Best Lessons/Training for Arbitrage

[rickkumar]

Hi,

As people say that parked.com allows arbitrage, I am wondering how people do it? Is arbitrage profitable with parked.com system?

I will appreciate if someone can answer the following:

1. How should one get training/lessons in arbitrage? Any recommendations?

2. What is the best way to use arbitrage to make profit?

Thanks.

 

[GILSAN]

Even if you are in a competitive field, you can still get keywords for pennies if you can work your way into a good QS with AdWords. I have a campaign in the field of a certain type of rehab, *highly* competitive, with average CPCs of $25 and up. But, with a combination of targeting lower positioned ads (#5-8) and writing really killer ads combined with what I think is a good and informative landing page, my ads are running along at 12 cents per click, and my QS is listed as great. But that's not something really you can TEACH someone - you learn by doing, and doing and doing and making mistakes and losing money and learning some more until you figure it out.

You have to really know your market. You have to really understand how AdSense (or YPN or whatever) works. And you have to REALLY REALLY know how AdWords (or whatever your PPC program is) works.

Quality Score is the thing that can kill you in AdWords. If you can master your way around that, you have a real good chance at making it work.

The best tutorials on AdWords that I know of are the online training lessons that Google puts up for its Google AdWords Professional (GAP) program. This is the stuff we have to study before we take the test to certify, and it includes lots of information that (stupidly) isn't even in the help docs. There's also a kind of overview of Analytics. You don't have to be a GAP to use them, you don't have to even intend to be a GAP, and it's all free. They have CBT video lessons, and text lessons, with sample quizzes at the end of each one. Go check it out. Go through the whole list, and when you're done, go through it again. And if you really want to get serious about it, the next time an AdWords seminar comes to your town, register for it. It'll be the best $295 you ever spent. I started making more money with AdWords / AdSense the very night I came home from the seminar (and I considered myself an advanced user even before I took the course).

Here's a link to the AdWords Learning Center with all the lessons. Good luck:

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/index.html

Netmeg, this was, along with Varon's contribution, Lesson #1 on Arbitrage. Lets all come back in a few months time for lesson # 2 when we REALLY REALLY know how AdWords (or whatever the PPC program is) works.

Thanks
GIL

 

[NPKJB]

Hats off to Netmeg and Varon. I feel that these guys are always there to lend a helping hand. Both of them provide in-depth analysis of how things work and aren't afraid to help others. Thanks guys! I really mean it!!

Now... Let me get back to reading the Adwords Learning Center tutorials. Wish me luck!!!

 

[rickkumar]

Rep added to: Varon, NetMeg, and Gilsan.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[GILSAN]

Rep added to: Varon, NetMeg, and Gilsan.

Thanks for the help guys.

Thanks Rick. About a month ago I also became curious about arbitrage, but soon came to the conclusion that I still have a lot of homework to do before jumping into the deep end of arbitrage. Just hang around Namepros. It's a great place to learn the tricks of the trade!

GIL

 

[hitchhiker]

NetMeg is right, with quality score pushing click pricing up and up, it will be very important to have content on the landing pages . . . simple parked site can help you scale to tens $ per day per site, but you will never make as much money PER SITE as with a fully developed website with adsense. If you want to make thousands, I suggest you build a site, add adsense as a secondary monetization method. . . and MOST IMPORTANTLY, have a affiliate relationship as the main revenue driver (search CJ for your niche). . . . ONE site can make more than 500K a year. . . just look at the creditcard.com people. . . they are going public this year. . .

Even if you are in a competitive field, you can still get keywords for pennies if you can work your way into a good QS with AdWords. I have a campaign in the field of a certain type of rehab, *highly* competitive, with average CPCs of $25 and up. But, with a combination of targeting lower positioned ads (#5-8) and writing really killer ads combined with what I think is a good and informative landing page, my ads are running along at 12 cents per click, and my QS is listed as great. But that's not something really you can TEACH someone - you learn by doing, and doing and doing and making mistakes and losing money and learning some more until you figure it out.

You have to really know your market. You have to really understand how AdSense (or YPN or whatever) works. And you have to REALLY REALLY know how AdWords (or whatever your PPC program is) works.

Quality Score is the thing that can kill you in AdWords. If you can master your way around that, you have a real good chance at making it work.

The best tutorials on AdWords that I know of are the online training lessons that Google puts up for its Google AdWords Professional (GAP) program. This is the stuff we have to study before we take the test to certify, and it includes lots of information that (stupidly) isn't even in the help docs. There's also a kind of overview of Analytics. You don't have to be a GAP to use them, you don't have to even intend to be a GAP, and it's all free. They have CBT video lessons, and text lessons, with sample quizzes at the end of each one. Go check it out. Go through the whole list, and when you're done, go through it again. And if you really want to get serious about it, the next time an AdWords seminar comes to your town, register for it. It'll be the best $295 you ever spent. I started making more money with AdWords / AdSense the very night I came home from the seminar (and I considered myself an advanced user even before I took the course).

Here's a link to the AdWords Learning Center with all the lessons. Good luck:

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/index.html

 

[projectv4]

That's not the way I understand it, I'm under the impression you can drive adwords,yahoo,ask,msn or any other top tier providers to Parked.com with their Yahoo feed.

Sorry to bump an old post, but I was doing some searching, and was wondering if anyone could confirm the YSM PPC -> Parked.com portion of this post?

 

[vbigdeli]

Sorry to bump an old post, but I was doing some searching, and was wondering if anyone could confirm the YSM PPC -> Parked.com portion of this post?

You can send paid traffic from all PPC camps...like adwords,YSM or adCenter..

 

[projectv4]

thanks for the reply,

so it doesnt matter that yahoo is the primary feed for parked.com while sending ysm traffic to it?? i figured yahoo would be just as picky as google and the whole adwords -> adsense phase. =\

 

[blaknite]

Keep in mind that arbitrage is playing outside the rules. When you ask your fellow domainers for advice about what is allowed, they're most likely responding with what they have gotten away with, not what is actually acceptable. The terms of service for every major parking provider specifically prohibit driving traffic to their pages. They let you get away with it because it is profitable and not worth the effort to police. However an advertiser could get their pants in a bunch over it. If that happens you will be the only one out in the cold.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, or that its wrong. I've even concidered doing it myself. I'm just saying its a risk. When and if it ever comes down to someone losing their investment because they got caught, the argument "so and so told me it was ok" simply isn't going to fly. Even if that person happens to be your parking rep...

 

[goodkarmaco]

Blaknite,

my thoughts exactly, well put. I am not going to do it as if there is any chance to lower my click prices for the future, its not worth it. Parking companies that say it is ok are just enjoying the extra money at YOUR expense that arbitrage brings to the parking service. They won't be hurt at all by banning, only the person who is parking their name and sending the traffic will suffer the slap down.

 

[projectv4]

you guys are missing my point.

parked is fully supportive of ppc traffic, its not against their tos or policy. the thing i was curious was about was yahoo search marketing as a source, not arbi in general by adwords or msn. like you guys mentioned, it benefits the company. But at the same time, if they can pull it off, the more the individual earns via ppc traffic, the more they earn as well.

 

[ngenme]

Unless you know what you are doing. I've been using AdWords to drive traffic to several developed websites with AdSense on them for several years. Almost all my quality scores are good and great, and my minimum bids low. Some days I spend more on AdWords than I make in AdSense, but then other days I make way more in AdSense, so that ultimately, I'm ahead. As soon as I'm not, I either make changes or drop it and bring up another site.

In every case, I have spent a lot of time researching and analyzing the niche before I start out.

(Also doesn't hurt that I'm an AdWords Professional)

That said, I've never yet tried to drive PPC traffic to a parked page. Dunno if I could make that work without so much control over content that it would not really be considered parked anymore.

The way I understand it, you cannot use PPC to drive traffic to someplace with a Google feed, therefore no, you can't use it with Namedrive.

I also used to play arbitrage with adsense. The thing is, even though the traffic quality can be high, we pay clicks for impression.

Say I bid 5 cents for some keyword. For every click I pay 5 cents. That click transfer into 1 visitor (ie. 1 impression in my site).

Does anyone can make more than 5 cents per impression?

I top at 2 cents per impression. I got those traffics from adbrite.com at 1 cents per click to make a profit.

 

[PowerUp]

I'm going to subscribe to this thread. Thank you.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Yes, project,

both parties may gain for a while, then the slap down.

When that happens the parking company is not getting slapped you are with quality score. That may set you back way more than the small gains made by arbitrage. Does not matter if a prking company allows it. In the end is it going to improve your overall parking of names or will the slap down be so bad your parking tanks for a very long while?

I see it as a no brainer, use arbitrage only for DEVELOPED web sites, not parked pages.

 

[blaknite]

you guys are missing my point.

parked is fully supportive of ppc traffic, its not against their tos or policy.

This line is in section "G" of parked.com's terms of service.

"All other types of traffic including bought traffic, traffic driven by PPC campaigns, traffic directed from hyperlinks are not permitted."

You are missing my point. If you call your rep and ask him/her if its allowed they're going to say yes. They make money by you doing it. As long as the person paying for the ads doesn't catch on you're golden. If you get caught by the advertiser parked will be forced to keep your parking revenue and you are going to lose all the money you spent on ads.

If you say "my parking rep said it was ok" they're going to say "sorry they were mistaken but we are still keeping your money." There are lots of people who are getting away with it. I just want it to be clear that it isn't allowed so newbies reading this thread don't get the wrong idea.

Just put yourself in the place of the advertiser. If you were paying $30 to get qualified leads for selling your "beach front property," would you really be happy with someone directing traffic that was searching for "california beaches." You could easily be getting clicks from people who aren't looking for or interested in realestate at all. In fact you are likely getting as many or more clicks from kids doing school reports about beaches in california than you are from genuine interest. In severe cases doing this knowingly could be concidered internet fraud.

 

[netmeg]

Not sure where you get your information on this...?

Neither Google nor Yahoo displays detailed domain parking information for their advertisers (although supposedly this is coming, at least for Google) So the only way the advertiser will know which domains his ad appears on is if the ad gets spidered and they catch it in the SERPS somehow (which happens) And even then, if they complain to Google, they are only told that it's part of the domain parking program (or search network) and is legit; if they want to opt out of the search network and/or content network, that's the only way the ads will stop showing.

And I'm not sure what any of this has to do with arbitrage?

 

[goodkarmaco]

The reason I see it being revelent is it dilutes the advertising experience as Blaknite explains.

Netmeg, do you think if a bunch of people start talking about how they are making money by pushing traffic to their parked names this will raise parking revenues or destroy the medium?

I see it this way, a few get in early and make money. Then they post how they are making really good money. So every domainer jumps in and pays to push ads to their parked pages. After this saturation advertisers notice their conversion is way lower than it should be and they notice this dilutes the advertisers profits as Blaknite explains. The traffic is not the right traffic the advertiser is paying for. Evenutally advertisers will pull back and there goes the whole parking business.

There is a reason parking companies stricly forbid arbitrage.

I only have my views and Netmeg has more experience than me in this, but these are my concerns anyway.

 

[netmeg]

The shakeout, when it comes, will not be because a few people are talking about arbitrage on forums, but when Google and Yahoo actually provide specific domain information in the Placement reports, as they now do with the rest of the Content Network. This will be good for some, and bad for most. The advertisers will see that some parked domains do convert into sales, and some (probably most) don't, and they will act accordingly, by specifying that they don't want their ads displayed on parked domains. Arbitrage isn't even going to enter into it; the advertisers don't care if domainers are paying for traffic to parked domains. They care about conversions. I know this because I've been an advertiser on behalf of clients for five years (and spent lots of time with other advertisers)

Regardless, I don't think misinformation is ever a good idea, so I correct it if I see it.

 

[projectv4]

hmmm this turned out to be a really interesting debate. although i have no interest in arguing the legitimacy of it, i do understand the whole "who ultimately gets screwed in the end" part of the argument, and i do agree.

i guess in the end i wasn't really trying to sway people to try it out, nor argue what is legit and what isn't, but merely inquire about ysm ppc lol :D

 

[goodkarmaco]

Thks netmeg for the clarity. I think you have made very good points.

 

[blaknite]

I'm not entirely against arbitrage. I can see situations where it could easily be beneficial to the advertiser by helping them to capture traffic they had no idea was even available to them. However it is against the rules because it is far too easily abused. What I am against is people standing up and saying this is great its perfectly legit and you can make gobs of money doing it. That turns to an influx of newbies who are rampantly abusing the system. They don't know any better. (or claim not to) In the end it turns to a massive blow to the parking industrys reputation and lower click values all around.

As to netmeg's post, I was not aware that google and yahoo didn't provide the source of the click to the advertiser. That in and of itself seem to be a fatal flaw in the system. If I'm going to pay $30 for a real estate click I would want to know who's site it came from, and the ability to block specific sites. Of course I suspect the advertiser can get this info from the referrer data even if google and yahoo don't provide it directly.

I regularly go to my websites and look at who's google ads are running. I check each advertisers site to see if it is an obvious arbitrage site, and blacklist the domain if it is. I envision (smart) advertisers are doing the same thing at their end with parked sites.

 

[vbigdeli]

I think just 5% of people can earn from this business(ppc traffic to a parked domain)..that's a very risky(like Forex).