Purchasing a Domain Through Sedo.com

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this month I purchased my first-ever already-registered “premium domain name”.  For those of you that are new to webmastering, “premium domain” is a nice way of saying “fucking expensive” domain name!.

Aside from the obvious cost reasons I was always leery of purchasing a domain because I’ve read so many horror stories about people getting ripped off during the domain transfer process.  But I really wanted (needed) this particular domain name and it was offered through SEDO.com which after a little research, is safe by most accounts.

So I warmed up my credit card, signed up for my SEDO.com account and got my new domain name in just a few days with zero fuss.  The only real problem is that SEDO has a $500 limit on credit card purchases so I had to use PayPal, which everybody knows I hate/distrust/despise.

If you are looking to buy a domain name and are skeptical and/or worried about the riff-raff waiting to steal your money, SEDO.com’s process and escrow service makes the whole domain transfer and purchase process safe and painless.

Rafflecopter VS. Booshaka

Posted on by
Reply

Rafflecopter vs Booshaka imageWe’ve just finished our April iPad giveaway using Rafflecopter so as I mentioned last month I can now compare how Rafflecopter works and performs when compared against Booshaka.

With both our Booshaka and Rafflecopter giveaways our goal was to increase our Facebook Fanpage Likes.  In our March Booshaka iPod giveaway we gained over 1,000 new likes.  So using the iPod giveaway as a baseline we offered a new Retina display iPad in our Rafflecopter contest.  The iPad cost a few hundred dollars more, and is a more sough-after item (by most people? Right?) than an iPod, so we were hoping for over 1,000 fans.  Sadly, using Rafflecopter we only gained about 900 Likes.  Not bad, but not what I had hoped for.

Here are some of the key performance differences between Rafflecopter and Booshaka and how I rank the winner:

  • Ease of use for contestants: Booshaka wins
    Booshaka has a simple to enter, almost one-click entry form.  Gaining points toward the giveaway is as easy as posting a comment on our Facebook Timeline, which virtually all Facebook users know how to do.
    Rafflecopter is far to confusing for the average “regular” internet user.  To get points visitors just click the button to get points for “Liking” the page, or Liking us on Facebook, Tweeting, etc – But, it is too easy to just “Like”, tweet, etc, without actually doing the action.  The user must then enter the URL to the Tweet, or if they weren’t logged-in to Facebook, their Facebook URL, etc – For us this resulted in hundreds of invalid entries from people that just did not understand, and worse from cheaters.  Rafflecopter is far to easy to cheat.
  • Ease of use for website owner: Rafflecopter wins
    As mentioned above, it’s very easy to cheat or incorrectly enter for a Rafflecopter contest.  This means that as the contest owner/website owner you must moderate all of your entires, or, your winning entry.  Luckily Rafflecopter makes moderating and confirming your contest winners easy in the interface, requiring only a few minutes to choose and confirm your giveaway winner.
    Using Booshaka for “Top Fans” our contest turned into a “who can post, like, and comment the most” – which is great, but to keep things fair, you have to draw the line somewhere and delete comments, deduct points, etc.  You also have to contend with overzealous Fans and might have to ban a Fan or two from your page or contest.  All this moderation can take a significant amount of time.
  • Effectiveness for gaining more Facebook Likes: Booshaka wins
    Our goal is to draw more Facebook likes, so this is the most important factor, and by far Booshaka outperformed Rafflecopter in this respect.  I think this is because of how Booshaka is more Facebook centric, is easier to use for the contestants, and the better viral-traction that all of that commenting, liking, and posting creates.

Whether Rafflecopter or Booshaka is better for you and your contest depends on your goals and the type of giveaway you are doing (Facebook based vs blog or website based).  Although we may still use Rafflecopter, I think we’ll stick with Booshaka for the majority of our giveaways until we find something better.

Criteo Earnings and Results

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago I was approached by Criteo to give their advertising network a try on Grownupgeek.com.  Criteo is a CPM based ad network that has two features that makes it stand out compared to many other ad networks.

The first feature is Criteo’s behavioral advertising cookies which target a visitor based on their previous web surfing or shopping activities.  For example:  A visitor goes to BigtvStore.com which happens advertise with Criteo and researches LCD TV’s.  That visitor then comes to your Criteo-enabled website and gets targeted with LCD TV ads.  Because that person was actually interested in LCD TV’s he or she is presented with advertisements that should appeal to him or her and they may be more apt to act on one of those advertisements.  In theory, it’s a win for the internet user and a win for the advertiser.

The second nice Criteo feature is their CPM floor.  This feature allows you to set a minimum CPM price for your Criteo ads.  If they can’t beat that price, they display another ad-network of your choice.  For example:  You know that Adsense pays you a (hypothetical) eCPM of $5.  You set your Criteo CPM minimum to $5.01.  Criteo will then only display ads that pay you a eCPM of $5.01 or more.  If they can’t make that price, they automatically display your Adsense code and ads instead.  It’s a virtual no-lose method!  … in theory…

There are however a few flaws that may make Criteo not very attractive for some website owners.

The first flaw is that only a small percentage of your website visitors may be harboring a Criteo targeting cookie necessary to display Criteo targeted adverts.  This leaves you with say, 20% of your visitors that will ever see a Criteo ad.

The second flaw is that only a small percentage of Criteo advertisers will be able to meet or exceed your minimum eCPM.

When you do the math and combine the low percentage of visitors with the Criteo cookie with the low percentage of advertisers that will be able to meet your minimum eCPM (unless you set it very, very low), the net result is a very low number of actual Criteo impressions.  If your website regularly receives, say, 100,000 visitors per day, then your potential Criteo earnings could be decent.  If however, your website receives only a few thousand visitors per day, your number of paid impressions may only range from a few hundred to 1 or 2 thousand.  The net result is that even though you may be getting paid a much higher eCPM rate, your actual earnings may only be a few cents per day.

For us, Criteo isn’t cutting it.  It’s no fault of Criteo, but more due to our modest 10,000 to 20,000 page views per day.

If you have the impressions, you should give Criteo a try.  It’s a great idea with great potential for excellent earnings.  Criteo.com (non affiliate link)

What We Learned From Our First Facebook Contest

Posted on by
3

For the entire month of March we have been running our first ever Facebook contest.  Even though the contest does not end for another day, it’s been long enough that we’ve already learned a few things that I can share.

The goal of the contest was to increase our Facebook-Page fans/Likes so that we can better use the Facebook page as an ongoing platform to drive traffic to the website.  In the contest we were giving away a 32GB iPod Touch, an iPod Shuffle, and a $50 Amazon gift card.  Our total investment for this contest is approximately $400.  We used Booshaka to track who “interacted” with our page, and rank them.  Points are gained by Likes, comments, posts to our wall, etc.  We had a few “mini contests” to win additional points toward the prizes, such as a scavenger hunt at the website and some posting/content generation contests. The prizes, particularly the 32GB iPod Touch are substantial, so we were hoping for quite a bit of buzz, activity and new Likes for our Fanpage.

Based on our previous spending on Facebook advertising costs, $400 would have bought us approximately 150 likes, or around 200 likes based on the national “cost per Like” average.  Of course, would could have bought 5,000 likes for $100 from some guy in India, but 5,000 likes from fake accounts and/or people that don’t care one bit about our Fanpage would be a total waste of money (do people REALLY pay for these phony Facebook Likes?!).  So based on our $400 contest investment we would have been happy with 400 or 500 new Likes on our Fanpage.  I am ecstatic to report that even with a day left before the contest ends, we are at ~1,000 new likes on our Fan Page – over double what we had hoped for – and our reach/virility has also skyrocketed as shown by our Facebook Insights:

Graph of our Facebook LikesFacebook Reach graph

Other than confirming that a simple contest can be more effective at gaining exposure and Fans than Facebook advertising can, we also learned these nuggets of knowledge:

  • A full month is far too long to run a contest of this type, at least for something relatively small like an iPod touch.  31 days is grueling on the contestants and even more grueling on whoever is trying to keep up with and moderate all the posts and comments on the Facebook page.  The next time we run this type of contest it will be for 10 days to 2 weeks, maximum.
  • The Facebook friends of contestants hate getting spammed about our Facebook page and website all day and night.
  • We love when the contestants spam about our Facebook page and website all day and night.  :)
  • Very few people are actually willing to work or invest any time to win – even for a $300 iPod.  They want something fast & easy, even if that means they have a lower chance of winning anything.
  • A tiny percentage people are very willing to work for the prizes and will invest every last breath to win.
  • Many people will compete in the contest, or at least begin to play until they get bored or realize it’s more work than they are willing to do – then drop out.
  • The vast majority of people will follow the rules and have fun in the contest.  But, just as in the real-world, it will draw a few shitholes.
  • Any contest will apparently attract a few “contest mercenaries” (professional game-players) out of the woodwork that don’t really care about your Facebook page or your website.  Not much you can do about them but they do help to “up the ante” and can keep things competitive.
  • Facebook & the internet, just like the real world, is full of idiots and shitholes that will cheat, lie, or steal their way to win anything.  You have to expect and be on the lookout for these people.  It’s these people that make running a contest and sometimes just running a website, a pain in the ass.  You can’t do much about them other than keep an eye out for them, and block/ban them.
  • No matter what you do, or how you do it, someone (or multiple someones) is going to become unhappy when they don’t win.  It will never be their fault.  It will never be because they didn’t actually read the rules.  It will never be because they didn’t follow the rules.  It will always be YOUR fault or worse a grand conspiracy going all the way up to the President and the U.N. with everyone ganging up against them to prevent them from getting that prize that they perceive as their birthright.  There isn’t much you can do about these people.  Deal with them, ignore them, or tell them to go play in someone else’s contest.

Overall we are happy with the results of this contest.  The biggest takeaway is that it was too long and too much work.  Next month I think we will try a few simpler giveaways using Raffelcopter.com and see how effective it is verses a Booshaka.com contest.

How I Achieved a 9.3% Total CTR In An Email

Posted on by
1

This Guest post is from Jeremy Reeves

I recently sent out an email to my list and got 9.3% of my list to CLICK one of the links in that email. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about people who opened and clicked. This number is based off the total number of emails sent, and the total number of clicks.

First, let me explain why high clickthrough rates (CTR) in emails are so important.

Building your list and sending emails to them is one of the most reliable ways to make money online. You can send your list relevant content, offers to affiliate products, links to your own sales pages selling your own products, and even do joint ventures with other people.

As a quick side note, the best way I’ve found to grow your list is simply creating a squeeze page giving away a 5-30 page free report.

Second, when you send emails, the more people who click on the links to go to your website (or affiliate link, etc.)… the more money you’ll make. So your main goal when sending an email is to get the maximum number of people clicking your links in that email.

Typically, people are happy with a 2-4% total CTR. So why did mine convert roughly 3-4 times better than the “average” email?

Let me show you.

Subject Line:  The subject line read “he’s crazy, but his stuff works…”

There are two main triggers I was trying to hit when I wrote that subject line. They include…

1) It makes people curious by saying “he’s crazy”. People love entertainment. So if the email starts out by saying this guy is crazy, they want to find out why!

2) When I say “his stuff works”, I’m implying that there’s value inside for them. People are tired of being taken advantage of by products and services that do nothing but leave holes in their wallets. Saying his stuff works implies a level of credibility and a possible solution for them to overcome some of the challenges they’re facing.

That got a huge number of people to open the email. However, I don’t care about open rates because nothing ever happens until they at least click one of the links in the email, so let’s talk about why the clickthrough rate was so high.

#1 – In the first few paragraphs, I mention that John and I are “morning mastermind buddies” on Skype. This adds instant credibility to John because, from being on my list, they know how fanatical I am about my time. Right after this paragraph, I added the first link to his site.

#2 – In the email, John and I did what’s called a “list swap”. We simply wrote an email to our list promoting the other persons free report. It’s a great way to build your list, and a great way to give more value to your existing list. We gave away each others reports, so the “offer” in this email was a no-brainer.

#3 – His report was about getting traffic, and is a fantastic report. So I added in 5 bullets talking about a few things they would learn in the course. Right after these bullets, I added a second link to get his free report.

#4 – After the second link to his site, I then reiterated that I highly recommended it. Again I was using my own credibility with my list to drive them to take action. Third-party credibility is a fantastic way to increase conversions in any area of marketing.

#5 – I made sure to tell them that I was NOT getting a single penny by recommending it. By showing them that it made no difference to me whether they clicked or not, it makes them attracted to the offer because there are no strings attached. Then, I put in a third and final link to his site.

And that’s about it!

You can very, very easily take the template I just gave you and use it in your own business to do list swaps with people you know. Or, use it to sell affiliates products (except leave out #5 of course).

Whatever you do with it, I hope it makes you a lot of money :)

About Jeremy Reeves:

Jeremy Reeves is an email copywriter and marketing strategist. His unique and innovative marketing strategies, combined with results-getting copy have earned his clients millions of dollars.

You can grab his FREE special report, “The 3×3 Formula For Doubling Your Profits In 60 Days Or Less” by heading over to http://www.3x3Formula.com

Facebook Timeline for Fan Pages: Breaks Fan Gates

Posted on by
Reply

Facebook has made Timeline available for Fan Pages today.  Timeline on a Fan Page looks great (once you become accustomed to it), but it looks like Facebook has taken away default landing tabs which means your Fan Gate will not work if you activate the new Timeline for your Fan Page.

I’m reading around the Interwebs that you can still create a Fan Gate for your Facebook Fan page with Timeline, but I haven’t yet found out exactly how.  Our Page didn’t rely much on our Fan Gate, but I know a few Fan page owners that arent going to like it.