What I woke up to was bad, hours of downtime just going up and down like a see-saw. Pages were either being sent to cPanel’s 404 pages or Installed successfully pages. I’m pretty sure there was a DNS issue somewhere.

I was thinking back on the year, and what’s changed for me. I was treating it like a hobby / easy money kind of thing, and not really taking it too seriously. Which led me to slack and get VERY lazy. When I got thinking, it made me think this wasn’t what I wanted or what was best for business.

I realised I needed to treat this like a legitimate business, like any other business. Which is what I’ve started doing, and it’s helping me become more productive and efficient as well as helping the numbers out. I decided I want to build my business and make it long-term and to see how much money I can really make, instead of spending/wasting it on stuff I don’t really need.

How do you see Affiliate Marketing?

There’s 2 things that have helped me get on track a lot recently, and neither of them are Aderall (which i don’t have ). Those 2 things are simply a whiteboard and a notepad.

I use the whiteboard for writing things down I need to do for example a new campaign or new traffic source. Then on the notepad I’d break down what I need to do within that, to get what’s on the whiteboard complete (if that makes sense?).

If your having trouble focusing on work or are just to lazy, you have to realise the competition and money waits for no one. While your being lazy, your competitor is testing, building campaigns and optimizing away making more and more money. Oh and if your problem is there’s to much work or you don’t enjoy what your doing then get the fuck out of this industry – it’s not for you .

I’ve found that if I suddenly have an idea, i’ll write it down and later in the day or when ever i’ll see it again and get a chance to follow up, rather than relying on myself to remember it and get it done. Useful stuff for buisness. The total cost of both these are under $100 too, so it’s worth a shot if you were having the same problems as me.

We’ve been using Facebook’s self serve platform for a few months now and has been making us a good amount of money consistently. One of the key things to our sucsess on Facebook has been testing, which is basically what affiliate marketing is.

We use a few tools, but the core of it is Prosper202 to get/read our data as well as some other tools and software we use, but we’re not going to go into that. So if you don’t have prosper202 already, go get it and install an SSL cert, it’ll save a lot of headache. Easiest way to get an SSL cert is just buy a domain with namecheap.com and get one free. Use the SSL pixels, it’ll save some headaches, but remember to update the subids daily as some will get missed!

So to start off, you’ll want to pick what your going to promote and start gathering some pictures for the ad, we usually do about 5 per test initially. As well as 5 pictures, we do 2-3 ad texts. So there will be a possible 15 variations per age group you target – not easy work as you gather, and it never is. If it’s too much for you, hire some one in-house to do it for you and pay them weekly or commision it. I’ve personally gone the commision route and it has worked well (more motivation).

Now the way to track this with prosper202 is to use their keywords. In the keyword you want to include a few things like the Age, Gender, Country, Picture version, Text Version. So format it something like this:

1. M-18-20-P1-T1-CA
2. F-18-20-P1-T1-CA
3. M-18-20-P2-T1-CA
4. F-18-20-P2-T1-CA

And so on, till you have a combination of everything. Keep in mind certain pictures and ad copies will make different demographics respond differently. For example picture 1 may respond very well to 18-20yr olds, but very differently to 30-35 year olds.

Once you have the ads submitted and approved, run a good sized test and make it significant so 1 click or 1 lead won’t throw off your numbers. So get some good statistical significance – it’s important.

Once you have the data, you want to go into Prosper and go to the Analyze tab and in the keyword box (in the More options section) put in M-18-20 so it only shows the KWs matching that. Then sort it by EPC (not ROI). If you keep prosper up to date, and update the CPCs the CPC data will set for example 50c to all KWs when in reality all the keywords may not be 50c cost. You will want to grab the combination with the highest EPC for each age / gender and run that. Once the winning one has exhausted, move on to the 2nd and so on.

The difference doing these tests can make is huge. To further these tests, you can start split testing landing pages also, as this will have a huge impact on the EPC too.

I can’t be bothered to write any more on this, so there it is! It’s been a great year for me and my company. I’ve met a lot of new people in the industry and learnt a lot this year. This industry is definately a great industry and the potential from it is HUGE.

Now with facebook relaxing, the world balance has to be restored. MySpace have become assholes and started getting stricter and more shittier with billing, so beware. I heard they are completely revamping their platform, but we’ll see!

Another of the big things this year is Direct Track fucking up yet again. There was crazy downtime on a lot of the big networks. So I just want to say, don’t lay all your eggs in one basket. Two great non DT networks in my opinion are CX Digital and Hydra which are both custom systems. However, if they broker any offers from other DT networks you’re still messed.

I know I haven’t updated the blog in a while, but I have another post drafted so keep an eye out

If I make X by Y I get Z. So If I make $50,000 in a week, I get a holiday for example. It gives you something to work for and towards. Make sure your target is achievable though, don’t try and set $1m a day, because the chances are you won’t see that and when you don’t it will demotivate you. I like to set a long and short term goal, then write out objectives to meet the goals and targets. $50,000 a week short term, with $500,000 a month or $125,000 a week longterm. The little prizes and rewards for your self go a long way – trust me. Make sure you have a nice big reward for when you hit your long term, and splash out once in a while. What use is ALL that money if your not gonna spend it ey? Make sure you save some for emergencies and always 1-2 years worth of living set aside never to touch incase Code Red.

Another thing I’ve found that really helps me stay focused (besides coffee) is writing stuff down / taking notes on paper rather than the screen (which you prefer is up to you). I have paper lying around everywhere, and when you see it – you remember it and do it. I also like to have a To-Do list of the day, week etc and that really keeps me in drive. I have the occasional breaks through-out the day, but the work still gets done faster. A To-do list is something I’ve only recently started using, and hell it’s useful. If you’ve not got one – get one. There are online ones too, that integrate with iGoogle and stuff so get what works for you.

The year is almost over, and what a year its been. It’s been good for me atleast, and I hope  it has been a good year for you too. I’ve met a lot of new people online (Wickedfire + IRC mainly) and hell spending that time getting to know people is probably the best thing I’ve done this year. Just want to Give a shout out to a lot of people here: foucist, Bofu, Ricdes, Harrison, Eagle, Yaxxx, Norman, Proxyhub, Cracka, d03boy, gigidawg, digga, circa2k, Eli, JustAIMe, HyperionXL, Yubrew, MatthewK, Mattaw, taky, Jon, Zigroo, BB_Wolfe and Invisible. These guys and girls have made my year great and have been an absolute pleasure to work with. I’m looking forward to a crushing 09 with you guys

Now not to forget the networks I’ve been working with which are: Advaliant, Ads4Dough, Convert2Media and Affiliate.com. These networks have been the talk of the year and have moved the industry to a new level. 2009 is gonna be imense for these guys, and let me say – if your not with them, join now! Shout outs to Ruck, Yubrew, Kaveman, Steve , Josh Todd, Smaxor, Geoff Marcy for helping me through out the year and helping me learn the industry, I owe a big thanks to these boys!

Christmas is right round the corner, and it’s gonna be a great one! This christmas, don’t be trying to whore sales and what not. Set some lower daily limits and log on maybe once or, not at all and enjoy it. Have some wine, and relax. It’s one of the few holidays your gonna get with your family and every one you know and love around you. New years eve is gonna be hottt and a good start for every one.

I hope every one has a good christmas, a good end to the year and a brilliant new year! Good luck to you all! I’ll be back in the new year! Let’s get em!

So what Wes from P202 says is if your doing 5,000 clicks a day or so (not hard with social traffic) then your going to need it. MySQL has some horizontal partitioning or something like that (correct me if I’m wrong – I’m not sure lol) and that helps it bring the data up faster. The current version most of us are on is 5.0.* and most hosts won’t upgrade it for you unless you pay $75-150/hr for their time. That’s enough to get you spanking server right? Yep, and that’s what you should do.

Right now I’m with the Planet and they have some specials on nice Dual Xeon dual processor servers. $115-135 will get you:

• 2 Processors with 2 cores (shows up as 4 in cPanel etc)
• 2Gb of ram
• 2x 73GB SCSI Hard drive (FASTER)
• 2.5Tb Bandwidth

The price goes up in $10s for every processor upgrade you want. 2.4Ghz is $115, and the 3.2Ghz per processor is $135 a month. Now that’s a bargain, believe me.

Another good competitor for something to host a dedicated P202 installation on is The grid layer from the Layeredtech. The best option starts from $59 and gets you 20% of the CPU power, 512 ram and 2Tb bandwidth. The beauty of this is that you can SCALE. Which you know is going to be key if you want to grow big (who doesn’t?) So you can upgrade to some very big shit.

Lastly there is Softlayer which is more of a premium but have more to offer. They start from $159 and start with Single proc Dual core stuff. They have a private network with unlimited bandwidth FOR FREE. You’ll see where this plays in, in a moment. They do automated OS reloads etc and have very good hardware and a good team behind them. As well as multiple DCs to choose from.

Now you have the hosting covered, you need to think about the software / OS side of it. Personally I like CentOS but The planet give you free RHEL 5.2 which usually costs I understand. Just stick with Cent OS 5.x and you won’t go wrong.

As for a control panel, there are a few major contenders:

• cPanel
• Plesk
• DirectAdmin
• Interworx

Now personally I prefer Interworx because its easy and you can CLUSTER. So if your load becomes high around  4, 5, 6 constantly then you can just buy another server and install interworx on the 2nd box (Easy btw) and just setup the master with the secondary and bang! We have a cluster! Now the traffic will be spread accross the two servers. Easy to setup and cheap at $25 a licence. Only problem? Doesn’t support MySQL 5.1 or have an upgrade option until MySQL 5.1 goes stable.

The most popular option is probably cPanel. cPanel is just well known and widely used. Nothing fancy and has a big footprint. Doesn’t support MySQL 5.1 either. Avoid it to be honest, expensive and waste of resources.

Plesk – just don’t. This is a nice option for windows but really, don’t go there. It won’t be for you, and it’s pricey!

Now DirectAdmin is a big cPanel contender. It hasn’t going anything fancy but does what cPanel does with a lower footprint and faster panel. Best of all IT SUPPORTS MySQL 5.1! The install process is easy and its VERY cheap. From what I understand is, you just run a script (custombuild) and it will upgrade it for you.

Personally, I’m going to run with The grid layer or The planet with a Direct Admin licence till Interworx get MySQL 5.1 then I’ll migrate out (easy process too) as I really like Interworx.

So when (not if) you plan ahead, keep scaling in mind. And plan it out sooner, rather than later. Slow LPs, redirects etc will put the customer off. It’s fucking ANNOYING. You hate it when sites are slow, and so do they. I suggest you get tracking on a seperate server (good for uptime too) then you won’t have to hassle with it again until you get some REALLY big size put on.

If you get stuff managed or have a team, then just get them to do it – simple. They’ll just upgrade it on your current system, but it will take time (few hours) I suppose.

So it’s Sunday night and Google have me in the dog house (manual review) and I’m bored. So I decided to check out Convert 2 Media’s website. While I was checking it out, I came across their blog.

Ruck is a well known established affiliate, so he knows his stuff. What’s ever better is that he shares his wealth of knowledge on his blog. Today, I came accross 3 brilliant posts that you should read. If your fairly new to affiliate marketing or established and can’t break your income barrier, I’m sure this will help:

1. Government Grants – A Lesson In Targeted Conversions
2. Acai Craze – Break Into Weightloss Without Breaking The Bank
3. Do You Take Your Business Seriously?

Now after reading that, don’t be like 95% of the people out there who don’t put it into action. Because you WILL lose out.

In regards to the grants post, it is well worth getting into at this time (Nov / Dec) because January shows a HUGE rise in the traffic, according to Google Trends that is. As you can see, the pattern is consistent every year. So take the advise and get into it NOW.

They had the official launch at AdTech I believe. Good time to start it in my opinion. Things are looking good for them litrally . They’ve redesigned the whole site and the Direct Track control panel.

If your not with them yet, JOIN. Put in the comments:

Josh Todd as Affiliate Manager

You won’t regret it. He’s a solid AM and gets stuff done. He’s a good guy and I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with him. He’s the second Affiliate Manager I’ve met that knows affiliate marketing properly – the first being Smaxor at Ads4Dough. It’s good to have AMs that understand the concept of Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate.com have a variety of offers to choose from and if there’s something they haven’t got – they’ll get it. You can sure as shit bet on that. They also own Ringtone.net and are very flexible and can get custom stuff done if you push enough volume. Being one of the largest CPA Networks out, your barking mad if you don’t join.

So then it got me thinking about their new bullshit quality score. How do they know it all? Then I remembered the Analytics tab at the top. I was thinking if it’s linked to the account and they know the domain for campaigns AND collect full stats on your pages – do they use that towards your campaigns?

Do things like bounce rate, return users etc affect your QS and how Google will send you traffic / volume and do they adjust bid prices with it? Well the answer is I’m not sure . But I need to find out now that it’s playing on my mind. So when I have some free time (always, but I gotta sound busy) I will test this on a few zip submits for sure (yeah, when I can be bothered).