Anyways, I was talking to one of my go to networks and apparently I have a new affiliate manager. So I pinged her and gave her an introduction. I went ahead and asked for an offer that was in a particular niche, it was for mobile traffic.

My new affiliate manager that handled my account told me why I am looking for that offer, I should be pushing diet, biz ops, and penny auctions. Now she didn’t even bother looking or asking, she just cut me and told me I should be pushing the more popular offers.

… kinda ticked me off.

[image credit]

I pinged another person at that network, she was my AM prior but she moved on up in the corporate ladder and the AM I had after her left for another job. S anyways, I pinged her and told her what I was looking for. She got to me telling me they had these offers and maybe expecting more later on in the month. Now that is what I was looking for.

I told her that my other AM wasn’t up to par and apparently do not know my style when it came to their network. No problem, but my question was simple – do you have this offer. I didn’t appreciate the interruption and saying I need to push the more popular items. Really didn’t like being told what I had to do.

Affiliate managers are important but the publisher are also equally important because we are the ones pushing the traffic. Telling us what to promote is ok when asking the questions “What is a good offer to promote now?” In my situation, I already knew what I wanted and what type of offer I was looking for. I just wanted to know if a network had the offer and if not if they can get it for me.

The fact my new Affiliate manager told me to promote the more popular offers bothered me because she didn’t even bother looking to see if the offer I wanted was available. If she catered her response differently I wouldn’t have been so annoyed. The fact she totally ignored my requests and told me why definitely bothered me.

With that in mind, affiliate managers are a resource to us affiliates and I go to them for some help and some exclusivity to an offer. That said, affiliates are an asset to an affiliate network, we are the ones providing and pushing the traffic to the advertiser. They need our traffic and most important the quality.

The fact I was told why am I looking for such offer and I need to be pushing diet and the other popular offers was really unattractive. The worst part is this situation will be remembered, bad for the network and the affiliate manager who I was talking to. Affiliate managers represents the network, treating affiliates as if they are just the ones to push traffic is not justifiable. A relationship needs to be set. It is important to work with the affiliate and not just tell him to push traffic and run an offer.

Remember only 7% of affiliates (I know its probably less) that signed up to your network is the network.

Related posts:

1. Your Affiliate Manager is your WORST Enemy
2. CPARev Affiliate Network
3. Whats your Motive? An Interactive Affiliate Network

I also include my Incomplete Guide to Affiliate Marketing. I say incomplete because the part to complete it is you doing the work. Someone can give you the tools and strategies but if you do not do anything, then you are not successful.

So I am including my new guide with this download as well.

The guide is pretty well in depth I think and has a lot of references. I talk about:

• Affiliate Networks and How to Pick Offers
• Why You Are going to Fail at Affiliate Marketing
• Hosting and Choosing a Domain
• Tracking and Data Analysis
• Researching Demographics and Niches
• Keyword Expansion and Deciphering
• Where to Get Traffic
• Tools to Use and How to Use it
• Capturing Your own Data
• Using Influence to Get a Better ROI
• Understanding Testing Variables
• … and many more!

There is a lot of topics, I think is very helpful when it comes to advertising. Marketing is very basic, there is a lot of things to look at but it then becomes second nature to you when you have been doing it for so long. This guide will give you the foundation on how to work with traffic and look at traffic. It is probably the best FREE Guide on making money online.

With the download you will also get a Fan Page theme, because I use Facebook a lot with my own landing pages it does help especially advertising on Facebook. So I am throwing in a themed Facebook Fan Page for the month of February.

The best part you do not have to opt-in at all! Just click the button below and get both the Fan Page Theme and the Affiliate Guide without your email address!

Related posts:

1. All You Really Need is an Affiliate Theme
2. Webinar: Gathering eMails with Squeeze Theme
3. Jonathan Volk FB Ads Guide is Trash!

In the past I complained about this because it is a nuisance, you do not get notification of dead offers from some networks. You may get an email but how long before you actually see the email? It may be too late and profits are lost.

In the last 24 hours (as of this post date), it has happened to me. A dead affiliate link started to redirect to an offer wall. The worst part about this is the redirect happened late last night and without an email notification. Some networks leave the link to its own dead page, while others leave it to an offer wall.

An offer wall is just a collection of active affiliate offers on one page in attempt to save your click from the dead link. The question is does it really help the affiliate? These offers are random offers with the same category or just random offers.

Below is a screen shot of the last 24 hours, actually about 8 hours since I started this campaign last night. I received 1,429 clicks to an offer wall. So I click on the offer wall link to see what offers showed up >> Campaign Does Not Exist. In attempt to save my click, no offer wall even shows up!

First column is Impressions and the second is Clicks.

One of the other worst things I see here my traffic started going to Australian offers, when my target market is US. So this can be 2 things, because some networks recognizes IP locations and redirect the traffic base on the traffics geo location. So either the ad network I am advertising on has poor traffic quality or an issue with redirects on the network end.

Around 4400 clicks were sent to Australian offers for some odd reason. So I am not sure what happened here, I am going to be talking to my rep about this. Talk about going to an old network I use to run with and experiencing poor results.

So what does this tell me? Tells me that an offer can go down within 8 hours or redirect for some reason. This isn’t the first time dead affiliate links went to where ever they wanted.

Expect an update later today.

Related posts:

1. It’s Been 24 Hours, Do YOU Understand Your Clicks?
2. LinkedIn DirectAds: A Case Study of $2 Clicks
3. I Hate Networks that Use Direct Track

This is why I am moving into the CPS side of things, cost per sale, because physical items rarely get removed from the merchant site. If it is discontinued, you can most likely still sell the item. Where with CPL/CPA offers die every week and you have to watch for that and look at your network emails to make sure your offer is still alive.

With the start of the New Year, my SEO efforts kinda paid off. I made roughly $100 dollars my first couple months. This is a combination of Clickbank Products, ShareaSale Merchants, LinkShare, and Amazon products. SO it is possible to make money with CPS but not in the huge amount of volume that I wanted. SEO is had and a pain. With paid traffic I can at least test quality of traffic, with SEO it is hard to test what works and what doesn’t because you don’t have the volume right away.

With paid traffic I can test demographics, keywords, time of day, position of ads, wording of copy, landing page, etc. SEO you really can’t test anything unless you have volume. The volume with SEO slowly grows, so testing can be a pain. I think the goal with search traffic is HUGE volume in any possible way.

Luckily, I have my own set of employees which I outsource the tasks to. My VA does the tedious tasks of SEO which is basically everything that you have to do with SEO. SEO is time consuming because it includes backlinking, content creation, keyword research, bookmarking, link building, etc. These tasks are boring and repetitive. So I hired a VA to help with this.

I also had the help of several people who taught me some tactics about SEO. One forum I want to thank is Clint and Chris Affiliit forum. I was able to get input on tools, programs, and tactics on how to do SEO the right way. I received feedback on the tools I mentioned and how to utilize bookmarking to my advantage.

They definitely gave me some good feedback as well as the community. Another amazing community is “The Church of SEO” this is a closed group within Facebook that share thoughts and feedback on SEO as well. Really amazing guys within the community and great feedback on noobie questions from me especially.

As I start my journey in SEO, I am going to be doing these videos. I have done it in the past with my PPC and paid traffic, so why not SEO. Make sure to subscribe to my RSS and stay updated on my journey into the SEO and CPS space.

Here is a quick video of what I basically just said.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See everyone at Affiliate Summit West in a couple Days!

Related posts:

1. Writing a Review /Article to Produce Traffic
2. [VIDEO] What is PPV Traffic?
3. The Problem with Local Lead Marketing

With the constant battle to get new affiliates or even get big affiliates to work with their network, YeahCpa has some interesting incentives which can bring out the small affiliates over and even encourage big publishers as well. One is their bi weekly payment options. This incentive is pretty attractive to almost all affiliates.

The reason is because we want to see our money as soon as possible. Most networks start all publishers at net 30 or even net 45. Some networks ask you make about $1000 a week to get paid weekly. At YeahCPA you get paid biweekl, every other week. Not bad. The sooner someone get paid the happier an affiliate it.

In regards to getting paid bi weekly, you can also get paid daily – even if you only made 20$! YeahCPA will pay you tomorrow, but it is base on 50 offers exclusive to their network. Getting paid daily with some networks requires a publisher to make several thousand. The lowest I have heard is to reach $1000 and you can request to get paid the next day. Other networks do it by lead, generate 1000 leads and you can get paid tomorrow.

According to Aaron they take a very small margin, meaning the publisher gets paid even higher. Most networks now take a very slim margin so they can provide the highest payout to their affiliates. This isn’t anything new to top publishers in the industry.

YeahCPA runs on the HasOffers tracking platform. There are several networks that run on the HasOffers platform and I personally think it is a solid platform. But Aaron has told me they are working on their own tracking platform, which is a plus in itself. This will give the network more control of what they need and what the publishers want.

Currently they have several hundred offers and are constantly adding everyday. I was talking to Aaron about mobile offers and he told me he will go out and find it for me. Now that is dedication to a publisher. If you are looking specifically for an offer, YeahCPA will go ahead and try to get that specific offer for you.

That is what I love about my circle of networks, they will go out and find it for me. Aaron will do the same for you, as long as the relationship between publisher and affiliate managers is strong. Nothing is more important than the relationship, because both are in the business to make money. Depending on each other is always a win win situation.

Growing their offers, adding about 30 new offers a week, they also are part of the HasOffers offer Exchange platform. This allows them to grow their list of offers even greater by exchanging offers with other networks, almost like brokering the offers. With more than 500 offers in their network and the constant need for more unique offers, YeahCPA is there to find the niche perfect for you.

Another amazing platform they are making is a program in which, the publisher can integrate offers into a landing page. Meaning the publishers are getting fixed landing pages and then adjusting the theme to their liking. While in creation Aaron told me they will have over 100 landing pages pre made and all a YeahCPA has to do is integrate the offers into the landing page. There is no need to create your own, test your own, find graphic artists, code the landing page, etc. YeahCPA is going to be providing that to you.

While it is still in the making, YeahCPA will have this tool exclusive to their publishers only.

Going into the new year, it seems YeahCPA has some new aspects they are going to be creating to get publishers into their network. Having a large inventory of offers does mean you can find your specific niche that no one else is doing. As well as being paid bi weekly is always a plus.

Check Out YeahCPA and see their immense inventory of offers.

Related posts:

1. Starting a Network? Make Sure it HasOffers
2. Tatto Media: Exclusive Network, Exclusive Offers
3. Executive Fortunes Affiliate Network

Last month Ian did a really good post on how to use FBML to make your facebook pages viral. If you haven’t read that yet be sure to do so here.

I wanted to expand on what he was sharing to help you make your pages even more viral. Ian referenced several shortcomings of FBML, like the inability to customize your calls to action. However many of these do have some sneaky work arounds. By leveraging the Facebook social graph we are able to take advantage of some of their intended external codes to benefit us directly on their site.

Forgive me for being somewhat unoriginal, but like Ian, I’m also going to talk about a page I was running during Halloween. I’m also going to share the results of it at the end of the post.

I actually saw a few different pages for the ‘Vampire Me’ offers so I decided to go an alternate route with the ‘Zombie Me’ offer. Naturally I figured it wouldn’t quite have the buzz appeal that the vampires have with the current twilight craze, but there was significantly less competition and I thought I might be able to leverage some eye catching graphics to make it pop. I was actually promoting the offer on PPV as well so I already had a few images and a creative from the offer to use on the Facebook page.

The first thing I saw on some of the ‘Vampire Me’ pages was like Ian’s, they were being compliant with Facebook’s rules about not being able to FORCE users to ‘Share’, ‘Invite Friends’, etc. However looking at those I thought to myself “That probably works but how can I make it better”. I specifically remember seeing some really good examples of ways to force users to do things (see post Sneaky Facebook Tactics) and really wanted to leverage those. I found a few sites that offered tutorials, one even had some images I could use, so in ultimate laziness I went with them.

As you can see we really want the users to do a few things with the pages. First like the page, secondly to share the page, and lastly to click through to the offer. So your page sales funnel will look something like this:

Ian had a great tactics for getting people to like your page. Where you use the FMBL code to basically say ‘If someone likes this page display this, otherwise show them is’. This should definitely be your first step on a page, get them to Click the like button. You can see the image I used for this below.

Once they click the like button they would then be revealed the ‘next’ button.

So you can see they were FORCED to like the page to move on. However after this step we can ask them to share but not force them. So watch what I did. On clicking the next area, it will hide the current page and reveal a 2nd page.

This 3rd page now asks them to share the page and it has a slightly customized ‘Share’ call to action. I was super lazy so it was just a larger share button with some arrows pointing to it. They don’t actually HAVE to share it, as you can see the ‘next’ button is already available and functional. We simply want them to think they have to.

The FBML Code

So a couple things went on during this page. We made it appear like the user was clicking through to multiple pages, requested a lot of user action, and had a few custom call to actions (ie: the share button). Lets look at how we can do this.

The multi-page effect is created by using FBML Click to Toggle markup. You basically give each one of these mini pages a standard CSS div styling and tell it to hide it and then display another one. If you had just two pages you wanted the user to see/click through to. You would assign them each a div id of ‘Step1? and ‘Step2? and then at the bottom of the first page FMBL/HTML place the below code.

<a clicktotoggle=”step2? clicktohide=”step1? onclick=’FBML.clickToHide(“step1?);FBML.clickToToggle(“step2?);return false;’>CLICK HERE TO GO TO NEXT PAGE
</a>

Where it says Click here to go to next page, you can leave standard text or use an image like I did (ie: the Next images).

Next lets look at the ‘Share’ button. If you remember with Ian’s example, he would’ve loved to have had a better share button, a customized one could’ve increased Shares dramatically. The secret here is to take a look at Facebook’s social graph plugins that everyone already uses on their blogs and websites. You basically already have an area that will let a user ‘like’ or ’share’ your page. So its basically just stealing the quick HTML code there and using your own custom text or images to be the share call to action.

<a href=”http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=LIKE_PAGE_URL_HERE” target=”_blank”>SHARE THIS</a>

So you just go get the actual URL to your Facebook page and place it there and use your customize share text or images.

That Wasn’t That Hard Was It?

I hope you all liked this post and it answers some of your dreams and wishes. There is really a TON you can do with FB pages and I am just starting out and already drooling at the possibilities. You can check out this page on my blog to see the FULL results of the campaign. I show you how I advertised it, how I split tested it, and how much cash I made from it.

You can also download the full FMBL code of the page on my site, so check out the full campaign here.

Related posts:

1. Using FBML to Make Your Facebook Ad Campaign Viral
2. Case Study: Auto-Tweeting Blog Comments
3. LinkedIn DirectAds: A Case Study of $2 Clicks

In the past I have been approached and have been told “Oh your one of those CPA guys” – WTF does that mean? I actually didn’t want to make a video for an open discussion about this or even a post but it affects my growth in the online space.

Why do we never see eye to eye?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I can see why our industry is “clicky” because of maybe who started in the affiliate space first and where the affiliate space is going. A lot of CPS affiliates are SEO talented and have their sites fully optimized for SERPs. CPA guys are all about paid traffic and where they can buy the next traffic. I know myself I always look for that link that says “what is this”, “advertise here”, “your ad here” etc. I am always looking for the next traffic source and testing it out.

One traffic source that has been brought into controversy is the rise of PPV traffic. The reason why CPS affiliates feel this is bad traffic because it is adware, but adware that is allowed by the end user. Most CPS affiliates feel this is spam traffic. I argued this in the past because a controversy podcast came up going against a prior podcast I have done.

One big difference is CPS affiliates don’t properly understand traffic. They think we simple spam a website and just send as much traffic as possible. With PPV or any source of traffic CPA affiliates know how to optimize the traffic to produce quality. For example with PPV, if the traffic isn’t converting then we qualify the traffic by creating a landing page or jump page before sending the traffic.

So this in essence filters out crappy traffic to qualified traffic and leads or sales.

Another thing I notice is CPS and CPA never join together for discussions even at conferences. I am friends with some big CPS affiliates but I prefer to hangout with CPA affiliates. My reason is because I don’t like to discuss SEO traffic, I find no interests in it because of the slow amount of time you get to receive data.

Most CPS affiliates I talk too are just strange and can not pick up conversation on other topics of online marketing. I am not sure why but the ones I have talked too they are totally on a different playing field than most marketers.

I just want to put this out there because I had to get off a panel which was totally not even related to any sort of paid traffic. The fact I am a CPA affiliate and my traffic sources are paid traffic, make me look bad I guess to some CPS affiliates.

CPS guys prove me wrong on this post, leave your comments.

Related posts:

1. Affiliate Industry Has Been Shakened But NOT Skerred!
2. Don’t Tell Your Friends You Make Money, but Tell Your Friends
3. AKMG Meetup: Girls Night Out with Affiliates

This year was definitely different from the past Summits, I just felt a different vibe for some reason but it didn’t stop me from talking to people and networking. I brought 3 of my friends to this year summit to see what I do for a living. Get them inspired!

I am going to recap the event by doing an AdHuslter version recap post of Affiliate Summit. Since I have recapped the Summit several times, I am going to point out the perks I picked up and noticed.

Observations in no particular order…

1. There were much more vendors at the Meet Market and the Meet Market is bigger than past Affiliate Summit Meet Market
2. I found there were more beginners here at this conference than the past summits I have been too.
3. First night out Rubacky is a Party machine
4. First night out I almost got jumped by 7 random people
5. The sessions this time around are far better than past summit – more relevant topics base on our industry
6. Not a lot of advertisers were at this year summit
7. Not a lot of the past big affiliates I know were at this summit
8. A lot of shifting of employees from network to network or advertiser to network
9. More mobile networks rising
10. AOR new terminology is now EMP
11. Ruck from Convert2Media is sexy
12. Rarely any traffic source at this year summit
13. Shoemoney’s Facebook sessions was amazing – great case study he did
14. Rain does not stop affiliates from partying
15. Some people in the sessions need to hear their questions first before they ask – retarded basic stuff
16. Seems more mailers in this industry now are popping up
17. Some people talk too damn much and brag a little too much when they don’t know that much
18. Frank Luntz Keynote was freaking amazing, so good that I bought his book right after his keynote
19. Jim Kukral gave away his “Attention: This Book will Make You Money” book at his Keynote
20. Jim Kukral says “You know an idea is good when you get a REACTION”
21. Jim Kukral says we live in a time of instant gratification – a perfect example is the case study he presented on 5 Hour Energy
22. Elite Clicks Media had a private Suite just for private gathering and drinking
23. CPA and CPS has their clicks
24. Quiet FTC and Government discussions about our industry
25. John Chow s always fun to be with. Shooting rockets at Shomoney
26. Most affiliate are now slowly merging out of the affiliate space and doing bigger businesses
27. IANteract Dinner was a success
28. Cashtactic favorite line of the night “I taught this person everything I know!”
29. New networks need to stop pushing women in bikinis
30. Heard FTC are looking into some sites…
31. I really do not like pushy networks and advertisers
32. Some Affiliates I talked too are owed 5 figures form networks, probably advertisers not paying or networks can be either or
33. I love talking to people
34. I love Wes Mahler
35. Neverblue party was ok – didn’t have music I can dance too.
36. Clickbooth/Pulse360 party was crazy – heard some people caught me on picture and videos of me dancing
37. Every night is a strip club night
38. Met some Clickbank Affiliates
39. I really do not like people disrespecting my friends – I will throw down
40. ShareaSale party was super crowded and tight
41. AKMG new and last version Skateboard is sweeet.
42. Some vendors or networks or agency are like mall spammers, stopping you in your tracks
43. Late night chicken and rice is amazing!
44. Heavy T’s affiliate dinner was a great networking event
45. Some young affiliates need to stop trying to show off in front of BIG affiliates
46. Met a lot of great people at this summit
47. All the Pictures from the Affiliate Summit East

Video recap of Affiliate Summit East NY 2010:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks Missy and Shawn! Great job always!

Related posts:

1. East Meets Affiliate Summit West
2. Find me at Affiliate Summit East: NY
3. Affiliate Summit East NY: Day 1

There has been a drop of ads in the continuity space. Literally every site I was on I saw a continuity ad for weight loss or teeth whitening. Currently affiliates are now weary of what network to do traffic with and what advertiser to trust. So many things has change that most affiliates has jumped ship,.

The big benefit to this is the real marketers are changing their business around. Focusing on their own marketing and expanding or expanding out of the continuity space and marketing the traditional dating ads and financial offers.

Affiliate marketers are one of the most versatile marketers out because we can change how we do business. Affiliate marketing gives us the tools and backbone to really know how to market online. We adjust so rapidly to change, every time Google shuts down one of our ads, we automatically go and figure out the reason and adjust.

If traffic drops or conversions drop, we go a head and test out a new landing page or ad copy. Our train of thought within the online space is so powerful, no wonder we as marketers are the most sought after people online and offline. With our industry dramatically changing a lot of affiliates, pub managers, networks, are also changing the way they do thing.

As affiliates we aren’t scarred of change, we learn to adjust our business and the way we do it. For example, my business is changing and I jumped into multiple aspects of marketing to expand my internet marketing and make it more versatile. Affiliate marketing teaches a person to market and understand the online space.

We are not just users who JV with people and try to get people to advertise for us, we know how to advertise, reason why we are on the top of the marketing chain when it comes to online marketing.

I love this space a lot because it definitely grew who I am and how I market my own products. I do not have to depend on people, when I can market my own product myself.

So even though the affiliate marketing space is drastically changing, surviving networks are still in the space doing what they do best, provide quality offers to their publishers. Affiliates are now expanding into different realms of marketing online and diversifying their offers and design of their landing pages. We are also expanding learning new traffic sources everyday and testing multiple times over.

Most affiliates are underground affiliates and are successful because they know affiliate marketing is always changing and we are always a step a head of what may and what will be. As an affiliate marketer myself I see the changes but I am not worried what it will do to my business.

It is about understanding what the new rules can do to you and thinking of ways to adjust to it. The FTC issue came about and we worried enough to take care of ourselves. Shady advertisers stop paying networks and put them in bankrupt while smaller networks got bought out or stop being profitable. Trustworthy networks and non shady ones are still standing strong because they understand the changes that has been happening.

I remember telling someone in a video interview, that this is what is going to happen – change is coming and it is changing for the good of our industry.

Related posts:

1. Internet Marketers vs Affiliate Marketers
2. PPC is Not Just for Affiliate Marketing
3. How Many Affiliate Networks Are you In?

I tend to go t Florida that time of year anyways. Well this is a first that I have heard about PME. I have heard they are one of the biggests expo/conference/convention producers in the US but never really made one for the Affiliate Marketing side.

This will be their first real expo into the performance marketing side. I am very excited about this just because it is in Miami and definitely excited about how the growth of a new Affiliate conference is springing up.

I will be presenting as a keynote speaker on a panel with other great marketers such as Kris Jone of Pepperjam. Currently they have a good list of speakers that will be presenting at this expo. I recognize a bunch of names such as Shai from Unique Leads and Stephen from Copeac. You can see a the list of speakers here…

The fact that it will be in Miami will be a killer event, I know there are a lot of things to do in Miami. I have been their several times throughout the year – especially if it gets cold in Jersey. So I know a couple good places and I have good relationships with a lot of marketers there as well.

I definitely look forward to this one and see how it pans out.

Related posts:

1. See Me at IZEAFest and Blog World Expo
2. Blog World Expo – My First Time Here
3. Presenting at the Affiliate Meetup in Oklahoma City