Category Archives: affiliate marketing

Monetizing Facebook Applications – An Insider’s Look

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jason bailey chickenholeIf you’ve wondered how Facebook Applications can be effectively monetized, one of the players in the market is Jason Bailey AKA Chickenhole (right).

Jason’s one of the super affiliates that I’ve learned a number of techniques from and he’s also one of the partners at CPA network Millnic Media.

I had a chance to talk to Jason and he’s mentioned that he’s spending lots of time monetizing the Facebook social network through the applications.

If you’re still wondering about the financial viability of developing a Facebook App, Jason talks about how a particular app generated $1 MILLION in a week (did I get your attention?), and how the arbitrage mechanics work on Facebook.

In fact, to get an insight, you might want to check out the presentation he gave at a Facebook Developer’s Garage in Vancouver last October.

Check these videos out:


As a bonus and if you’re new to CPA marketing, Jason also explains the mechanics of how zip/email submits Continue reading →

Will Amazon Make A Splash In The Question and Answer Market?

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If you’ve visited the online retailer Amazon (they’ve gone way beyond books and CDs and DVDs for quite some time), you’d notice their foray into a new area with their “Askville” site.

askville amazon

Askville is a site where users can ask questions and get answers.

It’s a little different from similar sites out there with a “ranking” (level?) system for users, and there’s an opportunity to earn “gold”. Additionally there’s shopping engine features built in with product recommendation.

Do contributors earn commissions or “gold” if readers buy the recommended product?

I’ll need to delve deeper into the site to get the answers.

But since late last year, internet users have been asking, “Is Amazon’s Askville just another Yahoo! Answers”?

yahoo answers

Yahoo! Answers is also a community centered around user generated questions and answers, and participants get to vote for the best answer. Being an earlier product, it doesn’t Continue reading →

Affiliate Summit West 2008: Where Is Andrew Wee?

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Thank you for your emails, following the last Friday Podcast with Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins, I’ve been asked where I’ll be during Affiliate Summit (and maybe more importantly where the hot parties are at…).

I’ve created a temporary page listing my schedule (which will change over time) and the summit highlights.

You can take a look at:

–> Andrew Wee’s Affiliate Summit West schedule

Going by the last summit I attended, I met Scott Jangro and Geordie Carswell just once during the entire 3 days.

I hung out mostly with the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum folks.

You will meet so many people at one point that it will seem like a blur and it’s only after going through the business cards that you’ll recall who you met.

So if you would like to meet and talk to someone during the summit, it’d be a good idea to either:

  • Private message them on their Facebook profile
  • Contact them using the contact form on their blog
  • Attend the session they’ll be speaking at.
  • Head to one of the smaller events like Affiliate Classroom Live, Gospel Brunch, the Affiliate Dinner
  • Arrange to meet at one of the parties and try to find each other from the hundreds of people there…

Else, it could be a hit-and-miss affair, especially with more than 2,500 people registered for the event.

Forewarned is forearmed…

Heather Paulson Challenges Affiliate Fit Club To Swimsuit Showdown

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heather paulsonOn the lighter side of things, Heather Paulson (right) has issued a challenge to a group of prominent affiliate marketers and managers that could be one of the highlights of Affiliate Summit West.

Heather is a ReveNews writer/blogger who interviewed me for her “Internet Expansion Into Asia” piece last November, as well as founder and president of internet marketing consultancy and outsourced affiliate program manager, Paulson Management Group.

Heather has thrown down the gauntlet to the members of the Affiliate Fit Club, two teams of affiliates and affiliate members who were aiming to compete and lose weight by Affiliate Summit West a la “The Biggest Loser” format.

The members include veterans like Shawn Collins, Jim Kukral, Wade Tonkin, Karen Garcia, Lisa Riolo and Wade Sisson.

affiliate fit club

The affiliate fit club had been an inspriation to me, especially since working in front of a computer every day and not getting out much has meant the scale has hovered at 192 lbs for quite some time (especially after having great eats in the US each time I’m there for a seminar or event).

I’ve started swimming for about 20 minutes a couple of times a week (you need to get at least 20 minutes of rigorous exercise to get the metabolic rate into its “fat burning” phase.) and have lost about 5 lbs over the last week.

I’m definitely game to take part in it, if it opens up again. I’m highly competitive, so I’ll be in to win!

So it was pretty inspirational to hear that Heather has lost about 35 lbs (possibly more since the last Affiliate Summit – I’m not sure if she meant ASW last Feb or Affiliate Summit East in Miami last July). In any case, 35 lbs is very impressive!

She’s also thrown down this challenge:

And I’m sure she’ll be pretty smoking in a swimsuit.

Shawn’s mentioned that he’ll be Continue reading →

Is The New Pepperjam Network Right For You?

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You’ve probably seen quite a bit of coverage for the newly launched Pepperjam Network (PJN for short) a new affiliate /CPA network launched by Pepperjam, a full service internet marketing agency.

Will you bring your affiliate income to the next level by promoting PJN affiliate programs?

pepperjam network

More on that shortly, but rather than repeat the information that other bloggers have highlighted, you can read write-ups and view videos at:

Having been an early tester for PJN since its beta stage, I’ve seen the fledgling network (with a great pedigree) go through its early development stages, but the questions for most affiliates is: Does it deliver on it’s promise of an “Affiliate Marketing 2.0” network?

With about 100 merchants under its belt and have recruited a number of star Super Affiliates to promote its programs, Pepperjam will be focusing on building up its merchant and affiliate support and promotion efforts in the coming months. You can likewise expect to see an impressive booth at the Affiliate Summit West next month.

I’ve spoken to Pepperjam Affiliate Marketing Director Robyn Jones a number of times about the affiliate programs they’ve managed and you can see many of these programs, previously listed at Commission Junction and the other major networks now offered on PJN.

I have faced a number of issues with affiliate cookies not lodging correctly on some of the major networks (with sometimes less than enthusiastic support in pursuing these lost sales), and PJN’s affiliated-focused approach means that you have a higher chance of ensuring that your marketing efforts are accurately compensated. (eg. less “lost” sales).

The panel to search for merchant programs and get affiliate links is similar to other tier-1 affiliate networks, as is the ability to tag Sub IDs to your links for better tracking.

I believe the design of the program has a lot to do with Pepperjam head honcho’s experience as a PPC marketer and incorporates a number of PPC-friendly tracking and analytics features.

One of the interesting features of PJN is Continue reading →

Affiliate Summit West 2008 Previews and Highlights

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affiliate summitOver the weekend, I stayed up till 1:30 am to plan my flights and get my hotel confirmed for Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s upcoming Affiliate Summit West, at the Rio in Las Vegas from Feb 24-26.

Unlike the past Affiliate Summit where I found myself hiking from Harrah’s (which has great prime rib) to Bally’s every morning, I was determined to get lodging at the Rio where the summit will be held.

Having said that, here’s some summit survival tips:

  • Take the bus if you have time and like to see the city. It costs about $6 for a 1-way ticket and stops at most of the major hotels. It does take a little time to get around though because it stops at quite a number of hotels.
  • Wear comfortable walking shoes as you’ll be pounding the show floor if you’re diligent about meeting merchants and networks (I only got through about 25% of the booths the last time round because I was talking to and got waylaid by people as I was walking around).
  • Carry a backpack if you don’t want to be lugging your schwag all over the place. Especially if there’re booths giving out Plasma TVs, Xbox360s and Nintendo WIIs (I think most of us can go out and buy one, it’s just the ultra competitive streaks in every motivated affiliates that comes out when it comes to competitions…)

With that out of the way, and a 15 hour plane ride (I’m taking a direct Singapore-Los Angeles flight on a brand spanking new Airbus A380 this time) ahead, what’s in store at Affiliate Summit?

The fun begins before the event starts.

Anik Singal and his Affiliate Classroom team have organized Affiliate Classroom Live, a 1-day workshop for affiliate managers on Saturday 23 Feb. What’s more it’s free…Places are very limited though, so check out:

–> Anik Singal’s Affiliate Classroom Live

Chase the workshop with Brook Schaaf’s Affiliate Dinner. Expect to see a guest of honor. Expect to see the guest of honor roasted…What fun!

Is Affiliate Dinner a ponzi scheme? Here’s the answer…

—

So day 1 of the summit kicks off with the “Affiliate Meet Market” from noon to 6pm. I missed this the last time because of a delayed flight, but I’m arriving a day early to make sure I am able to take part in the meet-and-greet and associated networking.

Here’s the floorplan for the Affiliate Meet Market. (PDF format)

–

Day 2 kicks off with Jason Calacanis’ keynote.

With Jason recently refering to “Affiliate Spam” “polluting” the search engines at the Paris Le Web seminar, you can expect some fireworks during the keynote.

–

One note about the presentations that follow. An overwhelming number of presentation proposals were submitted, with the result that about 4 presentations are simultaneously ongoing during each time slot. In many cases, you have great sessions going on at the same time.

I checked with Shawn and he mentioned that the sessions will be recorded and available for viewing later.

I’d suggest prioritizing your favorite sessions and making a beeline for them. In some cases I can see the majority of the crowd gravitating towards ONE session…

Forewarned is forearmed…

I’ve listed some of the sessions I personally am interested in attending:

video affiliate marketing

As I’ve been doing a number of podcast and vlogging (video blogging) lately, I’m keen to check this session out.

I met Buy.com’s Melissa Salas last Feb at ASW, and she present a pretty great show for Buy.com over at Buy.Tv.
(As of last October, on the BuyTV MySpace page it’s mentioned that “BuyTV was just informed that it has been picked up for local programming via Time Warner, Cox, Charter, DirecTV, Echostar, Dish Network and others – Sunday mornings at 11:30am PST”)

And you have a panel of other video marketing/video blogging folks Continue reading →