If you haven’t heard the news, PPV Playbook is no more! The popular PPV forum has burned down and from the ashes comes a new forum, AFF Playbook. Created by David Ford, AFF Playbook is what PPV Playbook has matured to and the name accurately describes the forum since there is tons of information on marketing methods other than PPV.

In the past, I’ve constantly heard about how great PPV Playbook is as a resource. I never did join because I was doing quite well with PPV when I first started and there are free forums available online; why pay? It took a name change to entice me to take a peek inside, and boy, I was overwhelmed.

As expected, you’ll see forums for Case-Studies, Follow Along Campaigns, Lessons, and Webinars. For Traffic Sources, there’s a plethora of information from PPC to E-mail Marketing and even SEO! I drooled when I saw forums dedicated to Landing Pages, Tracking, and Coding. If that wasn’t enough, there are also forums to help you improve business wise.

With your membership, you’ll also get access to AffPortal Tools. These tools will help you build your campaigns. There are a TON of tools but a few worth mentioning are the landing page generators, jQuery landing page builder, keyword & URL scrappers, and downloads such as music, landing page templates, graphics, and more!

All of the above comes at a price that should be no problem. The longer you’re a member, the lower your membership will cost. It will cost you $67 the first 4 months you’re a member. The price will then be lowered to $47 for the next 4 months. After that, the price will only be $27 a month! For extra savings, you can subscribe for 6 months at the price of $326 and 12 months for only $450. If you’re serious about becoming a successful affiliate, take the next step to invest in a membership and devote yourself to learning the information provided. The ROI you’ll get is priceless.

With over 50,000+ posts, many will contain gems of information unavailable anywhere else. AFF Playbook has a highly active membership base. With over 2,000+ active members, you’re sure to get the attention and support you need to take your skills and earning potential to unbelievable heights. Join today, I’ll see you inside!

In August, there was a case-study contest I decided to participate in. You had to advertise a game offer on Facebook with a $200 budget. The contest ran for 2 weeks. This was my first real attempt at advertising with Facebook Ads.

When I learned about the details of the contest I instantly knew what offer I was going to run. I promoted Wizard 101. I had huge success on this offer with PPV, so I decided to port it over. I targeted both Males and Females 13-17 and targeted 18-25 separately. My ads were very generic. I wanted to test how well they’d do before going at it at an angle.

As for bidding, I kept mine at $0.50 despite the high suggested bid prices.
To fast-forward a bit, those ads didn’t perform well. They received clicks but the conversions were close to none.

I decided to go at an angle with my ads. Since I’m promoting a game about wizards, I thought about what things I could add to my ads.
When people hear wizards, what do they think about? Harry Potter! But if you keep up to date on pop-culture, there’s another celebrity that’s gotten a lot of press and is associated with wizards. Yes, I used Selena Gomez. Funny thing is, is that she actually did promote the game awhile back. So, I searched for images and made new ads to test.

After running those ads, clicks and conversions went up significantly.

Unfortunately, I still was not able to profit despite the changes I’ve made. I kept with those ads because they seemed so promising. I thought I just needed to fine tune them. To start, I paused the ads targeting ages 18-25 because the magic just wasn’t there.
To the existing ads, I targeted by interests, which were Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.

I let the ads run for a few days and paused the ones that weren’t performing well, and I was left with 3 ads.

I let a few days pass and I still was not seeing any profit. I paused all my ads to analyze what was going on. I realized that I needed get my CPCs down lower. To further close the profit/loss margin, I requested and received a pay bump on the offer. Now, I had to figure out how I was going to lower my CPCs. I tried experimenting with daily budgets and lowering my bids after my CPCs drop. Raising my daily budget helped a bit because it allowed my ads to receive more impressions and clicks.

In the end, I was unsuccessful at making my campaign profit. I was nearly at a -50% ROI but I did gain a significant amount of knowledge. I learned that it wasn’t impossible to advertise on Facebook it just takes work. I was also very happy with my ad approval ratio. Only 2 ads I submitted were disapproved. Perhaps my flaw was in not split testing other ad copies because a high CTR (Click Through Ratio) is key to lowering CPCs.

In all, I generated 88 leads, $103.75 in revenue, and spent $200 receiving an ROI of -48%.

In addition to the contest, I was also testing other game offers on Facebook and received similar results. My total Facebook ad spend in August reached over $400. I’m putting off Facebook for awhile and sticking to PPV for now where I have had success.
Don’t let my campaign discourage you. You can find still find success on Facebook. You just need a strong budget, creativity, and patience.

Have you ever thought about advertising via in-text ads? Or are you looking for the next hot traffic source? I have exciting news for you. Infolinks recently introduced its self-service advertising marketplace; the very first to hit the web! You can easily create in-text ad campaigns just as you would if you were using a self-serve ad platform such as Google Adwords. The fact that this is new should signal you to test campaigns on Infolinks to take advantage of their quality traffic before everyone else does! Promote your sites, blogs, social media profiles, and products.

The Infolinks Marketplace is user-friendly; you’ll be able to set up your first campaign in minutes. To reach your audience, you target by selecting and bidding on keywords. A huge plus is that you can target by geographical location and dominate areas where there’s no competition. “Is there real-time reporting?” You bet! Monitor and optimize your campaigns to max out your ROI.

Your ads are shown on websites with relevant content and only when users hover over a highlighted keyword that you’ve targeted. That way you only receive visitors that are truly interested in what you’re promoting. If you have never used in-text advertising before, now is the time to start. Think about it. You can potentially reach 350 million unique visitors across 250 billion pages of content!

If you have experience with self-serve ad platforms, signing up with the Infolinks Marketplace will be a breeze. It will only take a few minutes to open an advertiser account in the Marketplace. It couldn’t be any easier. Before you know it, you’ll be cranking out campaigns and seeing profits!

We all know how convenient the mobile internet can be when it comes to staying online, no matter where we go. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business broadband user or someone who uses mobile connectivity for purely social reasons, having the right gadget to get the job done counts for a lot too.

With endless options open to the mobile broadband user it can be a little tricky deciding on which device to buy in order to meet your requirements. However, there are three gizmos that can prove highly useful if you’ve got a growing need to stay connected on the go.

MiFi

The MiFi is our first suggestion because this is a great little twist on the traditional mobile broadband dongle. Where a dongle normally plugs into an available USB port on your laptop or netbook, and subsequently allows your machine to connect to the mobile network, the MiFi does the same but enables multiple computers to connect instead.

There are quite a few of these MiFi devices around now, and come via numerous mobile network providers. They’re perfect if you have more than one person in the house or workplace who needs to connect to the internet. You’ll need to be mindful of the fact that data allowances get spread out over the connected users, which means your quota may get eaten up rather quickly, but aside from that, the MiFi is a real boon to mobile internet fans.

The Tablet PC

Next up is the humble tablet PC , which has become the tool of choice for many mobile Internet fans and that’s easy to see why when you compare them to bulkier laptops or slightly more svelte netbook computers. While the Apple iPad is hugely popular, there are now plenty of alternative options available too, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

There’s a new version of this device currently available, the 10.1, which offers an improved experience over the original. It runs the Google Android operating system, has a slim and stylish design plus a quality build. If you’re looking for a truly portable gadget that’ll keep you connected on the move, with a decent keyboard and screen size, then this tablet offering makes a sound investment.

The Smartphone

A smartphone is the third mobile gadget that has become an essential part of any well connected Internet fans hardware arsenal. Right now, there are endless options to choose from, although one of the leading manufacturers, HTC, is proving a hard act to follow when it comes to producing a raft of excellent handsets, many of which come armed with the pretty bulletproof Android operating system.

Combine slick performance and some super cool designs and you’ve got a range of phones that have something for everyone. While some might say that it’s the Apple iPhone that is top of the smartphone tree, it’s well worth investigating one or two models from the HTC camp if you’re looking for all the toys, but without quite the same sort of financial outlay. Shop around and you may even get all three of these gadgets bundled into one super deal, which is just about as good as it gets.

Joe Linford writes for Broadband Genie, the consumer advice site for mobile broadband, smartphones and tablets.

As a blogger, connecting to the internet is essential. You need access to update your blog, respond to visitors’ questions, and give feedback. However, if you are away or in a remote place without internet or Wi-Fi access, you have two choices: purchase a wireless broadband stick for 3G or 4G wireless access, or save yourself the trouble and use your smartphone to achieve the same effect. Smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone, several Blackberry models, and any phone powered by Android, can be turned into a broadband modem and be tethered to your notebook for wireless internet access.

How to Turn a Smartphone into a Wireless Broadband Modem

Smartphones today are equipped with data capability for high speed internet access. The process of setting up a smartphone as a modem to another device, such as a notebook or desktop for connecting to the internet, is called tethering. First, you need to make sure you have a wireless data-access plan. The tethering fee for each carrier is different; you need to do your research. You can check if your wireless carrier includes tethering in your current plan. If it is not, you can request this for an additional fee. Many phone carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint offer tethering plans in their wireless services. Additionally, make sure to subscribe to a data plan that gives you a large amount of bandwidth—such as 5 GB per month.

Next, you will need software to tether your smartphone to your notebook. Usually, the wireless provider will include the software when you choose their tethering plan. Alternatively, Android users can use an open source application called PdaNet. You can connect your smartphone directly to your notebook through a USB cable, or Bluetooth.

Benefits of Having a Wireless Broadband Smartphone

Having your smartphone as a modem for your notebook is beneficial when you are stranded in a remote place, especially when you need internet access. In another instance, say in an environmental disaster such as a flood or earthquake, a wired internet connection may be slow to get restored. Using a smartphone to tether is convenient and helpful to connect to the internet.

Most free Wi-Fi hotspots are not secure, and chances your data will be intercepted can be high. However, using your smartphone for wireless broadband access is more secure. This is important if you want to log into your blog or use your email. The traffic is encrypted, so you do not have to worry about anyone stealing your data.

The use of a smartphone as a modem for tethering is a great backup for your regular internet service. You are still able to access the internet and can continue updating your blog in the case of power failure and other circumstances. This has become a life saver for bloggers.

You can receive a phone call and still remain connected to the internet if you are using your smartphone. Furthermore, you can save the battery life of your smartphone and your notebook, when you are connected through a USB connection.

Drawbacks

Despite the advantages of using your smartphone as your wireless modem for your notebook, it has several drawbacks. First, you can only access the internet where the wireless carrier has coverage. Second, if you subscribe to a small bandwidth the connection will be slow. However, these drawbacks do not eclipse the many benefits in making your smartphone a modem for your notebook.

Conclusion

For a blogger, the ability to use your smartphone as a wireless broadband modem to tether your notebook for accessing the internet is convenient. It is secure and you will not have to worry about not being able to access your blog. You can log in into your blog account virtually anywhere your phone service is available. A smartphone can be a wireless broadband modem that allows for mobility while you maintain your blog.

Blake Sanders writes tech at Australian broadband comparison site Broadband Expert and specializes in wireless broadband, mobile phones, and the latest in wireless internet provider news and information.

http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/

Note: Photo courtesy of smurfmatic via FlickR Creative Commons.

I recently finished the remainder of my $1000 budget on June 28, 2011. After a total of 26 Campaigns, 97,459 views, and $1000, these are my stats.

COPEAC - $128.95

EWA - $904.00

WSM - $131.00

Total Revenue: $1163.95

Profit: $163.95

ROI: 16%

My ROI is somewhat decent . I’m going to make it a goal to reach an ROI of 50-100%.

I targeted a variety of niches. I should’ve stuck with one until it brought it good profits. Niches I’ve profited with are dating, gaming, and submits. I found it difficult to get financial (credit score, auto insurance, etc.) offers to work; I didn’t even make a single conversion. Those require a huge amount of testing.

I focused most of my time promoting submit offers (e-mail/zip submits). One of the best ways to promote these type of offers is by using the poll method. The poll method dates back to the early PPC days. It consists of a landing page that asks the user a question and is enticed by stating they have a chance to win a free prize. Once the user clicks their answer, they’re redirected to a “Thank you page” or straight to the submit offer. The best types of questions to ask are those involving trending events such as those of pop-culture or sports. You’ll also get a higher CTR (Click Through Ratio) if you use images that show emotion or something shocking. Also be sure the offer is appropriate for the audience you’re targeting. Would sports fans wouldn’t want a Victoria’s Secret gift card?

One of the best polls I ran took me about 30 minutes to make and profited me over $40 in one-hour. I created a poll based on America’s Best Dance Crew, a show on MTV. It was the season finale, and I thought it’d be effective to create a poll asking which dance crew would win in the finals. The thing is I worked on this an hour before the finale was about to air. I should’ve started a week earlier. My campaign and some of my targets were approved prior to the start of the show. This is the lander I used:

While watching the show, I noticed that the MTV Movie Awards was going to air right after the show. Another idea! I made a poll asking who will win best movie. I used the same targets from the ABDC poll and added more but it seems the approval team left for the day. The target the brought me the most conversions was obviously “mtv.com”. This is the lander I used for the MTV Movie Awards:

I know some of you notice so-called “legal issues” with my landers such as logo and trademark use. I had no concern since this was a short-lived campaign. After those shows ended, I wondered if the conversions would keep coming. Obviously, the conversions dropped and I stopped the campaign. I would’ve had more profits if I started this campaign earlier. The lesson learned is to keep your eyes and ears open for upcoming events. I also created a poll about the NBA Finals but didn’t get it to profit. I was getting conversions, I just didn’t do enough digging for targets.

What’s Next?

I’m planning to either continue with Traffic Vance (TV) or give POF (PlentyofFish Ads) another shot. About a year ago, I tried running some offers on POF but had no success. I believe this was due to my bidding. I rarely bid over $0.17 CPM. Now that I have no problem bidding $11 CPM with TV, I can probably make it work with POF. I can’t do both because I would like to focus on one traffic source. Why not continue with TV? Because I learned that it requires a substantial amount of budget to test. I also believe I can learn a lot from POF. I want you to help me decide. Should I continue with Traffic Vance or give POF another shot? Take the poll on the lower right-hand side.

It’s been a month since I started doing PPV marketing. It feels like I haven’t learned much, but I’m sure I have but don’t realize it yet. I learned how bidding works, how to track stats, research trends, and more! I’m also building my own landing pages. I’m simply building landers that consist of a full image I created using photoshop. I’m surprised that some have converted. Though, I haven’t tapped into coding complex landers yet.

What Did I Promote?

The bulk of the offers I promoted were freebies (free ipad, iphone, giftcard, etc.). I’ve gained a small amount of success with these but I find as time passes, the offer dies out. That’s why it’s good to test different offers and different offers from other networks. I’ve had very minimal success promoting freebies via direct link. Your campaign will be more solid if you build a landing page that convinces users to complete the required action. I lost about $30 by direct linking a Groupon Zip-Submit (that converts on the first-page) and targeted other coupon sites. You’d think it’d be simple but it isn’t. It still puzzles me as to why I didn’t get much conversions.

Other than freebies, I also promoted facebook app dating offers which died out after a week. I actually made a good profit direct linking these offers to dating sites.

One offer that’s been consistent is a game offer I’ve been running. I built a lander associated with a celeb. It’s actually the first lander I’ve made, and it’s still profiting today!

I would say my first month has been a success. I’m making a few dollars worth of profit with a couple of campaigns. I suppose the next thing to do is to scale these campaigns but I don’t have any idea where start.

Here are my stats for May 2011:

I’m surprised to see I made a profit. I planned to break even but this is better! I actually thought I lost money at first because I compared my spend to my EWA revenue, but I remembered about offers I split tested with WSM and COPEAC. I bet pros could pull a $1000+ profit with a $300 spend. Can’t wait to get to that level.

This June, I plan to tap into foreign traffic to see how it goes. I’ll continue PPV and take shot at promoting offers with higher payouts, such as credit report and ringtone offers.

I enjoy using Traffic Vance. It doesn’t take long to get your ads approved and they aren’t as strict as other networks. The hardest part was risking $1000. I’m not looking back. If you intend to make serious money you have to take serious risks!

This past week I’ve taken a dive into the unknown world of CPV/PPV (Cost Per View/Pay Per View) marketing. I registered with Traffic Vance and started building campaigns. Since my knowledge on CPV is very little, I searched for online communities that specialize in the art. That was when I came across CPV Den.

What is CPV Marketing?

CPV is very similar to PPC (Pay Per Click). The difference is the you’re paying per view/impression rather than a click. The main reason why CPV traffic is attractive is because it’s very cheap. Depending on the traffic source you can receive an impression for less than a penny! You can also pretty much market anything you want. You have the option to direct link to your offer or create a landing page. Obviously, it’s best to split test to see which works best. One draw back is that you could blow your budget very quickly if you don’t monitor your campaigns.

What is CPV Den?

CPV Den is an online forum/community dedicated to teach you Cost Per View marketing. This isn’t another internet marketing forum that’s flooded with information with no sense of direction or purpose. CPV Den’s core focus is CPV only, which is a huge plus. I know I’ll get the right help from the right people who know what they’re doing. And unlike other forums that charge $50+ a month for membership, CPV Den is free!

What CPV Den has to offer:

• Help and guidance- The members are helpful and will guide you to make the right decisions when it comes to building campaigns. They’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong and what you should do to produce results. There are also many Case Studies and Tutorials that will teach you step by step.
• Entry into CPA Networks- Some members of the forum are also owners of or are affiliated with well known CPA Networks. Contact them and they can get you in.
• CPV Network Recommendations- You’ll learn which networks have quality traffic and which have better traffic for a certain niche or demographic. You’ll also learn about bidding strategies and ways to optimize your campaign with each network. Members who are willing can refer you to networks that require an endorsement.
• Free Tools & Resources- CPV Den has many free tools that will help you build campaigns easily. From videos to scrapers and even landing page templates, you’ll be properly equipped for success.

There are many other things CPV Den has to offer but I’d like you to see for yourself. I’ve only been a member for about a week and I’ve learned so much. For me, CPV is so much easier than PPC. There’s less restrictions on the types of offers you can promote. Also, my campaigns get approved fairly quickly. The hardest part was deciding to invest $1000 with Traffic Vance. I’m breaking even now but hope to be profitable very soon. So, if you ever plan to give CPV marketing a try, be sure to check out CPV Den. Drop by and say Hi! And tell them I sent you.

I’ve been thinking about selling this blog these past few months. I want to succeed with this blog but I also want to succeed in affiliate marketing and other projects. In order for a blog to truly succeed you need to post on a consistent basis (every day), which is something I haven’t been doing. I try to post at least once per week but I can’t even keep up with that.

It seems that I’ve reached a plateau, and if I want to reach the next level I’m going to need to post more often and even guest post. I’m definitely not the best writer which is why it takes me about an hour to write a 500 word post. Also, marketing this blog can take a huge amount of time. You have to contact people, comment on other blogs, and so on.

I’ve outweighed the risk and benefits, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to sell this blog. This blog has somewhat become (for lack of a better word) a burden. Getting rid of it would free my hands to work on other projects.

I plan to really focus on affiliate marketing. I’ve found that it’s way easier and faster for me to create 3-5 campaigns in one hour than it is to write one post in the same amount of time. It’s time for me to work smart, not hard. I’m not sure how you guys will react to this, but I’ll accept your opinions with an open mind.

As for the listing of this blog, I’m thinking about using Sitepoint or maybe the transaction can be dealt with privately. I would like to sell this blog for $10,000 or more. Items of the sale will be the blog’s files, such as themes, plugins, databases, etc. I will also include social media accounts such as twitter, facebook, feedburner, and aweber list.

If any of you would like to purchase this blog, please contact me. I would like to hear your honest opinions on this and I’d appreciate it if some of you could enlighten me with useful advice on how to go about selling.

Now that you have decided on your blog name and niche, it’s time to start your blog! From here on out, I’ll only be covering blogging using the WordPress platform and will be targeted towards those who have paid hosting. Those who use free WordPress blogs will be severely limited to the customizations you can make on your blog, which is why I recommend investing in a domain and host.

For those who wish to take the free route, simply register for a blog on WordPress.com

For the masses who heed my advice, I recommend using Hostgator for hosting your blog and domain name. They have hosting plans that cost less than $5 a month. They currently have a 20% off special, so it’d be smart to take advantage of this. I also have two coupons you can use on any plan, d3so994off (get $9.94 off any hosting plan) and d3so25pctoff (get 25% off any hosting plan).

After ordering, wait for your confirmation e-mail which will contain your account information. Click the link to your control panel and enter the login information provided. I highly advise that you immediately change your password once you log in.

Next, scroll down to the software section and click on “Fantastico De Luxe”. With Fantastico you can easily install many different software or scripts one of them being WordPress. WordPress is located under the “Blogs” category. Select “New Installation”.

You can either install WordPress in the root directory of a domain or within subfolder. Leave the directory blank if you wish to install it in root which will make your blog address look like this, yourdomain.com. If you choose to install within a subfolder, the blog address will be similar to yourdomain.com/subfolder.

After that, you’ll need to choose an admin name and password to access the admin panel of your blog. Now, enter your blog name and below that it’s description. Click “Install WordPress”, then click “Finish Installation”. Finally, you’re blog is set up! The installation details should be sent to the e-mail address you provided on the install page.

Now, is the perfect time to tour around the admin panel and become familiar with the tools and where they’re located. In my next blog improvement post, I’ll show you some tweaks that you should apply to your blog.