photo credit: robceemoz

Well I’ve been away from the blog and PPC affiliate marketing for a bit. Mainly because I’ve been focusing on other things. I’ve had a ton of freelance work to do lately, and one of my clients is hosting a party in San Francisco that has needed a lot of promotional material made.

Plus, I’ve found a new addiction… I tend to be a really intense person when it comes to new things that I like, and coffee is a new one. Not regular coffee… real coffee. I mean if I’m going to be a work junkie and spend my nights working on affiliate marketing I might as well be drinking really good, kick your ass coffee.

For those who don’t know what crema is, I’m not going to explain it… just go here… read… and know that most of what you get in coffee shops has none of it.

There are a ton of factors that go into a really great espresso, and it seems that since I’ve been sucked into the world of coffee geekdom I’ll be chasing them all… as of now, I’m just scratching the surface.

The first thing is a really great coffee grinder. Even if you have an amazing espresso machine, you’ll never make a decent cup if you use either pre-ground coffee or have one of those crappy blade thingies… Go get yourself a proper bur grinder. It doesn’t heat up your coffee when it grinds it, and it will keep all of the ground coffee a similar size (perfect for crema… haven’t you read that article yet???)

I just acquired a Rancilio Rocky Grinder (you can pick it up from amazon here… and yes, that’s an affiliate link). I know I know… spending that kind of money on a grinder seems silly. But really, the difference it made in the coffee is just amazing! I had no idea that the grinder was creating such shyte!

I still unfortunately have a shitty espresso machine. It sucks… I mean it realllly sucks. But I can still get a decent cup out of it, and for those of you with cheap espresso machines (I have a 70 dollar Krups one) here’s how to at least make a drinkable espresso. For any coffee geeks out there, please let me know if there are any other steps I can add, or correct me if need be.

1. Fill the machine with cold water (no distilled crap, just filtered).
2. Make sure every part of the machine that touches water is clean, and without putting any coffee in it turn it on brew.
3. wait until the water has built up and a bit of steam is produced.
4. Turn it off.
5. dump the water that has come out and pull off your coffee basket and fill with fresh ground coffee from your Rocky Grinder… what, you haven’t bought it yet?
6. pack your coffee into the basket a bit. No need for a tamper here or to apply too much pressure… these terrible machines have no pressure.
7. By now the water in the boiler will have dropped in temperature… turn on the steam portion and wait until it produces full steam for about 5 seconds.
8. Put your coffee basket (portafilter) back into the machine and turn it onto brew.
9. Wait for your coffee and turn it off when it starts to change color and gets a bit washed out.

You’re done! With a bit of practice you can get decent (not great) coffee from your crappy machine… suck it starbucks! If the coffee is bitter, you’ve either tamped too hard, or left it brewing for too long. Dump it and try again. I usually get about 1 out of 3 shots that are decent enough to drink straight… the others get turned into americanos…

Why does this belong on a marketing blog? Well I suppose it doesn’t, but I find that a lot of entrepreneurs are very intense people when it comes to their hobbies… besides, how can it hurt?

There are a ton of different ways of promoting zip or email submits. I want to share one that I have had success with, and it also doesn’t take long to setup. First up, you need to be a part of an affiliate network. My favorite right now is Peerfly.

That part will probably take you longer than 20 minutes, but once you’re setup with an affiliate network, then you want to pick your offer. Peerfly has a ton of zip/email submits on offer and you can pick out about 10 to promote. The key with email and zip submits is to promote a bunch and see which ones convert. They will not all convert, and out of 10 campaigns, you’ll probably only run into 1 or 2 that are really profitable.

Once you have your offers, you need some traffic. CPV traffic is really hot right now because it’s really easy to get started, and you don’t need to worry about quality score or having your own site. CPV traffic will create a popup over the browser of an internet surfer showing your ad. You don’t need to worry about click through rates, or anything else. You just bid on keywords or URLs and you get the traffic.

You can get some CPV traffic really quick by heading over to Direct CPV. When you sign up you need to call them to be approved, and then you can start getting traffic right away. Plus, you’re usually only spending around $0.01 per view of your ad!

Direct CPV traffic can be targeted in three different ways.

First, by category. This targeting is pretty broad and I don’t really recommend it because you don’t have full control.

Second by keywords. This targeting will show your ad when a lead views a website that has the keywords you select. It is best to combine this targeting with the third option.

URL targeting. This is the most exact type of targeting offered by Direct CPV. It allows you to target specific URLs. Just imagine, someone goes to the checkout section of WalMart’s website, when your ad for a $1000 free gift card pops up. Who wouldn’t want to sign up for just their email?

Remember, always test test test. And then, test some more. You will have some campaigns that don’t work… MANY campaigns that don’t work, but after a while you’ll get the hang of things and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

The new phone that I bought was the HTC Hero on Telus Mobility. Even though I had been with Bell mobility for over 6 years, when both Telus and Bell moved over to their new faster 3g network Bell didn’t get any of the new Android phones.

Given that I hated the stupid HTC Touch (worst phone I’ve ever owned) I moved over to the HTC Hero on Telus and I haven’t looked back.

I can do all of the multi tasking that Apple is now toting on their iPhone, plus I don’t have to use iTunes or any other iCrap in order to upload music.

I don’t like the fact that in Canada I can’t get access to the paid android app store, but I’m not complaining ’cause there are still a ton of fun games and great apps to download for free.

The phone comes with GPS, a barcode scanner, compass and of course the HTC Sense UI. The Sense UI is basically your desktop, and it allows you to quickly switch between screens much like the iPhone… but way better. It’s not just a sea of icons, it actually has use and purpose.

I’m sure I’m pissing off the iPhone hordes out there who blindly stand behind their apple god, so I’ll say some bad stuff. The HTC Hero on Telus hasn’t gone to the new android version yet. It can be laggy sometimes (but so can the iPhone). The chin on the phone is kinda weird. It takes freaking FOREVER to boot up if you have to restart it. You can’t install apps on the expansion card (although, at least I have one )….

All in all, the HTC Hero is the best phone I’ve owned. I highly recommend it if you’re a bit of a software geek like me, but if you want everything to be super easy and dumbed down, feel free to go to the iWhatever.

PS. Have I mentioned I’m not a Mac fiend?

photo credit: Fiorenza Thompson

Being a web designer for a number of years I’ve had the pleasure of working with a lot of great local business owners. Some of the ideas and products that I have helped to promote are amazing. Everything from electricians to e-learning to hydroponic grow boxes. But there is one thing that strikes me as odd…

Business owners don’t generally see their website as a lead gen tool.

Sure they want all kinds of salesy information on their site. It may even look like the cat’s ass. It’s on their business cards, it’s under their logo. Hell sometimes it’s even printed on the back of their fancy BMW.

But a lot of these sites lack opt-ins (an opt-in for those of you who don’t know, is a web form that collects info – usually a name and an email/phone number). Even when I suggest adding an opt-in it becomes really difficult to convince the client that it’s a good idea.

Why the hell would you ever not want to collect lead data from your site? You have XXXX traffic every day, and most of those potential buyers will go on their merry way and forget about you. BUT, if you offer them something for free and in exchange they give you their contact information… suddenly you can remind them that you still exist. And when they finally get around to buying in your market, you will still be fresh in their minds.

So how do you go about generating an opt-in for your site?

First you need some type of database that can collect the contact information. I’ve used a number of these companies, including aweber, vertical response. The one that I’ve liked the most, for not only how they’ve designed their site and their copy but also their interface and features, is MailChimp. You can signup for mailchimp here.

Once you have an account to collect the contact info, you will need to create an opt-in form. Mailchimp can generate this for you and all you have to do is copy and paste your code into your site.

So you’ve got your account, got your opt-in on your site, but you still aren’t getting anyone to sign up. There could be a number of reasons for this. One is that they have no reason to sign up. You need to offer something in exchange for your prospect’s contact information. This can be anything from an eBook, to an online quote or a product catalog. These things can all bring in huge lists of prospects that you can mail a newsletter or other promotional materials to.

In the future I’ll be going over in more detail how to increase your conversions, and how a double opt-in process works. Stay tuned and subscribe to the blog to make sure you don’t miss it!

Got questions? Let me know in the comments below.

I haven’t been in IM since the beginning, but from what I can tell all of the wanna be internet millionaires who whine about crap information are just that… whiners.

They don’t want to be marketers. They don’t want to run a business. They just want someone to give them some key to some vault which has all of their dreams stored up in some bag with a dollar sign on it.

WAKE UP!

There is no secret. There is no dream campaign that all of the big guys are keeping from you. There’s just marketing, and then there’s shit being thrown at the wall…

So which type of internet business are you running?

Are you actually trying to connect a consumer with a product that they want or can use? Or are you uploading 10,000 keywords into Yahoo Search Marketing and hoping that one of them will convert on that Walmart gift card offer?

If you want to make a living at the internet marketing game, you’ve gotta stop thinking like a drone, and start thinking like a marketer. You’ve got to come up with a concept that makes sense, and that connects real people (yes they are people on the other end of your website, not just conversion numbers) with real services/products.

I’m not saying you can’t get a $250 Walmart gift card to convert well. I’m just saying that putting it on a blank page that says click here to get it isn’t going to do fuck all.

Where does this come from? Well I found a site (I won’t list it here because I just feel sorry for the guy) that was just a page with a black background and a bunch of affiliate banners on it. They weren’t similar banners. In fact there was one for dating sitting next to one for auto insurance.

He had claimed that he was sending PPC traffic to this site and trying “everything” he could to get it to convert, yet he was just losing money. These types of people just shouldn’t even try to be internet marketing people.

And in fact, if you are reading this and you own a site like that… just get out… get out NOW!

Marketing is about telling a story. A story that jives with the views of a group of people (for those of you who don’t know who these people are… they are your “customers”). Your story has to be convincing… and your story has to be consistent (as in, don’t say you have the best customer service when you don’t ever answer the phone).  And yes, even if you are promoting email and zip submit offers, this story needs to be there.

So ask yourself; what story is your site telling?

More on this later, but for now do yourself a favor and pick up Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars and start being a marketer, not a chump.

Well running my own business has changed that idea. I can’t do it anymore. I’ve discovered I need goals even on the daily level. If I don’t schedule my day, nothing really ends up getting done.

So here it is… begrudgingly I have made the list. I’ve ordered them from least important to most important:

1. Make a list of my goals (holy shit I’ve already finished one!)
2. Buy one design book per month for all of 2010
3. Scale my CPA business up to $250 a day – enough to go back to school in 2011
4. Build up a network of sites (around 150 should do it) that will continually grow and make money
5. Learn how to teach people how to do things… I’m really bad at this…
6. Learn how to outsource a lot of my work to other people so I can accomplish the next two…
7. Share more of my money with people who need it
8. Share more of my time with my family and my friends
9. Keep my life scheduled down to the hour… not set in stone, but more of a… “guideline”
10. Continue to be happy where I am, and learn from myself and my friends

I guess that last one is a little sappy, and not much of a business goal, but I really feel like if you’re happy with yourself then it doesn’t really matter what you do, or who you’re dating, or where you live, or who your family is or even if your dog chews a hole in your wall of your rented apartment that costs you $2500 bucks…

Anyways, I hope everyone had a wicked awesome new years and let’s all make 2010 a rad year!

Because of this recommendation I thought that the system would be smooth sailing, and I’d be able to get some quality traffic to my offers for a good price. I learned two things quickly… never assume a damn thing about any 2nd tier PPC company.

When I first signed up I was confronted with a terrible user layout that is completely built in flash called bidsystem. Not only is it incredibly clunky to use, but it doesn’t always save your changes. For example, if you pause a campaign that campaign will disappear from your dashboard. Where does it go? I’ll be damned if I know. As far as I can tell the only way to get to your paused campaigns is to log out and log back in and pray that you can see them on the first page of your dashboard.

Anyways, I had worked with a number of bad UI’s before and figured I could get by this if the traffic was good.

So I setup a few campaigns and I waited… and waited… and waited. And then I saw this thing on my dashboard that said my account status was pending… huh… I wasn’t told that my account needed approval, but I figured I’d wait over the weekend and at the very least it would be approved after 4 business days…

I was wrong. So I sent them an email. And two business days I got a message back saying that I was approved and my ads were accepted… thanks Adknowledge!

In these first campaigns the traffic wasn’t bad, and it’s about half the price of a Google click. However, you can only bid on categories and not keywords, so I was basically fucked for getting my campaigns to profit margins.

For a credit report campaign I was only approved on 2 categories. 2! Now, I can understand that they want to keep their traffic score up, but how am I supposed to optimize a campaign when I have two choices?

My initial campaigns weren’t going too well so I decided to pause them (that’s when I realized that, once paused, the campaigns went to adknowledge heaven). I decided to setup a few new campaigns. That was December 10th. It is now December 30th, and I just received notice that my ads were approved. It took 20 full days to have my ads approved from adknowledge.

Did I try contacting them during this time? Hell yes I did! And I got no response. In my adknowledge dashboard I had a big fat blank under “account manager” too so I didn’t even have a direct contact.

So now that I have ads running on adknowledge that are about the holidays… approved after the holidays… I should start getting traffic, no? That’s what any sane person would imagine, but it’s not the case… All of my categories for my campaign were rejected! Apparently my payday loan application CPA offer doesn’t fit into these categories:

Cash advance
Cash Loan
Online Loan
Payday Loan

I like how the first one got rejected even though cash advance is in the domain name and header of the offer. Of course you’re probably thinking, “Eric, why don’t you check their notes to see why it was rejected?”. I would if I could, but there is no notification when these categories get rejected, and I have no way of knowing why someone would have rejected them.

This post is getting long now so I’m going to end it, but if you come across adknowledge in your quest for good PPC traffic, my recommendation is to be very careful. If you’re going to try them out, start with a tiny budget first. As for me, I want to get away from their terrible service and terrible software as quickly as I can.

If you want to check out Adknowledge you can do so here.

Has anyone else had any experience with these guys? If so, let me know. I’d love to know what other people experienced with them.

At the end of the day I love what I do, I love how flexible it is, and I love that I’ve put myself in a position where I can mostly choose my lifestyle. However it does get stressful sometimes, and sometimes I jump at the idea of having a few days off over the holidays to hammer out some personal projects (ie. websites that aren’t going to make money but would be totally freaking rad).

That’s a huge problem.

With all of the things I have on the go – and I’m sure all of you do as well – it’s really important to just relax a little. I haven’t seen a lot of my family for most of the year, and I’m going to enjoy it. I’m not going to start any new campaigns over the holidays, and I’m just going to RELAX. I already missed the boat on some store type sites for Christmas, but in the new year I will be fresh and ready to hit the ground running on some Valentine’s Day offers.

How am I going to relax?

Well if you’re anything like me then being next to a computer is a huge problem over the holidays. I love to check out how my sites are doing, and how any campaigns I have running are humming along.

Because of this, I need to remove myself from the ability to check stats and confirm everything is running ok. I do have one campaign that I’m not very sure of, and that one is going to be paused over this weekend so I can just forget about it. Sure I might miss out on a bit of money, but the amount of relaxation I will get from not thinking about work will allow me to work 5x as hard the following week.

Living without a computer.

Yes, it’s only going to be 4 days that I’m away from my home office, but it would feel like an eternity if I didn’t have email. That is why even though I won’t be bringing my computer with me to hang with my family, I will always have my cell phone. That way, even if everything goes to shit and something blows up, at least I will get an email about it (“no funds”) or I will notice that my daily income has gone to a big whopping zero (thanks Peerfly Mobile!).

All in all I think if everyone took some well needed time off occasionally they would be able to work much harder and be much more focused. I’m starting to ramble a bit now, but I just want to say happy holidays, relax a little, and then make some f’ing dollars next week!

I’ll be sharing my progress so that anyone out there who currently has 50 or 60 bucks sitting in their account can follow along, and hopefully finally get paid by the ubiquitous giant G.

The first step is to revamp all of my old sites that got me to where I am with adsense. Most of these sites made some money at the beginning, but have steadily faded away due to lack of updates.

I have about 5 sites at the moment that were setup, and I have moved them all over to new hosting, and onto wordpress. They all have the basic wordpress theme, and I don’t intend on changing it unless I can find a wordpress theme that converts adsense clicks better than the default theme.

My next step is to go through all of my domains that are being unused and find some that I can build out. I have a number of domains that I have purchased over the years that are just being parked and get zero traffic. Most of these domains are long tail keywords that have little competition and decent search traffic. I will build these out in the same way as the original 5 sites and try to get a steady stream of traffic.

Goals:

My goal is to make the remaining 40 bucks or so of adsense revenue I need to get paid by Google. Given the historical data in my adsense account I will need about 5000 – 6000 impressions in order to hit this goal. Breaking that number down by day I will need ~140 impressions a day for the remaining 44 days.

Currently I am getting ~25 daily impressions to the adsense sites I have setup so I have a shit load of work to do… in fact, I’m going to start on it now.

I didn’t exactly have high hopes for my account, but in their initial email Google had said you can dispute the account detonation by emailing them.

Here was their response:

Hello Eric,

As mentioned in our previous email, your Google AdWords account has been
suspended. We are unable to revoke your account suspension, and we will
not accept advertisements from you in the future.

Please note that our support team is unable to help you with this issue,
and we ask that you do not contact them about this matter.

As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to
terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions,
please visit https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder .

We appreciate your cooperation.

My cooperation? I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter did I? It seems to me that even a bad campaign that was setup over 8 months ago can get you in bad with Google… and they don’t forget a thing.

Google I love you… you make awesome software… Google Android rules… I love your search engine… your email rocks… you have a ton of traffic and it’s fairly decent as far as conversions go… but god damn is your customer support bad. I don’t know of any other company that would just stop giving you service without explaining themselves.

That brings me to a new point. There are a TON of other traffic sources out there for promoting affiliate offers. Over the next couple of weeks I am going to go over my initial experience with some of these other traffic sources and let you know how the traffic they have converts.