Author Archives: Andrew Wee

About Andrew Wee

My name is Andrew Wee. I'm 32 years old, live in Singapore and am happily married with a 2 month old daughter. I've gone through a list of various occupations including: * journalist (for a business newspaper) * Internet content developer (for one of Asia's largest media group's Singapore Press Holdings) * trainer in entrepreneurship, business building, life skills * photographer/photojournalist * real estate agent * consultant * entrepreneur (I think that's enough for now...more later!) This is a personal space to express my goals, dreams and aspirations.

What’s the best CPA offer to promote?

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Besides getting this question often in my email, I see this regularly on affiliate marketing and CPA-focused forums, so it’s worth trying to answer the “What is the best niche/offer to promote?” question.

I’m assuming that you’re using some form of paid traffic, like PPV, PPC or media buys.

Rule #1: You need to have some form of tracking. So whether you’re using Smart Link Manager which I helped to develop, or CPV Lab, or the free Prosper202 script, you’ll have an idea how effective your marketing is.

There’s a quote attributed to American retail entrepreneur John Wanamaker that goes “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

If you’re not tracking the effectiveness of your marketing spend, you’re going to be in trouble.

Especially with the tools available with online marketing, if you have these tools in hand and if you’re not spending time to master conversion tracking and analytics, then you might as well be marketing blind.

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Rule #2: Pick a niche, stick to it, master it

Sure you’ll hear about $1,000/day campaigns, and maybe even campaigns that are multiple times that. And no, not all of them are BS.

What you’ll probably hear is that these are pretty optimized, after the marketer has run multiple split tests, incorporated elements that bump the conversion rate upwards, and scaled their traffic campaigns for this offer.

If you’re starting out, strive for break even. Then cut out the losing URLs, keywords, and optimize the winners.

You’re not likely to do this from the beginning. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that you won’t achieve this 99% of the time.

But if you keep at a niche/offer with some potential (talk to your affiliate manager or fellow affiliate about this), and specialize in this area (meaning you do your best to understand the leads’ behavior and how the offer works, you might eventually hit pay dirt.

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Rule #3: Network, take more action than you chat/read/post.

The best inside knowledge won’t mean a thing if you don’t take action.

So, get an offer up now. Set up traffic campaigns to your offer within the next hour.

This is not rocket science, but more than 50% of new affiliates drop the ball even when they have a step-by-step plan to setting up and getting their first campaign off to $100/day.

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The reality is that there’s no “best” niche.

You just have to pick your:

  • high competition, high profit
  • low competition, lower profit
  • low competition, high profit (not easy to find)

offers and niches.

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You may also like to check out PPV Playbook (and save a couple of bucks with the PPV Playbook discount code)

PPV Playbook Discount Code (Limited quantities)

46 Replies

I have a limited number of discount codes for what I consider to be the best paid internet marketing forum, PPV Playbook.

Why pay for a forum when there’re others that are free?

For one, there’re fewer trolls, the discussions tend to be more focused, and 90% of the posts aren’t in the “chat about whatever/anything goes/off topic” chat.

Secondly, David Ford has stayed very focused on the PPV/CPA/affiliate marketing space. It means he doesn’t pimp every big-ticket ebook/coaching prog out there. If I’m paying for something, I expect to get what I’m paying for, rather than be upsold on other stuff. The forum also contains great info on SEO, social media, media buys and other forms of traffic as well as strategy on organizing and scaling your business.

The forums straddle the range from newbie to advanced marketers well. There’s “Getting Started” and case study threads for those getting into the paid traffic game. The forum has achieved a critical mass of members who’re at the $100 – $1,000 per day range, so the mastermind and opportunities to network/collab with experienced marketers is there.

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I have a limited number of discount codes available.

If you’re interested, I suggest you check out the: PPV Playbook page.

Watch the walkthrough video.

If you’re serious about signing up, the discount code will give you a $10/month discount on your membership, which works out to a $120 discount per year.

Be sure to email me via the contact form to get your code. They’re available on a first come first served basis.

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UPDATE: I have a couple of codes left.
If you’d like a code, please use the contact form.
If I have any codes left, they’d usually be emailed to you within 24 hours.
If you don’t get a reply, check your spam/junk folder in case the email ended up there.

UPDATE: (17 Dec 2010) I have a couple of codes left.

If you’d like a code, please use the contact form.

If I have any codes left, they’d usually be emailed to you within 24 hours.

If you don’t get a reply, check your spam/junk folder in case the email ended up there.

PPV Marketing with CPV Lab

130 Replies

Up until the arrival of a new software package, CPV Lab, by Robert Matthew, if you were a PPV/CPV marketer, you choices for campaign management were:

  • Prosper202
  • PPV Dominator (which comes with Gauher Chaudhry’s PPV Formula course)

And new entrant, Bevo.

If you were willing to, there were enterprise-grade offering like Kenshoo, developed in Israel, and used by the likes of Zappos and Linkshare. Or you could opt for the affiliate-grade version, Buntai. This soution was primarily for PPC, although you could try to use it for PPV.

The ultimate though would be to hire a developer to code a custom solution which provides the functionality you need. Though this option would be beyond the budget of most PPV marketers. More importantly, they might not know how to spec out the job correctly.

A couple of months ago, Robert launched his CPV Lab campaign management script which is optimized for PPV (although I know of marketers who’ve been using it successfully to track media buys and PPC campaigns too).

What makes CPV Lab a cut above other scripts is that it has a lower learning curve compared to other scripts makes setting up campaigns easier and frees up some of the limitations that p202 users had to work under.

Also, with the inclusion of filters, you could include a degree of semi-automation into the campaign tracking/optimization element of your campaigns, something you’d otherwise have to export CSV files to your desktop and run an excel macro to analyze.

Without a decent campaign management script, you’re marketing blind and since a large part of successful paid marketing relies on collecting reliable data and axing losing keywords and url targets from your domain, a good script can make the difference between a profitable campaign and a loser.

At about $300, CPV Lab is one of the tools which will eat up some of your marketing budget. However, it’s pretty low considering new PPV affiliates will probably be on a $30-50/day or $900 to $1,500/month. The script will pretty much pay for itself by month 1, or month 2 at the latest.

I got a copy of the script and will be using it in campaigns which will be launched in the next week or so.

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Caveat: What CPV Lab will and will not do.

It’s primarily a PPV campaign management, analytics and optimization tool.

This means you’ll still need to scrape keyword and URL targets manually using Alexa, Compete, Quantcast or your favorite spy tool. And you will also need to make your own pop-up creative (if you’re not direct linking) or pay someone to do it.

The script will not help you if you’re merely doing unimaginative self-targeting or mindlessly cloning someone elses’ campaign. So if you’re hoping that CPV Lab is going to make you an affiliate millionaire with just “5-10 minutes of work a day”, you’re wasting your own time and maybe should invest in some e-gold or HYIPs instead….

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If however, you’re new to PPV marketing, especially to CPA offers, you’d find that CPV Lab can halve the time you’d spend in the campaign set up/management/optimization element of your business.

I’ve spoken to a number of PPV->CPA affiliates who’ve ditched their previous scripts to using CPV Lab exclusively.

Once I get more data, I’ll detail some findings and tips to using CPV Lab more effectively, so you’ll see a fuller product review down the road.

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Let’s go over my tips for getting started with PPV marketing and/or moving to the next stage if you’ve already got some experience.

1) PPV Playbook: A great community of PPV marketers. The forum also covers other forms of traffic generation, including PPC, media buys, SEO, social media). Here’s my PPV Playbook review, and a PPV Playbook discount code.

2) Research tools: PPV Playbook had a tie-up with AffPortal so you get access to those. My friend Besmir Bregasi owns AffExpert which also has a number of PPV-specific tools (check out his trial and lifetime options. Both are great value).

3) CPV Lab.

4) Lead Impact (formerly Zango), a PPV network, informally #2 after TrafficVance and CPV Lab are doing a conference call and will have some great info. Check it out here.

Affiliate Summit West 2011 Discount Code

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Affiliate Summit is the biggest tradeshow/conference of it’s kind specific to the affiliate marketing industry.

Although there’re 2 shows: Affiliate Summit West (in Las Vegas), held early in the year (usually Jan) and Affiliate Summit East (usually in New York, but it does move around sometimes), I’d recommend going to the Vegas show if it’s your first time, or you want to get the most leverage for your buck.

The reason? More people go for the Vegas show, the parties are crazier, the networking can help bring your business to the next level.

The next Affiliate Summit, which happens to be Affiliate Summit West 2011, will be held from Jan 9-11 at Wynn in Las Vegas. The last couple of ASWs were held at the Rio, which is off the Vegas strip, though it has a nice spaces for the conference/tradeshow. The Wynn is a newer and fancy place and I’m sure networks will be booking up suites to host affiliates.

There’re 4 classes of passes – Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond (in ascending order of benefits and costs). So if you’re new to this, which should you choose?

Silver: This is the basic pass and the key features are access to the meet market and trade show. You won’t have access to the conferences, except the keynotes. So if you get this, you will either: a) have arranged all your face-to-face sessions and networking meetings ahead of time
b) have prepped to go visit the Grand Canyon, or go eating and shopping during the day
c) sleeping during the day, so you can go to all the parties which start about 8-ish and go on all night

Gold: New affiliate and need to bone up on your knowledge? The Gold pass will give you access to most of the Sunday conference sessions which will give you ideas on setting up and optimizing your campaigns. You also get access to the tradeshow and some video recordings of conference sessions. If you want to attend the Monday and Tuesday conference sessions you’ll need to get a platinum pass.

Platinum: Like the Gold pass above, but gives you access to the Monday and Tuesday sessions too.

Diamond: Same as the Platinum pass, and you get DVDs of the recorded sessions. I did a rough count of the amount of time the conference sessions would add up to. It’s going to be more than 40 hours of video according to my estimates. For what you’d be paying for a Diamond pass, you probably couldn’t get any kind of “coaching” program at other “Make Money Online” conferences. I’m fairly confident you could make back 10 times what you pay for a Diamond pass, but only if you take action after watching the videos.

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Regardless of which pass you choose, there’s opportunity to make contacts and pick up tips and techniques to grow your affiliate business and this is the one conference I’ve been attending for the last 4 years (and having spoken at 3 of those conferences).

As a bonus for my readers, I’ve got a discount code that gives you 10% off any category of pass.

To use it:

Why the US government’s $600 billion cash infusion is a bad idea

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You might’ve heard the term QE2 being banded around political and finance websites in conjunction with the $600 billion that is going into the US economy. Anytime money goes into an economy might sound like a good thing, but in this case, I don’t think it is.

Here’s why.

QE or quantitative easing refers to adding more money into the finance system in the hopes that it will stimulate the economy.

Here’s a summary of what QE1 involved:

With QE1, the Fed’s newly printed dollars were used (for the most part) to purchase illiquid assets such as mortgage backed securities from the large commercial banks. Whether by choice or not, the cash received for these securities is being held on deposit at the Federal Reserve Banks (i.e. the Fed bought assets from the large commercial lenders who are just keeping that cash at the Fed).

From: Seeking Alpha

Was that a good thing?

Here’s what happened:

We can speculate on the reasons why the large lenders are keeping their powder dry at the Fed. For one thing, the banks are still reluctant to lend. Also, the deposits are receiving 0.25% interest.

In case you don’t remember how much was involved. Here’s a reminder:

Remember QE1? That was when the FED (printed money and) bought back $800 billion in worth less, and worthless investment paper from the banks which they will hold until the troubled banks decide to buy them back.

(source)

Very little of that money actually reached the economy, and hence the velocity of money was minimal and despite what trade and employment figures show, the economy seems to be barely chugging along.

Forbes has observed some of the recent effects of QE2, namely “QE2 has already damaged the ordinary lives of the middle class and the poor by driving up the price of basic foodstuffs  required in the average American’s diet. Sugar is up 5.7%, wheat, 5.8%, oil, up 8%,, soybeans, up 5%– all inside of the first week of QE2.” (source)

And what’s going to happen with QE2 is that it’s going to be used to mop up a large chunk of US government bonds. So the Federal Reserve is going to essentially be printing more money and adjust the amounts that are owed to bondholders.

This means that the government will seem to owe less debt, however, it’d weaken the US dollar against other foreign currencies. Goods that are being imported into the US such as your Sony BluRay player, your lawnmower which was made in China are going to cost more (because of the weak US dollar).

For affiliates outside of the US, such as in the UK, Australia and Asia, a weakening dollar means your income will drop. Taking the Singapore dollar as a benchmark, the US:Singapore forex conversion has resulted in a 30% drop in earnings in the last 4 years.

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What this means for Internet marketers: US consumers (still the largest demographic for any product/offer that you might own or might promote for a CPA or CPS network) will look for ways to deal with a drop in income and in some cases, unemployment.

Bizops, finance-related offers and money saving offers should do well. Penny auction CPAs seem to be going gangbusters at several networks, even though some cynics had said they were on their way out having been launched sometime back.

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On the economic front, what’s worrying about the latest QE2 measure is talk that the government might launch QE3, QE4 and so on in hopes of stimulating the economy. However, this could be as effective as pouring money down a blackhole which will ultimately weaken the US economy and the business owners who depend on it.

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President Barack Obama, has been a charismatic face to the current administration, although the track record shows that the Democrats might be clueless about solving the current economic problems. On the other hand, voters are also reluctant to give control back to the Republicans who’re perceived to have created many of these problems in the first place. The swing to the populist Tea Party in the recent mid-term elections might be a knee jerk reaction to “politics as usual”, but none of their rhetoric nor policy bashing seems to have any answers to digging the economy out of its hole, aside from calls for a smaller government.

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That $600 billion QE2 might have been more effective if it had been made available to small business owners or to organizations like the small business administration.

As it stands, business owners, especially internet marketers should brace themselves for short term opportunities and possibly some tough times ahead.

Meeting Lee Chong Min from CMIA Capital Partners

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I was in Singapore’s CBD (Central Business District) today meeting up with a friend and bumped into Lee Chong Min, managing partner at CMIA Capital Partners, a private equity firm based here.

It was somewhat of a blast from the past, as I’d initially met Chong Min in 2000, when I was still a reporter covering the tech and Internet sectors.

At that time, he had been investing in tech startups, and two of the companies I covered: Pinnz (a Voice-over-IP play) and Aretae Interactive (a web design/development studio) were among his investments.

Following the bust in dotcoms in 2001, I left the field of journalism to help run the operations for a business owner I knew, and along the way, fell into consulting and later, Internet marketing.

It’s probably a matter of spotting trends that let Chong Min to invest in China plays. According to media reports, his private equity firm invested about US$600 million in more than 20 China growth companies. The firm’s investment yielded a gross internal rate of return of more than 54 percent on its investment capital.

The company seems set to continue investing in SMBs (small and medium businesses), better known as SMEs (small and medium enteprises) in the Singapore context.

It’s plans to co-invest in property and food-related businesses shows a shift from having invested in high-risk high-reward tech plays, to more conservative investments with more regular cashflow and stability of earnings.

With capital markets tightening up, it seems to make sense to build a portfolio around secure investments before adding higher risk tech/telco/media plays into its portfolio.