Les Jones

Those Google Adsense guys are good

Monday, January 4th, 2010 | E-commerce, Guns | Permalink | 1 Comment |

An ad on my site:

Gunny’s is a gun store and gun range in Maryville a few miles from where I live. Google Adsense may have triggered on the fact that I mention my hometown of Maryville, TN, but more likely they knew that my IP address was accessing the Internet from the vicinity of Maryville, TN via the local cable company. Those Google guys are sharp.

Tags: google adsense

NC may tax “digital click-throughs”

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | No Comments |

Amazon warns N.C. affiliates about tax issue. Amazon claims that if the legislation becomes law they’ll have to cancel contracts with affiliates in North Carolina. Presumably other affiliate programs and Google Adsense would be affected by the tax.

Tags: amazon, google adsense

Because, like, who doesn’t totally love My Little Pony?

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | 6 Comments |

Last month I joined the Amazon affiliates program and posted an Amazon ad on all of the blog pages. These are Amazon’s smart ads. I don’t pick the items that appear; Amazon picks the items algorithmically based on my site content and which ads get clicked.

I’ve noticed that some of the items that show up in the ads are from my Amazon wish list. Others are products I’ve linked to from the blog or mentioned on the blog.

Now I want to see if I can steer the ads in a certain direction. You’ll be seeing some My Little Ponies content for the next week or so. Why My Little Ponies? Because it’s so totally different than the guns and flashlights type content on the site that I’ll know for sure when I see the effects.

Keep an eye on the Google ads, too. Google is amazing at contextual advertising: supplying ads that match the content of the page they’re on. I’ll bet Google starts showing My Little Ponies ads before Amazon.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a rollerskate party to attend.

P.S. I use Joost de Valk’s Amazon Auto Affiliate Linker plug-in for WordPress. It automatically adds my Amazon affiliate ID to any Amazon items I link. Obviously you can add that affiliate information manually for new posts. What’s great about the plug-in is that it adds the affiliate information to any Amazon links I’ve posted on the blog over the past six years. Valk has other great WordPress plug-ins and information.

UPDATE: Less than two hours after I published this Amazon started showing My Little Pony on this post’s archive page. They even beat Google Adwords to the punch. Amazon for the win.

Tags: amazon, google adsense