Vendingmatic

In the past month I used a few different ppc networks to run my holiday promotions. These are the networks I used:

Facebook

Google AdWords

7 Search

Bidvertiser

Yahoo

MSN

From the list above the overall winner would without any doubt be Google AdWords. The most traffic was generated through AdWords and some programs had a very good convert rate which turned into sales. The next best network I found to be 7 Search. I ran a few programs only on this network and did get traffic and conversion. The slowest to get traffic and had no conversion was Bidvertiser, in order to be fair with Bidvertsier perhaps I did not set the campaign correctly. As for Yahoo and MSN I did get a little traffic nothing major and little conversion. As for Facebook some campaigns worked well other did not, I did like Facebook. The only thing I do not like about Facebook is the Facebook Police that rejects almost every ad submitted. It took me a good 10 submits of one ad before the Facebook police let me run the ad. If you are going to spend money and want to see results Google is the way to go. The other networks are great if you can set cheap bids and just let them sit there to run when your bid is the highest.

With more and more gadgets fitting into our mobile lifestyle working from anywhere is no longer a dream. If you have an online business you can take your office anywhere you want. With iPhones Blackberrys and the new netbooks you can almost do any type of online work. This post for an example is being writen at Starbucks on my Asus eeePC a small little laptop that has every program I need to make money on the go. No longer do you need to waste time when you are away from your home office. The goal of this post is to have you think about what little jobs you can get done while you are on the go, and I also have a challenge. Would you be able to work a week with only your mobile gadgets. If you are up for the challenge try working for a week only while away from home. In the first few weeks of January I will add a post about this topic which you can leave a comment about your experiences and challenges getting work done on the go.

The one laptop per child project is a very important world wide effort, to provide children in poor countries with a small laptop.  It is one project that can make a difference in the education of these children. As a person who uses computers and technology to make a living online and an avid computer user I full want to support this project. Shortly I will be buying a laptop to support the effort. If you would like to take part in this program please follow the Amazon.com link as they are the partner company for distribution of the laptops and collect the payment.

One Laptop per Child XO Laptop (Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop)

Making money online depends on having great merchants to work with and promote and also for a strong affiliate network. One of the best I have worked with is ShareASale they have many merchants to pick from and a simple to use format. When you create and affiliate site you need many sources to pull merchants from. It is a good idea to have more then one network to work with. This way you have more offers to promote and if one company is slow to pay you still have money coming from other programs on a differetnt network. The ShareASale network is free to join and simple to set up.

A few days ago I watched a Canadian television show called market place. They did a report on how stores add expensive cables to the purchase of a new HDTV. The cable are called HDMI and are offered by the sales person, who in most cases leads you to believe that your new TV will not work well without cables that cost $200.00 or more. The most famous brand would be the Monster Cables. The questions is do you need these cables? The CBC network that aired the show had the expensive cables tested at their head office against a cable that cost $12.00 online. I know that there is room for debate, but if the CBC which broadcasts in HD and has so many years of television experience test a cable I do have faith in them. The result was that the expensive cables performed exactly the same as the $12.00 no name brand cable bought online.

If you are in the market for a HDTV stay away from the expensive cables you do not need to spend the extra money, unless you are rich and want to brag that you spent $200 on a cable. The same is true with USB printer cables (which I bought for $1.00 at the dollar store) if bought with a new printer, stores charge about $25.00 for the cable. I have not had any problems with my dollar store USB cable in 3 years since I go the printer. I also have bought a S-Video cable from the dollar store and it has worked will with my DVD player and TV. If you are going to buy cables I recommend that you do some research before you buy. Also do not believe the sales person the cables are just an extra sale for them that provides some extra commission.

Today on CNET.com they also had the same idea. Do not fall for the scam you do not need a $200.00 Monster Cable to make your new HDTV set up work properly.

Here is the link to the CNET.com story CLICK HERE for story on CNET.com

Please pass this information around do not let your friends and family be taken advantage on these high priced cables.

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Hope everyone got what they wanted under the tree this year. If you got gift cards this holiday make sure to spend them on the sales coming up this week. There are a lot of great deals to be had. You might also play it smart and buy some item for your home business. Look around your home office and see if there is something that might make your work day more productive or buy a book. There is a new book on using AdWords that might be of interest to all online markets.

Winning Results with Google AdWords, Second Edition

This book would be a great purchase to start your ppc campaigns for the new year.

I also have a post toady on HDMI cables for your new HD set up it’s a must read.

Today I worked on a few ideas to make money in January. It might seem that with the economy the way it is, that January would be a bad month to make money. There are still many opportunities that an online marketer can take advantage and make some good money. After the holidays I will write out some ideas and start setting them up. The dollar amount I would like to make in January would be $1200.00 which would be a great start to the year.

After two and half months of not being able to use my Yahoo advertising account, the problem was fixed. When I set up this account I was double charge by paypal when I added funds. When I contacted Yahoo they blamed paypal and then paypal blamed Yahoo. Since the problem occurred the account was frozen when I filed a complaint through paypal.  Then Yahoo stopped work for me as they did not like my charge back. After several phone calls and emails, they asked my for a fax to authorize using paypal again. A week ago I sent in the fax, and my account never changed status. After a week of waiting I sent a message to support. It turns out they found the fax today and the account is now working. Now I can get back to promoting and making money with PPC.

Just a general feel of the eBay platform is that it seems to be losing many sellers to other selling options. There are also some new rules that have placed sellers at risk of being banned from the sight or not showing up in the search results. It’s true that some changes will benefit the buyers, but it is also a very unfair system for sellers. In some cases even if a seller made a small mistake eBay does not take into account the issue and can ban a member.

Visit Bizcard.com Today To Get Your FREE Business Cards!

If you are an eBay seller not only must you get use to having less sales, but you need to have a back up plan in case you get banned from the site. This is why having your listings on other sites like www.ioffer.com or www.ecrater.com can be a great back up.

It is not often that I need to send a fax. The times I do need to send a fax I just go over to the post office or staples and just pay a few buck. Then I kind of felt silly that I had to pay about $3.00 to send a fax on average. In a year I guess I could spend about the same amount of money that it would cost to buy a fax machine. The other thing about sending a fax from a public place is that your information is seen by the person handling the machine, which can also make a copy of your document. That has all sorts of issues attached to it on it’s own. You would figure buying a fax machine would be easy. With a little research I noticed Staples was selling a machine for $59.99, so I went to the store to pick up this machine. When I got to the store I thought I would look into a USB fax modem(New Mac’s and PC might not have a built in modem). There was a US Robotics model that cost $79.99, I figured it would take less space then a fax machine and was one less big item in my office. The box said it should work with Mac PC and Linux. Well I got home and tried to install it on my Mac, nothing on the box mentioned which version of the OS I needed. The result was that I could not use it on my 2 year old mac with out an upgrade. Option two install on the new Dell with Vista Premium. Again I had a problem. The modem installed, but this verison of Windows does not have a built in fax sending program, you need to buy a $20.00 program on the Internet. After spending about 30 minutes looking for information I found the program and downloaded a 30 day free trial. This option worked and the software was very easy to use, I had a 2 pages fax sent in just a few minutes of installing this software. The last option was to try and install it on my Asus EEE PC with Linux.

This also encountered some problems. The Linux OS did find the modem, but I had no clue how to set the fax program. Still looking into this just in case I ever need to send a fax on the go. Well in the end Vista Premium and the free trail program were the only option to make this work. Why Microsoft took this feature out and added it to only Ultimate and Business versions show another cash grab from M$. Still wish I could get this to work with my MAC with out having to upgrade the OS.