MyAds: Promote Your Blog, Product or Service on MySpace
At the bottom of this post is a coupon code to give you a $50 credit at MyAds – this is not an affiliate promotion, just a take it or leave it offer from MyAds.
Over the last week or so I’ve had the opportunity to see inside the MyAds from MySpace.
MyAds have been an advertiser here on ProBlogger for a month or two now (consider that a disclaimer) so I wanted to see for myself how it worked. What I found was a very easy to use and pretty affordable way to advertise a product, service or even your blog.
In short – MyAds is a pay per click banner advertising system where you can advertise on MySpace and get your message in front of potentially millions upon millions of MySpace users.
You can use it with an advertising budget of as little as $5 a day and have a pretty good looking ad set up to run within just a few minutes using their ad building tool (or you can upload your own using an uploader).
Worth noting before we go any further is that to run a campaign you need a US address and credit card. As someone without either of these I could only go as far as designing an ad and testing out the targeting features. I did however talk to a number of MyAds advertisers to get their feedback (see below).
Setting up an ad is easy. Even me as a design challenged guy got one set up in a few minutes. I put a mock ad together for my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook. Here’s a screenshot of the page where you set up the ads (click to enlarge):
As you’ll see there are three ad size options and it’s as simple as typing in your ad copy, adding an image, choosing a background color and adding in a destination URL.
You can then preview your and move on to working out who you want to see it as well as setting a budget.
On the following screenshot you’ll see the section to choose your target audience:
As you make your choices about who you want to see the ad the grey area the bottom of the screen changes. It shows you how many users on MySpace will potentially see your ad as well as giving you a suggested bid price for how much the ad might cost per click to run.
The targeting options look pretty good – not only can you target by demographics (gender, age, education, relationships, parental status and location within the US) but you can also choose categories of interests and occupations of the type of person you want to reach with your ad. I tried a number of options and got the target number of people to reach quite focused and the suggested cost per click quite a bit lower than what you see in the above screenshot.
This enables you to increase the chances of conversion with your ad quite considerably.
All in all from where I stand MyAds seems like something that I’d like to use if I were running an ad campaign for a product, service or even to launch a new blog. I’ve previously used similar ad systems on other social networks with some success and the easy of use of MyAds plus what looks like great targeting make it an attractive option.
How Does it Perform? Testimony from a Heavy User of MyAds
As I was unable to go much further in the process (as a non US resident) I approached a number of people to get their feedback on the ads. One of those I talked with was Joe Frevola from Globalizer who uses MyAds quite extensively. I asked Joe a number of questions to get his insight on the why and how of MyAds:
How have you used MyAds and How has it performed?
Globalizer uses Myspace MyAds to buy media for our GlobalizerNetwork advertisers. We have had tremendous success with several campaigns on MySpace and have been impressed with its powerful targeting tools, which we have utilized to target the demographics and interests of our audience.
In comparison with Facebook, it’s hard to pick a clear cut winner and both should be a part of your media buy in most cases. Each has advantages and disadvantages and the best choice of the two will vary based on the type of campaign you are running.
While MySpace’s targeting tool is more organized and allows you to select keywords sorted by categories and sub categories, Facebook’s keyword search tool allows you to access a more robust database of target interest. MySpace does have useful demographic targeting that you can’t get with Facebook, such as the ability to specifically target mothers or recently married individuals.
Both MySpace and Facebook have solid targeting tools that should allow you to push positive ROI. While the Facebook ad platform is global, you can only target US users on MySpace currently, however word is MySpace is adding new countries later in the year. I would highly recommend the use of both ad networks to just about any advertiser.
Do you have any tips for using MyAds to share with ProBlogger readers?
There are some tricks to getting the most out of MySpace MyAds. Globalizer runs a lot of lead generation campaigns that drive a very high response, but don’t pay high bounties per conversion and therefore don’t allow us to pay very high CPC’s.
Often, when you start a campaign with a very low CPC, the ads delivers very little or no volume at all. We find that in order to kick start this sort of campaign, we overpay on CPC in the beginning and fully expect to take a short term loss as MySpace’s optimization system values the quality of our offers.
In the end, the system just wants to back into the highest eCPM, so the fact that our ads are driving very high click through rates more than compensates for the lower CPC. Once the campaign starts getting significant delivery, we are able to adjust our rate down to a profitable number and continue to experience a great a volume of traffic.
Also, when you first start running a new campaign on MySpace, definitely go with your gut and select targets that you feel will have the best chance of success with your offer. However, don’t neglect to test various demographics that you might not think would typically perform with your ads. You will often be surprised at the demos that respond to your offers.
Get $50 Credit with This Code
If you’d like to test MyAds for yourself (IF you’re in the US) they’ve given me a coupon code for ProBlogger readers to try it out and get $50 credit to use in doing so. You need to be new to MyAds to redeem it (ie if you’ve already used MyAds it’s not redeemable).
To use it – just design an ad and at the end of the process use the coupon code of Pro50. Of course this is only for those who are residents of the US and have US address and credit card details.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
MyAds: Promote Your Blog, Product or Service on MySpace
Video: How to Build a High Traffic Blog
Over the last WordCamp San Francisco Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (name of both his book and blog), gave a presentation on “how to build a high traffic blog without killing yourself.”
It lasts 50 minutes, and he covers a wide range of topics, from posting frequency to blogging tools and community building. The cool thing is that most of the stuff is coming from the tests that Tim run over the years. Worth watching.
Partner: BecomeABlogger.com, the best online course for aspiring bloggers. Two days left to join.
Three Tips for Creating Your Own Independence Day
July 4 is Independence Day here in the States, which, for most of us, entails the risk of losing:
- your fingers to cheap fireworks;
- your waistline to hot dogs;
- your liver.
All of which, as a red-blooded American, I support wholeheartedly. But if you’re spending today celebrating the country’s independence, how about putting some attention on your own personal independence?
It might be independence from a day job, or financial stress, or even a mindset that’s keeping you from making things happen.
Here are a few of my favorite tips for declaring your own individual independence.
Expand Your Audience
Andy Warhol had it wrong. Now that we’re living in the future, everyone isn’t famous for 15 minutes. We’re each famous with 15 people.
Each of us online, whether or not we’re technically selling anything, has our own little village of customers. Customers for our products, our ideas, and our funny pictures of cats.
And most of us would like to expand that village, at least by a little bit. Especially if we want to build a business around it.
So what’s the secret to finding a wider audience?
Put more thought into what your village of customers wants and needs.
Sure, personal expression can be a good thing. But never forget the other side of that computer screen.
There’s something you can offer your audience that will fulfill their fondest desire or solve their most pressing problem. Think a little more about them, and a little less about yourself.
Create a Revenue Stream
For most of us, freedom and independence tend to boil down to having enough money coming in the door.
It’s a lot simpler to say good-bye to your nightmare boss or your crummy living situation when you’ve got some steady income rolling in.
Whether it’s writing an ebook, building a membership site, starting a coaching program or setting up a part-time freelance business, there’s something you could build in the next six weeks to bring a little revenue in.
The hardest part is getting started. Once you’re up and rolling, you can tweak and expand your offering to make it better and bring in more income.
Don’t let perfectionism slow you down. There’s no better way to see what works than to actually get out and do something. Start small and build on what works.
Never Stop Learning
In today’s economic and technical environment, the moment you stop learning, you’re road kill.
It’s not always about learning the latest and greatest. Sometimes it’s taking the classic works in your field and translating them for a new audience. Sometimes it’s about making a completely new connection. It’s about staying curious and keeping your mental playfulness.
If you never add anything new to your intellectual mix, your content is going to sputter out and die. (If for no other reason than you’ll develop a killer case of writer’s block.)
Spend a little less time on the trivial stuff (I love Twitter too, but no one needs to be there five hours a day) and a little more time building your understanding.
Knowledge is your greatest asset. It can’t be stolen or confiscated. It sets your intellect free. And when your mind is free, the rest of it is just a bunch of beautiful fireworks.
picture credit: Hugh
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.
Playing around with VPS.net
So the guys who run WestHost and provide me with my awesome WordPress hosting, are a sister company of the guys that run VPS.net, and they recently gave me a VPS to play around with a bit. I kinda liked how easy it was to get a VPS up and running with a TurnKey Linux / WordPress image on it, the only issue was it was version 2.5 and needed updating.
Though they told me that would be changed pretty soon (meaning the image will support a higher WP version), I made a quick video on how to do all this:
Click here to view the embedded video.
I have to say it was a pretty nice experience, if you’re looking for a VPS, this is pretty much top notch stuff (being a nice combo between a VPS and cloud based hosting) and it isn’t expensive.
This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast – Tweaking Websites.
A good blog needs good hosting, you don’t want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Use WestHost, and you’ll never have issues again!
The Inbound Marketing Race: Where Do I Start?
One of the best pieces of advice Laura received came from Alyce Lindquist, another inbound marketing rookie. “I recommend learning by immersion! Start small, but just start,” wrote Alyce.
Here are some of the other insights I found in the forum:
Focus on Buyer Personas
Create a mental picture of your target audience and its interests, hobbies and activities. Where does this persona live? What does she or he like to read? Such questions will guide you in creating the right content for your readership. As David Meerman Scott wrote, targeting the right buyer persona is a determining factor in your online marketing initiatives.
“Developing a good understanding of the customer will do a lot to help you refine and focus your re-design to appeal to things they might like or would be looking for,” commented on the forum thread Steve Early. In the end, identifying buyer personas will define not only your website redesign and content creation, but also your product promotion strategy.
Analyze Existing Pages
Website analytics is one of the first factors marketers should consider when starting their online marketing campaigns. Before you change anything, Simon Mason wrote, check the inbound links on your existing pages. “Otherwise you could lose all the linkjuice you are already getting,” he noted.
By monitoring the analytics for your existing pages you will know what has worked for you in the past and how to expand it. This is especially helpful in determining a successful keyword strategy. Thus, you can optimize your site for the low-hanging fruit and produce great ROI.
Blog Consistently
Get your employees passionate about blogging and have them start writing remarkable and regular content. In order to engage with potential leads, industry leaders and other bloggers you need have a blog that encourages conversations. “Without interesting content to link to, you’ll just be sharing other people’s content on your network which is important for growing it, but it won’t get you traffic,” wrote Brian Rogers.
What will get you traffic, however, is the quality and consistency of your blog posts. Create a regular blogging schedule and make sure authors are following it. This will create a sense of anticipation in your readers and encourage other thought leaders to interact with you.
Follow Best Practices
In order to become a good leader, you have to first be a good follower. There are different industry-specific successes that you can learn from. Adapt best practices to your marketing initiatives but make sure you keep your own voice.
Companies such as the Roger Smith Hotel and Whole Foods are great examples, and demonstrate different approach to successful inbound marketing. Observe their strategies and decide if they can work for you, too.
Photo Credit: Jon_Marshall
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Feedburner Add Customizable Subject Lines to Email Subscriptions
One month ago I wrote an open letter to Google/Feedburner suggesting that it might be time to add some more features to Feedburner – particularly the ability to customize subject lines of those subscribing to a feed via RSS.
It seems that they’ve been hard at work on that very feature.
Today I logged into my Feedburner account and noticed this in the ‘Email Branding’ area.
Yep – it’s the feature we’ve been waiting for! All you need to do now is add the tag ${latestItemTitle} into the subject line and it looks like you’re set to have new subject lines on each email sent.
There’s no official word on this new feature yet from Feedburner.
Ironically it was only a few hours ago that I emailed a few questions to Feedburner who have agreed to an interview here on ProBlogger. Expect to hear more from Feedburner in the coming few days – hopefully this is a sign of things to come as they take Feedburner to the next level!
Thanks for listening Feedburner.
A hat tip to Carrie who emailed me about this new feature – nice pick up!
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
Feedburner Add Customizable Subject Lines to Email Subscriptions
Switching To the iPhone – 2 Weeks Later
Last Friday, after years of frustration with Sprint, and seeing the busted Palm Pre in action, I decided to give the iPhone a try. I had many concerns about switching… mostly because of AT&T network but I had some other valid concerns as well.
To refer to my phone as a phone is kind of silly. I actually talk on the device probably less then 5% of the time. I rarely take phone calls and even more rarely make them. I use a service called phonetag to transcribe all voice mails to email and send them to me which I then reply in email.
With my Sprint phones over the years I have used my “smart phones” mostly for texting and emailing. I never really browsed the internet with them. The lack of css/js support mixed with phone CPU speed and network speed just made it worthless.
I have been receiving so many emails about switching to the iPhone since my post about me leaving sprint that I decided to do a little mini review discussing my concerns and what I have found. Please keep in mind its only been 2 weeks (almost) and I will write a 90 day review or so and probably have some things to bitch about then.
The Cost
While this was not a big concern to me it was with the commentators in my leaving Sprint post. Lots of people were saying that our company would be paying a lot more for the iPhone plans then with what we had with Sprint. Surprisingly we will be saving about $3,000 per year with At&t over Sprint. We are on a shared business plan with rollover minutes and the cost savings is pretty substantial. I am fairly certain they do not have a similar thing on Sprint because we were always asking our reps if we should move to a better plan and they always said we had the best one so either they were lying to us or they can’t compete price wise.
Network Coverage
Network Coverage was far and away my biggest concern in switching from Spring to At&t. I don’t talk much but when I do talk its important and the rumors of dropped calls really frightened me. When I purchased the iPhone the salesman at the At&t store said that here in Lincoln Nebraska we actually have some of the best iPhone data speeds in the world being they JUST rolled out new hardware not to long ago. I still was not fully convinced so I started talking to other customers as they were walking in to trade in their iPhones for new ones. The testimonials from the customers was enough to make me take the leap and get one.
At my house is supposed to be a “Dead Zone” which I wasn’t thrilled about but I have to say the phone works great there. I get 2-3 bars at worst and have never missed a call yet. The same is true for my office which is only a block away from my house. I am still leery though and have no delusions that the coverage will be perfect. Even some of my friends who are the biggest Mactards have told me to expect some dropped calls.
Like I said though so far so good. I have gone around rural Nebraska and the AT&T coverage is as good as Sprints…. if not better to my surprise.
Battery
The battery life was my 2nd biggest concern about switching to the iPhone. I would say the battery life for regular use is as good as the Blackberry. When I first got the iPhone I could not stop playing some of the tower defense games and they wore it down pretty fast… but what do you expect. I picked up a battery extender/charger to travel with me.
Keyboard
Another concern was the keyboard. Ever since my first “smart phone” I have always really enjoyed having a full keyboard on my phone. I was really worried about what the touch screen would be like. But just like what everyone told me it would take less then a week to be good with the touch screen keyboard. I wish every application let you type in landscape mode. I am considerably faster in landscape mode versus normal but maybe that will improve. I am happy with the keyboard and I LOVE the auto correct.
Applications
Unreal.. just totally completely unreal. Lets not even get into 3rd party apps. I will just cover the Apple ones for now:
1) Mail – The mail app rocks and has awesome integration with Gmail hosted email.
Just like the blackberry it does support PUSH if you use their delivery service (.me) BUT also just like the blackberry if you do use the PUSH service it creates some complications with IMAP. We are using GMAIL for our domain and the integration works awesome with the mail application.
2) Photos – I cant tell you how many times I see people and they ask to see pictures of my kids. And I never have them… or if I did have them on the blackberry (on the couple MB of storage it had) they were very very very bad quality. I have over 10,000 pictures on my iPhone at full quality dating back over 8 years. This takes up less then 1% of the space on my iPhone and its really nice to have when I want to show someone something.
3) Safari – Probably the most impressive default application. Apple really outdid themselves with this web browsing application on the iPhone.
Usability
This device replaced many things for me. And I don’t mean some bullshit “in theory it can do it” I am actively replacing these items.
- iPod – The 3GS also has a built in Nike+ receiver which is awesome for workouts.
- Portable movie player – With the large 32gb storage capacity I can store tons of dvd-rips for viewing while traveling.
- My Laptop – Sure it has not TOTALLY replaced my there are very few things that I can’t do with my iPhone.
- Dictaphone – With the Voxie iPhone application I can record myself and send it to myself, to my secretary, or to be transcribed by their professional transcription services. THIS ROCKS. I can now just talk into my iphone and get emailed text for blog posts or whatever else I want.
- Camera – Yea I hear you… “but $hoe every phone has a camera”, but seriously how many times have you actually had a photo printed and framed with your .5mp camera phone. I dunno what the mp was on the blackberry but it was shit. I went to our nanny’s wedding last weekend and I took photos with the 3gs while my wife used our cannon 8mp point and shoot. I would say my photos turned out every bit as good as my wifes if not better. Here is one photo I took with my iPhone of the happy couple with my kids:
6 – Flip Video Camera – With the iPhone I can record nice video and directly upload to youtube. The quality is good enough for youtube so why do I need a flip anymore? Checkout this video from last weekend getting my toenails painted with my daughter (I gotta learn to get my finger out of the way):
Sure I am not going to be up for any best picture nominations anytime soon but seriously its plenty good enough for the stuff I am playing with.
If you are thinking bout getting an iPhone I would first encourage you to talk with other AT&T subscribers in your area. If the service is good to go then go for it!
There is a 30 day window you can return it and get a full refund should it not be everything you thought it was.
If money is a problem you can always sign up to win one of 2 iPhone 3GS’s being given away by Brian Norgard!
This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog
Switching To the iPhone – 2 Weeks Later
You Have Less Than 24 Hours To Become a Blogger
The Become a Blogger Premium program will be closing its door in less than 24 hours. The door closes at midnight EST, July 3rd. This is your last chance to sign up and take advantage of my free $500 review offer.
Become a Blogger Premium is a world renowned course taught about Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick that shows you, step-by-step, with instructional videos, how to become a successful money making blogger. More than 1,000 people have already gone through the course, and now is your chance to join the new intake of members so that you too can set up your very own successful blog.
Get A Free $500 Review When You Become A Blogger
The Become A Blogger Premium course is six months long and cost only $47 per month. If you’re ready to take your blogger to the next level, you can’t get better than this course. What can make it better? How about me putting you ahead of the game by giving you a free $500 John Chow dot Com review for signing up?
Sign up to Become A Blogger Premium and learn from Yaro and Gideon everything you need to start a money making blog. Then use your free $500 review to kick your blog off to a flying start. Six month at $47 a month comes to $282. Advertisers pay $500 (soon to go to $750) for a review on this blog and you’ll get it for free. Add it all up and you’ll be ahead of the game by a whopping $218 ($468 when reviews goes to $750)!
To qualify for this offer. You must sign up with my link. If you don’t, then you won’t show up in my control panel and I can’t give you the free review. To make sure everything registers correctly, you may want to clear your browser cookies before clicking the link.
You can claim your free review after you’ve completed the Become A Blogger Premium course if you choose the monthly payment plan. If you pay for the entire program upfront, you can claim your review after the 61st day. Become a Blogger Premium is covered by a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee. It wouldn’t be right for you get a $500 review and then ask Yaro and Gideon for your money back.
However, you must act now if you want to take advantage of this deal because at midnight EST Friday, it’s gone. The clock is ticking…
Register to Become a Blogger Premium
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HasOffers – New Features Launched
Ever since my review of HasOffers back on June 14, Adapp Solutions has been steadily making improvements to the white label affiliate service. There are so many upgrades that it warrants a new post just to talk about them.
For those who don’t know, HasOffer allows you to create you own affiliate network. Over 1,000 people have used it to set up their own affiliate networks. Big names like Shoemoney are using it to power his affiliate marketing systems. And best of all, it’s FREE! The new features unveiled today include:
- New look and feel for the stat reports. Much more user friendly.
- Advertisers have the ability to manage their own offers now.
- Option to allow offers to convert multiple times.
- Customizable questions for affiliate sign-ups.
- Lead caps can now be disabled.
The best way to see the power of HasOffer is to try it out. You can do that logging into the demo account at demo.hasoffers.com (login: demo@hasoffers.com, password: demo). However, HasOffers also encourage you to set up your own brand as well as take a look at news.hasoffers.com for more recent updates.
New Pricing Structure
With today’s official unveil, HasOffers has a new pricing structure. Those who have already signed up for an account before the unveil will be grandfathered into their original terms of service. The price structure is as follow.
Basic Edition
- FREE $0/ month
- Up to 250,000 Clicks per Month
- Basic Access to Features
- Free Subdomain (ie: yournetwork.hasoffers.com)
- Chat and Email Support
- 99.5% SLA Guaranteed Uptime
Pro Version
- $99/ month
- Up to 500,000 Clicks per Month
- Access to All Features within HasOffers
- Custom Application Domain (ie: www.yournetwork.com)
- Custom Tracking Domain (ie: yourtracking.com)
- Custom Branded Layout by our Graphics Team
- Chat and Email Support plus 5 Phone Tickets
- Data Migration of Offers, Advertisers and Affiliates
- 99.8% SLA Guaranteed Uptime
Enterprise Version
- $799/month
- Unlimited Click Volume
- Unlimited Access to all features within HasOffers
- Extended Chat, Email and Phone Support
- Advanced Data Migration of Offers, Advertiser and Affiliates
- Custom Application Domain
- Custom Tracking Domain
- Custom Branded Layout by our Graphics Team
- Dedicated Server Resources for Increased Performance
- Increased Storage Limits
- 99.8% SLA Guaranteed System Uptime
HasOffers is great for the blogger who needs a free affiliate management solution to sell his eBook or membership site. You can’t beat the starting price. If you want to create your own affiliate network and be the middleman between affiliates and advertisers, HasOffers will allow you to do that as well. Where ever you are in the affiliate game, HasOffers is worth checking out.
Create Your Own Affiliate Network With HasOffers
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Now You Can Use Dynamic Subject Lines for Your Feedburner Emails
This was probably the most requested feature in the history of Feedburner. Until yesterday, if people subscribed to your blog via the Feedburner email service, all the subject lines of your emails would be static, containing either the name of your blog or some other text that you would specify.
This is obviously annoying because subscribers can’t know what the email is about before they open it. On Daily Writing Tips we have close to 10,000 email subscribers, and at least once a week one of them would email us asking how come the subject lines only contained the name of the blog….
Well, good news (spotted by Problogger and Technotip). Feedburner was probably working on that feature already, and today they finally released it.
Now you can use the code ${latestItemTitle} to make the subject line of your emails equal to the title of your latest post. Once logged in Feedburner, you can do this under “Publicize” > “Email Subscrptions” > “Email Branding.”
You will find the code there, with some examples of how you can use it. Cool stuff.
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Now You Can Use Dynamic Subject Lines for Your Feedburner Emails