Category Archives: affiliate marketing

Ruck Brings Affiliate Network Fraud Exposure To A New Level

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Convert2Media co-founder Ralph Ruckman AKA Ruck has stepped up his efforts to expose fraudulent affiliate applications, following our discussion about the issue on a recent Friday Podcast.

Along with showing a couple of “tasks” posted on outsource boards with payout ranging from $5 to $100 per successful application (and part 2). What’s surprising/alarming is the number of “big name” affiliate networks on the list.

Ruck also opens up his affiliate application records showing a number of such seedy operations originating from less developed countries such as China (and part 2), Ruck has made it a personal mandate to expose fradulent affiliate applications, which ultimately hurt the networks, merchants and affiliates in their pocket.

What has impressed me about Ruck’s approach to business is that he pulls no punches and goes for the jugular every time.

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On other news, Convert2Media has gone off the DirectTrack platform to its own proprietory platform, which should increase earnings for affiliates.

Also the coaching programs which they were to have launched earlier (mentioned in the podcast) have been rolled back a couple of weeks till after Ad:Tech SF.

Stay tuned.

Links:

Affiliate Summit West 2009 In Pics and Words (Part 3)

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If you missed it, here are “Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Pics and Words” – Part 1 and Part 2.

Meeting people in person at tradeshows and seminars and more importantly, talking to them face-to-face has yielded some of the greatest dividends in getting ideas to grow my business, find partners to work on projects and connect with others.

Here’re more folks:

billy kay knoblach

Yes his name really is B Knoblach AKA BillyKay.

Besides his successful Mail Order Shoppe, BK is friendly and always has a smile on his face.

BK’s twitter account.

deb carney loxly

Deb Carney AKA Loxly always gives highly welcome Loxly hugs.

Besides being the boss at outsourced program manager TeamLoxly, actively running Loxly Gallery and producing a number of new podcast at Continue reading →

Is PPC Classroom 2.0 Really Free? What’s The Catch?

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PPC Classroom 2.0, a program which incorporates pay-per-click training and affiliate marketing training, launched a couple of hours ago with a reported 13.6% conversion rate for the first 2,500 orders being processed. Over a period of 3 hours, 3,000 orders have been processed.

Not surprising given that the course’ creator’s Amit Mehta and Anik Singal have used the business model similar to “free trial” offers you see listed in the CPA networks.

If you’re ordering from the US, you get the course free and pay a $6.97 shipping and handling charge. If you’re overseas/international, you pay $9.97 for the s/h charges.

Is it’s really free?

Besides the 9 module PPC affiliate training course, a DVD training disc and other materials, you’ll also have access to website templates and a free ticket to the PPC Classroom Live workshop (I was there for the first one in Las Vegas and the speakers and material was excellent).

So yes, you will be getting all this stuff for essentially free (the shipping and handling charge pre-qualifies the lead quality).

But What’s The Catch?

If you look at the fine print, you’ll see that you get access to the “PPC Inner Circle” where you’ll get additional access to training at $97/month. You get the first month free with your PPC Classroom purchase.

So what I believe is that Amit and Anik will do their best to overdeliver on the content and help you get results to motivate you to stay in the program.

If you consciously apply the techniques from the course, I’m sure your profits will exceed the $1,200 per year you’ll be paying for the PPC Inner Circle access.

Will I make $10,000 a month after going through the training?

There’re a number of income claims on the sales page about folks making $5,000 a month, $20,000 a month (even $1,000 a day from my friend Josh Wexelbaum, owner of the Scrappy Business blog).

While you can achieve that, given that PPC essentially allows you to buy unlimited web traffic, you will need to work at it, likely putting in quite a bit of time to test, analyze and optimize your campaigns.

What you’re seeing on the sales page is what the top 1% of students are doing in the course. Use that as motivation to spur yourself to take results.

What will help is that Amit is very open in sharing the techniques, tools and strategies he uses in his own business, and being able to replicate a fraction of what he’s achieved will move most affiliates to the next level in their income level.

The major takeaway is to take massive action, in order to get massive results.

If you’re looking for strategies to scale your affiliate business and bring your business to the next level, be sure to check out PPC Classroom 2.0.

Affiliate Summit West 2009 In Pics and Words (Part 2)

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If you missed it, check out: Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Pics and Words (Part 1).

Here’s more goodness from the Affiliate Summit:

carolyn tang

ShareASale’s Director of Client Services Carolyn Tang AKA Catango is one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable individuals in the industry and it was a pleasure to talk to her at the SaS booth, even though there were lots of people there.

As a tradeshow visitor, I’ve got more than my fair share of t-shirts, notepads, pens, paper weights and stationery to last 2.5 lifetimes. I liked how SaS did a little out of the box thinking to provide a photobooth where affiliates took some crazy pics (I’ll post mine later), and thoughtfully gave out baby T-shirts and bears. For affiliates with families or significant others, they’ll likely be seeing the SaS logo on a teddy bear or baby T for some time to come. (a good thing).

Check out the Friday Podcast interview on Affiliate Program Strategies with Carolyn Tang.

colin mcdougall ros gardner

It was cool hanging out with top affiliates Colin “Google” McDougall and Ros Gardner over dinner at the Nobu Japanese restaurant at the Hard Rock for the private launch of Jim Lillig’s Offeratti network.

Considering that Colin doesn’t take raw food, it’s a testament to the great food at Nobu that Colin was enjoying the sashimi with the rest of us during the meal. It was also interesting to hear Colin tell his stories about his towed trailer that he rolls out for holidays. And if you’re looking for inspiration as you’re working towards your ideal affiliate lifestyle, Ros has bought a lot of nice toys/trinkets to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

dina riccobono

It was great to meet affiliate network Market Leverage‘s marketing manager Dina Riccobono after talking to her over IM and being interviewed for MLTV late last year.

Market Leverage has a proactive outreach and affiliate recruitment program and it’s refreshing to see a network take the intiative in getting to know affiliates. They hosted a dinner at Switch at the Encore hotel, with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins in attendance. It was a great opportunity to talk to affiliate managers Mike Kelly and Jen Fluker to get insight into how affiliate managers operate.

At the dinner, Mike announced the launch of Market Leverage’s greenlinks program, which provides links to video-based affiliate training from the ML website interface.

Here’s an earlier Friday Podcast with Market Leverage CEO Mike Jenkins

jen goode

Jen Goode, better known as JGoode, headed the Affiliate Summit mentors program and did a great job (I believe there were more than 100 mentees in the program). I also had a picture taken with the penguin and nearly kidnapped him. Ah well, maybe next time.

In the meantime, check out the Friday Podcast with Jen talking about Print-On-Demand product strategies

jon fisher

With Jon Fisher AKA AOJon , founder of the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum. I started making these “gang signs” because a number of the “affiliate gangstas” started making them.

miles baker geordie carswell nickycakes

Before the panel discussion on Affiliate Strategies for Traffic Generation and Sales Conversion on the first day of the summit with Miles Baker, Geordie Carswell, Nickycakes.

The session went well with positive Continue reading →

One Key Concept To Growing Your Internet Business In 2009

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If you’ve attended any sort of time management, goal setting or time management class in high school or college, you’d feel that you might have been beaten over the head with the Vilfredo Pareto bat.

Originating as a study that showed 20% of Italy’s population held 80% of its wealth, the concept of Pareto Efficiency (also known as the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule) introduced the idea of efficiency into everything you do. It’s not just enough to work hard, you need to work smart too.

Being (or wanting) to be a lazy affiliate marketer, it’s necessary to get a handle on this concept, especially if you want to hit your 2009 goals (it’s almost the end of January, you did set them, didn’t you?)

So this is your brain and the stuff you can work on every day:

90-10 rule

I’d go one step further to suggest that working in “internet time”, the 90-10 rule applies.

A merely 10% of your efforts are going to be responsible for 90% of the results you get, because of the vastness of the internet, the efficiency of technology like Continue reading →

How To SUCCESSFULY Recruit And Retain Affiliates In Your Affiliate Program

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One of the affiliate marketing professionals I constantly look forward to talking to is Heather Paulson, founder of internet marketing/affiliate management agency Paulson Management Group. She’s simultaneously one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable people in the industry.

heather paulson

Heather Paulson

Affiliates are constantly bombarded with the “highest payouts, best offers” line that too many affiliate managers fall into using whether out of habit, laziness or a combination of both.

So it’s a breath of fresh air to get useful information to Continue reading →