The SEM Bulletin

Unwanted clicks with minimal or even zero conversion often stem out from irrelevant ads for products showing up for unrelated searches. This happens when your PPC ad campaigns may be triggering broad match or even phrase match keywords that also lead to unwanted visibility.

When you want to widen your reach on your niche without risking the unwanted clicks, you can also indicate Negative Keywords to your campaign. These are keywords you absolutely do not want your ads to show for in the search engines. Doing this for broad match and phrase match keywords can give you further control over your clicks.



If you have included broad and phrase match keywords within your campaign and do not know where to start with negative keywords, try keyword research tools that provide keyword data on websites and affiliates. KeywordSpy, for example, gather keyword information by scouring the web with keywords and getting rankings and ad data from the public results, along with providing useful metrics of their own.

When you have ran your campaign a respectable period of time, try looking up your affiliate ID, or domain name in the system. This would reveal the keywords that you are advertising on, how useful they are within your niche, and other keywords that also trigger your ads.



Results can also show keywords that may be triggering your ads and generating unwanted clicks because of broad and phrase match keywords in your campaign.


If you find keywords you are not originally aiming for and does not relate to your products at all, trim them down and integrate them in your Negative Keywords list. With this, you will increase the chances of unwanted clicks that do not convert into sales and built up on your campaign costs.

On this second and last part of our series we take a look at more affiliate networks you can choose from in starting your affiliate marketing.

PayDotCom. According to KeywordSpy, PDC has about 46 active products 43 active affiliates. You can earn high percentages as an affiliate with commissions up to 80%. Help and support also comes through the PDC forum where staff and fellow affiliates can help each other out on their affiliate strategies. Commissions are paid either through Paypal or check by the Vendor and not by PDC. Mode of payment, however, is up to the vendor and not PDC so if you re planning to sign up, make sure you can receive commissions both ways, just in case.




ShareASale. Shareasale is yet another easy system to work with. They offer user-friendly statistics and make it easy to create affiliate links. There are also a great number of affiliate products and merchants to choose from. The most recently indexed keywords for this network shows 1,553 active products 214 active affiliates.



What is good about this affiliate network? While most affiliate networks and vendors will pay you for making a sale, there are vendors in ShareASale that will also pay you to have people register for free paid service accounts, emails, and more, making the product or service a lot more easier to promote.

Amazon. Talking about easy marketing, the Amazon network is another medium that allows you to market products online a lot easier and with a whole slew of promotional material.

Besides banner ads, Amazon also allows you to create content links, widgets and your own AStore, all in the name of affiliate marketing.




Monthly commissions from Amazon may not be as high as other networks. But selling can prove to be a lot easier as Amazon is a well recognized and established online brand. Currently, there are 179,474 active products 139,519 active affiliates available for study for this network. Now that’s a lot options.

Having a hard time choosing the right affiliate network to jumpstart your affiliate marketing career? Here is a quick review on the top affiliate networks available to start earning that extra cash.

Clickbank. One of the most popular affiliate networks online, Clickbank’s merchant affiliations are primarily with digital download products. They also offer high percentage of commissions ranging from 40- 50%, with payment made every two weeks.

Their affiliate tracking system is easy to use and it only takes a minimum of $10 to get paid. They also have their new encrypted link feature which allows you to get hoplinks that are easier to promote than the average affiliate link.

Information is one convenient feature for Clickbank as their Marketplace page allows you to easily search for products that would suit the contents of your current website or blog. Search results also show important information about their products such as how much they sell for and how likely the product is to make a sale. The system also makes it easy to create affiliate links as well as allow you to see what page will be directing traffic to, making it more convenient to promote.

The probable downside of this affiliate network is they are limited to affiliate links. You may want to refer to other affiliate networks if you are looking for flashy banner ads. Otherwise, some clever keyword use and content writing may just give you a good start.



According to KeywordSpy, Clickbank has well over 2,996 products and 3,420 active affiliates; you may want to check out keyword ideas from this site as well.

Commission Junction. One of the very first affiliate networks online, with merchant affiliations with Fortune 500 companies. Commission Junction also has an easy and useful tracking interface for their affiliates. Commissions range from 15-50%.

Another factor to consider is that they also provide their affiliates with what products are earning more making it easier to choose what is worth promoting. Another advantage is their regular training and seminars for those who want to make it big in the industry.

CJ also provides more promotion options for affiliates beside text links like banner ads, product links, and search boxes.

One disadvantage, however, is that the minimum amount before payment can be made is at $50- $100, with your earnings only protected for up to 6 months when it does not reach the minimum amount.



Currently, Commission Junction has 6,538 products 1,995 active affiliates indexed on KeywordSpy, making it one of the most popular affiliate networks out there.

Linkshare. Beside CJ, another well-established network is Linkshare that also has a reputable list of merchants to choose from. Linkshare also provides recurring commissions, alongside Clickbank and CJ. Expect also to be trained with their regular newsletters and webinars on affiliate marketing.

Like CJ, Linkshare also provides text links as well as banner ads for their affiliates. One thing that could prove to be a disadvantage is that commissions are paid by the merchants not the network. So if you are promoting more than one product, you would need to make minimum commissions on each product to get your earnings. KeywordSpy indexed products: 673; affiliates; 297.



There are more affiliate networks to choose from that would be discussed on the next part of this series. Check out also KeywordSpy’s Affiliate Research section to view comprehensive keyword data on these affiliate networks and more.