Mark records from a 19th-floor hotel room in San Jose after visiting Leo Laporte's TWiT studios in Petaluma. He shares the experience of seeing a podcasting empire built from passion, updates on both the corn sheller and snoring niche sites, and delivers a detailed tutorial on the Google AdWords Keyword Tool — covering the three things he sees new marketers get wrong most often.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• The difference between exact match, phrase match, and broad match keyword data
• Why local versus global search volume matters for affiliate marketing
• What the “competition” score in the Google Keyword Tool actually measures (and what it does not)
• How to use Google Trends data to spot seasonal patterns and emerging opportunities
• What Mark learned from visiting Leo Laporte's TWiT studios about building a media business from passion

Episode Summary

Visit to TWiT Studios

Mark visits Leo Laporte's TWiT Brick House studio in Petaluma, California. He watches a live taping of Mac Break Weekly and talks with Leo after the show. The experience reinforces a theme running through the podcast: Leo started with a small show driven by passion for technology and built it into a multimillion-dollar media operation with a dedicated studio and full production staff. It is proof of what can happen when passion, consistency, and audience service compound over years.

Corn Sheller and Snoring Site Updates

The corn sheller site traffic has been growing steadily, approaching 8,000 page views per month. However, eBay Partner Network earnings have been volatile — dropping to zero during periods when Mark's referred traffic is not winning auctions. He is adding an Amazon affiliate page targeting a corn creamer product to diversify revenue. The snoring niche site experiment is declared a failure: zero meaningful traffic after months. Mark is pivoting to a single optimized product page on the existing domain.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool Tutorial

Mark identifies three concepts that new marketers consistently misunderstand.

Match types: Exact match shows how many people search for exactly your phrase. Phrase match includes your phrase with words added before or after. Broad match includes any search containing all your words in any order. Mark recommends using exact match for conservative traffic estimates.

Local versus global: Local shows searches for a specific country or region. Global shows worldwide volume. If your affiliate offer only pays for US traffic, you need to base your projections on local data. Large gaps between local and global indicate international search interest that may or may not be monetizable.

Competition score: This is the most commonly misunderstood metric. The competition bar in the Google Keyword Tool measures how many advertisers are bidding on that keyword — it does not measure how hard it is to rank organically in search results. Similarly, the CPC (cost per click) estimate is what advertisers pay, not what you earn from AdSense. Mark estimates AdSense typically pays 30-40% of the displayed CPC for Content Network placements.

Mark also highlights the Google Trends integration, which shows seasonal patterns and long-term trends. Catching a rising product trend early — like acai berry before it appeared on Dr. Oz — can generate significant affiliate revenue.

Key Takeaways

• Always use exact match data for keyword research to get conservative, reliable traffic estimates
• The Google Keyword Tool competition score measures ad bidding competition, not organic ranking difficulty
• Local versus global search volume determines whether international traffic is relevant to your monetization strategy
• AdSense typically pays 30-40% of the CPC shown in the Keyword Tool for Content Network placements
• Seasonal trends and emerging product interest create windows of affiliate marketing opportunity
• Leo Laporte's TWiT network demonstrates what passion-driven content creation can build over a decade of consistency

What's Changed Since This Episode

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool was replaced by Google Keyword Planner in mid-2013, shortly after this episode. Keyword Planner now requires an active Google Ads account for full search volume data. The match type concepts Mark explains remain valid, but modern tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest provide more accurate data with better interfaces.

Leo Laporte and TWiT continued to evolve. The TWiT network expanded and then contracted as the podcasting industry professionalized. Laporte remains an influential voice in technology media, though the independent podcast studio model he pioneered faces competition from major media companies and platform-native creators.

The eBay Partner Network has undergone significant changes since 2013. Commission structures have been revised multiple times, and the volatility Mark experienced with the corn sheller site was a common pain point that led many affiliate marketers to diversify away from eBay as a primary revenue source.

Google Trends remains a free and powerful tool for identifying seasonal patterns and emerging search interest. It has been enhanced with more granular geographic data and real-time trending topics. The strategic approach Mark describes — catching rising trends early — is now a standard affiliate marketing tactic, particularly for product-focused content.

Resources Mentioned

• Google Keyword Planner — successor to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Google Trends — track search interest over time
• TWiT.tv — Leo Laporte's technology podcast network
• Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast

Related Episodes

If you found this episode helpful, you might also enjoy:

• LNIM049 — Google AdWords Keyword Tool Tutorial (Show Notes)
• LNIM053 — Finding Niche Keywords

Listen and Subscribe

Listen to Late Night Internet Marketing on Apple Podcasts or subscribe at latenightim.com/internet-marketing-podcast/. Have a question for Mark? Call the digital recorder at 214-444-8655 or drop a comment below.