The free trial blockbuster offer has been one of the most lucrative things we have tried in the PPC space for some time. Most CPA networks are offering 40-45$ per conversion for this “Free” trial offer. I use AzoogleAds (sponsor) but I think most networks have this offer.
Some new T&C’s came out today:
Search publishers MAY NOT use blockbuster.com as the display URL.
On Yahoo.com, BlockBuster.com must be in the 1st search position for the following keywords: blockbuster & blockbuster.com. Search bids MUST be reduced if you are in the top position.
Titles & Descriptions can not say: Official Offer or Authorized Offer.
Kind of wild rules if you ask me 
But I guess they call the shots .
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{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
Wanna get a google bomb going for the keyword “blockbuster”
No thanks
I found the free trial to be super lucrative. 40$ for a free trial is pretty hot
How easy is it to monitor this?
This certainly does seem like an odd policy. Oh well, as long as all affiliates honour this policy then it should lower the overall CPC as we will all be limited by the rough amount BlockBuster are bidding.
- Martin Reed
Thanks for blogging about this offer Shoemoney, now we can prepare for 5,000 new affiliates trying this offer today
It’s not that odd, I know a lot of companies that require this because they don’t want to compete with their affiliates. That’s not to say it’s “fair” but what can you do as an affiliate?
Another case of companies doing stupid things…seriously who cares if an affiliate is in first place.
Guess what? I can go bid on “Blockbuster” right now and put up a netflix ad for that keyword.
If I had an army of affiliates promoting me, I would just leave them to do their thing.
And another offer get’s just a bit more competitve…
I’ve been promoting Blockbuster via cj.com for the past six weeks or so. Do you know how long it takes for signups to report? Because I know for a fact that I had some right at the beginning of April (friends, so I know exactly when they did it) and nothing has shown up in my account yet.
Forgot to add… I’ve contacted them directly and am waiting on a response. I just thought it would be worth asking here in the mean time to see if I can get a quicker answer.
Yep, a lot of companies put caps on bids. Think of it this way… If they can maintain the top spot, then they get signups for just the cost of their PPC campaign (and these costs are artificially low due to their restrictions). If they give up the top slot, then they’ll be paying a lot more affiliate commissions.
Yeah, but it’s cheaper to promote themselves via PPC than to pay a fairly steep affiliate commission.
Good point on bidding up “blockbuster” outside one of their campaigns, though.
What if they drop their bid to the minimum? Would everyone else be forced to quit bidding? Seems like it’s a bit restrictive, but I’m not in the affiliate space anyway so I guess I don’t know what’s normal.
Okay…so we can bid on their trademarked term now? I was banned for a week for bidding on it and I wasn’t even in the top position, of course this was several weeks ago and I was running it for 3 months before I got the ban. I would also note I wasn’t running it off of AzAds and the company I was running it off of didn’t have anything in the terms about bidding on trademark terms.
Ah now I’m confused.
*l* there goes the huge margins on bb offer the crazy thing is in msn u can’t even get on for bb terms. but again there is room for competitors in all markets. and as far as terms seen that before with other offers.
I had some great results with this offer in January. But I had to stop my campaigns because one of the blockbuster folks got angry that we were bidding on trademarked terms. This time it looks like they are tolerating it.
Who banned you, Google or the affiliate network?
You can bid on TM terms under google although they cannot appear in your ad.
The affiliate network usually have their own rules set by their clients and can pretty much do whatever they want.
By the affiliate network because “you were found by Blockbuster for bidding on trademark terms”.
Im sure it would have cleared by now. I dont think you will be getting a commission.
I dont even see Blockbuster in CJ. They have a UK version that offers 7 pounds per lead but I dont see a usa version.
Like you said, they call the shots
Your problem is that you are using CJ… and they are notorious for not paying out to anyone but big time players. I’ve sent them hundreds of targeted clicks and never made a cent. I switched to another company, same product… same offer… started making money within weeks.
CJ is crap.
omg yes. terrible payouts, slow reporting, javascript crap…. but they have a TON of offers
…but they have a TON of offers… – totally useless if they are slack on paying
I hadn’t heard that they were bad. How come so many affiliates use them?
There’s one that offers $35/lead (not as good as Azoogle, but still…) It’s called Blockbuster VCM. I found it by going to “Get Links” and then simply searching for Blockbuster. For me, it’s the second result (right behind the UK version).
I’ve never had a problem with them (that I know of) but this is making me wonder. I’ve made a good bit of money from them through other programs. Perhaps it’s time to consider a switch…
Very true. No matter how good the offers look, they’re not worth squat if CJ doesn’t hold up their end of the bargain.
I guess that could theoretically happen, although they’d start losing out to people promoting with the keyword blockbuster that are part of their program. For example someone else suggested promoting netflix with blockbuster as a keyword — they still have to compete with those people, but at least they no longer have to compete with their own affiliates. As I said above, this is actually pretty common.
From what I heard is that the FREE on is being dropped on all networks with in the week…might be just a rumor.
How about the Plenty Of Fish UK offer that didn’t let you bid on anything with the word “fish” in it. I thought that was pretty wild.
Yeah the free offer must convert much better. Some higher-up who doesn’t really know what’s going on , but has enough knowledge to be dangerous probably got his underwear all twisted over someone having the top spot or something.
Voila, TOS change
Yeah, it sounds like something fishy is going on over at CJ, switch to Azoogle
I had the similar expirience working with Copeac. Blockbuster also listed there and after trying their forbidden word “Blockbuster” they ban me at all.
Still no reply. Looks like I might just have to switch. I wonder how much I’ve lost thus far… At least I wasn’t promoting it via PPC, just natural search.
General question from a PPC beginner: when bidding on misspellings, is it smart to use keyword inserts? Your ad will stand out with bold type, but it’s not a real word. Just curious to know your thoughts on this. I just started testing misspelled keyword inserts vs. the intended keyword but haven’t received enough traffic to make a good comparison. I’ll eventually learn the answer on my own but thought I might as well ask as it could save me some time and $$.
Wth is a google bomb? anything to do with keyword density?
Are the payouts by azoogleads better than google and are they just as targeted?…I find it hard to find many ad companies that can match google especially with the type of site I have being based on fashion.
The BB offer is now officialy over-saturated.
LOL…yup. Was nice and quiet for a long time and now keywords I was in 2-4 ranking for…10+ without touching my bids. Meh…oh’well they will sit where they are and I’ll move on to the next.
can we have this post removed?
To late it’s flooded…just give it a couple of weeks and it will thin out.
Just to followup, still no response. I’ve applied for Azoogle and will be ditching these jokers.
it just limits the highest bid.