I’ve seen mentions of Ad Planner, Ad Manager, DoubleClick and Google Affiliate, but hadn’t looked into it. I did this weekend – and there went the weekend. (Apart from a nice BBQ at Russells on Sat night).

Talk about confusing. It was worse because I had AdSense setup using an old Yahoo email address, Analytics using a Gmail address, and AdWords yet another Gmail address.
The first thing Google kept nagging me to do, was link AdSense and Analytics. Eventually, after making the Yahoo account administrator on the Gmail Analytics accounts, it said they were linked….

Then to signup to Google DoubleClick for Publishers (Small Business), which is abbreviated everywhere as DFP SB.
The signup form rejected my multiple websites, even though it said I could list them comma-separated, so at first I set it up just for halloween-australia.com.
And no where on earth could I find out where to add the extra sites later. That’s definitely a forum job.
Wallowing through the forums, there was finally a link to the how to start guide: http://www.google.com/support/dfp_sb/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=27854

First you add your ad units, then you group them into placements, then you tag them, and stick the code on your site. The code consists of a header, and then separate blocks for each ad unit.

You have to take care to turn on the default AdSense bidding, to optimise earnings, and if no ad orders are available.
I went back to AdSense and updated each of the channels, to make them more public and targatable to AdWords advertisers.
Then back to DFP SB to check everything was ok.

Google still kept mentioning Ad Planner, so I signed up for that as well.
Again, it preferred my Yahoo address for site verification, so I had to add Yahoo to my Webmaster Tools list of sites. At least Google finally lets you add extra owners to site verification.

So in theory, halloween-australia can now be found through DoubleClick, Ad Planner and AdWords.

I’ll wait and see. It really wasn’t a smooth process.

One from Frank Kern, about “desire” being the way to get money whenver you want money.  That by tapping into people’s desire, they will buy things. Even when they probably shouldn’t. And the two types of desire – up-front desire versus seedling desire.

The next email was from Andy Jenkins, of Stompernet, about the need to stop selling, and create desire for your product.  About making your visitors “lust” after a fantasy result. Obviously there should be a real result from your product, but the desire comes from how the visitor fantasizes their life will change after buying your product.

Writing this post as I read my emails, I then find that Andy’s email was an affiliate link to Franks new video. No wonder they’re both about the same thing.

But that’s ok, because Andy’s email was personalised, and added value with a story of his own, about how a high traffic site failed at conversion, until he realised he had forgotten to tap into his visitors “desire”.

I opened Frank’s email because of curiosity. It was brief, and had a video link. And today (rarely) I was in the mood for videos.  Frank is a gifted and relaxed communicator, and I enjoyed his video.

Andy (sorry) is usually too verbose. But he eventually gets to a good point.

So creating desire is how to get people to buy. Even in a recession.

Yes we can.

But now Brad Callen has gone and created a free AdWords keyword spy tool that will let anyone spy on what keywords their competitors are advertising with!

PPC Web Spy lets you see other keywords and ads used by your competitors.

Let’s say you are searching for “dog training”.
When you install this PPC spy tool into your (Firefox) browser, it creates a button under each ad.
Click the button and you can see the other keywords this person is also advertising for.
PLUS THE AVERAGE POSITION, COST PER CLICK, CLICKS PER DAY AND COST PER DAY!

This is absolutely priceless information. From a free tool!

One of the few times I really need to use upper case exclamation marks in my blog. It’s that good.

If you advertise on Google AdWords, you really need this tool.

PPC Web Spy

Another winner from Brad Callen.

Ditched one or two so far, including two paid subscriptions to famous marketing newsletters. They just weren’t exciting me, even though they included physical CDs or magazines each month. Replacing them with one paid SEO subscription with fantastic tools to seomoz – I’ve been lusting over those tools for a while now.

Was tempted to ditch Jonathon Budds emails, but thought I’d check his latest email.

It’s an excellent link to a page on his site, 9 secrets to the most powerful network marketing sales funnel in the world

Compared to the last video of his, which was Jonathon speaking directly to the camera, this one is an online presentation with voiceover. This video is a gem. It’s free. I’m staying on his newslist. It’s clear and concise.

It does follow the current trend in network marketing called ‘funded proposal’.

The problem with online network marketing these days, according to all the gurus, is having enough money to acquire quality leads. Instead of buying leads from lead generation companies, who have no idea of your particular business, most ‘gurus’ recommend generating your own leads from your own site, marketing yourself. Generally on AdWords, which can get expensive when only a few joinup.

Funded proposals tell you to focus on selling the tools up front, to fund the leads that may later join your system. Kind of like selling shovels to gold prospectors.

This approach is used by magnetic sponsoring, power prospecting, onlinemlmsecrets, and more.
They are all having success with it. It’s the flavour of the day, in online network marketing.

In some respects it’s like the old days of Amway in the 90s, where many leaders were making a substantial part of their income from selling motivational tapes. Whether they acknowledged it or not.

And an organisation I was in a few years back, where the head guy was selling his system on the side, after you joined him. And he didn’t like it when I queried if he was within the terms of the main business. So I left his organisation, waited the requisite amount of time, and joined again later under someone nice.

I’ve been typing this post whilst listening to the 9 steps. Its a long presentation – over an hour. An now I’ve realised it ends up with a proposal for the onlinemlmsecrets system, which sounds very similar to magnetic sponsoring.

For now, I’m staying with Magnetic Sponsoring. I’ve bought the book. I’m a monthly member. I bought Black Belt Recruiting.

I’m about to buy the magnetic sponsoring Building on a Budget book. Just because I think it’s useful. And leading edge.

If you’re on holiday now, it’s a good time to plan your goals and strategy for next year.
I’d recommend Magnetic Sponsoring. It’s a great solid read.

His list was managed by icontact, who I’ve just started using.

But the screen that pops up, to allow me to unsubscribe, contains a list of his email subscription lists.
Apparently I was on the list called:

Desperate_For_Money_Buyers_Old

Not very flattering. If that’s how he thinks of his subscribers, he’s now guaranteed that I won’t ever join a list from him again, no matter what freebie he offers.

I guess that’s a tip to make sure that your internal list names are nice.