka Chopra. What people need to understand here is that such celebrities don't have time. They don't even answer their phones forget about tweeting via cellphones and computers. Such celebrities always try and stay away from public and media. We know that India has around 80 News channels and getting information on what a celebrity ate at dinner is always so easy.

If you are a celebrity (or even if you think you are one), you can get your profile verified from twitter which will tell people that you are genuine. For others, stop following these fake idiots who are doing nothing but wasting your time and making fun of you.

I have seen many bloggers who give tips to Affiliate Marketers on how to make money with affiliate marketing. No one talks about tips for Affiliate Networks though. I have a few tips for affiliate networks which can help them and affiliate marketers like us make more money online.

1. Checking Offers - Many Affiliate Networks, including some of the top ones have no clue on what the offer is. They are not sure whether the offer is a diet pill or a something else like a patch, ebook or a weight loss program. It is very important for an Affiliate Manager to go through the offer and have answers to almost all questions regarding that offer before making it live on the network.

2. Offer Availability - I have seen Affiliate Managers clueless about offers. I remember seeing an offer marked as active on a network and I was pretty sure that this offer has been expired but the link etc. was working. To double check, I asked the affiliate manager whether the offer is still good and she told me no its not. I would have lost money and time running that offer and not gaining anything if I would have not asked about it to the manager. The offer was taken off in an hours time.

3. Pausing/Closing Offers - This has happened a couple of times when I am running a PPC campaign for an offer and bidding as high as $1 per click. At 8 AM in the morning my time (IST), I see an email from the network asking me to stop promoting the offer ASAP. The email was sent to me at 2 AM my time and I obviously did not see it because I was sleeping. I lost a few dollars on that offer but nothing I could do much about it. Its better to inform affiliates at least one day before pausing or stoping an offer.

4. Promo/Discount/Coupon Codes - Every Affiliate Manager needs to ensure that He/She is aware of all the promo codes available for offers. Many times you see the offer page has a field for a discount code but it has not been provided to you. I remember asking an affiliate manager about a promo code and he replied saying "Whats That". Do you think I am asking him any further questions? Hell NO! There have also been funny incidents when your AM provides you a discount code but the offer page has no place for it. I would give a very bad rating to such managers.

5. Top Offers - Not many networks do this but sending an email every morning with list of top offers does help. Lot of people tend to forget about an affiliate network and it helps when they see an email which also helps them to decide on what to work on next. Also, informing and educating affiliates on new offers can really help and motivates the person to run that offer.

6. Hidden/Permission Needed Offers - This really annoys me a LOT! Few affiliate networks have offers that are hidden or need someone's permission before you can go ahead and start running it. The worst thing is that you get denied for running that offer. Till date I am not sure what is the criteria. The criteria might be history with the network and how much you have made but Isn't there a first time always? If you keep all you offers hidden and keep denying your new affiliates then do you think He/She is coming back to beg? No way! There are loads of other networks where we can go and test a few offers quickly rather than wasting our time begging.

Among all my Affiliate Managers I would say my managers from Neverblue are the best! My AM there right now is Chris who is very calm and cool no matter how many questions I ask him. If you are in to affiliate marketing and not with Neverblue, I would suggest you to sign up with them using my affiliate link and request for Chris as your manager. I am sure that you will start earning a lot more compared to what you are earning now.

Chris - Add $1000 to my account for saying good things about you

Its Official! Or was it long back? I just got an email saying that the Yahoo and Microsoft Search alliance will be implemented soon. I really don't care about Yahoo Search apart from one of my sites ranking no.1 for a very competitive keyword there, guess that will be gone soon.

So what is the change and how will it affect us Internet Marketers?

1. There will be only one search engine Bing. This is not clear to me yet but it seems all results will be as per Microsoft or Bing's algorithm.
2. The advertising platform will be AdCenter. This means no more Yahoo Search Marketing (It sucked anyway!). So if you are advertising on AdCenter, your ads will also be displayed on websites that display Yahoo Ads.

This alliance might work in a positive direction for me. I hated the Yahoo Search Marketing platform and the rate of success I had on YSM was pretty low compared to AdWords and AdCenter. In fact, I had given up on YSM a few months ago. I personally think the alliance should also start something like the Google Quality Score for keywords which helps better pages to bid low. I know many Internet Marketers won't like this but yes, the better deserves the best. I am good at kicking some ass when it comes to Google Quality Score and would love to see the same getting implemented in the Yahoo and Microsoft Alliance advertising network, AdCenter.

On Search perspective, I really don't care because I never bother to search using either Bing or Yahoo. Google still remains the King and will remain there for a long time.

I have a few questions and assumptions in mind. This alliance will highly affect Internet Marketing. As per my research, most of the people who search using Yahoo are doing it because they "accidentally" installed the Yahoo toolbar and made Yahoo as their default search engine while installing the Yahoo Messenger. The alliance here means all those users will now search using Bing. Secondly, we already know why people use Bing. The only reason I see people using Bing search is because they don't know how to change the default search in their Internet Explorers.

All in all, I see this as a minor threat to AdWords and not Google Search. Lot of banned AdWords users are already spending huge money with AdCenter and the alliance will attract more advertisers as the reach would be pretty high from a single platform.

How many times would we love to talk to a  person rather than just clicking a few buttons before buying a product? I personally would love to speak to someone about the product rather than just buying it over the Internet. I guess, any person who has both the options would prefer calling the store/company before buying the product online.

Google AdWords has launched the Click To Call service where you can have a number along with your AdWords Ad and someone looking at your ad using is iPhone or any other phone that supports full browsers can simply click on the Ad and make a call to your store or company. For e.g. You have a store in a certain location and you already have ads running on Google using AdWords. You obviously have this ad so that the person who is interested in buying your product clicks it and makes an online purchase. Many times the person might have a look at the price and would check the product and price somewhere else before actually buying the product online. He cannot bargain or get answers to his questions about the product because there is no one to talk to.

On the other hand, the person is interested in buying your product and he clicks your number on the ad and straight away talks to a person with whom He/She can talk about more features, get answers to questions and also get a good deal if possible. This is an excellent opportunity for marketers who have physical stores or can deliver products at Home.

Not many have got a chance to use the Google Click To Call service but it seems that using Click To Call Ads increases the conversions rates by a good margin. The amount spent on such ads might a bit high but its always a good deal when you also have such high conversion rates. It's good to see the Internet Marketing Industry moving in such directions.

If you have have a store and sell products then I would definitely recommend the Google AdWords Click to Call Ads for you. Once you get the call, a good customer care rep with proper follow up can get you that sale for sure.

Recently I had applied for top CPA networks and as per their policy they straight away rejected me. I did manage to get accounts with them later by calling and telling them about my experience in this industry. On further discussion over the phone, I was informed by most of the CPA networks that applications from India get rejected AUTOMATICALLY. I felt bad after hearing this because I obviously don't want my countrymen to be treated like this. I have accounts with the Industry top affiliate and advertising networks and they require lot of documents like your photo ID proof, credit card scanned copies etc.

I tried to dig in to this with few of my affiliate managers and I was shocked to know that I am the only Indian in their network. I am not sure if they are lying, but the way they have had trouble paying me direct in to my bank account does show that they have very little or no experience dealing with banks in India. On further investigation, I was told that these networks had suffered lot of losses due to fraud done by Indian affiliates and advertisers. Most common fraud is using fake Credit Cards, generating fake leads etc.

If you are an Indian and would like to really make it big in the make money online business then you need to be serious with what you do. Most of the networks are in contact with each other and getting blacklisted in one of these networks means getting blacklisted in most of them. You might think you are a pro black hatter and guru in coding  but you cannot hide. A single red flag and your account will be banned. This means that you cannot get in to that network ever in your life. As a young person, you might not care a bit about it but this will affect you in future for sure. Even today I get messages in my linkedin network to visit a web page for career guidance and when I reach this page, all I see is a MFA page with no useful information whatsoever. Getting spammed by people in network of people with over 10 years of experience in IT is really spoiling your own reputation in the market. You might get a few pennies with those AdSense clicks but you are really missing the real picture. You will see some amount in your AdSense account but you will never get it. Just a few days before getting paid, your ass will be banned! All those hours you spent on spamming people's inbox will go wasted.

The point here is, whoever you are and wherever you are, you have to be serious when it comes to making money online. The Internet Marketing Industry is not a  place where you can fool around and not get caught. If not today, tomorrow! Your dream to make money online will be ended pretty soon.

I had written a post on why I won't buy an iPhone but I have got it finally a few months ago. Actually my wife gifted it to me and she was not aware of the fact that I do not like the iPhone . It's an iPhone 3Gs and she got it at a good price from Pune at around Rs 38,000. I am using the Phone since 4 months now and I would say I am impressed by the phone for sure. Why does it impress me? It's not necessary that whatever features I like about an iPhone will be liked by you as well. I am listing down the plus and minus points of iPhone for me. You can see if these relate to you as well.  Most of points will be compared to my previous phone which was a Blackberry.

Good things first:

1. I love my affiliate network apps on the iPhone. I can check my Azoogle and Neverblue stats from the iPhone wherever I am. My old Blackberry phone did not have this feature. But it seems Azoogle now has an app for Blackberry as well.
2. My monthly bill has come down by Rs 800. I had to pay Rs 900 for Blackberry Connect services. I am on Airtel, so their unlimited Blackberry plan costs you Rs 900 per month. On the iPhone I use GPRS which means I have to pay just Rs 100 for the unlimited GPRS plan. I don't see much of a difference in the speed though, so I am happy with this.
3. With an iPhone you can never get bored. Yesterday, I was at the new HDFC Bank, Kanjurmarg office and as usual they kept me waiting for a few hours. With an iPhone, you can play games, play around with different apps and do lot more to spend your time. My old Blackberry had just one brick game. Nice game but one gets bored with it after some time.
4. There is no doubt that an iPhone looks stylish and grabs attention. I have a 3Gs with a white back panel and it looks quiet impressive. I don't think there is any phone that looks as good as an iPhone with a white back panel.
5. iPhone has an inbuilt iPod with a superb sound quality. The headphones are super cool, the best you could ever get.

Now the bad things about an iPhone:

1. Battery life is not good. Till date, my experience with Nokia phones has been good after Blackberry when it comes to battery life. No phone can beat the Blackberry in terms of battery life.
2. The worst thing in an iPhone which I personally hate is the lack of a keypad. The iPhone has a good touch screen pad but nothing beats he Blackberry keypad again.
3. An iPhone can be used as a modem and data storage but its not easy. You need to do some research on the Internet and load a few apps and play around with things to use your iPhone as a modem and a portable hard drive.
4. Loading and unloading of songs is not that easy. You need iTunes on your computer to load songs in an iPhone. Many times you find your favorite song on your friends computer which you would love to have on your phone but this won't be possible if your friend does not have iTunes installed. Also, if you are not good with handling the application, you can manage losing all your stuff on your iPhone very easily.

You can see that the list of Goods is more as per me but for many people out there, a bad battery life and lack of a solid keypad can be a BIG problem. For others, who are game freaks, want to listen to songs, watch movies and  play around with different apps, the iPhone would be the best gadget. Just make sure that you carry your charger wherever you go.

Is the AdWords representative's location responsible for your Geo Targeted ads getting disapproved? If you ask me this question then I would say yes to it and yes it's really frustrating. To cut the long story short, I'll try and explain what exactly is happening. I feel Google should find a solution to deal with this situation ASAP.

Here's a scenario: Lets say I have a website which offers SEO services for people in New York. I create a campaign in AdWords and target it to people in New York only. So if someone from NewYork clicks my Ad, He/She gets to see my NY website. Lets assume that my NY website is www.nyseosite.com, so I want people who click my ad and are from NY to reach www.nyseosite.com. Accordingly my ad would be displayed like this:

Headline: Seo Services in New York
Line 1: Quality SEO For Your Website
Line 2: Starting From $49. Contact Us Now!
Display URL: www.nyseosite.com
Destination URL: http://mytracking202tool.com/seoservices

I also have a website which provides SEO services for everyone who is not from New York. So if someone not from NY wants to visit my website, he gets re-directed to www.myseosite.com. Simple!  The AdWords guys do not understand this.  Most of these AdWords representatives are either in Ireland or India. So what they do is try and visit www.nyseosite.com using whatever tool/browser they have and because they are not in NY, they OBVIOUSLY get to see my www.myseosite.com website and NOT www.nyseosite.com. Now they feel that my display URL in the Ad above is wrong and should be www.myseosite.com and NOT www.nyseosite.com. Such ads are disapproved even when they are 100% legal. Sending emails and explaining stuff  to AdWords reps does not help. It seems that they are trained in this manner so there's nothing they can do about it. I tried to find a solution for this online and seems like no one has a solution.

Are you facing a similar problem? If yes, have you resolved it already? Please let me know.