We are moving on to bigger and better things and expanding this blog. Please update your bookmarks and feeds at the new address:

http://www.cdfnetworks.com

I am 301′ing all the posts and redirecting the feeds to the new blog so hopefully everyone will find their way over eventually. As I said in my post on the new blog, the content we blogged about (PPC, Affiliate stuff mostly) never really fit with a directory. So it only seemed natural to move it over to our PPC and affiliate services site:)

This page should remain up for a while until all the bots can find the new location, but all the content is now at the new site so head on over!

Continuing on the organization theme, another good thing to keep track of when you start a new offer is the expiration date of the offer. I use Outlook’s calender to set all my reminders for everything, so I just set a reminder of the offers’ end date. This habit came, like most things, from a hard lesson learned. An offer I was running expired without me noticing, and I ended up paying for 10 days of PPC traffic to a dead offer. Not good. So learn from my lesson and set yourself a reminder of when your promotion is going to expire.

This is definitely not a “sexy” topic, but it’s important nonetheless.  When managing a PPC campaign it’s critical to track all the changes you make.  It seems obvious, but it’s often overlooked by people starting out.  It’s so important because when you make a change and suddenly your stats improve or decline, you need to be able to go back and see what you did.  When you start making changes to tons of adgroups and campaigns, it’s impossible to remember everything, so documentation is key.

So what do I do? I just keep a simple spreadsheet with the all my campaign names and adgroups and the date.  Then I make a note on that row like “increased bids on XYZ adgroup to .42″

It does take more time to stay organized and document everything you are doing, but that discipline will help you out in the long run.

Ok I am admit it, I have really slacked off on posts.  I am making a mid-year resolution to try to do at least 2 posts a week from now on.  I have some really helpful posts planned so stay tuned.  This post is just a bunch of random thoughts, endorsements and rants:

• Vacations are great.  I was away from my home base for about 10 days and managed to only work about an hour a day on my laptop.  Coming back from vacation however - sucks!  I have been putting in some long hours this week getting back up to speed.
• My Azoogle account manager, Alex, is leaving to change careers and pursue his dream.  I am happy for you Alex, I know you will do great no matter what you do.  Stay in touch bro!
• I hate Fry’s Electronics (not giving them the benefit of a link), and vow to never shop there again.  The hassle of their checkout system and long lines, indifferent employees, and generally crappy service is just not worth the low prices.  Spending 40 minutes in 2 different lines to return something this week clinched it for me.  Never again.
• I love Namecheap for domains.  I have tried them all, and have been exclusively using them for about the last 6 months.  They rock!
• Google - you are now officially my 4th favorite PPC service.  Yes you have slipped 2 spots in my book.
• Yahoo - Keep up the good work, you are my #1