New Feature: Related Tags

The Infolinks Related Tags feature adds a unique In Text cloud within the content of a web page with carefully selected informational tags. These related tags are the most powerful keywords on the page and they perform similarly to In Text ads. When a visitor hovers over a tag, an Infolinks advertisement bubble appears and each click awards the publisher with additional revenues. Like with In Text ads, no space is required for this feature and no changes are made to the website layout. Here’s a first glimpse… (this image is taken from another website; to see it live, visit the In Text Ads Example Page)

Pilot Results: 30% Higher Revenues

Before offering Related Tags to its publishers, Infolinks ran it as a pilot on 200 websites selected to represent a general but varied population. Selection criteria included size, geographical area and site category. To ensure consistency, only websites with 6 months of stable earnings were allowed to participate. Data was collected and analyzed over a two months period. Comparisons were made between earnings before and after adding the Related Tags as well as the placement of the Related Tags on the web pages.

The results were surprising: not only did the Related Tags positively affect publisher earnings, it did so considerably. On average publishers who used the Related Tags feature increased their overall earnings by 30%.



In Text Position Matters

The position of the Related Tags clouds within the pages also had a substantial impact on earnings.  When the Related Tags were placed at the top part of the web page earnings increased by 35%, when placed in the middle a 20% increase and finally at the footer, a 15% increase.

A word from Infolinks: “By simply adding a small informational cloud to a website, online publishers can significantly improve the overall results. A small tweak can make a big difference. The Infolinks Related Tags feature has proven itself, it dramatically increased In Text advertising earnings and therefore we recommend In Text users to give it a try.”

A word from me: Well, it looks promising…!

PPC Advertisers with Google India

When using Google India from an Indian IP address, search results are covered with AdWords advertising from local online advertisers. Insurance, investments and financial services, traveling, Internet related solutions – you name it. And as we know well, Google charges AdWords by the click on a Pay Per Click basis (PPC). This means that companies and marketing departments are spending online advertising budgets through this model.

CPA and CPL Online Advertising Networks in India

But when I speak with advertising agencies and ad networks in India – it’s a different story. It’s all about performance advertising, meaning that they pay only for customer acquisition (known as Cost per Acquisition or CPA) or at a minimum for detailed leads (Cost per Lead or CPL). Performance advertising is flourishing through affiliate networks since they are protective for the advertisers.

However, performance advertising methods shift the risk from the advertiser to the publisher. While this may work in certain industries, and mainly for gambling and gaming, it is problematic in other cases, since the information resides with the advertiser. As publishers, we can deliver quality clicks on specific terms using In Text Ads, but then the conversion depends on the advertiser’s ability to present an appealing offer through an effective landing page. Low conversion rates are best handled and improved by the advertiser and not by the publisher who doesn’t control the visitor after the click on the ad (I wrote more about PPC and other In Text Ads business models here).

Where are the PPC Advertisers in India?

So, where are they hiding? From the Google AdWords ads on search results it’s obvious that the Indian market is well accustomed to Pay Per Click advertising budgets. But other agencies and ad networks don’t seem to have such budgets. Can someone please explain this? Can it be possible that the PPC market in India is fully owned by Google and perhaps Yahoo?

One possible explanation is that the advertising agencies do charge the advertisers per click but pay the publishers only per conversion. If this is the case, it is very much different than what I know anywhere else, so I have to doubt it. A more reasonable explanation is that I’m missing something… and that’s why I’m posting this question here: What am I missing… How can I reach the media buyers of PPC online advertisers in India?

Please share your insights here by posting a comment for others to enjoy as well, or contact me directly through the About Page. Thanks!

Bloggers’ Concerns about In text Ads

By now, you already know what In Text ads are. Simply put, they are double underline links on your blog that upon a mouse hover open a bubble with an ad inside. When the mouse is moved away, the bubble disappears. Only upon a click, the reader is redirected to the advertiser’s landing page and you get paid. You should also know – by a quick Google search – that they can add on top of your Google AdSense earnings anywhere between 50% to 150%, depending on several factors. In Text ads are not merely an AdSense Alternative, they are an AdSense Supplement. If your blog is monetized well, you know this can be a lot of money. Then, what’s stopping you? From my experience, it can be one of the following reasons: (1) community objections; (2) poor past experience; or (3) emotional attachment to content. Let’s review them one by one.

Your Community will Not be Affected

“My returning readers and community are very sensitive to ads on my blog and I’m afraid they will object to in-text ads.” This is the most common concern among big bloggers and it can easily be mitigated. First, keeping the integration transparent and sharing with your readers the importance of the new ads for supporting your blog as a business should be enough. Second, from my past experience you will soon learn that only a tiny minority of readers would actually be bothered by the new links on the text; the double underline links don’t interfere with reading more than regular hyperlinks. Third, and most important, you can remove the ads for your sensitive community by either letting them opt-out through the ad network (this would place a cookie on their computer), or by setting the ads to appear only for search engine traffic or for users who are not logged-in. In Text ads are placed on numerous blogs and your readers are probably used to them, and for the few who are not, you can still offer the same content without the ads.

In Text Ads are Now Better. Much Better

“I tried in-text ads two years ago and was disappointed by low revenues and a script that slowed down my blog.” Well, Google AdSense wasn’t perfect on day one as well. Every new technology has to mature and in-text advertising has done so during the past two years. If you choose correctly among the leading in-text ads networks, you would be amazed by the improvements. Higher revenues, no slowing down, flexible control over the ads. You can easily set your ads to a minimal number of links, customize their graphic appearance, and even get 70% revenue share to guarantee significant earnings. If you tried in-text before, I recommend that you try it again to see the difference yourself.

Content and In Text Ads are Not Mixed

“I keep a strict dividing line between my content and paid-for ads.” This can be understood and it’s even important for the integrity of your content. But let’s face it, the contextual ads surrounding your content today are very tightly related to the content. Google AdSense is doing a remarkable job in making sure that the ads match the text. Why doesn’t this bother you? Because your readers know the difference between ads and content. This is also true about in-text ads, which are now served to over 500 million users every month, and online dwellers have grown to recognize them as ads. It could be that you’ve just worked so hard to produce your content, that you can’t bear the thought of external links on it. You’ve become emotionally attached to it. If this is the case, you can also set the ads to appear only on posts that are a few days old, and thus let the time difference heal your feelings.

Let’s Talk about In Text Ads on your Blog

I wrote before on how much you can earn with your blog. I tried answering objections to In Text ads. The past year has yielded amazing results with many thousands of bloggers integrating In Text ads. And yet, some big blogs haven’t joined yet. What’s stopping them? If you have additional ideas, please comment below. If you have a big blog yourself and you’re still not convinced, drop me a line through the About page – I’m looking for insightful discussions to learn more about this. If you take my invitation to talk about this, I’m willing to guarantee you a no-risk trial with thousands of dollars guaranteed in return. If you have a big blog, with 2 million page-views monthly, that number of $50,000 for your first year is a done deal. What do you say, can we talk about it?

WordCamp Chicago Speech

Good morning. I feel right at home here at WordCamp Chicago. My brother and his family live nearby, so I get to Chicago often. I have been using WordPress for my own blog OnlineSiesta.com, which celebrates its first anniversary this week. In fact, I fell in love with WordPress, and when my father asked me for help in setting up his own website about regenerative medicine, we did it with WordPress as well. It took my father less than a couple of hours to get the idea and his WordPress site now flourishes.

I’m here with a small team of two from Infolinks to celebrate the launch of our new WordPress Plugin. As part of this launch we will offer all of this weekend’s participants a small gift plus a special bonus worth $40, so please be sure to visit the booth outside to get yours. You can easily find us – simply follow the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

In one sentence, the Infolinks WordPress Plugin places In Text Ads on your website –– those double underline links that upon a mouse hover open a small bubble with an ad inside. Now, I know, nobody likes ads on websites, but we don’t put them there for their mere beauty… these ads cover the costs of the website and can add an additional profitable stream of revenues.

If you have Google AdSense ads or any other contextual advertising solution on your site, then you’ve already acknowledged the need to monetize your content. But these flashy banners can be noisy and also, they may not pay enough. In Text links are harmless – very much like regular links on your content, they don’t interrupt the flow of reading – and they only open ads when your visitors actively express genuine interest.

Trying In Text ads used to be free. Now, we actually pay you $40 to give them a try. Also, if you’re offering a service to WordPress users, we have an attractive affiliate program. It took me less than a minute to install the new Infolinks Plugin on my blog and on my father’s website, and within a single day I could see my earnings accumulate. I invite you all to try it as well.

So, again, we’re here for the weekend and we’ll be happy to continue the discussion about In Text advertising. Please don’t forget to stop by the Infolinks booth with the cookies to collect your gift and bonus. Have a great WordCamp weekend!

Related Links to WordCamp Chicago

WordCamp Chicago Website

Infolinks In Text Ads WordPress Plugin

Regenerative Medicine at MyNewTherapy.com

Well, after several months of writing from my experience about In Text advertising, you can finally find double underline link ads on my site as well, and not only on the In Text Ads Example page. I will be looking forward to hearing any feedback you may have.

The In Text Ads Integration: Easy!

How easy or difficult was the integration? I was amazed. It took me less than a single minute to set it up and since the website was already approved (for the Example Page), the double underline links appeared immediately. I know, I sell such ads for a living and promote them… I told many people how fast and simple the integration is. But, having experienced it here myself, it was a very nice surprise to find out that the sales pitch is real.

The New WordPress Plugin

This blog runs on WordPress and to integrate the new In Text ads I have used the new WordPress Plugin from Infolinks. While it can be downloaded from the Infolinks website, I took an easier path. From the Plugins section on the WordPress dashboard I clicked on Add New, searched from Infolinks, and clicked there on The Official Infolinks Plugin. Then, I clicked on Install Now and after a few seconds, went to Infolinks Settings under the regular Settings area (on my dashboard it’s on the bottom left part). There, I entered my Publisher ID from Infolinks and the Website ID, and… well, that was it! I reload the blog and presto – In Text ads are live… within 24 hours, I will already have access to my earnings report. I will update

How would In Text ads look like on your very own website? You can now get a quick and easy preview by visiting AdsOnYourSite.com.

All you have to do there is enter your URL and a preview of your website with In Text ads will appear.

How Much Can I Earn with In Text Ads on My Site

This nice preview tool at AdsOnYourSite also gives you a rough estimation of your potential monthly earnings from In Text ads.

Disclosure: the AdsOnYourSite website is free to use but it’s operated by Infolinks.

The AdsOnYourSite Widget

AdsOnYourSite.com also offers a free widget that can be added to your website or blog by simply copying and pasting the html code. This free widget gives your visitors the opportunity to preview their websites with In Text ads and estimate their potential earnings.

First Example: New Feature

The product design map is planned according to internal initiatives that take into consideration feedback from customers. But getting this feedback is not easy and even if a partner sends an email with an idea, it’s very difficult to identify the potential in each request. And then comes the community. On the Facebook fan page, a vivid discussion that involves many hundreds of community members highlights good ideas. First, it’s easier for partners to suggest ideas there; they do it more often than through email. Second, there’s immediate feedback from other community members and if the idea strikes as a good one, we know it immediately.

Just a couple of weeks ago one of the publishers suggested an additional view for payments history; a subtle addition of viewing the history since the last actual payment. It turned out that others also thought this could be useful. Listening to the community, we quickly prioritized this addition within the development roadmap and released the feature.

The reward was double: the product got better, that’s for sure. But more important, the community understood that we listen. They appreciate it and now offer more ideas.

Second Example: Frustrated Customer turned Happy

One of the network’s publishers was identified as sending fraudulent traffic and his account was shut down with an email explaining the situation (mostly, this means clicks not generated by interested potential customers, but rather through artificial means). Such fraudsters usually disappear without a voice. However, this particular publisher got angry: he was not involved in any fraud. Theoretically, it could have been someone else who wanted to harm his website, and it seems like this was the case here. Where would this publisher direct his anger?

First, he approached the support team, but the answer was that he was suspended for fraud. In the days before Facebook, he would have then probably gone to webmaster forums or his blog, where it would have taken us much more time and effort to find it, if at all… But no, this time he went directly to the community – the Facebook fan page, discussing the issue with fellow publishers. And this is where the team listens closely. Within a couple of hours, the issue was resolved and the publisher was transformed from a frustrated customer to a happy advocate. And others could also see this and understand: we’re there for them.

The Facebook Fan Page

There are many more examples and we learn as we go. The Facebook community is the first to get access to new features and give feedback. The members also get exclusive special offers and news. The close contact with the community through the Facebook fan page turned out to be wonderful. You’re invited to watch it as well and join both the learning and the fun… here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/infolinks.

Now that Infolinks as an In Text ads network joined Facebook, the question arises: When will Facebook join Infolinks?

Sometimes, despite their subtleness and clear advantages to the website’s publisher, visitors do complain about the introduction of in-text ads to a website. Most often, this would happen when a website has a community of regular visitors who are not always open to changes. From my experience, the number of complaints will be very low when compared to the number of visitors and they will also disappear after a short while. Nonetheless, sometimes a publisher must deal with the complaints. This is especially true when the complaining visitor is an important member of the community or simply a noisy one.

Before the Complaints, Be Transparent and Explain

The best way to respond to complaints about in text ads would be to avoid such complaints entirely by being transparent and explaining to your visitors why you are adding the ads to your website. Sharing with your readers the need for advertising revenues to cover your costs and keeping the content free will build a stronger relationship with them. If you highlight the advantages of in text ads, you will most likely avoid all complaints. Your in text ads network should have a ready-made paragraph that can help you with drafting this explanation.

The best place for an explanation would be in a blog post or in your FAQs section. Sometimes, especially for dynamic content websites and blogs, a link from the sidebar to this explanation would keep transparency and gain appreciation from your readers.

Yes, Visitors can Opt-Out from, or Remove In Text Ads

If complaints persist, you can offer your visitors the choice to actively remove in text ads. Theoretically, this will lower your potential revenues, because the removing visitors will not click on ads, but in real-life, such complaining visitors are unlikely to click anyway.

How can users remove in text ads? Easily. Your in text ads network should be able to provide you with a link that will enable visitors to opt-out. This link would usually lead to an explanation about the ads, and then visitors will be able to choose to remove them. Technically, such visitors will pick up a cookie to their computer that will tell the in text script to refrain from highlighting links for such users.

Having this option for visitors to remove in text ads should also be helpful in internal discussions when you need to persuade the team to accept the new form of ads.

Smart Ad Placement for Returning Users

An extreme case for removing in text ads could be when you choose not to show them at all to your returning users. Some websites have a core community of frequent users. Such returning users can be an important part of the website’s goals, but in certain cases, they simply don’t click on ads, yet they do get annoyed by them. If you have such users, you probably know them already. They can be identified by how they reach the website – for example, by direct approach as opposed to Google search, or by being logged in as a registered user.

If you know that your core community of visitors generate much less per-per-click (PPC) advertising revenues because they simply don’t click on ads, it could be wise to remove PPC ads from their user experience entirely (you would still be able to gain some revenues by display ads that pay per impression).

Removing In Text Ads for Returning Users

How can you remove in text ads for your website’s returning visitors? First, you need a method to identify them – a cookie, sign-in, or their approach link could do the trick. Then, in your design, have the in text script run only on pages that are loaded for other users. If the balance of new and returning users in your case is relevant, you can also focus on the other group, for example – identify the visitors who arrive to your website through Google and other search engines and have the script run only for these users.

Please note, this will lower your revenues and you should take this fact into consideration before removing in text ads to entire groups of users. However, in the overall balance of your website, it could be a solution for avoiding complaints from regular users while still monetizing other sources of traffic to your website.

Most of us use Google every day. Many times. Most of us are also aware of Global Warming. In fact, our own usage of computers – and even using Google – contributes a little to the climate deterioration. But there is an alternative search option that gives back to Earth.

MyGoodPage.com is a Google-based search engine that utilizes revenues from advertisers to Do Good, as they call it, and right now, it’s focused on planting trees. From the user’s point of view, the website looks very much like Google, and since it’s powered by Google, the search results are the same as Google. In other words, it also works like Google.

What’s the difference? As with Google search, the results include some sponsored results from advertisers who are charged per click. In the case of regular search with Google, all advertising revenues are going directly to Google. When using MyGoodPage.com, Google generously shares a part of the advertising revenues with MyGoodPage.com and these funds are directed towards planting trees and doing good in general.

MyGoodPage.com – Watch the Video

This video was taken by The Civis Mundi organization, which carried out the first planting expedition financed by MyGoodPage.com. As you can see, not only that they planted real beautiful trees, this expedition also involved educational activity to local children in South Brazil, who learn to appreciate nature and become young ambassadors for forest preservation.

What Can I Do to Help?

Simply, use MyGoodPage.com as your default search engine. In fact, many people already use it today as their homepage and the website is ranked by Alexa as one of the top 150,000 sites in the world. If you need help doing this, visit the Join page here.

You can also help spreading the word about this project by telling about it to others and posting about it in your blog, Facebook page or Twitter; learn more about this here – Spread the Word.

Disclosure: In Text Ads that Plant Trees

Infolinks and I are highly involved in the MyGoodPage.com project. Instead of sufficing with financing its initial operations by donating money, Infolinks engaged its network of website publishers in this social responsibility project by donating In Text advertising campaigns to raise awareness to MyGoodPage.com and direct potential green searchers to the website. Click on the following link to learn more about how Infolinks goes Green.

The combination of In Text advertising and the Mobile Web holds great potential for advertisers. The combination of actual permission from potential customers to view an advertisement that is related to a specific term together with the location and additional information from the mobile network can yield high conversion rates for advertisers. Especially local advertisers. This combination also promises publishers high revenues from their websites. But some changes are still required.

The Mobile Web Experience and In Text Ads

The Web is going mobile, that’s no news by now. But when the method of access changes, other things are affected as well and only time will tell how the user experience will be modified. Currently, the dominating format of access to the internet through mobile devices is either by touch screens or tiny displays. In both cases, there’s no mouse or cursor like we’ve got used to in bigger interfaces.

Since In Text ads require a mouse hover from the user, the lack of a mouse to hover with requires another trigger to open the advertising bubbles. The aggressive option is to use In Text links without bubbles, so that users who touch the double underline links will be redirected to the advertiser’s landing page without reading the initial ad. While this will drive click through rates up, it would decrease the quality of visitors and the overall results.

The Two Clicks Mode and Alternatives

The more reasonable alternative is to require two clicks. The first click – or touch on the screen – would only open the bubble with the ad inside. And then, the user will have two options, either closing the bubble and remaining on the original page or touching the bubble and continue to the advertiser’s landing page. To enable this choice, the closing button or X mark should be enlarged for easy access with bulky fingers. Under this double click mode, advertisers will be very happy, because users will grant active permission to get to their landing pages, twice, and they will not be paying for unintended clicks.

The problem with the double click mode, however, is that it will decrease the click through rate and publishers will see a much lower volume of clicks. To compensate the publishers for the loss of clicks, advertisers would probably need to pay higher prices per click (PPC), but with the conversion potential, this should be worthwhile for them.

There are two other viable possibilities. The first is to charge advertisers for the display of the bubble even without the click, which should work well for branding campaigns. Such display is better than standard mobile ads because it is triggered only upon the user’s interest and attention is guaranteed. The second possibility is to open the bubble upon the first click, display the ad, and then redirect to the advertiser’s landing page after a couple of seconds. This mode is quite aggressive, but with the permission of both publisher and advertiser, it can work well for certain campaigns. To avoid visitors’ frustration, it would be best to use this mode when the landing page offers genuine added value to the visitors, like freebies or highly relevant search results.

In Text Ads and the iPhone

So, I hear the question again and again, do In Text ads work through the iPhone? The short answer is yes, they do. The longer answer is that yes, they do, but the in text ads networks still need to improve the interface, enlarging the closing button on the bubble and requiring two clicks from users or one of the alternative modes discussed above. This is of course also true for other mobile devices like Google’s Nexus One. It can also work on mobile devices without a touch screen, but to a lesser extent.

In Text Ads and the iPad

When writing these words here, Apple’s iPad has already been announced but is yet to be released. Assuming it will be as successful as expected, the In Text ads networks will also need to make the required adjustments to make sure their ads work on it properly. The best guess is that it would be similar to the iPhone and the same changes will take place.

In Text Ads and Kindle

I haven’t seen In Text ads on Amazon’s Kindle, but the market of digital books is boiling and it would be logical to assume that some digital readers would offer free books in return for exposure to advertising. Here too, In Text advertising has tremendous potential. You can imagine that when reading Alex Garland’s The Beach, right there next to the beautiful description of the Thai island and highlighting the beach’s name, an In Text ad with an offer for a vacation in Thailand could do magic for both readers and advertisers. Technically, it is possible to integrate In Text ads to run on digital books, and the near future will probably include this combination as well. See you in Thailand!