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Jon Busby
[edited by: eWhisper at 10:59 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2005]
[edit reason] Please no URL drops. See TOS. [/edit]
Got a rapid response:
"You should expect a response regarding resolution from CJ within 72 normal business hours"
They didnt say 72 physical hours, it says 72 BUSINESS HOURS. <doing math> So with an average 8 hour work day excluding weekends we can expect a response by March 9th. I'm assuming that message was just a poor choice of words on their part.
I can drive down the coast to Santa Barbara and ask them in person faster :)
I wondering the same thing, Bill. I know that I got some clicks yesterday on keywords that the other affiliate was on, but I'm not sure how or why I was able to do that.
Rachel,
Depending on your budget, Google makes what is quite frankly a guess as to how frequently to show your ad. For that reason, the showing is spread over the day so that you'll stay within your budget.
The other affiliate's budget probably did not allow for them to show for 100% of searches and that's when you get your chance.
BTW, I've found that even with a budget that would be impossible to exceed and no other competition for the keyword, my ads still won't show on every search. I'd like them to, because why lose out on potential business. However, I've found that the maximum amount of times that a given ad will show is 80% of the time. That may well be an AdWords policy for all I know.
patient2all
Another thing I have found is that sometimes it is best to remove keywords that get high impressions and clicks. Or create an ad for just that keyword.
Example: Keyword = widget. I may decide to remove widget from the list because of to many impressions and clicks. Testing it for a week or so to see if sales drop. People may be more interested in a certain kind of widget (example: blue,green,large,small) and not just "widget".
In the case of widgets above I would create as many different ads as possible with each ad specific for one type of widget.
I have one CJ company that has over 150 different ads and I plan on adding another 75 or so.
They basically said that we would would need to ask the individual advertiser. That an absense of an advertiser not having text links is unusual, so perhaps there is a reason if the advertiser doesn't offer text links.
Translated into English:
"I don't know, please direct your question elsewhere as it's giving me a headache"
Nothing at all yesterday, but I did manage to tighten up my keywords, thanks to you asking about exact match. I got rid of some of the keywords that were giving me tons of clicks, but no sales, and the ones that I have now should give me more targeted traffic. Too bad I didn't do this on Tuesday. That day wound up costing me $85 with no sales. I've got a lot of catching up to do!
I'm working on a website now for my category so that I can start bringing in organic results in the next month or two. I'm thinking it'll be perfectly positioned by the time Christmas sales come around.
So, in between writing articles for the site, I've had fun choosing the next lucky merchants. ;) I think I'll wind up picking 2 or 3 and add a "review and compare" page to my site since I haven't seen any like that for my topic, with the exception of the big ones like shopping.com.
Unless there's some huge commission showing when (if) CJ gets around to catching up the reports, I think I'll go ahead and pause my AdWords campaign. Now that I think I've pinpointed the issue, I don't see any reason to spend another $100 over the weekend.
Anyone else have any updates?
Don't be impatient with the sales as you typically have a 45 day cookie. One of my affiliates did gangbusters last month, hundreds of dollars all at once - then it dried up for 2 weeks, then I got a bunch of sales again.
I'm assuming some of this is due to people shopping around and the rash of sales is when they make their final purchase decidion.
Every click gets its own SID, and I match them up again in a database after getting the CJ report and Adwords report, giving me ROI per keyword.
It allows me to track the exact Ad, keyword, user search terms (which can differ), time of click, IP address (good to look for fraud), and anything else.
Also, it allows me to clean the click before sending it to the merchant, meaning that the merchant does not get the free keyword data.