Just standing back and watching the hype.

The Underacheiver course is launching tomorrow from Frank Kern, so I’m getting that flood of emails from marketers wanting me to buy it from them. I’ll admit, I’m impressed by what Frank Kern has accomplished, but to spend nearly $1500… not a chance. Not on my budget.

Is this a good decision? For me, yes. For others, perhaps not. It would not surprise me at all if I were to spend that kind of money to find that I made it back relatively quickly. On the other hand, if I spent $1000+ every time one of these deals came along I’d go broke (remember the hype for another program a few months ago?).

So what do you do to succeed when you can’t buy the big packages? Find the free and more affordable resources. Please note, I don’t mean all free or affordable packages come close to offering what you can get if you can afford to spend a lot of money - I’m sure there’s more to this package than you’ll find easily elsewhere. But you can get lots of good, solid information out there.

Forums are some of the best resources for free information. I like Digital Point’s forums and SEO Chat for some serious information. For affiliate marketing information, the forums at ABestWeb are wonderful - you can discuss the networks and some of the companies in them, as well as other companies. The reason forums are great is that the information is always changing. You’ll get a lot of absurb opinions sometimes too, since anything can be posted, but plenty of quality information, plus you meet others in your field.

I have a toddler crawling up my back, so I’ll discuss paid options some other time. I think it’s time to play!

Google has released it’s AdWords API.

The API requires that you have a My Client Center account, so don’t be surprised if you don’t notice it on a regular AdWords account. It will allow you to generate custom reports and so forth, depending on your needs. There’s a limit on how many queries you can make per day with the AdWords API, just as there is with Google’s regular API. However, this quota will be set by the size of your AdWords account, rather than be a standard number.

This will probably most benefit SEM businesses, as they may be generating reports for large numbers of customers. If you’re just managing your own campaigns it may not be something you need, although if you have an inventory to deal with, it should make it easier to pause ads for out of stock items.

Not really sure what all this means? Google provides some great examples of what could be done with the AdWords API that might help you think about it. Possibly the best potential is to manage your account by time of day.

It should be very interesting to see what kinds of programs are developed over the next few months for AdWords API users. You’ll probably hear quite a bit about new programs if you go to SEO forums, hear from any marketers who know a lot about PPC and such.

Congress is taking a good look at spyware.

Looks pretty interesting. You can read the Spy Act online. I hope it makes it this time. The penalties are harsher than for spam, which sounds good to me. Spyware has so much more potential to do damage than spam does. With any luck the Senate will pay attention this time too, so the bill gets passed eventually.

This is great news for anyone who uses a computer. There is some question as to whether the wording is too harsh and if cookies are counted as spyware (they shouldn’t be, IMO). I would like to see the damaging kinds of spyware - those that change homepages, track keystrokes, steal information, etc., be counted.

Of course, as an affiliate, I’d also like to see adware and parasites listed. I don’t mind if someone chooses to use adware (well, much), but these companies steal from honest affiliates and many users don’t know they have a problem. It should be interesting to see how this one goes.

Have you made your content pages for Google AdWords yet?

I’m fortunate in that my content pages were already created for just about everything I promote on AdWords. I’m a firm believer in preselling. If that’s something you’re still struggling with, it’s time to get help. I’ve recommended this before, it’s a great read and best of all, only $10. Take a look at Make Your Content PRESell. If you don’t know how to sell to customers, think you can’t write worth anything, think again. It’s much easier than you think and this ebook will help you to do it.

Just remember, if you are selling affiliate merchandise on AdWords, this tactic can keep you selling. Better yet, it gives you the chance to write a great sales letter. Some programs will let you link to the order page rather than the sales page, so if you master this technique you might just get pay per click traffic AND free traffic. Great return for a little time invested.

Google is launching a new service so you can find images from video. This one’s still in beta, and only offers stills from the video, but sounds pretty interesting. These images come from shows that have aired on television, and quotes from shows are available as well.

It looks like they’re getting some pretty interesting feedback on this one. I like the idea someone posted about limiting by time frame. Obviously, due to copyright restrictions, there’s only so much to be done about showing actual videos, especially since so many shows will sell episodes in later years.

This one should be fun to watch and see where it goes.