Some of the issues we discussed included:

• Kris’ affiliate wishlist for CPA (cost-per-action/cost-per-acquisition) networks
• His top picks of CPA networks (including the top 2 – Convert2Media and Market Leverage)
• CPA offer databases (including CashTactic’s new branded offer database in conjunction with Offers202)
• How to get the most out of your relationship with your affiliate manager
• His recommendations for affiliate campaign management software (Tracking202 and Prosper202)
• CashTactics’ plans for Affiliate Summit East
• A teaser for his upcoming project with Ian Fernando

Check out the podcast below:

Links:

• Kris on Twitter
• CashTactics
• Convert2Media affiliate network
• Market Leverage affiliate network
• Kris’ previous appearance on the Friday Podcast

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:

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 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 Geekcast.fm (check out Affiliate ABCs and Make Your Mark), you can find her twittering at Loxly and DeborahCarney.

The Friday Podcast: Loxly episode

Kris Trujllo, owner of the CashTactics blog.

Catch the Friday Podcast with Kris’ tips on SEO.

We were up pretty early for breakfast this day. Kris on the left with CashTactics and PPC marketer Andrew Payne.

Catch Andrew’s PPC tips on the Friday Podcast.

With Tim Schroeder, who owns eMonetized.com and the Webmaster Talk forum.

Tim on Twitter.

Todd Friesen, better known as Oilman writes about SEO at his Oilman.ca blog. (even though he lives in the US now).

I think the @Oilman and @MrsOilman exchanges over Twitter are the one of the main reasons I look forward to logging in each morning. Please don’t stop your exchanges anytime soon, guys…

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Check out the next Affiliate Summit.

And the inertia of business and projects has kept my intended blogroll update moving forward for a couple of months (yes, months).

If you’re headed to the Affiliate Summit next month, do drop a note in the comments below and be sure to say “hi” especially if we meet up at one of the parties or at the booths.

Here’re some of my old friends and new friends I’ve made in the last year (and recently added to the blogroll).

Miles Baker: A work-at-home dad who’s tried just about everything on the internet, Miles is a successful affiliate who’s built a healthy number of profitable sites. He’s one of the panelists at the affiliate panel on the first day of the Affiliate Summit.

Check out Miles’ appearance on my Friday Podcast.

Miles’ Twitter account

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NickyCakes: Nick calls himself a “reformed blackhat” whose main focus is on pay per click-based affiliate marketing. He’s posted a number of innovative affiliate strategies on his blog (in between pointing out perceived pretentiousness among certain affiliates). Nick will also be one of the panelists on the affiliate panel at 1230pm on the first day of the summit.

Nick’s previous appearance on the Friday Podcast.

Nick’s Twitter account

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Geordie Carswell: Geordie’s the 3rd and final member of the affiliate panel. Though he doesn’t actively blog, he’s focused on building his new outfit, Diversion Marketing. Although he’s quite accomplished at PPC, he’s since started work on a couple of different projects and I might have him on a future episode of the Friday Podcast.

In the meantime, you can check out his previous appearance on the Friday Podcast where he talked about affiliate success strategies.

Geordie’s twitter account

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Chad Frederiksen: Better known as “CDF Networks”, Chad has the distinction of being one of the top 10 AzoogleAds affiliates early on. PPC is his forte and he shared a number of strategies during his time on the Friday Podcast.

Chad’s twitter account.

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John Hasson: John has a background as a programmer and has developed and sold his own software prior to becoming an affiliate. He’ll be presenting a session on automating your PPC campaigns at the Affiliate Summit. Meanwhile, you can check out his appearance on the Friday Podcast.

John’s Twitter account

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Kris Trujillo: Having taken over the CashTactics blog from founder Ralph “Ruck” Ruckman, Kris has a number of ongoing internet marketing projects, in addition to his search engine optimization (SEO) consulting services. He appeared on the Friday Podcast to talk about build a search engine-based business.

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Andrew Payne: Also blogging at CashTactics, Andrew is a PPC marketer and he has recently authored a PPC case study covering the fundamentals of niche selection and setting up your campaign. He also provided bonus material during the Friday Podcast.

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Todd Crawford: Todd is one of the co-founders of the Commission Junction affiliate network in 1998 and is currently working on his “secret project”. In the meantime, he posts pictures and comments about watches, t-shirts and other gizmos he’s either bought, is trying out or is in the process of buying, I guess his ToddTalks site is like a shopping blog for geeks? Check out his thoughts on affiliate management on the Friday Podcast.

Todd will be moderating a session on combating fraud in affiliate marketing at the Affiliate Summit.

Todd’s Twitter account.

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Joel Comm: Back when I first got started in internet marketing, Joel’s “Adsense Code” book was one of the first I’d read. I’m currently going through his “Click Here To Order” book which is a great narrative about the key players in internet marketing got their start and built their businesses. I met Joel in Vegas and he’ll be presenting a session on mobile marketing (direct marketing to cellphones) at the summit.

Joel’s twitter account

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If you’re interested in afttending the Affiliate Summit, it’s at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas from Jan 11-13.

Click here to book a place

Discount code: ASW09WHOISAW to save 10% off any type of pass

For a media pass, visit this link.

Since then, he’s published more posts related to PPC traffic generation and CPA affiliate marketing. If you’ll read some of his posts like his Questions and Answers post:

His reply to the question about what he should have known as an internet marketer starting out is frank and uncensored: “That 99% of marketers writing ebooks to sell to other marketers are nothing but forum slime who copy other peopleâ€s ideas and steal the glory to make a penny. Had I known that when I started I would not have wasted a shitload of money”

Instead, the foundation of how he determines what works and what doesn’t isn’t by reading an ebook, but by testing it out. And it’s not just posts about how he made big money either. In an update to his testing, he removed the entrecard and scratchback blog widgets because they weren’t performing.

One major lessons that internet marketers wanting to be successful from their efforts is to continually research, test, analyze new campaigns and products and services. “Failing” once does not put you out of the game.

The other point is that blogging about the experience (good or bad), helps you verbalize the lessons learned, and lock-in the success or failures (so you can repeat or do not repeat the experience as appropriate).

Since then, Ruck has gone on to set up Convert2Media, which focus on CPA affiliate offers. I’ve been fortunate to have one of his partners, Steve Howe, as my affiliate manager and we’re currently developing and testing new campaigns.

But back to CashTactics. With the possibility of selling the blog out of the picture, Ruck instead chose to pass the blog to his friend Kris Trujillo (right) (whom I interviewed a couple of weeks back for the Friday Podcast).

Kris is no slacker either, as a SEO consultant with his outfit Trujillo Marketing. In addition, he’s got a strong background using social networks for his traffic generation efforts.

CashTactics still offers a set of free reports, which include topics focused on Yahoo! Answers, article submission and list building (together with a number of free tools).

Kris is not standing still though, he’s recently recruited PPC affiliate marketer Andrew Payne to kick off a multi-part PPC case study on the blog.

From a branding standpoint, it’s smart for CashTactics to branch in 2 directions, one content stream focusing on PPC, while Kris leverages his SEO background to pump out content like how to get a PR6 backlink from the high traffic monster Apple.com and tips on copywriting and adding video to your pages.

With constant promotion via contests and promotion activities, the blog sets to grow, even as it’s changed hands. More importantly, the blog has seen a smooth transition from Ruck to Kris and the brand continues to see healthy growth.

From the Cash Tactics site, Kris describes himself as a “PPC and CPA Marketer but I also deal in retail affiliate marketing and Iâ€m a product owner with my own affiliate program. I own a PPC search engine, several smaller search engines, a couple drop shipping stores, and a few other random sites.”

During our Friday Podcast discussion, we talked about:

• How Kris got started in internet marketing
• Changes and development in search engine optimization for your website
• How to optimize your website structure
• How to get started with a directory or search engine-based business
• The difference between a “thick” directory and “thin” directory

Listen to the Friday Podcast:

Check out:

• The Cash Tactics blog
• Kris’ ISearchEbook training