Or how can I pay per click and leverage that paid traffic to free traffic and still get it to convert. As you know I like to do a lot of twitter marketing and I think I understand it enough that I can utilize that specific traffic. So I decided to start a case study with paid and twitter traffic, I was curios if I can leverage paid to free traffic.

First I pick a very basic offer and created a very basic landing page. You will see it don’t worry. The offer was a simple email submit and the landing page was just the exact copy with 1 big difference. LP below.

Also, after several testing I added 3 more critical things to the LP to make it more legit. So you can see I added a tweet form on there, which basically tweets a message to twitter under that username. I think that specific form is pretty powerful in that the user needs to enter their credentials to continue. Though this form will stop others from entering their info, you just have to immediately create a trust.

How do I create trust? Pretty simple. I am promoting this via PPV and I have it simply just popup over some related sites. I also added that twitter bird in the background making it feel like the site is creating a contest or is being sponsored in some way.

Another big aspect is the “Step 1 of 2“. This puts the end user in a state where they know this is a 2 step form in order to get the offer. So it automatically puts the user in a mind state – “Ok I have to do 2 things to get this free thing”. In the end the user decides if they have time to do 2 simple steps to get their free item.

Another aspect is the big form button or CTA (call to action) at the bottom of the tweet form. It basically grabs the attention of the user because it is big AND has a red trim around it. I found that red color is an attractant and it sticks out the most in the landing page. So they see the red big form button and read the text. So the form button is an attractant.

Even the form itself is pretty big. This way it is the main thing their eyes see first. I wanted to the form or CTA to be the most visible part. If the end user decides to think on what to do, they see the twitter bird, the steps 1 of 2, and red border form. They can and should sense that it is cool to continue.

The results were pretty amazing, I wish I can pull the search results from twitter. This way you can see how many people tweeted via the form. But not sure why they do not show you old search results. But in any case it did fairly well. I was pretty surprise how I got it to work pretty fast.

The most important parts were the addition of:

1. Adding Steps 1 of 2 – again helping the user think faster on what they will be doing
2. BIG CTA with Eye Catching Colors – helps with catching the users attention
3. Adding Related image – in this case the twitter bird

I think these aspects definitely helped. I test it without these changes (as I first started) and I saw a bigger response when I added and tweaked the landing page to look and feel like this. Again it is all about testing to see what works and what doesn’t.

Everyday it seems so many users are pushing up their own networks. They have became experts in their field and have decided to expand by opening their own affiliate networks. I know a lot of small networks in which the owners were once affiliate marketers. This gives them a huge backbone in what they are doing since they were once affiliates.

HasOffers is the first white label affiliate network software that gives you total control, with powerful technology, complete customization, and no start up costs or monthly fees.

They have such a simple interface that you can not get lost. I like it when stats are in front of you and Has Offers gives you just that. You get an overview of how you are currently doing. The fact that you are seeing your stats up front once you login gives you an overview of what your next steps should be. It gives you an idea of what to do to correct or improve on.

Their interface is very easy to use and it is very straight to the point. As a publisher navigation is important, you want to get to where you want to within the site with just a click or 2. You do not want to search and get lost in an interface!

But if you want to start an affiliate network, HasOffers allows you to start one and gives you the chance to use their system for free. It gives you the ability to manage your own network and start earning like the big guys.

When you start a network, you have to do a lot of research. You even have to put up a lot of money just to get started, which doesn’t even include an interface for your publishers.

Offers

HasOffers makes life a bit easier for you to start a network with offers of your choosing. When adding an offer it gets down to the nitty gritty. You get to give your offer a name, associate t with a group and category, payout type, cap limitations, etc. There is a lot but it is good to make sure you can manage it easily.

While you can control the offer in its full functionality, again the interface is straight to the point without any fancy design to steer you away from what you have to do. Quickly add pixels, access your suppression list, grant access to private offers, manage, etc. Each one comes with a very ‘easy to jump in’ interface.

Network Reporting

Reporting is important in whatever business you are in. You need to see stats because it tells you if you are doing something wrong or right. The interface again is easy to use and navigate. The drop down menus are the top gives you straight access to daily, weekly, monthly, and hourly reporting.

It will even show you referral reports and how much the referrer is generating from their referrals.

There is commissions and conversion reports, giving you a vast birds eye view of how yur network is doing. Reporting is very accurate and very straight to the point. In any business a detailed reporting of your business is crucial. HasOffers definitely covers it.

Affiliate Signup and Status

In this affiliate marketing industry, affiliates are the driving force for the network. Without affiliates a network just doesn’t exists. So taking care and establishing a relationship with them is very important. As well as taking care of them through the network.

With the affiliate section of HasOffers, you get to manage, add, create, disable, even adjust leads for a publisher.

It is a pretty basic section in the network – see who signs up, why they are signing up and approve them. HasOffers has this pretty much covered.

Billing

A network has to pay affiliates. I think this is straight to the point. HasOffers shows your networks ability to show how much an affiliate has earned, manage your invoice, manage payments, etc.

One thing I like is the quick pay. This allows your network to pay an affiliate instantly. The network is already setup for Net 7 or Net30 – but if you need to pay an affiliate because of substantial volume, you can pay your affiliate on the spot. This way you reward your affiliate. This also comes in handy to establish a relationship with your affiliate.

Conclusion

With so many networks out there trying to find the right solution for their start up network, HasOffers has the simplicity to get you started right away and easily in the CPA/Affiliate Industry. But having your own network is easy. It is a lot of hard work, you just need the right tools to get yur feet wet and have a solution in which you can be successful.

HasOffers can give you the leverage over everyone else.

By the way check out their affiliate glossoray.

This affiliate summit is no difference and I am in the process of setting up the location and invitations. As always the dinner is limited seating and is reserve to certain people in the industry. I learned from y first dinner that going big isn’t always the best thing to do. So I am limiting the seating as I did last dinner in Las Vegas.

This IANteract Dinner is going to be proudly sponsored by CPA Underground.

Mario, CEO of CPA Undergound is very excited to sponsor my IANteract Dinner. From the past my IANteract Dinner has helped a lot of people and networks that sponsored it in the past. Now since this will be in New York I have already chosen the place where the dinner will be held.

I wanted the location to be near the Hilton and be walking distance from Affiliate Summit. This way users that do not have cars or that are not familiar with the location can easily find it. The location Mario and I agreed on was Molyvos which is only 2 block up from the conference.

This should be a very entertaining restaurant and looks like they have very good food there.

courtesy of wEnDaLicious @ flickr

From the picture above I bet you are hungry. I am hungry now… Well this years IANteract Dinner will be really entertaining and I can not wait for it to happen.

Again, this dinner will be reserved for people that are really close to me and people I want to meet in the industry or close friends. I will also be rotating seats, for example if you have been to my dinners in the past you may not be invited to other dinners because I want to make sure I get and give everyone an opportunity to closely network with one another.

I look forward to Affiliate Summit East as Affiliate Summit has been my favorite conferences that I have been to. So if you do not have your ticket yet I suggest you do so because Shawn and Missy does a great job in setting this conference up for affiliates!

Again thanks to CPA Underground for sponsoring this years Affiliate Summit East IANteract Dinner.

Now I am just waiting for the party list…

So to try to help everyone I decided to do one later in the day. Also the reason is because I was getting emails saying why I do not have one late in the day. So I decided to just do one late in the day and do some extra fun. Most of the meetups are just open forums and we just chat and discuss. Last night was a little fun, we chat for the first couple hours then did some bowling.

It has been a while and as you can see from the scores, I didn’t do too well.

There were only 2 people that showed up and I promised one person I would meet up with them so I showed up. After 2 hours of discussing affiliate marketing game plans and over explaining what a pixel is, I had to keep drinking.

Then another user came up and we started to go bowling, I haven’t bowled in a long time. I use to bowl almost every week back in the day but tonight was not that nice. I didn’t even do my best and I was disappointed in myself. Hey at least I didn’t come in last.

I also discuss with a past meetup member Rohail about the next meetup and what it should be. He suggested we do what I did last night, have an open discussion and then have a hangout. Sounds interesting but I have about a good 20 people that go to the meetup, so I have to find a big place and then maybe try to RSVP the next place where we want to go and just hang.

So the next meetup I have to plan things out and good thing I have an assistant to help me out with this stuff. So I hope to have a good meetup next month, if you are in NJ make sure you come and visit.

By the way here is the video from last night… Motive has a new cool sponsorship intro and outro make sure you check it out.

I then found out a site that was spamming twitter using my name and my LLC to promote a stolen digital product. I was piss! The site contained several other marketers to make it seem credible I guess. At this point I didn’t really know what to do. I started emailing people I know and to see what I should do next. I also started researching on Google to see what the next step would be. I even contacted a friend which is a lawyer, to see what he recommends..

So what I basically did was filed a complaint with blogger.com as well as a DMCA with blogger, as that is where the site was hosted. I also contacted Paypal to have the account frozen. I was recommended to file a Cease and Desists but did not have the full information to mail one out, which I was hoping to have within 24 hours.

I even contacted several marketers that were on the page as well.

So what were the results? Well the site has been removed from blogger and I am waiting for my twitter account to be reinstated, which it should since I have been in contact with twitter support on this and have kept them up to date on the situation. …cross fingers…

The reason my twitter account was suspended is because they assumed the person was an affiliate and since they are spamming twitter, they hold the users on the site responsible. But I explained to them that the site was unauthorized to use my name and my LLC as proof to sell a stolen product.

So I hope they understand my issue and I had no part in this situation to get my twitter account active again. So this was a big lesson learned for me and I know next time what to do when someone uses my name or LLC to try to be me and gain credibility from my brand and my name.

So with this happening to me for the first time, I was kinda surprise it did happen to me. I would not think it would ever happen to me. I honestly did not think something like this would ever happen to me online. Guess I was wrong. It is a good thing I have copyright notices on all my active sites.

If you ever been in a situation where you or your company name is being used illegally without permission. You can use these sites below to help you as they did for me.

1. File complaint with PayPal if they are using Paypal as a shopping cart – you will get an immediate email back with a pdf file in which you fax over to them.
2. Contact Paypal Acceptable Use Policy Department
3. Contact Blogger on Issues if the site or illegal action is on Blogger
4. Create and send a Cease and Desist letter without counsel. Sample

These are the steps that I took when I handled my issue, I hope this will help you if this ever happens to you and in which I hope it does not. So definitely research the issue but these are teh step that happened with my specific issue and teh actions I took.

…lets just hope my twitter account gets activated today…

I also met a lot of new people and fellow readers. Great to meet readers and like minded marketers. Also talked to a couple new Azoogle guys, new AMs, employees of Epic Advertising, COO, directors etc. It was good to talk and see the other perspective of an affiliate network. The problem is that I really didn’t want to talk about offers or learn about new offers that are doing well, I mean I get the emails everyday. But I did enjoy talking and discussing parts of their network outside of the “hey Ian I got a great offer”.

The night was really good and it started slow, me eating food, me drinking a lot, then me wanting to bust people…

Other than that the night was enjoyable. Azoogle also had a band playing at the restaurant called Connolly’s in NY. It was in Time Square and it took a while to get there, I mean I walked from the path train. The band was ehh, not really all into that kind of music. The night was entertaining and definitely did a lot of networking.

It was interesting to see a lot of women also, since it is a rare thing to see women in the affiliate industry. Not too sure if they let others in to the pub from outside or if they were really strictly affiliates. The ones I was talking to either were part of Epic or already an affiliate manager with Azoogle.

After a bit of staying and hanging with Azoogle we all went out with Wayne and his team to another bar and then the night was done for me from there, that I remembered anyways.

Well, enough of me typing here are some pictures from last night.

So what did I learn? I actually learned a lot, more so about internet marketing. There was a session on PPC marketing but it really wasn’t entertaining as I was I think, the only affiliate marketer there. But I did get to talk to Anik Singal about some PPC stuff and his 2 mentors he brought along. There were some sessions that got my attention and I definitely met a lot of good people. I as welled partied heavy.

I got there a day late, Saturday. It was cooling because I really didn’t know anyone that was going to be there speaking, besides Yanik Silver. But  met up with Ken McArthur the founder of JV Alert, Jani G my biz partner, and Joey Kissimmee. It was fun to meetup with these guys again.

This conference was definitely different from all the other ones I been to. Since it isn’t about buying traffic or anything on the advertising side, I felt I was not going to fit in or understand anything. I definitely took a lot back though and it was very beneficial to me. Especially since I am always looking to expand.

The conference is an Internet Marketing workshop where someone speaks and teaches THEN at the end they offer something. It was like going to a crappy MLM workshop and then they get you to buy into their crappy MLM service. But the content at JV Alert was pretty powerful and it was very inspiring to listen to Joel Bauer and others. Joel definitely had a great presentation and provided a lot of new content that I was un aware of just from a business standpoint.

The PPC Section was pretty bad, I did talk to Anik prior to his session and he said it was going to be very basic and he was right, it literally was very basic. Good presentation though. Then again the audience was a different crowd than what I was use to. I am use to affiliate marketers and advertisers, these guys were all about products and services and internet marketing. Definitely out of my realm, but worth learning about it.

Other than the show, I went out to downtown DC in Georgetown and went to a bar with a couple new people such as Ryan Bessling and Jair. It was a really good night and I definitely had fun, definitely drank a lot but the half a pie pizza slice I had definitely solved that problem.

Some other new people I met were Alex Sysoef of HowtoSpoter.com and Vin Montello a really good Copywriter and some what good comedian. There were others there as well that I met and talked to, exchanged ideas, cards, etc. I may think of going to another JV Alert since this one was and had good information.

Here are some more pics:

More Pictures…

Thanks Ken!

But also growing out of a single minded thinking can help you earn more money. I have partnered up with 3 people in the past and it has been beneficial. It has increased my income a lot as well. I recently just partnered up with a new person from my regular IANteract Meetup. The reason to have partners or I see it being beneficial is to leverage their knowledge and their expertise.

I alone, am not an expert nor do I claim to be. It is just brushed on me. I learn everyday and I enjoy learning from everyone.

There is a lot of controversy if you should have a partner but it is all about networking. If networking is about exchanging ideas and leveraging one another then partnership is no big difference. You just spend more time talking to each other about ideas and concepts than you would with a person you met at a conference.

To me partnerships takes the load off some of the work that I do. Maybe it takes a skill set that I do not have but utilize my partners to advance our project. For me it is accomplishing work load with non-skill sets. I am not a programmer but I want to create a great script, so I partner up with someone that is great at programming and work out a deal together.

Or maybe a programmer is seeking to get his product out but does not know a thing about marketing, again we work out a deal which can benefit the both of us. Partnerships is all about having a trust factor and the fact that you have a strong trust means you can trust each others work.

A partner is there to help you and keep you on point but also to help you make money. A partner gives you drive and motivation. Successful projects do well because of partnerships. If one does everything solo, that is a lot of work load on that person. Though outsourcing is an option, how can a person really expand?

The thing about partnerships that becomes a controversy is different ideas. One person wants to implement their ideas while another one doesn’t like it. But since partnership have a strong bond they think if they disagree with each other the bond is broken. Not true, it should strengthen it. This puts everyone in their place and gives everyone their opinion to talk about and discuss why it may be beneficial or not.

Sometimes your partner can hold you back from goals, yes. Everyone has their own work pace, not everyone is built like you. So someones drive maybe not as strong as yours because of their skill set. That is why you have to keep on top of each other, if one is slacking then you should remind them their goals and deadline. As well as when you yourself get reminded you should not take it as “WTF”, be humble and take it in consideration.

A partner is there to get you motivated to make more money and to leverage one another. It is key to make sure we are all on point with the project. If one isn’t on point then the whole project is going to go bad and relationships going to go sour.

Well Justin has created an awesome site that I really like. AFFBuzz.com is one of the best affiliate aggregated sites out there. This has all the news from top affiliates in our industry and I heart this site. His site has grown so much when I first heard about it on twitter. From then it has become my main source for affiliate news. With it being a buzz right now, there are a lot of new sites on there that I disapprove, but they are at the bottom.

I like how it has incorporate TV202, Forums, and Affiliate Network Blogs. The best part is it is all in one window and I definitely enjoy this specific view. I can quickly see what the new posts are and start reading. Since information is important I tend to read a lot and see what everyone else is doing and see what they have to talk about.

With Google Reader I have a single view, because I categorize all my affiliate blogs. It was kind of a mess because I didn’t know whos post belonged to who. I think having a more open window than a single view is far better. If you think it needs to be single view just go back to using Google Reader. I think Justin attacked it pretty well.

With AFFBuzz buzzing and growing, Justin has done a quite a few improvements since I first started using it and it is really growing to be a great asset or even a homepage for affiliate users to start using. I know he has a couple more things he will be adding to his site, so go start learning some affiliate marketing from his site.

Google Reader is good to use but since I read more about marketing online this is by far one of the better sites to keep up with.

So what I did was take advantage of this trend by simply creating a simple LP and putting an email offer behind it. The LP I decided to go with was a basic Poll Landing Page. It was a basic controversy question I posed and also decided to post a pic of the Jonas Brothers as well as create content for the LP. In essence this poll did fairly well.

Now how did I know that the Jonas Brothers Youtube account would get suspended and how was I able to react rapidly to it? Well there are a bunch of things that are opened on my monitors that I watch every so often, I am basically watching trends on the internet.

Now, I was able to take advantage of this surge of traffic by watching trends on my PC and seeing what is happening. You can say I almost can tell the future. But Saturday morning I was on Youtube to just see anything new and saw that the Jonas Brothers did a ‘Single Ladies Dance’, interesting. Literally mid day there was a rise in conversation about this video.

The thing about this is that people that are in a frenzy about this issue are willing to take a type of action because they want to see these guys account get re activated and ofcourse die hard fans. So take advantage of their emotions and bank off it.

The thing is this type of traffic is rapid, meaning the surge of traffic only happens at one point and then periodically dies. It doesn’t die in days but in minutes or even hours, so taking advantage of this is important as long as you can spot the trend of a niche, in this case Jonas Brothers.

Since I have a poll and these users are fast reacting, you need a simple offer that will be related and will convert. I usually use email submits on these and rotate. It makes it a fast response and easily gets the user in and out.

…hmm I think I started writing this backwards, wanted to talk about finding trends

Well how did I know Jonas Brothers was going to be a good traffic source to risk my time. Well celebrities are always being followed and always getting into some sort of trouble and if they do, there is a controversy online. From seeing the Single Ladies Jonas Brother Video version on the front page of Youtube, I figured it would be watch a bunch of times. But I don’t do any ‘Make Money Online from Youtube’ schemes. So I just let it be.

Then I saw a specific keyword that is so general you would skip it but it related to the Jonas Brothers. It was on the retweet radar, which you should be following for conversation trends. Then again appeared on TwitScoop. I was like damn this might be worth attacking.

Once it started to become viral, I saw another keyword which lite the sky and I knew I needed to some how take advantage of this. The lesson here is basically watch trends that are happening in real time, they are very valuable and for a short time only.