Would you believe that Google is no longer the most visited website in the US? I wouldn't if I heard it.

According to Hitwise, Facebook.com is now the most visited website in the United States! Wow. Status updates and friend requests over searching for relevant content. Amazing.

With that amount of traffic, you just can't ignore facebook as an advertising platform any longer. If you have not yet begun to learn facebook ads, I highly recommend you check out my affiliate marketing guide.

In it, I go over facebook ads in detail and describe how to make money with facebook ads, how to scale to the 6 figure / month mark and even how to overcome many of the common obstacles.

I still can't believe it...

Recently, I sent out an email that had a subject, "$27,287.50 In 8 DAYS! (How To)".

This email was to notify people that the recording of the free CPV webinar with David and Corey was ready for free download (you get it for free on my affiliate marketing guide page). In this webinar, David explains how one of his campaigns made over $27k in just 8 days. They then go on to talk more about how they do CPV and give some great tips and tools. The download is well worth your time.

Anyways, BACK to the subject at hand... I totally ripped that email subject line from someone else.

I made obvious (truthful) modifications such as the dollar amount but the format is nearly identical. The results were amazing.

By FAR this email has had the best open rate of any email I have sent! I had a great open rate (people who read the email) and a great click through rate to the page.

See, after launching my affiliate marketing guide, I've been learning a lot about internet marketing. MOST of this learning has not come from an expensive course, training program, etc. (Actually... I talked to Shoemoney twice on the phone before launching my guide and he came up with a ton of the great ideas such as the iPad contest... Thanks Shoe!)

Instead it's been from signing up for every internet marketers email list and seeing how they do it. What headlines they are using, how they format their emails, how they...

Now, I know many of you will never market to the make money online niche and might be thinking that you won't learn anything. But the fact is, the methods and principals you learn from following these marketers is applicable to nearly every niche.

Just think how you could take high converting subject lines from marketers and turn them into ads for your affiliate marketing project.

Track Your Emails

Just a few days ago, Shoemoney shared a tip I have never heard of.

Say your email is chunkylover52@gmail.com. Now when you sign up for each email list you add a +whatever to the first part of your email.

Like:
chunkylover52+JohnChow@gmail.com (this is what you could do for John Chow's email list for example, which I highly recommend)

You don't need to make a new email for each one. Everything after the +sign is "ignored" I guess by the email providers so it still goes to chunkylover52@gmail.com.

Now it makes it extremely easy to track who send you what. You could even setup a special folder for each list and have them automatically sorted using outlook or gmail (and probably others).

Anyways, here are some internet marketers you should check out:

• Shoemoney System Email List - Shoemoney is a big player... You'll want to be on his email list to watch how he does it and learn from him.
• John Chow - John's emails people and people listen. He is Shoemoney's top affiliate for a reason.
• SpeedPPC - Jay Stockwell is an experienced marketer and consistently sends out amazing emails.
• PPC Bully - PPC Bully has sent out emails for nearly every large internet marketing product launch. Some would call it "spam", I call it free education.
• Magic Bullet - Amish just recently launched a multi-million dollar software offering and now is emailing people for these large product launches. He is where I stole... erm... "got the idea" for the headline I talked about above.
• Ian Fernando - Ian might not have the biggest internet marketing email list, but he knows his stuff. Although many of my affiliate marketing guide referrers have a list 20 to 40 TIMES his size, he was still in the top 10! That's impressive!
• DailyBlogTips - Daniel has impressed me with his ability to produce results and while he does not email a ton, his blog posts have some great ideas and content that get your mind thinking.
• Andre "Affiliate Bully" - Andre has been a top affiliate for multiple large launches and his idea of internet marketing REALLY impressed me. I signed up instantly to be on his "waiting list" so I could learn his style.
• All the bloggers at Affbuzz
• etc, etc, etc

The list could go on for so long but I'll stop there.

Now go get some free edu-ma-cation.

Today marks the third week that my free affiliate marketing guide has been available to the public. In that short period of time, it has been downloaded over 10,000 times!

I am extremely pleased with the launch of this free guide. I have received a ton of emails, PMs, IMs, etc of people who have learned a lot from the guide.

If you're new to making money online, I highly recommend you download it and check it out! I know you will be pleased with the free content (Money back guarantee for life.... haha).

On top of that, the PPV webinar that we held last Wednesday has been downloaded over 1000 times! (Now you can see why I hosted it on a free file host... ~100-150 gb of transfer). You can find this on the affiliate marketing guide page under Webinars.

If you have not yet downloaded my free guide, you're missing out.

Kris is an extremely talented Internet Marketer with a large reach in the Affiliate Marketing industry. He started a couple years back with nothing more than a desire to quite his day job (like most people). He made his first $700 in one week online with free advertising sources and later went on to generate over $13,000 in profit his first full month into his online venture. Last October he launched MassPPVTraffic and sold the site 4 days later. This 25 year old Internet marketer truly is the pied piper of Internet Marketing. Just type in his name into the Google Wonder Wheel and you will see he is a true "Money Maker"

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I am originally from Portland Oregon but I am currently living in McKinney Texas. I'm 25 years old and married the the most beautiful woman every. My wife and I grew up together and only dated each other very briefly in High School. Right after school I left for a two year mission for my church (LDS). I saw Jazzmine (my wife) the 2nd day I was home and we have been un-seperatable since.

My online career began at a very young age when I watched my father try his hand at making money online… He was never quite successful at it… but that is how long it has been with me.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
I think anyone that is self employed with the current economy should be proud of that. I’m just glad I’m still in business and will continue to be in business for a long time.

When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I “hit the big time” when I began setting up domains and attracting thousands and thousands of visitors to my websites.

Na I’m just messing with you… What’s your definition of “the big time”?

I began making money from affiliate marketing from my first week online. $700 from answering questions on yahoo answers and directing people to clickbank products! That definitely made me catch the bug for making money online. I learned about the method from a free video I found online… I tried to find for you guys it but it has been taken down.

I've always known about the possibilities of making money online. I watched my dad make an attempt at it growing up so the idea of it has always been with me.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
I don't really look at anything that I do online as a failure. If you set something up online you better be willing to see it through to the end. Too many times people finish a project and it doesn't make money for them right away and they declare it a failure. But if I set something up I will work it till I at least break even. Just remember… You should learn from everything you do online… Most people didn't pay to go to school for this affiliate marketing game we are playing, so I look at those projects that don't make money as learning experiences.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Honestly… The biggest challenge that I have faced and still face is one of time management. I wish I could tell you I am through it… But I'm not. I am what you call an addict. I am addicted to the Internet. I'm also addicted to the thrill of making money online. Because of this my personal life has suffered quite a bit. My wife unfortunately has been quite neglected because of my online business. But she is patient and I love her for it. Remember, if you are working online and have a family you need to make time for them. In 2010 I am setting myself up on a work schedule so that I can hopefully be more efficient and so that I can spend more time with my wife… You should do the same. Ask any marketer… It's a curse we face.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
I'm a terrible article writer and I absolutely hate doing the whole article marketing thing. Articles are one of the most difficult things for me to deal with. Good thing they have article writers out there…

What’s the best advice you could give to someone starting out in Internet marketing? Any pro tips you feel like disclosing?
Buy my ebook… HA just kidding. Here is the best advice I can give… IF YOU STICK WITH ONE OR TWO PROJECTS YOU WILL MAKE MONEY… IF YOU JUMP AROUND FROM PROJECT TO PROJECT AND HAVE 100 HALF FINISHED SITES YOU WILL MAKE NO MONEY… That's the number one reason why people fail online… Also… Everything you need to know to make money can be found for FREE online. You just have to look for the info. I promise it's there… And if you can't find the answer to your question just ask!

What is the future of marketing?
Have you ever seen the movie Hardwired? It's a terrible movie… But that's the future

If I knew the future of marketing I would be doing it right now… And then why would I tell everyone else? I would keep the secret to myself and let someone else spill those beans. Just remember… There is a SHIT load of money in emailing...

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
Health, Wealth, and Relationships. The three mother niches that my good buddy Ruck from C2M taught me about. If you know just how much money I was making from debt relief you would go crazy. Stick to something in those three niches and you are bound to make money somewhere.

How has your education prepared you for your career?
Currently… it hasn’t. But I am going to school for business management. Although nothing beats real life experience.

What are your greatest strengths?
I like to think that my personality is pretty rockin. I can get along with just about anyone. And that’s a great thing. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the people that I know. I always tell people “It’s not about what you know, but who you know”.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
I have no weaknesses… Just things that I need to work on.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
Take advantage of other people's strengths. Everyone is good for something it's just a matter of getting to know them so that you can learn what they are good for. Sounds kind of mean… But that is how I approach each new person I meet. Let them talk about themselves… They'll let you know what they are good at. When you can bring several people's strengths together and make money then you're in business. Find a business partner that you can work with. Someone who has the skills that you lack.

Do you have any role models or people that you look up to?
Honestly… I don't. Why lookup to someone else? The people that I know in this industry are awesome and the things they do online are incredible. But why would I want to be like them? I look up to no one but myself. I'm proud of all my accomplishments and I'm proud of where I'm going with my online career. Now… there are people that I admire online. Lot's of them in fact. But do I look at them as role models? No...

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
Ruck from Convert2Media. Everything I learned online I learned from him. I make money because of what he has taught me. He knows his stuff and he has a different way of looking outside of the box. I've known him for several years now and I like to think that some of his way of thinking has rubbed off on me. He is definitely the single most person that has influenced my online career.

Do you try to keep current with the latest Internet marketing news at all? What or who are your main sources?
Nope. It doesn't matter to me. But when there is something, I catch wind of it from reading other blogs…

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I really have a hard time working with people that don't listen to me. If you want to be a client of mine I would at least expect you to listen to my advice. Here's a good story for you… I had a client that I was teaching PPV advertising too. I gave him very specific instruction on his landing page and the targets for his advertising. He didn't do a single thing I said to do. Then he complained that he wasted close to $1000 with only 2 conversions. When I looked at his campaign he said "What you said didn't make sense to me so I just did it this way"… Pissed me off… If you ask for advice you should take it or at least adhere to it a little. But to go 100% against what is suggested is beyond belief.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
My only long term goal is to be able to financially support my family. Whether I make $10 a day or $10,000 a day… As long as I can have a roof over my head and food on the table I am happy. If you can't make $10 a day then I don't know what to tell you. I've even placed fliers on cars and made at least $10 a day. There is always something you can do to work for yourself. Just be creative and get to work. Laziness never makes you money… err… Not always at least.

What are your typical hours like? When do you just chill back? Do you have a usual day off?
I don't work on Sunday. And my hours are so erratic that I couldn't begin to tell you what they are. I work when I get up and I stop working when I eat and when I sleep… Other than that it's all business all day. As I stated earlier one of my goals for 2010 is to set a work schedule and stick too it.

How do you like to spend your free time? What does work-life balance mean to you?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… Free time? I haven't formed proper boundaries between work and personal life. This has been a big issue in my marriage and I hope to change that in 2010. You should too… Don't neglect your personal life for the money that is coming in now. I promise you… Money isn't everything in this world.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
I wouldn't. I've learned something in every job that I have had that has lead me to where I am at today. I use everything I have learned in my careers in my own business.

If your Kindergarten teacher saw you now, what would surprise him/her about how you turned out?
Absolutely nothing. I was always advanced in school. So I think it would come to no surprise that I am successful in what I do now.

What would you like to change about yourself?
I would like to be more active. Instead of the typical nerdy computer, xbox360, movie thing I would like to get out of the house for something more exhausting. Another 2010 goal of mine is to be more active.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
My greatest achievement outside of work is 0 debt. When I use a credit card it is paid off in full each month. I have no desire to take out credit when I can pay cash. Cash for a house, cash for a car, cash for entertainment…

I want travel around a bit. That would be my "unfulfilled" dream. It's kind of hard though when your married and your wife is stuck in school. But we'll get there. We want to spend a few months abroad.

You know, I rarely rant but today, I just had to.

It's so funny...
No matter how much info people give out, myself included, a percentage of people always complain.

No matter if it's via blog, via guide, etc. I think some people are just mad because they are mad. Maybe they had a bad day, I don't know but you would think the last person you would want to take it out on is the person trying to help you.

For example, when I first launched my affiliate marketing guide, I didn't include a PDF download version. People would write in literally YELLING (ALL CAPS) saying how they expected PDF and how dare I not give them a PDF.

Here is just one of the emails I found - there were many more surprisingly.

Hi Jonathan,
Pls dont just use clever marketing words with users. We aren't excatly naive users. First you said 'download' free affiliate marketing doc. Then in the link you expect us to read it online. Then you send this mail that you have received 'some' requests for a pdf version. What do you mean by that? What did you imply to start with when you said download it? Isn't there any difference between reading online and downloading? does it mean the same thing?
I honestly expected more honesty from you..really.

I generally laughed and would reply letting them know the PDF was having some issues converting (another story in itself) and it would be released shortly.

Fast forward to today.

Yesterday we did an amazing webinar with Corey and David. They talked about PPV, dropped some epic tips, and then talked about their tools and coaching forum.

I uploaded the webinar to Rapidshare because it's a 100+ mb file and I didn't want it to suck up all my bandwidth.

The hate mail from that was surprising.

Probably the best one is this one:

Dude,
This is really slick. I go to rapid speed to download the webinar and guess what?? They(rapid speed) try to sell me something-Daaaaaaaaa!!. Well after this insult, I try to down load and guess what ?? They try to up-sell me again!! Well by this time I am getting really pissed and then they kick my ass off the download because I won't buy anything from them. Well next they are going to throw a shit load of gasoline on the fire and they now won't let me download because "You have reached the maximum number of FREE downloads" "try again in 15 minutes".

Well dude, screw the webinar and the download. I don't appreciate being solicited with rapid speed with these scum techniques. If you are going to partner with this kind of crap then take me off of every e-mail or marketing list you have me on. I have had it with all this BS marketing that IM's and advertisers think they have to resort to in order to make a freaking dollar. I know exactly what they are trying to do--Damn it I am an Internet Marketer also..

I use straight-up honest marketing in my business and guess what--I probably make more than 80% of all the IM's out there right now. I have an unsubscribe rate of 0.7% because when I get a client I give to them straight--no tricks--no sucker punches, and my clients respect that!! GET ME OFF YOUR LIST now!!!!! Never send me anything associated with Rapid Speed , Mike Filsame or Frank Kern. Our reputations would be better off without these guys.

Now, I understand being upset. I mean he's probably been emailed by a lot of the gurus for a bit and he is sick of hearing what some people would consider just another snake oil product.

But common, really?

Another email I get...

What a crap way to deliver a free download!
They make you wait, unless you sign up for their thing:(

Wait... So you're telling me you don't want to wait 86 seconds for a free download?

I just don't get it. Haha.

Anyways, I just find it hilarious. I try not to let it get to me because I stand behind my guide and the content I am providing.

< / rant >

Last night we had an awesome webinar on PPV with David and Corey! It was AWESOME!

There were some great tips in the webinar that were truly marketing gems on making successful PPV campaigns.

I've had a bunch of people ask me about the webinar and if it was recorded. It was recorded and you can have it for the low price of Free99!

For those of you who have downloaded my free affiliate marketing guide, I will be emailing the recorded webinar to you today.

If you have not yet downloaded my free affiliate marketing guide, go do it, and in a few days you'll automatically get the download link!

Thanks again to Corey and David for putting on such an awesome webinar!

The free PPV webinar with Corey and David starts in less than 1 hour!

To access the webinar, you must have downloaded my free affiliate marketing guide (it's not too late!).

After you have confirmed your email, you will receive a download link to the guide as well as a link to register for the webinar.

You still have a little time left to register for the webinar. It's going to be Epic!

If you downloaded the affiliate marketing guide and did not receive a link to register to the webinar already, please reply below and I will send you a link.

Thanks and see you there!

By now, you might have heard of the popular PPV Traffic source. It's taking the affiliate marketing world by storm... and for good reason!

Affiliates are making tens of thousands of dollars on PPV campaigns each month and the earning potential really is huge.

The question is, are you taking advantage of PPV?

This Wednesday I will be holding a FREE PPV Webinar with two PPV Gurus, Corey and David.

Corey is the owner of AffPortal, an invaluable toolset that literally has changed the way people build their PPV Campaigns!

David is the owner PPVPlaybook's Coaching Forums and has helped hundreds (maybe thousands) of students learn how to become masters of affiliate marketing with PPV.

This webinar will include more information about PPV, how to use it, and will even have time for Q&A! Free Q&A with the gurus of PPV is worth it alone.

They will also be going over the following:

1. What is PPV Marketing?
2. What are the benefits of PPV traffic over other paid traffic sources?
3. Where can you find PPV traffic and what do you need to know before you sign up?
4. What is the potential of PPV?
5. What is Automatic Niche Research and how can you benefit?
6. What makes a good PPV landing page?
7. How can PPV campaign building be automated?
8. How can you learn more about using Pay Per View Traffic?

To access the PPV webinar, you must sign up for my free affiliate marketing guide. I will email the link to sign up for the webinar Wednesday morning.

If you want to be ready for this webinar, I suggest you start by applying to the PPV networks I recommend on my recommended money makers page.

I recommend applying to at least DirectCPV and MediaTraffic because they have the lowest deposit required (meaning lower barrier to entry) and have relatively good traffic.

See you at the webinar!

A little under two weeks ago I launched my free affiliate marketing guide. In my eyes, it has been a huge hit and has helped thousands of people learn how affiliate marketing works.

When I launched the guide, I offered a referral competition where the top 2 referrals would get a free Apple iPad. In addition to that, one randomized winner would be picked where one referral is equal to one entry into the drawing.

Win a 27 Inch Apple iMac

Now before I go into listing the top 10, I want to say that John Chow is absolutely owning this referral competition. Like, over double the next guy... Shoemoney, you know, the famous internet marketer. Therefore, I wanted to see if anyone could take John off his throne...

In the next 7 days, if anyone can beat John Chow and become first place, I'll buy you a 27 inch Apple iMac and still give you the iPad at the end of the competition. In addition to that, I'll give you 2 months of advertising on my blog for free. (Over $2000 value)

If nobody ends up beating John Chow, I'll give the person who generated the most leads in the 7 days a $500 apple gift card as well as John Chow a $500 Apple gift card.

This is your time to shine since many of these big guys have already sent out the email / blog posts, you have a chance to at least take the top spot.

Here are the top 10 contenders for the top 2 (iPad) spots:

1. John Chow - John is absolutely owning everyone. He has over double Shoemoney's referrals (Sorry Jeremy) with almost 1900 referrals. That is epic.
2. Shoemoney - Although John has more than double Jeremy's referrals, Jeremy still is in second place. I never took him for one to settle for second place though. I gotta thank Jeremy for all the AWESOME information and ideas he has given me during this guide launch. In fact, this contest was his idea...
3. Jay Stockwell - Jay revolutionized the way I think about pay per click campaign so it's no surprise that he is in the top. With another email, he could probably catch up to Shoemoney and take him over.
4. Heri - Heri owns a clickbank product and just dropped a quick simple email and became the 4th place contender for the prize.
5. Daniel - Daniel is a friend of mine that runs the popular blog about blogging dailyblogtips. Just a few referrals away from being 4th place!
6. Ian Fernando - You know this guy is big time when he can contend with the big lists. Ian is 6th place and every person above him has a list of at least 40k. That shows some true conversions right there...
7. Zac Johnson - Zac made a great post about the guide and it resulted in some great numbers, just below Ian. You gonna let Ian push you around?
8. AffPortal - Corey redefined how PPV campaigns were made with his Epic toolset and partnership with PPV Playbook Coaching Forums. Great job! You are right on Zac Johnson's trail.
9. Shawn Collins - Shawn runs the best conference for affiliates, affiliate summit, so it's no surprise that he could make it into the top 10.
10. Gabriel - Gabriel runs a weekly web resource for programmers and designers at bitrepository. Nice job! Just goes to show that everyone is interested in learning affiliate marketing, not just those who have a make money online list...

Tools / Recommendations

To get your referral link, you need to access my free affiliate marketing guide. Once on the guide page, you can see your referral link.

Twitter:
I spent a ton of money on sponsoredtweets promoting this guide. Some of the best tweets were the following:

Check this out - Affiliate marketing guide for PPC, PPV, media-buying, & social media. (link)

If you haven't checked out Jonathan Volk's free affiliate newbie guide you are missing out! Good stuff! (link)

I recommend you try at least one of these tweets. They have some pretty good CTRs.

FREE PPV Q&A Webinar With Corey (afftools) and David (PPVPlaybook)
I will be hosting a Q&A webinar with Corey and David next week. It's 100% free and you can only access it if you have signed up for the free guide. Exact date will be announced today or tomorrow.

You can use this as another incentive to download the guide.

Thanks

To everyone who has promoted the guide, I would like to say a huge thank you! I cannot thank you all enough for the huge support you have given me.

Thanks again!

Nick Koscianski is a successful affiliate marketer, blogs at NickyCakes.com, and is a WickedFire forum moderator. With the ultimate goal of helping new people succeed in the industry, his no-nonsense approach aims to show newcomers and experienced affiliates the “real” side of online marketing.

Thanks for the interview!
Thanks for asking me to do an interview Jon. I used to ask people to do interviews or guest posts for my blog when I first started it and they all said no, so I make it a point to always say yes when people ask me. Hopefully my answers provide a little insight into the not-so-exciting world of Nickycakes.

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I’m originally from Maryland around the Annapolis/Baltimore area, but I’ve lived in a lot of places on the east coast including northern VA and Boston for 5 years. I’m in Vegas now. I’m 26 years old, but if I shave I look about 14. I’ve been working in this industry for only 2 and a half years, but I came a LONG way to get here. I’ve been everywhere from homeless, to jail, to Harvard, to dropping out after my business blew up. I’ve worked a ton of jobs, most of them really bad. Things like construction, data entry, auto parts, 1 hour photo, phone answering, etc. Needless to say, life is much better now.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
Although I am proud of what I have done business wise, the things I am proud of are mostly related to how much I’ve changed my life which has allowed me to help people outside of my work. As far as the online marketing stuff is concerned, I’m proud of my blog whenever someone contacts me to say they were helped by it. That’s the idea, right?

When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
There were 3 days in my short Affiliate Marketing career that I can remember clearly. I had my first $100 day a few months after I started. It was a dating campaign I created on Facebook ads, and I can remember refreshing my stats all day and calling in sick to work (I was working at a stationery store at the time designing business cards and wedding invitations). I quit shortly after. The second day I can remember was my first $1,000 day which was, I think, the first day of ASW ’08. I was staying at the Gold Coast at the time which was like $50 a night, and I can honestly say that first big wire was the first time I had ever had more than $1,000 that I had legally earned in my life. The third day I can remember followed shortly after and was the first time I made over $10k in a day. I couldn’t even work, and said F-it and went to eat ice cream.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
There are no failures as long as you learn from your mistakes. At least that’s what I try to tell myself. I’ve have a few really bad “oops” moments where I bid $80 on ppv traffic when I was supposed to bid $.80 and had my account on auto-refill and blew a few thousand for being a retard. Shame on me for letting that happen more than once, though. Everyone has failed campaigns. If they don’t, they’re lying to you. The more failed campaigns you have, the more successful ones you have, though, unless you’re just stupid.

Frustrations? Not enough time in the day, and using the time I do have wisely. I’m prone to procrastination and playing xbox when I’m supposed to be working, but when I get rolling, I work obsessively. For me, it’s go hard, or go home. There is no happy medium, unfortunately.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
I’m going to assume you mean business. The single toughest problem I’ve had in Affiliate Marketing, so far, was getting started. Not because I couldn’t figure things out, but because I assumed there was useful information out there for me to read that would help me get started. I spent about 3 months just reading stupid blogs, forums, etc, which taught me absolutely nothing. Once I realized that most bloggers and all e-books were just out there to scam me, and I started trying things for myself, it was smooth sailing.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
I hate design. I’m really bad at it, no matter how much I practice so this is the one thing that I often have to pay for. Ideally I’d be able to do everything myself, but I finally gave up that battle and just hire designers.

Just a tip for hiring designers: Ask friends for recommendations. Never just go on some forum or google up some designers to hire. There are so many of them and good ones are really hard to find. Paying a crappy designer who takes too long or just isn’t good enough is the worst.

What’s the best advice you could give to someone starting out in Internet marketing? Any pro tips you feel like disclosing?
I get asked a lot of the same questions over and over by new guys just starting out, which is why I started my newbie guide so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself over and over on msn all day. The single most asked question is one that nobody can really give a right answer to: “Do you think XXXX will work?” Anyone who claims to have an answer to this question in Affiliate Marketing is a fraud. The answer is always the same: “Try it for yourself and see if it works.” Even if I gave you my exact keywords, landing page, offer, payout, etc for a profitable campaign I’m running, there are 100 things that could make your experience different from mine. The ONLY way to succeed is to try things on your own. So stop reading (and yes, your readers are probably reading your blog now looking for this same info) and just get out there and try things.

What is the future of marketing?
Affiliate marketing is still in its early stages. It’s still SO easy to make huge profits compared to any other industry almost. Cakestradamus predicts affiliates will start being consolidated into companies such that individual affiliates will be competing with larger corporations doing the same job as affiliates but on a larger scale. Much like when the software industry was in its infancy, people could start a million dollar software company alone in their garage, but now it is much more difficult to make a million dollar piece of software alone because you are competing with huge corporations with enormous resources and hundreds of coders. This is what affiliate marketing will likely look like in 10 years.

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
Anyone who knows me knows I almost never share what I’m doing, even with close friends. Nobody else should either if they care about making money. If you strike oil, keep it secret and milk it till it dies. I put a lot of effort into this too. People are constantly trying to find out what you’re promoting. When you link to a network with your referral code, they can use that to find your campaigns. Oh you don’t have 2 accounts at the networks you use so you can use a separate referral id from your campaigns? Your bad.

How has your education prepared you for your career?
I learned almost nothing that I could put to practical use in my job by attending school other than math and some econ. The rest is good for impressing girls, though.

What are your greatest strengths?
I’m at the top of the leaderboard among all my friends for gun accuracy in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and I never snipe or use shotguns.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
I’ve never been really good at RTS games like Starcraft, even though I’ve put many many hours into them.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
Never get mad at things that are out of your control. I can’t control people who don’t know how to drive, I can’t control the weather, I can’t control the advertisers merchant account getting shut down, I can’t control other people’s stupidity. Getting mad at these things won’t make them better, they’ll make me worse. I CAN control my actions, though. And I can get mad when I screw things up. So the things you can control, do them well.

Do you have any role models or people that you look up to?
I admire anyone who brags about how much they gave to charity or how much they helped people rather than how much they put in their bank account or how much they spent on themselves. That’s the sign of a true baller.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
When I first started I had a crappy day job and could barely afford to pay for $25 in traffic per day and still eat. My first profitable campaign was being bottlenecked by cashflow, obviously, and Scott Richter, owner of Affiliate.com (they were CPAEmpire at the time), called me up and offered to loan me $2k to get my campaign rolling. Normally I hate to owe anyone anything, but that is what pushed this thing from a hobby to a career in 1 week. These days, the people that impact my career most are the guys who were kinda newbies when I was a newbie and are now all successful. Really good to see everyone making it, although plenty don’t.

Do you try to keep current with the latest Internet marketing news at all? What or who are your main sources?
I have to keep up with current events a bit just for the blog. Hard to be an authority on Affiliate Marketing if I don’t keep up with things, obviously. But if I didn’t have the blog to write for, I would make a serious effort to NEVER read ANY news about ANYTHING. If you think about it, it’s a complete waste of time. Anything important going on in the world you’re going to hear from a friend anyway. Staying current on the latest celeb gossip does nothing to improve my life or my business.

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I get along with people pretty well, but I can’t stand fake people, and there are PLENTY in this industry. You see them all the time at trade shows. They are the used car salesmen of the Affiliate Marketing industry. Usually they are the management or PR guys at the bigger corporate affiliate networks. They have never run a campaign in their lives and are not involved at all in the day-to-day operations of the network so they have NO idea what affiliates want, but they love to pay people to write nice things about them, or take affiliates out to lunch and pretend to be your best friend, etc. Here’s a good story: MarketLeverage has a phone booth that swirls $1 bills around in it that they expect affiliates to jump in and get all excited about grabbing $5. Guess what, your target demographic are people who make 5 figures a day. Idiots.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
Most people’s long term goals involve building a bigger business and more responsibility for themselves. I think they’ve got it backwards. My long term goals involve building a business that requires less work for me so I have time to build a family and spend time doing things I love, like traveling. This is also my short term goal, by the way, and I’m already living it. That’s why I love this business.

What are your typical hours like? When do you just chill back? Do you have a usual day off?
I work harder than I want, and I work longer than I want, usually. I get obsessed with what I’m doing and just can’t stop. I often work a lot longer hours than most 9-5’ers do, but the difference is, I love my job. I have too many days off and I “chill back” far too much for my own good.

How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
I like to spend my free time these days traveling, watching football/basketball, playing xbox, and spending time with my friends and family. I also am pretty into restaurants so I go out to eat a lot.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
My life was pretty F’d up when I was 18, but I wouldn’t change any of it since it all got me where I am today, and I’m very happy with where I’m at.

If your Kindergarten teacher saw you now, what would surprise him/her about how you turned out?
I don’t know about my Kindergarten teacher, but most of my teachers from middle and high school would be surprised to know I’m alive, let alone doing well.

What would you like to change about yourself?
As I’ve said, I’m pretty comfortable with life these days. Nobody’s perfect, but as long as I recognize when I screw up and learn from my mistakes, I’m on the right track.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
That’s easy. Going from being a complete detriment to society in the worst ways to being a productive member of society, and doing my best to help people along the way. I won’t go into too many details about that, but anyone who asks me personally I’m always more than happy to talk with about it.

As for unfulfilled dreams… I’m living them.

Keep it real!