Before the advent of Yahoo!’s Panama interface setting pay-per-click (PPC) bids on Yahoo! was easy. All you needed to do was figure out how much you were willing to pay for a click and then set your bid at that level. Since the bidding model was based solely on bid price, you could tell exactly what position your ad would show up in.

The simplicity was wonderful, but those days are sadly over.

Once the Panama platform was rolled out, PPC marketers were forced to get a bit more cerebral with their bidding strategies. Luckily, most of us had gotten used to the mysterious black box ranking model of Google, so we came to into Panama prepared.

You see, setting bids as an affiliate is not just a matter of being profitable. Many affiliate programs also reward affiliates for number of sales made, or leads generated with higher commissions – so while maximizing profit, one could be reducing their total number of sales, and in turn, earning less in the long term because of potential performance incentives or rewards.

Finding the “sweet spot” where you are maximizing your sales and commissions can be tough. Luckily, Website Attraction has a good write up that discusses how to maximize both while keeping your head above water. So if you’re not totally sure if you have your bids set correctly make sure you check out the article, Calculating the Best Bid for Your PPC Keywords.