Have a Good Eye for Ads? Try the (Lucrative) 4-Hour Body Experiment…

(Image: X-ray Delta One)

Some of you have no doubt noticed that I’ve been experimenting with advertising for several months, whether at the top-right, through skyscrapers in the sidebar, or even under posts on a rare occasion.

It’s been a learning experience. Sometimes, it doesn’t turn out totally awesome. Case in point:

I think I can do better. I also have an incentive: the new book, The 4-Hour Body. But then I realized, I think you all can be FAR better. Collectively, I think you can be AWESOME.

So, I’m running a competition. Here are the prizes:

1) The fantastic North Face Prophet 65 Trekking Pack (Retail: $319)

4) Fame, public credit, and eternal glory for being the best.

The deadline for the competition is next Wednesday, 10/20, at 10pm PST. It pays to get started as soon as possible. Here’s the idea…

The Basics

1) Create an ad or a few ads (can be text only) for The 4-Hour Body.

2) Optional but encouraged: Test your ads

3) Post your best four or fewer ads as pics on my Facebook fan page. If you did testing, indicate what you did in the pic description or in the pic comments. Deadline for submissions is next Wednesday, 10/20, at 10pm PST.

4) Of those submitted, I will test “a bunch” (technical term) of the best on this blog using split-testing. I’ve heavily biased towards those that have been tested. I’m also biased towards early submissions, so don’t worry too much about someone copying you.

5) I’ll do a follow-up post describing the process, real-world results, and top 3-5 performers for each ad type. I am happy to link to your site or company site if you are among the top performers. This is valuable.

6) If your ads perform the best, not only will you get glory and recognition for being the best, I’ll also use your ads (subject to my approval) on the blog. The kicker: for the first two weeks, I will use your Amazon affiliate code, which means you get all of the affiliate revenue.

The Details

1) Create one or more ads for The 4-Hour Body.

The sizes are 300 x 250 (seen at the top right of this blog) and 468 x 60 (which would go at the bottom of every blog post on the site). These sizes can be seen here. Text-only ads are absolutely allowed, but they could only appear at the bottom of posts.

Create one or both sizes (or text). Do so from scratch and/or using the book cover, elements from the book cover, any of my Flickr photos without a copyright attribution in the description, or any of my YouTube videos without someone else’s copyrighted material in them. Of course, feel free to use any other materials or images you own or are legally permitted to use (including stock images that are royalty-free or licensed).

In other words, text, display images, and video are all OK, but they need to be static unless the reader clicks on something.

Keep them R-rated or less, and use your common sense (nothing racist, etc.).

2) Optional but encouraged: Test your ads, even just a little.

If possible, test your ads on your site or through an ad network (Google Adwords, Facebook, wherever) to determine which have the highest click-through and (ideally) conversion. Please link to The 4-Hour Body on Amazon if possible, and that’s my request if using any book elements or my materials above. Of course, feel free to use your own affiliate code.

Here’s a note on Amazon affiliate code and PPC, from reader Tyler:

If you look at amazon’s FAQ for PPC

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/promo/paidsearch

One of the Questions/Answers is:

“Q: If my paid search advertisement directs a user first to an interstitial page, then to http://www.amazon.com, http://www.endless.com, or http://www.amazon.ca, will I earn advertising fees?

A: No. However, if you place paid search advertisements to send users to your own website, and then your website displays links to http://www.amazon.com, http://www.endless.com, or http://www.amazon.ca in accordance with the Operating Agreement, you may earn advertising fees for qualifying purchases made by users who click on your paid search ad, click through to your site, then click through to an Amazon site.”

Essentially, how I understand this is that you can’t have a PPC that leads to your website and then automatically re-directs the “clicker” to Amazon.

But, you can have a landing page with a big picture of your book cover with a link that like “buy it now” or “more info”. One would probably want to make the image of your book, also an affiliate link when clicked.

If you need an alternate landing page for testing, besides Amazon or your own landing page, please use this blog post.

How do you test “conversion”? Look at actual book sales. Use your Amazon affiliate ID (get one here, if needed) and see which ads actually convert to sales. That dancing gorilla or Swedish swimsuit model might get the most clicks, but what actually moves books?

If you can prove conversions another way, go for it.

3) Post your best four or fewer ads as pics on my Facebook fan page. Once you become a fan on the page by “Liking” it, here’s how you submit your ads.

In text: To upload a photo to my page, all you need to do is click the ‘Attach: Photos’ icon on the wall. Select the photo, then hit the ‘Share’ button.

4) I will test the best of these on this blog using split-testing

5) I’ll do a follow-up post describing the process, results, and top 3-5 performers for each type, linking to their sites as credit.

6) If your ads perform the best, you will all the goods and recognition described at the beginning of this post, including all Amazon affiliate revenue for your ads throughout my entire site for two weeks.

The Deadline and Fine Print

The deadline for ad submissions on this Facebook page is next Wednesday, 10/20, at 10pm PST.

This competition is void where prohibited, blah, blah, blah. If you’d be doing something illegal, in bad taste, or that would cause your ancestors to cry, you are not allowed to participate. Es tut mir Leid.

I really look forward to seeing what you can do 🙂

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.