Category Archives: affiliate marketing

Facebook “Research” Application Helps You Make Affiliate Bank

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It’s about 47 days to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit West in Vegas, and if you’re headed there, drop a note in the comments and I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you.

I added a note to my Facebook profile to add a countdown alert (via the Top Countdowns application).

So some of the choices available:

affiliate summit andrew wee facebook

I picked the 2nd from the bottom cos it looked kinda “slot machine-ish”. [You’d have to pay a hefty sum to see the cupcakes on my profile……….]

After I added it, I was thinking about unconventional uses, specifically guerilla tactics for Facebook applications for affiliate marketers…

Continue reading →

New Year’s Resolution = Smart Affiliate’s Window Of Opportunity!

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According to a survey of 15,000 people by time management consultancy FranklinCovey, the top 3 resolutions for 2008 are:

  • Getting out of debt or saving money
  • losing weight
  • developing healthy habits like exercise

If you ask me, new year’s resolutions are in many cases “structured procrastination”.

You start out in January all pumped up, ready to lose weight, start going to the gym more regularly, but by mid-year the determination is pretty depleted and by August/September it’s a case of “too late, I guess I’ll work on it next year…”

If you’re a smart affiliate, you’d take note of these trends.

Look at the trends for “quit smoking” and “quit drinking”:

new year's resolution

Weight loss and lose weight couldn’t fit on that chart [It flew off the chart], but here’s what it looks like:

new year's resolution

See the January spikes?

Speak to your affiliate manager and you’d realize that Q1 is gangbusters time for many health and exercise related niches.

If you don’t get in, you’re leaving a huge chunk of change on the table…

I’m currently testing out a number of lucrative offers from the NeverBlueAds CPA/affiliate network.

If you sign up through the link above, you’ll be under the same affiliate manager that I have, the awesome Samantha “Sam” Brachat. Drop me a note through the contact form AFTER you’ve applied and I’ll help you get priority approval.

Monday Question: Which Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Platform?

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Here goes:

“I’m a new affiliate and I’m wondering what’s the best website platform I should use?

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about using Microsoft Front Page to create a HTML site. While others have mentioned blogs.

What do you suggest?”

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My Answer:

There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing your marketing platform, and there’s no “best” platform.

It’s very situational in nature.

If you’re starting out, creating a HTML site might be easier.

I started out using Microsoft Front Page (which has since been replaced by Microsoft Web Expressions). It is alright for single page affiliate sites.

However, with Google’s stricter implementation of Quality Score and having to insert secondary pages like an about us, privacy policy, contact us page, sitemap, etc, using Front Page can be quite cumbersome.

I’ve been using XSitePro quite a bit recently. It’s a pretty intelligent website builder and lets you create sections and sub-sections pretty easily. Best of all, it Continue reading →

Is Engagement The Key To Busting The Affiliate Money Code?

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The writing’s been on the wall for some time – merchants and affiliates need to up their game if they’re to stay relevant, especially as the market gets more sophisticated.

Just take a look at the signs of the times:

  • Implementation of stricter quality measure (eg Google Quality Score) to clamp down on “thin” sites. Especially hit hard are single page landing sites.
  • The noose tightens. You can get somewhat around the QS issue with an about us, contact, privacy page and sitemap. But you can be sure that the quality control noose will continue to tighten.
  • Expansion of the PPC and Affiliate market: Just like in the dotcom days, you’ll have fools rushing in, especially as PPC and affiliate marketing start to go prime time. Already, the “pseudo gurus” have shifted from pimping “Adsense in a Box” products to “CPA in a Box” products. [I’ve looked at a number of these products and the only person making anything from them, is the guy who sold it to you].

So is some “guru” out there going to exploit this market by issuing a free “Death of Affiliate Marketing” report?

If so, stay as far away as you can, because most expensive advice you will ever get is “free advice”.

I was reading Jim Lillig’s post “Performance Marketing Makes Sense” especially the part where he says:

“I believe engagement is to blame. The final frontier of advertising is to connect a product (and ultimately a brand) with truly interested consumers in a relevant, meaningful andlasting way at a time when they have the propensity to purchase or consider a purchase.“

In my opinion, it’s very much a “chicken and egg” issue.

If you’re promoting $1 or $2 zip or email submit offers, you’d be wondering what level of “engagement” you can work on, especially if you’re running at a 30 – 50% margin at best (or $0.30 to $0.50).

Granted some of us have the priviledge of getting Super Affiliate payouts which are double, triple or even higher than the posted rate, but what about the average affiliate?

You have a couple of options, and both aren’t exactly easy to take action on.

The first is to promote Continue reading →

Affiliate Marketers, Your Domains And Lawyer Letters

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For content-based domain affiliates, taking note of your domain portfolio and potential copyright conflicts are an ongoing concern, especially if you’re planning to be in the game for the longterm.

I own a domain which contains the term “ebay” in it. Although I feel anyone looking at the domain probably wouldn’t mistake it for an eBay property that a name like eBayMarketing or eBaySupplies might convey.

Nonetheless, I received an email from enforcement@ebay.com from “Edith, eBay Legal Department” which however nicely written, amounts to a cease and desist notification, and I am supposed to “Please confirm in writing that you will agree to resolve this matter as requested. If we do not receive confirmation from you that you will comply with our request, we will have no choice but to pursue all available remedies against you.”

“Edith” further mentions that “We have filed several successful federal court actions in the United States against companies and individuals employing the famous eBay trademark in their domain names, as well as more than six proceedings before the United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization’s arbitration panel. eBay prevailed in each case and the domain names at issue were all ordered to be transferred to eBay.”

And “the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has recently denied registration of the mark “ebaysecurities” by a third party. Like your domain name, “ebaysecurities” incorporated the entire eBay trademark, adding only a generic term to eBay’s famous mark. The USPTO recognized that eBay is a famous trademark and denied registration of ebaysecurities. eBay is concerned that any use of the domain name in question, will cause confusion as to whether you or your company’s activities are authorized, endorsed or sponsored by eBay when, in fact, they are not. ”

The domain is one in my portfolio and I haven’t developed it yet, so letting it expire isn’t a major issue.

I would think that eBay would be more forward in replying to the email seeking clarificatons I’d sent about 2 weeks ago, to date I haven’t received a reply.

Having dealt with lawyers previously, I would guess that Continue reading →

Monday Question: Stabilizing Your Affiliate Income

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In the course of your Internet marketing journey, you might hit the occasional speed bump and find a plateau. You might identify with Josh who writes:

“Hi Andrew,

I’m an affiliate marketer and have been having success with my affiliate marketing efforts, I use PPC and free traffic means (primarily articles) to generate leads.

Lately, my sales have been stagnating…

How can I ensure more stability in my affiliate income?

Thanks.
Josh”

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My answer:

Having worked with a number of Internet marketing veterans, I’ve noticed a couple of best business practises that I’ve seen these successful and experienced marketers use.

  • The Micromanaging trap

There’s the Internet marketers “day trader” mentality that you’d want to avoid.

It’s something I used to do when I first started out – typically seen in behavior like staying logged in to your affiliate account all day and hitting the refresh button every hour to see if more sales have come in.

If you’ve looked at how Continue reading →