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Affiliate Software & Relationships

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:29 +0000

A lot of the support that a merchant can offer their affiliates is going to come from software. It’s the tracking, reporting, and marketing tools in their affiliate software that can make all the difference for how effective affiliates. In the latest episode of Coffee with Nicky, our CEO, Nicky Senyard, explores what those features are, and how merchants can better evaluate and choose an affiliate marketing platform.

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Crabs, Advertising Taxes, Running 5k Races, and Twitter Skeptics

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:23 +0000

Download audio file (affiliatething-071309.mp3)

This week on the Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins and Lisa Picarille talked about the Tax Talk and Crab Feast at buy.at’s office in Baltimore, Affiliate Summit selling out, affiliate marketers running in 5k races, and Jeff Molander on Twitter.

Also, they talked about still waiting to hear from Sucharita Mulpuru (@smulpuru) of Forrester Research about her estimate that 10 percent of Amazon’s sales may come from affiliates.

Lastly, what will Lisa sing during TechKaraoke at Affiliate Summit?

Show Links

Sell Out for Affiliate Summit East 2009
Take Action Against the Advertising Tax
Advertising Tax Presentation in Baltimore
Tax Talk and Crab Feast in Pictures
Advertising Tax Talk – the Video
Advertising Tax Talk – the Audio
How To Eat a Maryland Crab
PMA – State Legislation Activities
The Importance of Goals
TechKaraoke | Affiliate Summit Karaoke Edition
Do Affiliates Read Affiliate Agreements?
@samharrelson to @jeffmolander
Request for more information from Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research: first time / second time

Subscribe to the Affiliate Thing RSS feed or listen on iTunes. You can also send a blank e-mail to affiliatething@aweber.com to get each podcast delivered by e-mail.

Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

Crabs, Advertising Taxes, Running 5k Races, and Twitter Skeptics

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Sell Out for Affiliate Summit East 2009

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:20 +0000

Affiliate Summit East 2009 is on schedule to sell out by Friday, July 31, 2009, based on sales patterns of past Affiliate Summits.

As of this morning, there are 325 registration slots remaining.

The keynote speaker for Monday, August 10 will be Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, and the keynote for Tuesday, August 11 will be Peter Shankman, founder and CEO of The Geek Factory.

This time around, Affiliate Summit will feature the largest exhibit hall of all of the Affiliate Summit East shows, and a limited number of sponsorships are still available, though all exhibitor booths are sold out.

More details at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/.

Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

Sell Out for Affiliate Summit East 2009

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AffiliateBenchmarks - Take the Industry Survey

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:15 +0000

The survey results will gather best practices for several aspects of affiliate marketing, including how best to communicate with affiliates, what advertisers can do to optimize affiliate relationships, what tools and information affiliates crave, and what challenges they face. Results will be analyzed and used to identify marketing trends and projected changes

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Quick Update and My Personal Goals

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:08 +0000

Internet Marketing

Life is getting better and business is picking up as well. I just net over USD$500o+ for last month and manage to put my new company on the run. My parents are very happy about it and they even go to the extend of sharing it with my relative which make my relative feel proud of me as well. By they asked me to stay low profile and I did what they have told me as well yet they are doing promotion for me?

My CCArticles venture is doing great and the plan to dominate the whole article writing service is in progress. If you are a CC customer of mine, you are going to enjoy from the internet best article writing service. On top of that, I’m in progress of expanding my worker and creating an online management system for my highqualitybacklinks as well. Let’s hope that it will be completed by the end of this month so that I start some serious promoting as well.

Personal

(That’s be celebrating our 6th month ^^ )

My 6th month anniversary with my girlfriend just pass and I’m very glad that I have her as my girlfriend. Thank you for all the support, care and love you gave me.

On top of that, I plan to start doing some financial planning and separate my personal bank account from my internet marketing bank account. And limit my spending per month base on the profit I’m making from my internet marketing. This will prevent me from overspending and have income for investment such as stock.

Other than that, I’m in progress of reading a book “Secrets of Self-Made Millionaire” by Adam Khoo. This is really a great book and I recommend everyone to grab this book. It’s talk about the important of mindset and what mindset you should have to be a millionaire.

Goals

Just some update for my goals.

I MUST reach 5 figure income at the end of 2009
I MUST be a millioniar at the age of 30 (10 years from now)

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Want To Set Up Affiliate Marketing Programs

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:20:07 +0000

One of the things that many who need to see a rise in sales will do is set up affiliate internet marketing program for their service. It could be an excellent way to build sales in an exceedingly cheap demeanour. If you’ve got a product or a service which will meet plenty of peoples’s desires and expectancies and you have investigated that the market is good for it, then you’ll have no problem getting it going.

So what do you need to line up affiliate promotion programs? After the product is prepared to hit the market, you want to decide on software which will handle your affiliate marketing program. A fast search on Google will show many options. You also need to decide to hire an affiliate boss that may handle the inducting aspects as well as tracking progress, paying out commissions and maintaining relations with the associates.

This is something that is simply outsourced. Just ensure that as you are cooking up a budget in th set up affiliate marketing program that you consider the executive. If the above sounds a bit difficult to you, you may wish to work with an affiliate network. The better ones like ClickBank, Commission Junction, and LinkShare as well as some of the more popular ones will look after the majority of the managerial aspects. They will likely have affiliates trying to find products to sell and will look after making certain that they follow rules, track sales, delivers the tools required, and will also look after paying the affiliates for you.

Another facet to consider in set up internet marketing is the commissions that you are going to be paying out. Commissions can be anywhere from 5-6% to 50-60% depending on the character of the product or service. Mostly , the lower the overhead is, the greater the commission can be. It’ll be less profit per sale than if you were trying to do it all by yourself but if you’ve got a little military of awfully ready and well commissioned affiliates the number of sales will be way beyond what you might ever do on your own at a particularly fast pace.

Another thing which will need to be considered in your set up affiliate marketing program is tracking cookies.

This is seen as a bother by some consumers but is critical to helping reward people who send business your way. Each associate will have a tag number of some sort which will identify each visitor to your site as somebody that they sent. This is helpful for tracking sales.

Not everybody will buy the 1st visit they make to your website. They may wait a day, a week, or infrequently even a month. Remember that using associates will give you much bigger possibilities of success than if you were on your own and the better you look after them, the better they’re going to take care of you. If you can remember that in set up affiliate internet marketing you’ll see your service’s sales fly high.

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Affiliate Venture Group’s Venture is to Make You Money

admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:20:45 +0000

More internet marketers are coming together, forming their own companies and going forward with their plans on running their own affiliate network. The latest network looking to make a run at the biz, is Affiliate Venture Group. Located in Delaware and under a year old, you may not have seen Affiliate Venture Group advertised on many other sites, or even mentioned. AVG is ok with that, because they determined to only focus on quality affiliates by keeping the network more private and select in who they allow to promote their offers. Instead of spending time, money and efforts on flashy ad banners and having every affiliate under the sun sign up to their network, they want to bring in only the best and help you succeed with promoting their offers.

Offers on Affiliate Venture Group
Once you are accepted as an affiliate, you have full access to over 90 campaigns on network. Offer campaigns range in category, but are mainly targeted towards business, credit and health. AVG also has a few exclusive campaigns of their own, paying in the $42 range for “cash advance / loan” type offers and “trading/investing” program, which pays $395 per sale.

A Preview of Campaign Details, Payout and Creatives Available

To keep AVG in competition with other networks, you will also find offers that other networks run as well, such as “teeth whitening“, “resV” and many “biz opp” offers. Most of these offers are paying out in the $20-$30 range.

Education Offers: AVG has a decent amount of education offers too. If you had any experience in this field, you will know these offers pay out nicely. Many of these offers are paying out in the high $20 range. If you have any type of student/education mailing list, offers like Kaplan, Colorado Tech, Free College Info will do well for you.

AVG Network Platform
Networks are no longer limited to having to create their own custom platform, or simply relying on DirectTrack. AVG runs their network platform off HitPath, which offers an easy to navigate system, while offering full tracking capabilities. HitPath is the backbone for many networks, and runs off an easy to use interface, and provide quick and easy access for setting up API. One thing I’ve noticed with networks using HitPath (and a couple other platforms), is that you have to request an offer before going live with it. This can be annoying when trying to test offers, but keeps the networks and advertisers on their toes about traffic volume and quality running through the network. In most cases, offers are usually approved for promotion within a few hours… or just contact your affiliate manager, and you should be ready do go within minutes.

Above is a quick stats report pulled from the AVG / HitPath platform. As you can see, stats are easy enough to read, but the options are there for full tracking and breaking down stats.

Meet up with the Affiliate Venture Group Team
With so many networks in competition for your business now, it’s so important to have the personal contact. The AVG team is always doing what they can to be where the affiliate action is. From AdTech to LeadsCon to AffiliateSummit, someone from AVG will be in attendance. You can take a look at their events page to see where they will be next.

Affiliate Venture Group may be one of the newer networks, but they have a dedicated affiliate team that wants to work with you. Signup as an affiliate and see if there’s anything you can start making some money with.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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Dirty College Girls Take Over Twitter!

admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:20:43 +0000

Not your usual blog post headline, but it’s sure to draw attention… and isn’t that what marketing is all about? Online marketing is getting more targeted and more in your face than ever. It’s just a matter of finding new ways of pushing the envelope, and who will do it. Yesterday I was on Twitter and reading over incoming tweets, then I saw one come through from ChrisHedgecock, which was the following:

Anxiously, I went to see what his findings were. It wasn’t that surprising after I saw it, but I just hadn’t seen it in action, beyond the fake biz opps being advertised across Twitter on fake accounts. Now, some marketers are getting smart daring enough to try it with dating offers. We’ve all seen the ads on Facebook, and know they convert extremely well because they are shown to you in a “social networking” and “friend” envoirnment. I haven’t seen or heard anything “actualy numbers” on the profitability of offers through Twitter, but sure enough it’s being tested. Here’s what an active search of “online dating” brings up using search.twitter.com.

I pulled this search query right when I started writing this post. Five minutes later, and there are already (64) new tweets coming through on the live search results. Almost all of the urls go to the same dating site/offer, and most of the accounts look automated (api driven). Just do a general “dating” search on twitter for more detailed information.

How are people making money on Twitter?
The concept of making money with Twitter is nothing new, and the majority of marketers already how. If not, it’s quite an easy process.

1.) Create a Twitter Account
2.) Choose an Attractive Looking Avatar
3.) Post tweets with Affiliate URLS
4.) Download/Buy an Auto-Follower Program
5.) Automate the Process to Tweet every few minutes.

The process is easy enough, but how effective and convincing you can be is the question. On several forums you will come across users selling automated account with 20,000+ followers, for only a couple hundred bucks. This was seen a few years back when individuals were building up MySpace accounts and direct messaging all of their “friends”. Run a search at search.twitter.com on “add followers” and you will see the latest programs and sites being pushed around, for adding followers to account.

What are your thoughts on marketing through Twitter, and have you or others seen success promoting “affiliate type” offers?

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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My Google Adwords Account Was Banned!

admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:20:41 +0000

This guest by Jonathan Volk, a 20-something super affiliate who makes over $300,000 per month using pay per click advertising platforms. Feel free to check out his blog for killer information on all things that deal with Making Money Online.

This last week I must have had 10 or so people contact me on AIM letting me know that their Google Adwords account was banned.

People were freaking out because all of their revenue was suddenly turned off over night. People who were making hundreds of thousands of dollars, suddenly making nothing, with little opportunity to recover.

We’re not just talking about a, “Oh you can’t run that campaign” type of ban either. We’re talking, “If you create another account with that credit card, home address, ip address you will be banned again” type of banning.

Thankfully, this ban did not affect me but because it happened to a lot of good friends of mine, I wanted to take the time to write exactly what you should do in order to ensure that your account is not banned. I also want to write about some possibilities of things you should do if you are banned from Google Adwords.

Things you should avoid in order to keep your Google Adwords Account Safe!

Downloading and re-uploading slapped campaigns. - At times, when your campaign gets google slapped (meaning your ads stop showing no matter how high you bid), it can be an easy solution to simply buy a new domain, download your campaign and reupload using a new domain. Viola, new traffic… until your campaign is slapped again. Doing this over and over can get you banned faster than spamming make money online links on wickedfire. If your campaign stops receiving traffic, it’s probably due to the way your landing page / site is structured. Try reviewing ways of fixing your landing page quality score and go from there. Once you have changed your landing page significantly, you can try uploading it again. Here is a guide on downloading and uploading an adwords campaign with changes.
Stay away from Flogs. - Google literally will hate you if you try to promote a flog on their advertising network. If you don’t know what a flog is, it’s a fake blog testimonial site usually promoting some sort of recurring billing free trial such as a make money online type subscription program. This was one of the main sources of the banning this last week. People who promoted Flogs on Google, even after knowing they should not, were banned and asked never to return. This applied just as much to those spending MILLIONS per year as it did the Joe Schmo spending a hundred bucks a day.
Stay away from Google Cash Offers, Google Money Tree, etc. - Google recently decided that the affiliate offers that include their name such as Google Money Tree, are no longer ok to promote on their Adwords advertising network. I suppose promoting a product that is essentially using Google’s brand trust to sell is never a good idea to promote through Google. The banning that took place this week also were due to people who promoted the “Make Money Online with Google Cash Offer.” There are about 20 different offers, mostly owned by a few companies and these things are extremely popular. They use Google’s brand recognition (they even had Google’s logo on a few of the landing pages) to sell the idea that someone could make money using a system they’re already familiar with. Stay away from these offers now.
Play by Google’s Rules! - Sometimes you have to just make your methods conform to Google’s rules, even if that means less profit. Part of the make money online job description is learning to conform to the ever changing rule set while still… you know… making money.

What if Your Adwords Account was banned?
Sadly, there is not a whole lot you can do that does not require a whole lot of work.

First, you’ll need to reset your internet modem to acquire a new IP address. Next, you will need a brand new credit card. A spouse or employee card would suffice. Next, you’ll need to sign up for a new account and hope that it works. Lastly, follow the rules above - and keep watching this blog as well as Jonathan Volk’s blog for more tips on how to earn money online.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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How to Start Your Own Affiliate Network

admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:20:37 +0000

A decade ago it was quite a task to start your own affiliate network. First you needed a business model, probably a full staff and most importantly, your own network platform. Then DirectTrack became available, and everyone under the sun was creating their own network…. this time, all you needed was around $10,000! Now lets leap ahead to day. The latest in affiliate network platforms is now alive and well at hasoffers.com. Said to have “everything directtrack offers, and more“… and more importantly, it won’t cost you several thousands of dollars in the process.

Why you should start an affiliate network?
This post is really going to swing in importance for a lot of people… you are either looking to potentially have your own network, or not at all. A few reasons why you would want a network, is because you are currently running a few sites and offers of your own. Instead of brokering them out to affiliate networks, and having to pay a 30% increase on all leads, you could bring all of the offers in house and save money, while building up a valuable network and affiliate base. Another reason why you might want to start a network, is simply because you can do it better. It’s not just about having your own offers, but the ability to get the highest rates, treat your affiliates right and getting them to succeed. Not all networks are created equally… can you do better?

What does the HasOffers Affiliate Network Platform look like?
Honestly, the best way to see this network platform in action, is to see the major network that is using it to generate thousands of leads per month. I previously wrote up a review on Tatto Media, and how awesome everyone was at the company on getting me setup as an affiliate. This whole network is run off the HasOffers platform. Sign up as an affiliate to see full stats tracking, charts, demographics, creatives and everything else within the network. It really is a slick looking setup and the back end management options are amazing for easily running an affiliate network without having to a read through a ton of tutorials. For those interested in training and a run through on how to run the system, these options are also available.

What is going to cost to run my own network?
As mentioned earlier, with many other options, it will cost you an arm and leg to run your own network. HasOffers has an ad network platform that works for almost anyone. The most appealing version is the “Basic”, which is free… but the “Pro” version, at only $99 a month, is where you will look very professional. For anyone just starting out and thinking about starting their own network… but still hesitant, setup a free “basic” version and see how it goes. Once you are ready for the big time, move up to Pro (for your own domain name for the network, and url tracking) or Enterprise, which will cover you for some massive click volume. What’s the difference between the three options? Mainly the size of click traffic you are pushing through the network. will determine the right version and pricing for your network. A full detailed chart is shown below.

Latest Additions to HasOffers Network Platform!
In a continuing effort to make the Hasoffers platform one of the best around, just today they implemented even more improvements to the network, which include:

- New look and feel for the stat reports. Much more user friendly.
- Advertisers have the ability to manage their own offers now
- Option to allow offers to convert multiple times
- Customizable questions for affiliate sign-ups
- Lead caps can now be disabled

With the addition of these latest features, you can better manage any existing and new offers on the network. Everything about the hasoffers platform was built so it’s easily and fully customizable to your current web site and branding. You are not limited to using outside urls, or color schemes that just don’t fit. A full run down of all updates can be found on the news.hasoffers.com site.

HasOffers is Your Network Solution
With internet marketing changing every day and more people are deciding to create their own offers, Hasoffers is the right solution for many people. In the time that I have worked with Hasoffers/Tatto Media, they have been nothing but helpful and always looking for feedback and ways to improve their systems.

Take the time to look over their web site, and be sure to throughly think about if starting a network is right for you. Remember, you don’t need to compete with the big players to start your own network, start out with your own inhouse offers and expand from there. Setup a free account and be live within 10 minutes!

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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