Optimize your affiliate marketing campaign

Join HollywoodAffiliates

2011-05-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

Do you have a website or blogs in the casino or poker vertical?

If so, you might want to explore the opportunities in the HollywoodAffiliates Network. HollywoodAffiliates handles the affiliate program for the popular poker brand - HollywoodPoker. This is a great opportunity to partner with one of the top poker brands and I strongly suggest you act now.

HollywoodAffiliates have competitive revenue share models that all affiliates can profit from - and we pride ourselves on building long and profitable relationships. Here is a list of the program benefits:

• Up to 40% revenue share
• CPA Programmes
• Custom programmes - we will meet or beat your best poker offer for sizable traffic sites
• Fast Payments
• No Negative Rollover
• Clear and concise tracking and reporting functionality.
• Regular promotional updates and newsletter
• Provides the most technologically advanced tracking and optimized marketing tools available
• Provides efficient, professional and personal relationship with our affiliates.

For more information about the program, please visit –
http://www.hollywoodaffiliates.com

Join Now!

HollywoodPoker Affiliate Program

Why Join MBMA - Coffee Room Affiliate Program?

2011-04-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

According to new data from the National Retail Federation, Americans are becoming more generous with their spending habits, even with small luxury items.

Among the results, the study found Americans are considering gourmet coffee as among the “untouchables.” This information shows that you have an enormous opportunity right now to take advantage of this spending increase.
Spring into action now! Join CoffeeRoom in the $20 billion coffee industry by posting our affiliate links on your website or blogs! The affiliate program is currently running on Shareasale.

Affiliate Promotion: If you make your first sale worth $1 - $100 before 04/01/2011 we will give you a $5 Bonus on top of your affiliate commission! If you make your first sale worth over $100.01 before 04/01/2011 we will give you a $10 Bonus on top of your affiliate commission!

MBMA - Coffee Room Affiliate Program

2011-04-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

Are looking to be a part of the $20 billion a year gourmet coffee industry?

MBMA offers our Affiliates the opportunity to earn commissions on the sale of every product in our store, and through a number of “unpublished” campaigns. Our primary products are CoffeeRoom’s fresh roasted, premium coffee, and WorldwideSkin’s all-natural body care lotions and washes. We feature custom label designs for private label and promotional product industries. Once a customer comes from your site to our store, regardless of creative or product clicked upon, all sales are commissionable.

Why join this affiliate program?

10% Commission on sale

60-day cookie duration

Wide array of affiliate tools

Datafeed available

Regular consumer promotions

Affiliate promotion and incentive offer

Dedicated affiliate manager

Stop Acting Rich: And Start Living Like a Real Millionaire

2011-03-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

Stop Acting Rich: And Start Living Like a Real Millionaire

By: Stanley, Thomas J.

Published By: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Puts wealth in perspective and shows you how to live rich without spending more
Details why we spend lavishly and how to stop this destructive cycle
Discusses how being "rich" means more than just big houses and luxury cars
Other titles by Stanley: The Millionaire Mind and The Millionaire Next Door

$19.99

Book Recommendation: How to Pay Zero Taxes 2011

2011-02-24T14:28:00.001-08:00

How to Pay Zero Taxes 2011

By: Schnepper, Jeff A.

Published By: McGraw-Hill

Edition: 1
Declare this! Make 2011 the year you pay LESS to the IRS!
Totally updated for 2011, How to Pay Zero Taxes lays out the simple, practical, and proven strategies that save you money at tax time-this year, next year, and beyond.
From converting personal expenses into business deductions, to avoiding or surviving) an IRS audit, Jeff Schnepper's guide comprehensively covers more deductions than any other tax book, all conveniently organized into six easy-access categories: exclusions, credits, general deductions, “below-the-line” deductions, traditional tax shelters, and super tax shelters.
Clear, concise, and loaded with up-to-the-minute information that puts more money back in your pockets, How to Pay Zero Taxes is the ultimate tax payer's resource.

Price: $20.00

Book Recommendation: Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants

2011-01-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

By: Collins, Shawn
Published By: Pearson Education
Edition: 1

ePub for Digital Editions:	$22.00
iPhone / iPad:	$22.00
PDF for Digital Editions:	$22.00
Mobipocket Reader:	$22.00
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If you're an online business, instead of paying for an ad, like a banner, you pay for the result - the sale. This is called affiliate marketing. Pay for Performance will show anyone conducting business online, how to plan, implement, and manage a successful affiliate marketing program. The reader will find valuable Web resources such as tracking software and contract templates with the guidance of this book. There will also be direction for the reader to focus the content and develop the right affiliate model for the type of business. It will also provide case studies of successful programs as well as failures and scams to demonstrate and teach the lessons of building a successful program.

Let shareasale.com find sales leads for you. Only pay when it works!

Freedom Print Network Launches Multi-level Affiliate Program

2011-01-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

Freedom Print Network is one of the fastest growing online printing solution. Boasting of cutting edge online editing technology, users can create and customize any printable document for in a user-friendly environment. You can access an impressive database full of free templates to help you build your marketing kit in just a few minutes.

Now you join Freedom Print Network and help spread the word about our excellent products through their newly launched affiliate program. Freedom Print Network affiliate program allows serious full-time entrepreneurs to make a great living, while allowing part-timers to build a solid second income.

The program has a 6-tier commission structure so affiliates can attract other affiliates as well and receive commission from their clients. This enables you to build a team of affiliates who all contribute to your income.

Commission Structure:

Base Commission 7%
2nd Tier 5%
3rd Tier 3%
4th Tier 2%
5th Tier 2%
6th Tier 1%

CLICK HERE to sign up now!

Freedom Print Network
Click here to find out more about this link

eBooks Review: Highly recommended in self help literature:

2011-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

Author: Arden, John B.
Published By: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Preview >>

How to rewire your brain to improve virtually every aspect of your life-based on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology on neuroplasticity and evidence-based practices.

Not long ago, it was thought that the brain you were born with was the brain you would die with, and that the brain cells you had at birth were the most you would ever possess. It turns out that's not true. Your brain is not hardwired, it's "softwired" by experience.

This book shows you how you can rewire parts of the brain to feel more positive about your life, remain calm during stressful times, and improve your social relationships. You will also learn to improve your memory, boost your mood, have better relationships, and get a good night sleep.

$15.95

Advanced Affiliate Marketing Training

2011-01-04T09:44:00.000-08:00

Whether you're a blogger/online publisher looking to monetize your content or a business seeking additional sources of revenue, affiliate marketing is the answer. This lucrative practice is revolutionizing the way individuals and organizations generate revenue online. Many affiliates earn upwards of six figures, with the most successful among them netting more than $1 million a year. Forrester Research predicts double-digit growth for U.S. affiliate marketing over the coming years, with annual spend estimated to reach $4 billion by 2014. Take advantage of the affiliate boom and claim your share!

I recommend you check out University of San Francisco Advanced Affiliate Marketing Training. From creating compelling content and placing tracking code to promoting your efforts and driving traffic, Advanced Affiliate Marketing reveals everything you need to know to generate additional income through online publishing or an existing corporate website. This eight-week advanced specialized certificate course also covers critical legal and ethical considerations and profitable best practices. But what truly makes this program unique is the extraordinary caliber of USF's online faculty, which includes super-affiliates who share valuable insider secrets and best practices to maximize your success!

AffCon Winter 2010 Miami

2010-12-06T19:01:00.000-08:00

AffCon is happening on December 8-10 in Miami, Florida. The AffCon 2010 Miami is one of the largest trade shows and conferences for the affiliate marketing industry. Attending affiliate conventions and gatherings is definitely a fruitful practice for netrepreneurs as they get to meet industry experts and explore opportunities with participating sponsors and exhibitors.

This coming Affcon promises to be an advanced event that covers some of the most up to date forms of marketing and technologies for successful website promotion. I expect that a diverse group will attend the conference. When attending such event, I am always looking for opportunities to press the flesh of affiliate managers and super affiliates.

The best thing for affiliates in this convention is that they can participate for FREE! This is your conference and this was made for you. Other events charge USD $500 to USD $2000 per affiliate to attend. So this is a great value considering the benefits you stand to reap by attending the event.

This year I attended the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas and Linkshare Symposium in San Francisco. I can attest to the great deal of advantages these events brought to my career in affiliate marketing. I am sure this coming AffCon will be bring you hundredfold rewards if you can make it in Miami.

Cyber Monday Affiliate Strategy

2010-11-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

In online marketing, one spending holiday that is highly anticipated is the Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Cyber Monday is definitely a Red Letter Day in online marketing. It is now acclaimed as one of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year. Much research had been done and they all support this claim.

Cyber Monday came into picture as an offshoot of shopping hangovers from the Black Friday spending. According to Scott Silverman, the head of Shop.org, the term was coined based on research showing that 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004. Many analysts believed that this behavior was shaped as most office workers return to their working station bringing in the Black Friday spending attitude. It also helps that most shops are looking to clear their inventory as they approach the end of the year.

Shoppers have been anticipating this day due to the serious online discounts and promotions that merchants offer. For affiliates, this means income opportunity. Thus, it makes sense to align your campaign towards Cyber Monday theme.

Here are things you can do to prep yourself for Cyber Monday:

1. Check out your merchant/ newsletter or promotional feed. This is an easy and fast way to hunt for great advertiser offers.
2. Research hot items and trends. It will definitely increase your conversion if the products/services you will promote are trendy and in demand.
3. Update your banners and creatives. It helps if you place a relevant banner or creative - probably something that features a Cyber Monday coupon or promotion.
4. Feature stores/merchants that provide strong consumer offers for Cyber Monday.
5. Contact your affiliate manager for exclusive offer.
6. Send a newsletter to your email list providing useful tips and shopping suggestions.
7. For those engaged in PPC/Paid Search/Adwords campaign, it helps if you update your ad copies to reflect Cyber Monday reference.
8. Add Cyber Monday relevant keywords on your meta tags and SEO campaign.

How To Get Specific Product Links on Commission Junction

2010-10-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

Linking to specific products is one of the most effective strategies in generating affiliate revenue. You can pick a particular product and give a review, comparison or testimonial. Or if you have an online store, you can add more products to your store by incorporating advertisers' products.

So how do you get Product Links through Commission Junction Network?

Follow the instructions below to get a link to specific product:

Log into your CJ account, and click on "Get Links".

Then click the "By Relationship" sub-menu - you should see all the programs you belong to.

Click on the "View Links" or "View Products" link for the program you want to work with, and on that page find their deep linking option. Type in the title of book you want to link to. The search result should produce a list of possible eBooks.com links for the said title.

All the way to the right of the deep link row, there are links to "Get JavaScript / Get HTML" - click on which ever you prefer. You will get a URL returned that is coded to that specific page, with the advertiser name as the anchor text (unless you change it first in the "Text Hyperlink" field). You can then change that to whatever you want, or, use it to make an image a link, etc.

Copy and paste the link code from the "Code" field wherever you want on your blog or website, but remember that linking to individual items may eventually produce a not found page when and if that item is out of stock.

Looking into the BloomexUSA Affiliate Campaign

2010-08-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

When looking to promote affiliate programs, I make sure that the offer meets certain considerations. This is for the obvious reason that I would not like to spend my time and resources on offers that would not convert for me. So to show an example on how to choose an affiliate offer, I would like to use BloomexUSA Program as case study.

I decided to promote BloomexUSA program on Affiliatebot because of the following consideration:

1. Commission Rate - BloomexUSA offers 11% commission on one of the high turnover products in the market. This is one of the more generous commission rates in the category considering that BloomexUSA offers heavy consumer discounts on its online store.

2. Industry and Product – Flower industry is one of the consistent top retail performers. Plus, I expect increase in demand for flowers this coming September due to the Rosh Hashanah religious holiday which features flower décor within the home and Synagogue. There is also high number of wedding celebrations during September.

3. Demographic Targeting – BloomexUSA gives me flexibility to target US and Canada markets. There is also wide market prospect regardless of profession, industry, company size, gender, age group, household income, and ethnicity.

4. Program Restrictions – The program has restriction on their brand name which is understandable. They encourage PPC campaign and provide coupon for affiliate campaign so the program bodes with me.

5. Program Management – It surely helps if the program has a dedicated affiliate manager. You can regular updates and strategies that will help you optimizing your promotion.

6. Performance Incentive - The program also offers tiered commission rate which will reward me more when I meet their incentive criteria.

The next thing to do now is secure a domain name with a flower theme then build on the content. I can use Wordpress free template to create a website and utilize its hosting arrangement on GoDaddy which is only priced $4.99 per month. Then, I’ll start to drive traffic to the site through various methods - and my affiliate campaign for BloomexUSA is all set!

eBooks.com Affiliate Program: How to link to individual books

2010-08-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

There is so much more to affiliate marketing than simply placing banners and links on your website. One strategy that works well for many of our top performers is the use of individual product links. eBooks currently has over 200,000 titles on our product feed and you can access them through your affiliate account on Commission Junction.

Typical affiliates who typically use this data include coupon site, online shopping malls, comparison sites, and review/rating sites.

A Datafeed typically has the following information that the affiliates can use:

- Product Name
- Product Description
- Product Price
- Product Availability
- Product Image URL
- Product Buy URL

And other information in a csv (Comma Separated Value) file, or a txt file or a Tab Delimited Data feed file.

Recently Commission Junction made Datafeeds Self Serve, which allow affiliates to setup their datafeed subscription themselves without requiring any pre-approvals, payments or any need to go to CJ support.

If you want get started on tapping this tool on your campaign, simply perform the following steps to create or edit a product export subscription.

1. Navigate to .
2. Click the Create Product Export button (to create a new subscription) or the associated Edit link for an existing subscription (to update a subscription).

The Edit Product Export interface displays.

3. Select a primary contact for the product export from the Email Contact drop-down menu.

Note: This list is populated from the user list found at Account>Administrative Settings>User Settings.

4. Enter a name for the subscription in the Name of subscription text field.

5. Select the format in which you wish to receive your product export from the Export Format drop-down menu. Format options include TAB, PIPE, XML, Quoted CSV, or Standard CSV.

6. Select the way you wish to receive your product export subscription from the Transport Method radio buttons. Transport methods include Email, CJ FTP, CJ HTTP, Client FTP, Client HTTP.

7. If you select the Email transport method, enter any email address(es) for recipients of the product catalog export in the Recipients text field.

Note: You must separate multiple email addresses with a comma.

8. Select the date format used in the product export subscription from the Date format drop-down menu. Date formats include MM/DD/YYYY and DD/MM/YYYY.

9. Select the Web site for the product catalog form the Web site drop-down menu. This is to specify which PID to insert in the tracking links.

10. Use the << button to add selected Product Catalogs to the Included Product Catalogs text box. Select the All of My Advertisers Product Catalogs option to include all your advertiser’s product catalogs.

Note: The same advertiser catalog cannot be in one more than one subscription with the same PID (Web site ID).

Important: You may also use the Find Product Catalogs search box to locate specific product catalogs to include in the subscription, as well as search by Advertiser Program Name or Product Catalog Name.

Note: You may select included product catalogs and click the >> button to remove them from the export list.

11. Click the Save button to save the subscription.

The product catalog export subscription displays sorted by name on the Product Catalog tab of the page.

If you want to be an eBooks.com affiliate, you can sign up by clicking here: eBooks.com

What is a Productfeed?

2010-08-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

You may have encountered the product feed or datafeed terminology in various affiliate forums, blogs and discussion sites. So what is product feed and why is it such a bid deal now in affiliate marketing?

In this article, I would like to introduce you to this affiliate tool ,and how you can use in your campaign.

A product feed is a collection of information pertaining to products or items being sold by a merchant. The feed contains product name, product ID or SKU, price, description, image url and product link - among others. The feed is usually provided in csv (Comma Separated Value) file, or a txt file or a Tab Delimited Data feed file.

If used strategically, the product feed tool is very effective in increasing your conversion rate. The idea is to use the product information on your website or blog, and pre-sell it before the visitor leaves your site.

As an affiliate, you can request access to the said file from your affiliate manager. Most networks provide this tool to affiliates for free but varies on how affiliates can access it.

Here is a sample of an affiliate blog that uses the product feed information:

http://www.ronaldmarva.com/p/book-club.html

For shopping mall sites, you might have encountered the sample below which integrates the feed on their database.

Affiliate Metrics That Matter

2010-07-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

I always hear experts say that affiliate marketing is a number game. Initially, I undertood this mantra simply as that the more clicks I generate the more likely I will convert them into buyers. Lately though I come to realize that it's not as straight forward as I thought.

Clicks and sales are just two of the metrics to look at when looking to have a successful affiliate campaign. I would like to share other metrics that affiliates should look into when trying to grow their affiliate business:

1. Clickthrough rate or CTR. CTR is arrived at by dividing the clicks by the number of times the ad was delivered or what we call 'impressions'. As an affiliate you must be looking on promoting ads that will likely spur your visitors to action. It doesn't matter if you are promoting 2 or 10 banners; what matters is how many Clickthroughs you have.

2. Products sold - You should also be interested to know which products are being sold. You should not confuse this with the number of items sold. While both stats are valuable, knowing which products are selling will help you aligh your SEO or PPC campaign to more positive results.

3. Convertion Rate or ConvR. Conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who convert casual website visits into desired actions which may be a lead or sale. You can use this statistics to improve your content by effectively integrating the concept AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) to direct your user to the conversion funnel.

The Conversion ratio can be used in many ways: decide the best promotion method, choose the best selling product or notice when something is goes wrong (and react quickly) or something is good (and you should capitalize on it).

4. Reversal Rate. Reversals or Refunds represent the transactions that are not approved by the merchant. This represents loss of commission on the part of the publishers. As an affiliate, you should be looking for merchants who have high reversal rate on affiliate-referred sale. If the reversal rate is unusually high - say 50%, then half of affiliate transaction (and consequently commission paid) has been reversed and you may need to think twice whether to continue partnering with the said merchant.

5. Efficiency per click or EPC Rate. EPC stands for affiliate earnings (average across the program) per 100 clicks sent to the merchant. This is a good parameter to decide if a program is worth the effort for affiliate promotion. Using this properly will help you strike the right balance between products that convert well and products that get you the most profit. It will help you budget on how much money you can spend on a specific campaign.

These metrics by itself will not guarantee your success in affiliate marketing. But knowing how to use them to capitalize on your strong points - as well as identify what improvements you might need - might just be right ingredient for your online business success.

I can enumerate more advanced metrics which you can use in your affiliate campaign but I will go into them in a later article.

What Should Affiliate Blog About?

2010-07-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

You know what is the greatest thing about affiliate marketing? It is the freedom that comes with it. You have absolute control on website and promote what ever products/service that appeals to you. You can also mix the entrepreneurial ideas with the affiliate campaign. This will not only help you to build residual income but will also help you to take little breaks from your day job. In the long run it may contribute a handsome chunk to your early retirement plan.

If you are planning to create blog which would incorporate affiliate advertising, you need to sit down to work our your goal, strategy and vision. First thing to need to identify is what niche are you planning to work on. What does your blog audience want or need?

To identify a suitable niche you have to do some research. Search the internet to see what people are buying online. You can use tools like Google Insights for Search which can give you idea on the trends and search volume pattern for specific keywords. Take a look at popular sites like shopping.com and ebay.com - what are the popular items on these sites? Do any of them coincide with your interests or experience? You need to remember that blogging isn’t just about you, the blogger, it’s about your audience too. You have to get inside the head of the readers. Only by doing so will you attract the audience, develop your readership, and ultimately get residual income from your affiliate blogs.

Ways to find ideas for your weblogs

2010-07-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

Every writer wants to find new ideas every now and then. The time to do this varies from person to person. Few writers would need new ideas every day. This depends on many things and I am definitely not going to discuss them here. No matter how often you need to find new ideas, these tips will help you to get the best ideas and write the master pieces every now and then.

Stay active and read a lot online. This is something which should be a part of every freelance writer. If you do not read the daily bulletins and the forums, you are not going to get new ideas.

Find good blogs and bookmark them. Visit them whenever you are free and want to do something healthy. These blogs will always give you something new to work on. You may enter into a discussion with the writer and can get more ideas from him on a particular topic. You can easily use the comments section for this.

Read your own work again and find the new angles which can be discussed. Also try to get your mind off the work when you are not getting the fresh ideas. Let your mind wander and it will definitely come up with better things.

Sharing knowledge as a freelancer

2010-07-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

If you are a freelancer, you would have been told not to share a thing about your work to anyone else. The people are afraid that others will steal their ideas and will copy their work. This seems a good enough reason not to share your knowledge as a freelancer.

As an accomplished freelancer, I would recommend you to share. You would wonder why would I advice you to do that. Well, I have got reasons to say like this. Here are some of the reasons.

Sharing will help you to learn more. You will share your knowledge with others and they will share theirs. This will help you to learn from them.
Sharing does not mean that the others will copy your work and you will be able to get nothing for doing the original work. Anyone who sees your work being copied will admire your mastery. This will give evidence of your quality and creative thinking. So do not get worried, you will get more appreciation.
If you are sharing with the people, you will find others who are open to sharing. You will build business relationships with them and this will go a long way with you. With these connections, you will be able to find better work and definitely the client will be knowing how good you are.

Last but not the least is the joy of empowering people by giving them control over their finances and time.

At the end of the day, you are what you share.

I recommend you check out Odesk.com to find more freelance opportunities!

Why Mask Your Affiliate Links?

2010-07-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

You may notice that experienced affiliates are always masking their links.As a newbie affiliate, such practice might be something that has never crossed your mind. Well here are several reasons why you should consider masking your affiliate links as well:

1. Some affiliates are concerned with algorithm, if Google crawls a hyper link that forwards to another hyper link, it can easily assume that the link is an affiliate link and it will either lower their Quality Score (if promoting through Google AdWords) or lower PageRank (if promoting through SEO).

2. People are getting smarter and they notice when they see *.*http://www.dpbolvw.net/…or if they see a hyper link with a number next to it, they’re getting sent to a website that is trying to sell them something. People are much more likely to click on a friendly link pointing to that website, than a sketchy link with the question marks and numbers tacked onto the end.

3. Some affiliates also use the masked links to safeguard their strategies. Search affiliates, in particular, do not want to reveal their successful or converting keywords for fear that they would be outbid. They are wary that if some unscrupulous merchants or AM found out a good converting keywords from their campaign they might use it as well. Also, if they are using prohibited keywords, they can also use it to hide such strategies.

4. There is also the possibility of unmasked links to be hijacked. There are spywares on the end users computer that can replace an affiliate URL with it's own.

Trademarked Bidding on Adwords - Is it legal?

2010-07-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

The practice of trademarked bidding was opened up June 2009 when Google decided to
allow purchase of rival trademarks as keywords to trigger display of “sponsored search” ads on Google. Barnes and Noble, for instance, could bid to have one of its ads displayed when a consumer searches the term “Amazon.” Before, Google protects trademarked name by allowing only the rightful owner to bid on sponsored search. The new regulation opened up the playing field to such issues.

As a result of this new policy of Google, many affiliate programs started to implement trademark bidding restrictions on their campaign to avoid affiliates outbidding them. However, there are some affiliate programs that would rather have one of their affiliates bidding on the trade name and outbidding their competitors or at least taking up some search real estate.

As an affiliate, it is your responsibility to read the merchant terms carefully before embarking on trade name bidding.

As an affiliate manager, I am advising my advertiser-clients who are doing their own PPC campaign to issue a prohibition on tradename bidding. In cases where the advertisers do not perform any ppc campaign, it makes sense though to allow affiliates to bid rather than have competitors take up the sponsored listing space.

Anyway, one of the considerations that would come up once advertisers implement the new policy is monitoring the erring affiliates and canceling their transactions. Some networks do not provide a tool to report specific affiliate referring url. In this case you would need access to tools that would help me identify the affiliates who are violating the new policy. Another solution is creation of script that detects referring url and automatically bypasses tracking of sale if the link was violating your SEM policy.

If you need help on setting up such script or assistance in your affiliate program, feel free to contact me for consultation.

No Reprieve For Wall Street, Great Times for Forex

2010-07-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading is unlikely to get a reprieve this month as relentless worries about consumer confidence and the economy. Many fundamental analysts and economists have long-been warning about the market being overdue for a correction, but none of them could say exactly when it was going to happen. This could embolden bears to drive the market below new lows for 2010.

Moreover, the recent news on the economic slowdown in China is a serious concern for many investors. Figures showed manufacturing output slowing across large parts of the world, posing further challenges to leading economies as they attempt to shore up shaky fiscal positions without falling back into recession.

Many investors have found this alternative in the forex market. Unlike other financial markets the forex market is showing resiliency in this crisis. This is due to the fact that in the forex market one invests in a currency's value relatively to another currency. One is always buying and selling at the same time. Therefore one can profit when one currency weakens against another just as much as if it were strengthening against the same currency. In fact, the instability that the global crisis has introduced into the market is considered by many to be a positive thing. Volatility in the forex market, despite perhaps making it more risky, also provides greater opportunities for profit. The sharper the swings the currencies go through against each other, the more forex traders stand to profit.

Some people still hesitate to start trading forex since they've never tried it before. This is where the eToro platform comes in. The eToro forex trading platform is a perfect place to get started in the forex market because eToro provides you with all the advantages of forex trading incorporated into a simple and visual interface. eToro's revolutionary trade visualization make it easy for forex novices to acquire trading skills in no time.

eToro's educational guides, tutorials and forums also give you access to all the forex information you can possibly require. You can then discuss this information in eToro's chats, take part in free to enter trading challenges, and take a tip from the pros using eToro's Top Traders' Insight tool. You can also practice forex trading using virtual money with real live market prices.

Now, more than ever, it's time to give forex trading a shot. Download the eToro platform for FREE today to get started!

Starting Online Business through Blogs

2010-06-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, many blogs had departed from its original purpose of being a window to one's opinion. Well thanks in part to business-minded individuals, blogging is now a revenue earning tool as well.

Well, if you can write and looking to start an online business, here are some strategies on how to make money through blogging:

1. Affiliate Marketing - Affiliate programs utilize your blog to serve as a conduit between advertisers and your readers. You may write a review or share your experience on a certain products. If your readers decide to purchase the product through your affiliate link, you get paid a fixed amount or a percentage of the amount purchased.

2. Adwords. This is one of the most popular way to earn from blogs. By inserting Google widgets on your site, you can host advertisings autopopulated by Google technology.

3. Content Link Marketplace. This marketplace works like adwords but instead of getting paid per clicks or impression, you get paid a fixed amount per month. Your revenue would depend on your Google Page Rank.

4. Sell Advertising Space. This is applicable if you have built a good following already. Many advertisers are willing to pay a good price for blogs with high Page Rank and relevant contents.

5. Market your services. Many professionals can sell their services through their blogs. If you are an SEO expert, you can create some blogs which provides SEO tips and strategies. Prospective clients would be able to see your work philosophy and depth of experience through your blogs.

6. Develop Customer Relation. If you have an existing business, blogs can be used as a tool in keeping your customers up to date by providing tips, exclusive offers, discounts, news, and trends.

Make Money from Blogging

2010-06-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

I like blogging. I like it more when I earn money from my blogs.

That is the case when I started to write blogs with affiliate campaign in mind. Here is the story. Last couple of months, I made three blogs on the CPA campaign of eToro promoting Forex trading. On the blogs, I made some points on how forex trading is my preferred choice over stock exchange trading. At the end of the blogs, I posted a couple of affiliate links which brings interested readers to eToro trading platform. I briefly promoted those blogs on my tweets, facebook and friendster then move on to attend to my other responsibities. I actually forgot about those blogs due to my tight schedule.

Then, I received an email from the affiliate manager of eToro who wanted to touch base with me. I was actually curious why the sudden interest on me so I checked my account - luckily I still remember my username and password. To my surprise - I saw $550 on my account! I reviewed all the transactions and I found out that my blogs had been working for me all along! It was like I planted a seed, forgot about it and yet still able to reap the harvest after a short time.

Well, this confirms that there is money in blogging. In analysing this experience, some important elements that made my blogs successful are the following:

1. Make your blogs relevant and experience oriented.
2. Make your point by arguing for the product or services you are promoting.
3. Direct your affiliate campaign to a landing page that converts well. Usually products with free offers or trials convert better but it should not be a rule of thumb in choosing a campaign.
4. Promote your blogs. Here you can use social media tools which you can use to promote free. If you have some kind of marketing budget, Adwords, Yahoo Search or Facebook ads are good advertising tool.

$75 free trial with Google Adwords

2010-05-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

Here is another freebie which can help you get started on your online advertising campaign with Google Adwords. Personally, I got started on Adwords enticed by such coupon offer. There is a learning curve so it makes sense to use any available offer that gives ease on your advertising pocket.

Here is the link for the Google $75 coupon:
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/adwordscoupon/

The coupon is applicable for those who have an address in the USA or Canada and have not yet
started promoting their website or blog pages with Google.

There are many ways to make good use on this offer but I suggest you run a pay per lead campaign. You can do so by creating a review or article on a CPA offer where you are approved to promote. To yield better results, use the local targeting options on Google Search which help you get more quality leads. The cost of clicks and impression may be staggering for some niche so make sure you choose research extensively before starting your campaign. If you are not conscientious in choosing your campaign, I can tell you that $75 will not last a full day.

Another tip you can use is to put a limit on your daily spending and place a maximum bid on CPC cost. You don't want want to overspend on a non-converting keywords. Review your campaign regularly and suspend bidding on non-converting keywords. Try to find long tail keywords which generally delivers highly conversion rate.

Most of the tricks of the trade will be discovered as you get your hands dirty. So get started now and see if Adwords can deliver more customers for you.

Ecopaper Affiliate Program

2010-05-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

A new shopping trend has been shaping the market for the past two years.

This trend is more popularly hyped as "Going Green". The Green culture identifies with those people who pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles, which can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations. This increasingly popular pursuit has slowly defined business and consumer decisions.

The trend is so defining that it would certainly help if affiliates open their campaigns to these green brands and products. So allow me to recommend one of the Green programs that I am managing on Shareasale - the Ecopaper Affiliate Program.

Ecopaper.com is the first to create and market treeless paper of superior quality. Every sheet of the treeless paper is uniquely handmade in an organic process which constantly promotes the development of the International Green Movement.

The program offers 10-20% commission on purchases online. The program boasts of a wide range of affiliate tools that bloggers, publishers and webmasters can use. Below is a showcase on how our partner blogs/websites are promoting Ecopaper:

The Ultimate Green Store -The site utilizes our product feed tool which allows storefront display on the affiliate websites.

EcoFriendly Printer - The site utilizes our text link tool which incorporates his affiliate link contextually into his published content.

Ecolect - The site makes use of the Ecopaper banner tool which is prominently displayed on their blog page.

Happy Hippie - This hip site utilizes both the banner and textual ads to promote the Ecopaper program.

Widgets - You can also choose from a wide range of widgets and advanced html tools similar to the sample below.

If you are interested to join the program, all you have to do is create an account at Shareasale.com through this link: http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=23528

Free Report on Top 100 Brands

2010-03-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

One way of getting a good grasp on consumer decision-making worldwide is through published research and study on the top brands. My favorite tool for this is the Brandz Report.

The 2009 BrandZ Top 100 Brands Report was recently published and now available for free download. The Top 100 includes brands from almost every industry category. The highlights of the report is the ascent of Google to the number 1 position. The study also reports that Google became the world’s first $100 billion brand.

The report will help you understand the leading brands and suggest possibilities that can benefit your own brands. You can find actionable recommendations with demonstrated financial results so you can also maximize the ROI of your own brand strategy.

Many marketing professionals will find this report indispensible as they plan their marketing strategies for the near term growth. My favorite information is the discussion on the trends which is now guiding me when I research for a new niche to work on.

Download the full report now - it's FREE!

Free $75 Credit on Yahoo Search Marketing

2010-03-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

I have another freebie that you can avail from the Visa Business Network. Now you can take a crack on Search Marketing using the Yahoo sponsored search tool. Visa Business Network is a good community where you can connect with other small businesses for feedback and inspiration. When I signed up last year on this network, I was able to use free $100 worth of Facebook credits which helped me grow my website and fan page. I guess that offer on Facebook had expired and now they are giving away the $75 credit on Yahoo Search Marketing.

This is a good opportunity to learn the ropes of search marketing through Yahoo. You will be able to learn how to create ads that would appear in search results and other popular sites. I advise that you use the free credit wisely by not bidding immediately. Instead make sure you watch of the free webinar on Yahoo first as this will give you very valuable tips on how to optimize your search marketing campaigns.

Only one coupon will be issued per Visa Business Network member business. You must be a new U.S. Yahoo! Search Marketing advertiser who has not had an active Yahoo! Search Marketing account within the last 13 months.

Starting a Web Hosting Reseller Business

2010-03-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

One of the viable business opportunities for web-based professionals is the Hosting Reseller Program. There are a number of Internet Service Providers who have opened their door for the resellers. Such program will definitely complement your successful online business and help you make money with less effort.

In simplest term, web hosting is the online facility which acts as the storage for web pages. This facility is also known as web servers which will be stored inside of a data center. This data center is constantly connected to the internet with high speed connections so that your web pages are accessible through the internet.

A hosting reseller is someone who buys or leases web hosting resources from an internet service provider and resells those services to others. There are different ways to earn from this program. Most small web hosting companies start by reselling web space provided by other companies through web hosting reseller programs. There are different models for the reseller partnership. Below are the most common:

Per –Account Reseller Program

Under this program, a company or individual will appear as a web hosting company in its own. Partners under this program will not handle sales and support; and in effect will be putting on their own brand on GSI’s service. The reseller buys the hosting service at a lower price and resells it to their customer at a higher price. The reseller will have no control over the hosting plans and will be dependent upon GSI for setting up their customer’s account.

· Private Label Reseller Program

Under this program a reseller purchase a quantity of web space and bandwidth from GSI Hosting. The reseller has the ability to slice that into pieces and create their own hosting plans. The customers would not be able to ascertain that they are buying from a reseller plan, and they would not be able to know about the parent company. Typically, GSI should provide a control panel for each company or individual who applies for this reseller program. Private Label Resellers will have control in setting up customer accounts and provide basic support for them. They will utilize shared hosting – also known as “virtual hosting”. Shared hosting provides web hosts with the opportunity to share the cost of a fast and redundant backbone connection, and provides them with the ability to host their own sites on powerful and professionally managed servers.

· Virtual Private Server (VPS) Reseller Program

The VPS reseller plan is for resellers who want to utilize the full power of a dedicated server with no resource limits and no resource sharing with other resellers. VPS allows resellers to multiplex resources on a dedicated server, using specialized software technology. Unlike shared hosting, VPS provides resellers with most root functions typically only available to the server administrator.

· Server Reseller Program

Under this program, resellers can use a dedicated server to run their own hosting business with no resource limit and no resource sharing with other resellers. In other words, the server is dedicated to the one reseller, but a shared server for that reseller’s clients. Dedicated servers create a higher level of responsibility for the reseller. The reseller is responsible for administering the server as they run their business. Besides the monthly cost of the dedicated server, there is the cost of managing the server which may include hiring or outsourcing a server administrator to manage it.

Dedicated servers are perfect for businesses with numerous clients in industries such as interactive web design or graphic design.

How Podcasts Help Affiliate Marketers with their Strategies

2010-03-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

Top affiliates are recently harnessing the power of Podcasting in improving their affiliate revenues. Unlike blogging where a target market needs to read pages and pages of information about a product, brand, or service, podcasting makes the virtual experience easier for the the target audience as they simply listen to a talk or conversation on a specific topic of interest. In a fast paced world, such tool can provide a lasting impact on current affiliate marketing strategies.

Podcasts are more effective as revenue earner if marketers ensure that their recordings can sustain the interest of the listeners and ultimately spur them into a suggested action. Other characteristics of an effective podcast are content-driven, informative, and offer real value to listeners. These qualities help to establish credibility not only in the industry, but to one's target audience as well. Credibility plays a lot of role in this particular stream. So it is important that podcasters avoid "hard-selling" a product or service as many listeners will immediately detect if what you are saying is self-serving.

The fact that you have listeners ready to lend an ear to what you have to say on a particular topic tells that you have entered the first base of selling a particular product or service. Podcasting can help marketers take advantage of such highly targeted, high value listeners. If the recording offers great information and puts a certain product or service in a good light without overemphasizing, listeners will be more inclined to learn about it.

Many Affiliate Marketing podcasts such as Affiliate Marketing Insider and SmallBizPod offer great tips and techniques for affiliate marketers and website owners. What’s great is that they interview industry experts, provide in-depth information, and ask questions that most listeners want to ask.

SmallBizPod for example, focuses on providing information for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. Through the podcasts they produce, small business owners get insider knowledge on how to better their establishment and be able to attract more customers online and offline as well. Affiliate Marketing Insider, on the other hand, provides great tips and techniques for marketing strategies straight from the experts, and helps its listeners stay at the forefront of this ever-changing industry.

Affiliate Bidding on Trademarked Keywords

2010-03-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

As an affiliate manager, I notice that many PPC affiliates do not always follow rules laid out by their merchant partner. One of the most frequent violation is bidding on trademarked term. Well, it does make sense that these keyword terms convert more since many peole clicking on the merchant's name have almost made up their mind about the buying on the store. PPC advertisers who willfully violate this restiction are usually faced with eventual reversal of their commissions or even removed from the campaign.

Now more than ever, this practice is more scrutinized by merchants and networks. Affiliate programs are now being structured carefully so that affiliates can never out-bid the merchant. Most networks have wisened up and instituted reporting that identifies the referring url. The affiliate managers have also been checking on search engines and monitoring violations more frequently.

PPC affiliates, who keep on doing this practice, do not recognize the fact that these merchants have invested a lot to build their name recognition. This practice also unnecessary ramps up the merchant's cost in bidding on their business name!

Below are some things that affiliates can do in their PPC affiliate campaign to avoid receiving infraction from the merchants:

1. Read carefully and abide with the terms and condition on PPC bidding
2. If bidding on trademarked term is allowed, make sure you use the allowed text and image assets.
3. Do not misrepresent yourself as the 'official site' owner.
4. Ask your merchants for keyword suggestions.
5. When in doubt, don't hesitate to clarify with your affiliate manager.

It is also good to reach out to the merchants and see if you can get any arbitrage arrangement. Some merchants may not be doing PPC campaigns on minor search engines and you can offer to do the campaign for them so they push down the competitors there.

Recap of Affiliate Events last January

2010-02-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

I've been to two great affiliate shows last month - Affiliate Summit West and Linkshare Symposium. Both events attracted a huge number of attendees which made networking very easy. I would like to share with you the inputs and information I received from these shows.

Affiliate Summit West, Las Vegas (January 17-20). The summit was probably one of the most attended summit yet, selling out two weeks before the event. Despite of my procratination, I was lucky to be able register online before it sold out. My favorite is the Meet Market where I was able to get in touch with key accounts like Buy.at, Commission Junction, MarketHealth, Formetocoupon and Affiliate.com. More than anything, I was able to close a couple of network deals for our OPM company. The exhibitors' area was teeming with people, products, ideas and FREEBIES. I went home with a lot of networks and goodies!

Linkshare Symposium, San Francisco (January 27-28). The Linkshare event was very informative as it outlines the best practices and current trends in the network. The session hall was full packed as most Linkshare partners and associates were in attendance. The event was capped by parties and networking sessions. Although exhibitors are not as large as ASW10, I appreciate the very cordial reception from several exhibitors like NorthFace and Lego.

Attending such events is invaluable to your online businesses. You are cheating yourself out of growing your business by skipping such networking opportunities. Remember, meeting online partners face to face is invaluable in making your mark in the industry.

Major Affiliate Events for 2010

2010-01-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and it's time to mark our calendar on important events lined up in the affiliate industry. In order to stay up to date and at the front line of the latest trends and news for affiliate marketing, it would be best to attend seminars, conventions, and symposiums held annually to help website owners develop and enhance their affiliate marketing strategy.

One of the popular conventions in the US for affiliate marketing is the Affiliate Summit, which is held in both the west coast and the east coast at different dates. The 2010 Affiliate Summit West will be held on January 17-19, 2010 in Las Vegas at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, while the 2010 Affiliate Summit East will be held on August 15-17, 2010 in New York City at the Hilton New York. Affiliate Summit is a three-day conference that includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks. Multiple session tracks will also be available, covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.

Another popular affiliate marketing event slated for 2010 is the Affiliate Convention, which will be held in Denver, Colorado on June 21-22, 2010. This convention features a line-up of thought leaders in the affiliate and search engine marketing sectors, and is a unique opportunity to meet and share ideas with the brightest people in the affiliate marketing industry without having to pay for any fees.

These conventions offer internet marketing professionals an invaluable opportunity to gather and share information and strategies on how to launch an effective affiliate campaign, stay on top of the latest Internet trends and news, as well as how to generate powerful optimized content that will drive traffic to their web pages.

Major networks like Linkshare and Commission Junction have also scheduled symposiums and networking opportunities. Make sure you keep tab on these events as well.

I am scheduled to attend the Affiliate Summit West Las Vegas and Linkshare Symposium San Francisco this January. Feel free to contact me if you want to set a meeting.

Green Monday Spending

2009-11-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

Brick and mortar stores are preparing for the massive discount hunting for the coming Black Friday. E-tailers on the other hand are preparing for the anticipated online spending for Cyber Monday when most workers would be coming back to their work desk and continue their bargain hunting online. Well it's Holiday season and people are starting to spend their money for year-end inventory clearing sales.

eBay is departing from the Cyber Monday tradition as they focus for the Green Monday which is identified as the second Monday of December. The logic is that online spending usually peaks during that period when people make sure that their online purchases would be shipped in time for Christmas. And they have figures to back up the newly crhistined Green Monday. Research firm comScore (SCOR) reported that last year, Wednesday, Dec. 13 posted a chart-topper with $667 million digital dollar in sales.

To clarify, the term 'Green' actually means cash not the usual environmental connotation. Ebay employees coined the term this month after realizing that, for the past three years, the strongest sales day for Shopping.com and other eBay sites was the second Monday of December.

Aggressive promotional activity by etailers is expected to effect a spike in purchase. There is still time to get you own promotion in place. If you are an affiliate, this is the best time to strategize your campaign and put them on place. If you are a merchant, you still have time to pull something together. So don't procastinate.

Promote a B2B Program and earn $125 Commission

2009-11-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

There is no better time to promote SEOP’s superior services to other businesses than now, especially since the financial sector is slowly rebounding. Businesses are now back on their feet, and consumer spending online and offline, is now coming back to life.

However, as can be observed, a significant number of businesses are shifting from traditional to Internet marketing as more and more consumers turn to the World Wide Web for information on products and services. That is why the demands for Search Engine Optimization and other online marketing services are now increasing, as companies bid for the highest ranking on organic searches and work to build a stronger Web presence.

Today, we at SEOP are leading the way in providing companies the best ranking possible on search engines. Most importantly, SEOP provides clients with better conversion rates, giving them the best value for their money. Our success in delivering unparalleled results to our clients is based on our approach, which focuses on how the future of Web searches will become more sophisticated.

Because your efforts have been instrumental in our growth, we are giving away a $20 affiliate commission on leads, plus a $150 bonus on each lead that you send our way that signs up with our affiliate program. And to help increase your success, we have developed new and best-converting creatives for your Internet marketing campaigns. Visit your account today to learn more about our new banners and links.

Directing your passion towards Affiliate Marketing

2009-11-25T20:43:00.003-08:00

Have you ever wondered about what sets a successful affiliate marketing campaign apart from the rest? It is a fact that some affiliate marketers drop out of the program after a few weeks, but what are the reasons? Chances are they thought that running an affiliate marketing campaign gives them access to easy money. For others, though, online marketing is just a tough nut to crack.

The truth of the matter is there is just no shortcut to success in affiliate marketing. As with any other types of business models, online marketing entails having the right mindset, patience, entrepreneurial skills and passion.
So how do you run an online marketing campaign?

First, know what you are really up to. Affiliate or online marketing is a business.

As such, it involves some painstaking effort to see what works and what doesn’t.
Running an affiliate marketing campaign also involves passion. The basic concept that you have to believe and be passionate about your product to be able to sell it effectively is also true for online marketing. When you are just starting out, it’s best to promote a product that you are really passionate and knowledgeable about. Most of the time, there’s no point in selling car parts when you don’t know even one iota about cars.

So, what are you so passionate about?

11th Day of the 11th Month - Holiday Sales Strategy

2009-11-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Consumerism has defined how we celebrate holidays. Thanks to the creative minds of marketing professionals most of our holidays are now tied up to discount offers or time-sensitive sales.

Well, for obvious reason that people are free to do a lot of non-work related stuff such as 'shopping' on holidays, stores are competing with each other during such occasions to get a chunk of our greenbacks. This common marketing practice helped in evolving our consumer spending habits on holidays.

Yahoo Search, for example, posted an increase in searches for 'Veteran Day Sales', 'November 11 sale', Macy's Veterans Day sales, 'Sears Veteran day sale' and 'Veteran day free meals'. Many online companies are now recognizing this by using holidays and events in their consumer promotions.

One strategy that could help your online business grow is to constantly update your website to incorporate these time-sensitive promotions. It will certainly boost your conversion if consumers see that your online store is responsive to current trends and events. These time sensitive campaigns would help you strike a chord in the pervading interest of your shoppers. This will also give your business a positive impression of being trendy.

If you are looking to get a good search result ranking for these consumer spending holidays, you should start to do your work in advance in tying your SEO campaigns to these events. So planning several months in advance really boosts your chances of landing on top search results of your targeted keywords.

Start to plan your next campaign now by picking up that calendar. Look for an event that you think would be a good match to your business and ramp up a promotion. Then wait for the customers to come and bring you more sales.

MyAds' Free $75 Advertising Credits

2009-10-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

In previous blogs, I gave you generous free credits on Facebook and Yahoo Search Marketing. Today, I have another exclusive opportunity for run so you can run advertising on the MySpace network. You can get a special holiday $75 Click Credit for all NEW MyAds account. By the way, this offer is courtesy of ExperienceAdvertising.com.

MySpace recently launched their MyAds marketing tool which provides exclusive targeting feature so you can advertise to millions of U.S. users. With MyAds you can pinpoint a niche group based on their hobbies, interests, age, gender and/or location.

$75 MyAds credit features:
- Target more than 1,100 interest categories - from sports enthusiasts to wine lovers.
- Per Click or Per Impression
- Target those who are specific to your offer this holiday season.
- Offer good for new customers only. Expires 11/15/09

To Redeem:
1. Go to http://bit.ly/3q02k4 and get started.
2. ENTER: HOLIDAYZ at checkout

If you are interested to know more on how you can profit from Myads, you can attend free webinars by MySpace: https://advertise.myspace.com/webinar.html

Resources To Find Top Publishers

2009-10-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

There are a few tools to assist in mining for possible true affiliates and publishers that may either publish articles with links, place banners, etc. Most web researchers would usually use popular researching tools like Alexa, Quancast, or Google Search. Well frankly, I am no different from them just that I am using additional tools that complement my web research. I would like to share them with you today.

Below are other resources or tools you can use:

· Seomoz.org

With this tool, you can take your top ranking competitors and study their inbound links to see what’s giving them the extra nudge to the top of the search results.

http://www.seomoz.org/toolbox/backlinks - because you can put in a domain name for any website, product home page, forum, e-zine etc. etc. and click “Check Backlinks” and then click on results to open up and presto! You got a field of daises to go picking.

http://www.seomoz.org/toolbox/pagerank - because sometimes you want a quick way to see the pagerank so you know if the site is important to consumers in Google eyes. This works good too in finding out how they are viewed; http://www.seomoz.org/trifecta

http://www.seomoz.org/toolbox/indexed - because you can put in a site and find all the hidden or not obvious pages they have for the site. Just saves time and you can find things like blogs and forums where you can take that url address and use Linkscape above to find other sites linking to the forum/blog as an example

Internet Success Spider

This tool helps you uncover the super affiliates in your niche. The software was developed by Neil Shearing who eventually decided to provide the software for FREE.
http://www.scamfreezone.com/spiderapp/download.html

If for some reason it doesn’t work go through the process and get it from: http://www.grabthespider.com/

Affiliate Elite

Find the best affiliates to promote your products by simply placing a competitor's website into Affiliate Elite. With this tool, you can have instant access to a list of affiliates promoting their product. You can also unlock competitor's keywords that are making them money and use them for your campaign.

http://www.affiliateelite.com

1. Click here to visit the video training center

2. Click here to download all 12 guru strategy audio sessions

Visa Business Network Free Advertising Credits

2009-10-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

As a small business operator, I've found great value in joining the Visa Business Network. The business community is an online network of small business owners where they share, connect, learn and pursue their passion for their business.

I jumped into this community few weeks ago after I was enticed by the free advertising credits. Yet in such a short span, I already gained a lot interesting learning experience to help me grow my startup business. Aside from interesting success stories, I also get to try top advertising opportunities for FREE - which was really the reason why I joined the group.

Right now the community is still giving away the $100 Facebook credits and $75 Yahoo Search Marketing credits. Well those free credits definitely help me to get started in online advertising and gave me the confidence to go the next level. From experience, Facebook advertising does not convert well generally. The traffic there are not really into consumerism. But if you are looking to develop a social community base or to establish online business reputation then its worth advertising there.

Search marketing in Yahoo on the other hand provides a good alternative to Google adwords. Yahoo has a good community base of loyal traffic and it is something that you can tap to grow your business. So far, I've seen good conversion for my PPC campaign for Dish Network through the Dish Daddy program.

I recommend you check out the Visa Business Network and avail of the free advertising credits. Let's connect and help each other grow our online business.

Bar Coded Google

2009-10-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

No there's no problem with your screen. It's not infected by virus as well. The bar on your Google search is just a way to pay tribute to the day, i.e., on 7 October 1952, US Patent # 2,612,994 was issued for a "Classifying Apparatus and Method" now popularly named Bar Code.

A group of three intellectuals headed by Bernard Silver put their mind together to work on a system in which they described both the linear and bullseye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read product information. The system was such a hit in automation of supermarket' checkout process that it had become a universal instrument. In point-of-sale management, the use of barcodes provides very detailed up-to-date information on key aspects of the business, enabling decisions to be made much more quickly and with more confidence.

Do you think bar code is something you can use for your business? Here is a link to a free online Barcode generator that can provide you the flexibility to meet your most demanding labeling needs: http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php

Have fun with barcode! Get a barcode of yourself at http://www.barcodeart.com

Below is my own bar code:

Recession Ends...What's Next?

2009-09-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

Happy days are here again - or at least knocking at our door - as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke recently told US Congress. The financial crisis that had changed the way consumers spend may have already stopped its contraction. Mid-term reports had shown that seven of the 10 indicators in the Conference Board Leading Economic Index pointed upward, including manufacturing hours worked and unemployment claims. There is now a growing consensus among analysts that economic activity will increase slightly over the remainder of 2009.

While it's been said that some verticals in the affiliate industry managed to thrive during tough economic times, a confidence boost to the consumer spending will give a shot in the arm to the whole industry. Maybe it's not yet ripe for irrational exuberance but it’s definitely time to position your campaigns to be responsive as credit starts to loosen up further encouraging consumers to start spending again.

Now is the time to begin preparing your business to emerge from the recession and position itself to take advantage of new opportunities. Take a closer look at the industry, operations and future opportunities. This should allow you to prosper in the improving economic environment and take full advantage of opportunities. Avoiding losses due to failing ventures and having access to key allies, is crucial to surviving and thriving as the economy improves.

09/09/09

2009-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for 09/09/09?

Looks like we are heading into another calendrical anomaly! Well many marketers are excited about the symmetrical date as many are synchronizing their product launch, movie premieres, weddings, sale pricing and promotions to the magic number 9.

This numerical occurrence is certainly a good idea for marketing campaign and promotional gimmicks. It is always good to play on the imagination of people. Here are some ideas you can use:

Tshirt for $9.99 as a 1-day sale
Meal for $9.99
One-day wedding special for $99.99
Mystery Gift Card for $9.99

Planning your promotion to coincide with events and significant occurrences is a good way to drive sales so keep it mind. But don't expect to get another numerical symmetry for single digit dates as this is the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.

More on number 9:

The symmetry and significance is further highlighted in the numerologist's world since Pythagoras, the famous Greek mathematician, consider the number 9 as a unique digit rich with its own properties. Number 9 in Pythagoras Square is responsible for mind, memory and clairvoyance of a person.

The Chinese are so enamored by the number 9 that that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms.

Pricing Your Products For Affiliate Sales

2009-09-02T21:24:00.001-07:00

In previous post, I had discussed the need to hire an Affiliate Manager whether in an outsourced, freelance or full time position. Having decided which professional is best fit to help your business model. Now you are all set to commit to develop an affiliate program.

The next concern that you would need to attend to is how should you proceed with pricing your products.Inasmuch as an affiliate program is a performance-based compensation model, there are costs that you would have to consider to maintain your profitability. Some costs that immediately comes to my mind are the affiliate commission, third party tracking cost with corresponding setup and monthly minimum fee, marketing cost, promotion costs, incentives, plus several more miscellaneous fees.

Pricing might be the most difficult marketing task that you would do - whether you are a big or small business operator. Handling it carelessly could spell the success of your business endeavors.

There are many approaches to do when deciding how to price your products. One is the Parity Pricing wherein you would base your price on the competitors pricing scheme. Using this method, you might price your product at par with that of the competitor which could give impression that you have an equal product which tends to connote as competitor products. Pricing below the competitor could signify inferior product.

Another approach is the cost-plus pricing. This typefied by adding the costs and a profit margin. The key figure is the Net Profit Margins (total sales - all costs). This pricing scheme identifies easily how much you are bringing home as profit.

Both of this pricing schemes has its own pitfalls which might cause you to ultimately lose your capital investment. In my opinion, the best way is to balance your pricing against the market share. Competition on the internet is getting harsher and you would usually see prices dropping beyond your expectation.You can have a leverage on price wars if you have a foresight to segment you markets and products. Pricing should be carefully computed with counter actions of competitors in mind. Also, the cost should not be a definitive element in identifying how much you would be selling your products.

If you are selling your products through affiliate marketing, you need to consider how much the consumers are willing to pay for your product. Once you identify this, make sure you have enouch leverage for commissions, coupon offers and other variable costs. Say the market is willing to pay $35 for a pair of shoes, identify the cost of raw product, packaging, shipping and other miscellaneous costs. Then check how much competitors are giving commissions to their affiliates. Commission rate should always be competitive since you can always recover the cost of customer acquisition - just keep in my the lifetime value of your customers which you would have ownership after affiliates have referred them to your website.. Once you identify these factors, make sure you leave room for future incentives and other rewards. With all the information at hand, i would suggest you price your product at 10-20% higher than the price consumer are open to buy. This is to give you opportunities for future Discount or Deal offers which you can use strategically to attract buyers.

There are other considerations on pricing which I would be happy to discuss in future blogs.

Using Coupon Codes and Promotional Links

2009-08-31T07:58:00.000-07:00

Who would not like a price off when you are purchasing online? Would you not like to hold on to that small portion of that hard-earned, merchant-bound money? Everyone one wants a good deal for themselves. Coupon codes and promotional links are certainly not something that many of us are willing to disregard.

Recent economic downturn had also spurred interest in coupon codes. Suddenly, television and print media are all abuzz about online coupon codes. A number of coupon sites had been featured; and with the power of mass media- many buyers are now picking up their codes before making their purchase online. Moreover, shopping cart itself spurs the interest for coupon code among its buyers. I, for one, had many times ready to conclude a shopping experience only to pause the action upon seeing the field for a coupon code. My mind would be alerted- Am I missing a chance to save money by buying now? I would then scramble to google the product that I am buying for a possible coupon codes or other discount opportunities.

Coupon codes and promotional links abound. But how do we use them? Here is a quick guide on how you can put to good use a vast number of coupon codes available online.

There are two main types of online shopping promotions that you will encounter. One is called the "coupon code” and the other is a "link only" promotion. Most online merchants will offer one or the other when running online promotions.

Linked Coupon

A linked coupon does not have an actual coupon code to activate the promotion, but instead a special link. The discount has been built-in into the product pricing so you are assured of getting the discount upon check out. All you need to do is to click the link to the online store where you will get the discount automatically when you conclude the purchase process.

Coupon Code

Coupon code gives you a specific code which you would need to input at the conclusion of your shopping experience. A typical coupon code is in this format: Save10Eos. The ‘Save’ word tells you what kind of discount you are having; ‘10’ tells you the percentage or amount to be discounted; and ‘Eos’ is brand or product to be discounted. This particular code tells you that Eos Wireless is giving you 10% discount on your purchase. Though codes do not usually follow a strict standard format, you can usually spot them in similar word construction.

Depending on the merchant, there are a few different places to enter the coupon code. In some cases, the coupon can be entered while in the shopping cart. Other times, the coupon is entered on the order review page prior to checkout. Look around carefully for the coupon "submit" area the first time you purchase from any website.

Usually the merchant will have a page showing how much you are being charged for the merchandise, how much is being discounted because you submitted your discount code, and any shipping fees that may be applied. This should show on an order page before you submit approval of the charges. If you enter the coupon code and do not see the discount on the order review page, do not place the order.

Coupon Terms

Coupon code and linked coupon usually specify terms and condition on its usage. This is to clarify and protect the merchants from unnecessary misunderstandings in claiming the promotion offer.

1. Expiration. Coupon promotion may indicate an expiration time for the offer to end. Many times merchants will omit an expiration date so that they can monitor the promotion and discontinue it in the event that it receives more response than they had planned. The online merchants can alter or discontinue any promotion at any time and it is virtually impossible to stay on top of what so many merchants are doing with their promotions. If your coupon does not work, it is best to look for another one on this site or any of the other several coupon sites online. Complaining to the merchants is generally not going to make them honor any discontinued code or link, because it is within their right to expire promotions at anytime.

2. Transaction Frequency. Most coupon codes specify that only one promotion can be used per transaction or per item purchased. Discounts are applied on new purchases.

3. Connect with other offers. Many merchants are running different discount offers and you should take time to check if the codes are valid for use with other existing offers.

Basically, this information should open the door to your discounted online shopping experience. Take time to check out several coupon sites for great discount offers. Some coupon codes are exclusive to certain coupon/discount sites so I strongly suggest that you subscribe to some of these sites for regular offers publication. Have fun saving money while you shop!

How to Start Your Own Affiliate Program

2009-08-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Starting an affiliate marketing program probably is one of the smartest business decision you will do as an online merchant. Affiliate marketing is a cost effective way of marketing your product as it is performance based remuneration. Imagine the cost you will incur if you employ hundreds of sales associate trying to sell your product. The cost is staggering and you would have to pay salary even for non-performing sales associates! Affiliate marketing negates this manpower cost by remunerating publishers only as they perform. The action required of the publishers or affiliates maybe in various criteria depending on your business mode. Some pay as referred clients get to accomplish registration form. Some get paid based percentage of sales. Others get paid a fixed value for every transaction or sales referred. But the best part is that you only pay your affiliates when a sale is actually made!

Inasmuch as it a no-brainer to run an affiliate marketing campaign, there is still the need to attract affiliates who would be willing to promote your program. This is probably one of areas of affiliate marketing where the most the work would be entail after you have your program set-up. Where will you be able to recruit affiliates to refer web traffic to your business?Where will you get the platform to launch your affiliate program?

Affiliate Networks

The best bet I can think of is by joining an affiliate network. Affiliate networks have membership of thousands of affiliates or publishers who might be interested to partner with your campaign. An affiliate network will also help you set up an affiliate program and prepare the fundamentals to have your campaign running in no time. Leading affiliate networks are Commission Junction, Linkshare, Shareasale and Google Affiliate Network . You'll have to fill out an application describing the nature of your business and your Web site. You'll also have to agree to the terms of the affiliate network, pay a set-up fee and make a deposit to cover the cost of future affiliate commissions. Some affiliate networks also charge a yearly fee or monthly fee for their services. Estimated cost of joining an affiliate network would be between $1,000 and $5,000. You will also pay the affiliate network a percentage of every payout to an affiliate which is around 20-30% of affiliate commission. In return, the affiliate network will help you set everything up, keep track of all the activity in your affiliate program, issue your affiliates checks and distribute your links to appropriate affiliates. They will give you the option of reviewing prospective affiliates, or you can choose to accept all interested affiliates automatically.

Affiliate Management Software

Setting up your own in-house affiliate program is another option. But as I have said, doing so would be a burden on terms of finding affiliates to promote your program. The alternative to acquiring affiliates, maintaining an affiliate program yourself, is significantly more complicated. Among other things, you would have to screen and recruit all affiliates yourself, purchase and acquire a tracking software, assist your affiliates on how to set up links to your site, set up an accounting system for paying all of your affiliates and set up a help line to assist all your affiliates. There are a number of traffic-tracking software applications that will probably cost between $100 and $500, significantly less than joining an affiliate network. AffiliateWiz and DirectTrack are two of the tracking software that I am aware of. Another affiliate management option is the "Point and Click" web based interface which is managed by 1Automationwiz. Another option is to sign on to a company that keeps track of the traffic involved in your affiliate program by running it through their site on the way to yours. Using one of these companies cost about the same as tracking software, and they also only assist you in tracking.

I guess this information would have given you the quick summary of what your options are for starting an affiliate program. I will discuss in later blogs the affiliate management’s responsibilities and roles. Maintaining the business end of an affiliate program is more than we can explore in this article. Feel free to contact me if you would need assistance in setting up your affiliate program.

New Promotional Tools from Pure Natural Science Program

2009-08-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Pure Natural Science Program offers Prime Longevity - an effective anti-aging and longevity supplement. We appreciate your partnership; and as a valued partner, we are offering you a BONUS of $3 just by generating 10 unique clicks.

The sale page is : http://purenaturalscience.com/save10

To join the program: Click here

Check out current Pure Natural Science Program offers:
1. Widgets
2. Banners and Text Links
3. $5 bonus on 1st sale
4. $10 bonus with 3 sales
5. 26% commission on all sales!
6. 120 Cookie Day Expiration
7. Two-tier commission and referral bonus

and so much more....

New Deals and Promotions:
1. Save $15 on Prime Longevity - Auto shipped
2. Best Value! Prime Multi - Savings of $20 per bottle!
3. Save $10 with 2 month supply

Banners available:

HssSurf.com Affiliate Program on the Google Affiliate Network

2009-08-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Join the HssSurf.com Affiliate Program on the Google Affiliate Network and earn 10% commissions!

HSS Surf is Southern California destinations for apparel, shoes, surf gear and accessories, selling well-known brands such as Billabong, Hurley, Roxy, O'Neill, PacSun and more.

Affiliate Program Details:

$70 Average Order Value
2% Conversion Rate
8% Affiliate Payout - at least 10% for VIP Affiliates!
Product Datafeed Available - also on PopShops.com

HSS Surf is currently featuring UGG Boots, 30% off wet suits, 40% off Reef Shoes, Free Shipping over $55 and a Holiday Sidewalk Sale!

Keyword Policies: Trademark bidding of hsssurf, hsssurf.com and other variations are prohibited at this time.

To join the HSS Surf Affiliate Program, copy the link below in its entirety and paste it into your browser: https://www.connectcommerce.com/secure/partner_app.html?ccmid=K167616

New Promotions for Autoparts123 Program

2009-08-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

We have lined up a variety of promotions to aid your affiliate campaigns. Below you will find links to some of the best offers that Autoparts123 has to offer. You can use these as Monthly Specials and Voucher Codes.

So heat up your commissions with quality auto parts and accessories, and spread the word about Autoparts123.com!

Remember ...
GREAT PROMOTIONS = GREAT COMMISSIONS!

*$5 Bonus from SEOP Performance Team*

Join the SEOP Performance Team and earn $5. As an SEOP Affiliate Partner, you'll get increased commissions for our client campaigns, earn cash bonuses for your first sales, be entered into our monthly and quarterly affiliate contests and more.

We'll deposit $5 directly on your Paypal account at the end of the month. Just send the following information to affiliatemanager @ seop.com:

a. Your first and last name
b. Email address
c. Phone number
d. Website URL(s)
e. Networks and Network IDs (where you participate as an affiliate)

AUTOPARTS123 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

9 - 12% Commission 30-day cookie duration $110 Average Order

Free Shipping Available Coupons and Deals Customized creative

*Rebates and Promotions *

Up to a $30 rebate on Wagner Thermo Quiet Brake Pads

$20 Rebate on Monroe Brake Pads

*COUPON OFFERS*

Receive $5 off on purchases over $99 or more. Use code: 5Auto123

Receive $15 off on purchases over $199 or more. Use code: 15Auto123

Receive $30 off on purchases over $350 or more. Use code: 30Auto123

-Offers are valid until October 31, 2009

View our new links on Linkshare;

If you are a Linkshare member, join here.
If you are new to Linkshare, join here.

Do you want $100 Free Credit for Facebook Ads?

2009-08-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed several advertisements running on Facebook... and wondering if you can run your own advertising there. With 250,000,000 active online users, I am sure you can find a suitable demographics and keywords to target there.

An ad credit lets you advertise your business with social ads on Facebook. You can customize your message, add images—even track results and success. You'll need to be a member of Facebook to use the ad credit, and have or set up a Facebook advertising account with a valid credit card.

Now, what if I tell you that I have a secret that could land your account $100 worth of advertising credits?

Sweet!

(That's what I thought too.)

Basically what you need to do is join a business network and create a free profile. Then check your inbox for an email from the Network with your coupon code. Follow instructions on Facebook to use your coupon code and create your ad within 30 days.

Here’s the link to the application which is free to install:
Free $100 Facebook Credit Application

I think your first hurdle is to get a high enough Clickthrough so that your ad not only sticks but your Cost per Clicks will decrease. You can generate a high CTR by having a relevant ad to the target market you’re trying to reach. FaceBook allows you to target your ads via keywords and/or demographics. Next is to make sure that your ad uses keywords which are relevant to the target market. Then you can upload an image for your ads which attracts attention but doesn’t scream advertisement.

Well I am going to cut this chase short - now that I have the $100 in free credits, let me go ahead and place my ads. Chat with you later!

SEOP Affiliate Program - Earn up to $150 per client acquired

2009-08-12T16:14:00.000-07:00

SEOP is looking for business leads for our Online Marketing AND for our Web Development services. As an affiliate, you can earn $20 per validated business lead! All the leads will be validated to make sure that they are real people with working phone numbers and legitimate inquiries. Incentivized traffic is not allowed.

Also earn $150 when the lead becomes a client. The bonus will be manually added to your account - no expiration date. Whenever they become a client, you get the bonus.

If the referred client decides to call us, you can earn $20 per call!

Review and sign up here: https://www.linkconnector.com/affiliateprogram.htm?mid=35205&lct=s

Here's the landing page (No leakage!):
http://www.seop.com/affiliate-marketing/landing-page/

If you see anything concerning with the campaign or landing page, let us know! We're committed to rewarding YOU, our affiliates for your work!!!!

Huge Back To School Sale

2009-08-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

HssSurf.com will be holding its annual Back to School Sale. Friday, Saturday & Sunday August 14th 15th & 16th. As one of the top surfing and sports accessories and apparel, HssSurf.com is offering affiliates great opportunities to monetize from their websites especially this coming Back to School event.

Back to School Promotion Features:
- All Clothing will be 20-50% Off
- Free Tee Shirt with purchase of $50 or more
- 20% Off Everything online

As affiliate, you can reap the following benefits:

- Generous Commissions
- Average order of $70
- Coupon and Consumer Offers
- High conversion rate
- Custom creative and wide collection of banners and links
Get our links at Google Affiliate Network!

August Consumer Offers for Autoparts123.com Program

2009-08-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for affiliate program on auto parts and accessories? Autoparts123.com Affiliate Program is a great way to monetize on this profitable niche.

Autoparts123 sells quality, brand-name auto parts for almost every vehicle type-make and year, at up to 50% savings and Free shipping for orders over $50.

Publisher Commission
Our baseline commission is a generous 9%. Generate at least 3 sales this month, and earn 10% commission starting September. Our average order is $105.

Consumer Promotions

We’re giving away a Harley-Davidson® Heritage Softail® Classic motorcycle to one lucky winner in The Timken Company Automotive Aftermarket Motorcycle Sweepstakes.

Get a $20 Rebate when you purchase Monroe Ceramics or Dynamics Premium Brake pads

$50 CashBack from Thermo Quiet Brake Pads

Save 10% On Your Next Order
Use Coupon Code 7251756 at checkout!

View our new links on Linkshare.
If you are a Linkshare member, join here.
If you are new to Linkshare, join here.

Earn $5 bonus to join

2009-08-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

We’re looking for some fabulous partners! Join the SEOP Performance Team and earn $5. As an SEOP Affiliate Partner, you’ll get increased commissions for our client campaigns, earn cash bonuses for your first sales, be entered into our monthly and quarterly affiliate contests and more.

Joining is very easy. We’ll deposit $5 directly on your Paypal account at the end of the month. Just send the following information to affiliatemanager - at - seop dot com:

a. Your first and last name

b. Email address

c. Phone number

d. Website URL(s)

e. Networks and Network IDs (where you participate as an affiliate)

What are you waiting for? Send us your Details now and earn an easy $5.

Watch out for our monthly and quarterly contests, sponsored by SEOP and our merchants. Contests are announced monthly on our forum, blog and website, but we’ll also send you an email announcement so you get the heads up first!

See the list of programs that we manage at SEOP.com

Health and Fitness Affiliate Programs

2009-07-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Typically, one chooses to promote affiliate programs that best suit their personal preference or interests. This is the surest way for you to enjoy what you are doing as well as earn revenue along the way. On this post I would like to discuss the idea of promoting health and fitness programs which have been my interest lately.

Fact is I am gaining weight - and I am gaining faster than I would ever accept it. As the weighing scale starts to rocket past my personal limit, I have started to develop an interest on health and fitness. Thus, here is the result of a research I conducted on the profitability of this sector in the affiliate industry.

The health and fitness industry is worth staggering amounts of money in just the USA alone. To get a snapshot of the amounts of money involved here are some figures:

- In 2005, total US fitness club membership reached an estimated 43.2 million while overall industry revenue totaled $15.6 billion. - I am citing the healthier economy figures for obvious reasons...

- The Nutrition Industry is a $75 billion industry in the United States. Product sales through the internet sales channel grew by 25% in 2005 (Nutrition Business Journal), and will continue to grow in the future.

- Total U.S. health care expenditures are projected to increase from $2.17 trillion in 2006 to $2.88 trillion in 2010, with annual increases averaging about 7%.

Well, these figures are simply staggering - and tempting (despite of the current economic slowdown). The good thing about affiliate marketing is that it is cost effective - you can sell other people’s products through the internet and you don’t even have to carry any of the products you sell!

Here are a few examples of some of the names you’ll recognize that have an affiliate program: Wal-Mart, Target, Puritan’s Pride, Drugstore.com, Billy Blanks Tae Bo, GT Xpress, The Firm Exercise Videos, Water 4 Life Ionizers… You can search for health and fitness affiliate programs through the various affiliate networks; Commission Junction, Linkshare, Performics/Google and Shareasale.

I would personally recommend our new program: Prime Longevity of Pure Natural Science

About Pure Natural Science

Pure Natural Science is dedicated to providing products that ensure the highest quality and purity for maximum bio-absorption and effect. PureNaturalScience.com educates as well as alleviates many of the daily stresses and exposure our bodies are bombarded with on a daily basis by supplementing with complementary ingredients and natural products. Eliezer Ben-Joseph is a board certified traditional naturopath with a full practice residing in El Paso, Texas. He holds degrees of MD (MA) Medicina Alternativa, and a D.Sc.. (doctor of science) from ‘The Open International University For Complementary Medicines’ in Sri Lanka. He has studied chiropractic and osteopathic medicine in Israel, Ayurvedic medicine in a temple in India, physical therapy in Amsterdam, and lived 2 years in a teepee studying herbology in northern California.

Join the program at Shareasale now - click here

Pay-Per-Call in Affiliate Marketing

2009-07-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Merchants recognize the special role pay by a Customer Service Phone number prominently displayed on their web store. Aside from giving responsive consumer support, this feature enables the online business to offer more consultative products and services offline.

However, many publishers are wary of this feature as they view it as a form of leakage in properly tracking their affiliate earning. They are afraid they may be losing credit for genuine leads when a customer picks up the phone and dialed the merchants number.

Smarter and more experienced publishers are now addressing this leakage issue. As a result, advertisers are less willing to use affiliate programs for high ticket, more consultative products and services. This has paved the way for the introduction of Pay-per-call scheme which provides the capability to track these leads generated by publishers.

As merchants, you can enjoy the following benefit if you decide to embrace this innovation in the affiliate industry:

- Get high-quality phone leads

- Attract more publishers - Research a new audience

- Utilize increased targeting capabilities

- Complements your existing affiliate program

Inquire with your affiliate network account executive on how you can leverage the pay-per-call into your program.

SEOP Program Management

2009-07-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

SEOP Program Management handles key accounts for affiliate management and development. Participate in top programs and generate revenue from your websites. Check out some of the programs that we manage:

Celazome’s revolutionary skincare line is recommended and used by physicians, hospitals, dermatologists and aestheticians around the country. Already a well-known brand, expect high conversions and great earnings.

Commission baseline: 25%
Network: Commission Junction

Join this program

Pink Ice has great styles for teens and women - clothing, accessories and shoes. Its stores around Southern California help make this campaign successful for its publishers!

Commission baseline: 12%
Network: Google Affiliate

Join this program

Huntington Surf & Sport features a huge selection of Brand Name surfboards, skateboards, mens and womens apparel, surf accessories, sunglasses, footwear, and wetsuits from Hurley, Billabong and more.

Commission baseline: 15%
Network: Google Affiliate

Join this program

Dish Daddy is a recognized distributor the Dish Network, the leading satellite tv provider. Elevate your tv viewing experience!

Commission baseline: 70%
Network: ShareASale

Join this program

Pure Natural Science sells the popular Prime Longevity – a highly effective anti-aging supplement formulated by Dr. Eliezer Ben-Joseph. Available in one-month to continuous supplies.

Commission baseline: 25%
Network: ShareASale

Join this program

Commission baseline: 30%
Network: ShareASale and Pay Per Call

Join this program

Autoparts123.com provides top auto brands at great discounted rates! Autoparts123.com has become one of the most trusted names in the auto parts business, providing only the finest parts in the market.

Commission baseline: 9%
Network: Linkshare

Join this program

Email us at affiliatemanager@seop.com for a complete list of clients.

We’re soon launching the following programs:

Lifestyle Makeover eBook – Clickbank and ShareASale • Premier Healthcare Online – Linkconnector

Visit: http://www.seop.com

Content is still king

2009-07-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

There are reports that the Cyberspace is getting crowded! Well there is no where to go for cyberspace but over-population. And, as more people get accustomed to life with internet, there would be more heightened activities in website development particularly in blogging and social networking.

With this case of cyber-overcrowding comes the question of how do you get your website noticed. Its been said time and time again that the most important thing when it comes to making a successful site is good quality content. Yes- content is still king in maintaining a robust online presence. There are other aspects of web development and marketing but content takes the lead role in defining the success of your website. The challenge is how to get a noticeable website content.

So what tip can I give to help you get noticed online. There are several ways recommended by experts to get noticed in an overcrowded cyberspace. Here are some simple ideas to hook your website traffic:

1. News Angle - be the first to write about something and you are sure to get loads of links.

2. Resource Angle - provide practical and useful articles or a compilation of useful information regarding your area of interest.

3. Humor Angle- this can be videos, pictures, texts or list were you make fun of things regarding your niche. Have you noticed the sudden rise in viral video mostly of comic nature? Everybody loves a good laugh and many people are willing to link to it.

4. Argumentative Angle - dissect a myth or urban legend. Dare to take a different stance in an issue of interest in your niche.

Find the right angle that would be effective for your website. Usually it would help if the catch conforms with your character as it makes the process of integration smooth and natural.

New Method of Searching Online

2009-07-13T02:33:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how quickly the internet changes. What you thought was right three weeks ago when it comes to internet marketing could be obsolete today.

Take for example the way people are using new methods of searching online. Nowadays, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter are slowly changing the way we conduct our searches. When we are looking to find an item to buy online, many web consumers are starting to use their personal network to filter the data coming at them instead of using outright the search engine option.

When looking for a video, people rarely go to Google to search instead they go directly to YouTube. Do you know that demand for video content has made YouTube the No. 2 search engine, ahead of Yahoo? When you want to learn about someone you are considering for a job, do you go to Google first or do you find out if the person has a LinkedIn or Facebook profile?

These and many other examples are showing how decison making have been influenced by the rising popularity of social media. Online businesses are now putting premium on interacting with their web traffic and adding value to their experiences online.

But does this mean that search engines are going away as thing of the past? I dont think so. What I believe is that these giant search engine corporations would morphed into social media friendly. Traditional search will begin to converge with social media, giving a more real time search by indexing these social media players on higher rate than other sites. But until this is realized, online marketers would have to reach out to each individuals by using their social graphs.

Getting Noticed By Publishers

2009-07-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

If you are new in affiliate management, it is easy to be discourage by lack of response from publishers that you are trying to recruit or even those that have already joined your program. As is the common expression among affiliate managers, affiliates have a short memory, so you have to constantly take steps to get your affiliate program noticed for recruitment and later re-noticed for retention.

Understandably, affiliates are themselves busy with their own endeavors and it is normal that they would not be acting on your prodding on your first or second or even the nth email. Needless to say, the first thing you need to do is to get their attention by standing out from among more than 20,000 affiliate programs now competing in the world wide web.

So how do you stand out in this industry?

Experts had identified the following metrics which usually matters to publishers researching on which program to promote:
* conversion rate
* average sale amount
* EPC
* suggested keywords for the PPC search engines
* availability of data feed

Basically, you need to measure your own metrics; and, if your program does not measure up to most competitors then you have to work on fixing your program.

Hitting the Right Spot for SM Pampanga

2009-07-11T00:11:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the funny Bayan DSL Lola Techie commercial?

Yes - I am referring to Lola Techie talking Facebook jargon -like ‘super poke’- with her grandson. I find the short skit downright hilarious as the sixty something lola acts as tech support to her US-based ‘apo’.

Well It seems the commercial had stroked a cord for the Pinoy televiewers as it was an instant hit. It touched so many aspects of the current Filipino society that Bayan DSL was smart enough to release a second installment . This time around, the endeared Lola was deeply wrapped up in a Multi-player Modern Warfare game. I could not pin point whether it was Call of Duty coz frankly I think this cool Grandma is more dork than I am!

Lola Techie is the new face of the modern Filipino. Our society is now adopting into the social media lifestyle where everything is linked and run by technology. So when SM Pampanga decided to launch the My Hot Spot My Spot Free Wi-Fi I think they are hitting the high spots.

With the new Wi-Fi Hotspots facility, SM Pampanga provides Internet access to wireless network devices throughout the shopping mall. This power of connectivity promises a host of added functionalities to the emerging technological consciousness of the Kapampangans as well as the other people in the region. Furthermore, It answers the growing demand to stay connected anywhere and anytime.

So as this new Wi-Fi facility promises more quality and meaningful shopping experience – I would like to commend the management for its good grasp of its consumer needs. Well, I guess I would be spending more time on your mall now – as I can perform my work while hanging out at Gerry’s Grill.

As a parting shot - Kudos to the SM Pampanga Management Team – you’re right on the SPOT!

Pure Natural Science Affiliate Program - Health Supplements Category

2009-07-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

I would like to introduce the Pure Natural Science Affiliate Program on ShareASale. Pure Natural Science features Prime Longevity - an effective anti-aging and longevity supplement that helps slow down the effects of aging, reduces oxidation and toxicity, and gives you more energy and vitality! Learn more about us.

The Pure Natural Science Program has the following to offer you:

1. Widgets, Banners and Text Links
2. $5 bonus on 1st sale
3. $10 bonus with 3 sales
4. At least 20% commission on all sales!
6. Product Datafeed
7. Two-tier commission and referral bonuses
8. Professional Affiliate Management Team to promptly answer your questions and more!

Consumer Promotions include:

1. Free Shipping
2. Save $10 with the order of 2 bottles
3. Save $30 with the order of 3 bottles

This is a great program especially with the recent pandemic scare brought about by the H1N1 or Swine Flu.

Prime Longevity from Pure Natural Science contains Selenium which is your best defense against swine flu or H1N1. Promote as an affiliate and increase your revenue.

Get links @ Shareasale!

RestoreMustangs.com Affiliate Program - Earn 8%-12% Commission

2009-07-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

RESTORECLASSICS.COM RESTORE4X4.COM RESTORETRUCKS.COM RESTOREMUSTANGS.COM YESAUTOPARTS.COM

RestoreMustangs.com Affiliate Program - Earn 8%-12% Commission

SEOP Program Management is proud to introduce you to our new client YESAUTOPARTS! Industry high 8% - 15% commission on every valid sales, and a 30-day cookie makes this program sizzle. With its flagship site - RestoreMustangs.com - you can secure the lowest prices on car parts and accessories - making this program a conversion monster. With the recent popularity of car part niche, we hope you will make the first step on capitalizing on this golden opportunity. Moreover, your consumers will be very happy to be introduced to this high style company - Get your banners up today!

RESTORE MUSTANGS OFFERS:

BUILT-IN DISCOUNTS - We offer built-in discounts for selected spare parts. Your referred traffic will be excited with the generous discounts offered at the site.
LOWEST PRICE GUARANTEE - Our parts experts secure the lowest lowest prices...or we refund the difference.
SPECIAL PRICING ON OVERSTOCKED ITEMS
MOST COMPLETE MUSTANGS PARTS INVENTORY
SEASONAL COUPON OFFERS AND REBATES
PERFORMANCE INCENTIVES
DEDICATED AFFILIATE MANAGER
THIRD PARTY TRACKING SOFTWARE BY AFFILIATE FUTURE
ACCESS TO SISTER SITES PROGRAM -

CLICK HERE TO JOIN!

We welcome your questions concerning this affiliate program in AFFILIATE FUTURE professionally managed by SEOP, Inc. For information please contact your affiliate manager: affiliate at restoremustangs.com

RestoreMustangs.com Affiliate Program Now At Affiliate Future

Media Tracker: Are you into it?

2009-06-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

There had been talk that social media had been evolving to become a new form of email. I think I subscribe to this line of thought and believe that technology is headed to this direction at least for the next 2 years. I am a living testament to this reality as I am prone to send message across by setting my user status on various social media as method of choice for keeping my contacts in-the-know.

For those who had read my earlier blog on the rise of Twitter messaging - which is now used to send sniplets of information across your network, I have discussed how many have attached their business announcements to this media tracker. This practice of posting status updates is labeled by some internet professionals as email 2.0. It’s a new form of communication; not quite e-mail, more lightweight and more real time.

It is also evolving. Nowadays, these updates are starting to be looking like email - a development from just "what am i doing" slogan it was originally intended for. This phenomenon is tied with the growing usage of texting among mobile users. Most media trackers have applications which extend to send messages to your mobile phones. This reality adds value to status updates as it becomes more real time and extends its reach beyond cyber world.

The next step of development for media tracker is the establishment of an open system where several social networks links together, the same as it does with e-mail. When this happens, we should be able to see a federated system in few months. I personnally hope we can make this a reality sooner.

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Welcoming New Web Buyers On Your Site

2009-06-27T00:20:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not - but the recession may be forcing more and more consumers to consider buying online. Primary reason is that there is an influx of brick and mortar stores establishing their presence online. This influx has increased commodity accessibility online. Remotely, with high transportation cost due to skyrocketing gasoline pump prices, many consumers are making a practical decision to make their purchases online. A wide print and TV exposure of the current added values of online coupons had also spurred interest in the benefits and privacy of online buying.

The phenomenon has brought about a growing group of first-time online shoppers and unlike the first wave of early adopters, this group is slower to adopt Internet to their lives and is still skeptical of new sites and uploading personal information online. As online merchants, how can you make your online shopping site as convenient and appealing to these shoppers as possible? The choice often comes down to payment systems - the final step in the purchase funnel can be the most crucial for these new online buyers.

It is crucial that you are aware of and are ready to provide a wide variety of payment methods, such as credit cards, debit cards, prepaid stored value cards and electronic check processing. On the other hand,i.e., for you own business financial security, it is imperative that you partner with a secure payment solutions that can improve your cash-flow management, mitigate risk and accelerate funding.

To be prepared for this influx of web buyers, make a commitment to improve your payment processing solutions.

Online Consumer Trends

2009-06-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Consumer trends are showing signs that ecommerce sales would come out flat for 2009. eMarketer forecasts that continued recessionary pressure will cause online sales to contract by 0.4% in 2009. Online retailers are toning down their spending on inventory, ads and customer service. Consumers on the other hand had started to change their buying habit.

To cope up with the economic realities, consumer spending had been reduced as a rise in consumer bargain research surged. This confirms that recession is changing the way people shop online. This change is more noticeable as we see a new breed of independent shoppers emerges - those who are increasingly researching purchases online.

This new breed of shoppers are extending their research not just for high ticket products but also to everyday products. These people are searching for good values online. Their challenge is to find the right product at the right price. These people are honing their shopping skills by trying different kinds of sites and buying tactics. I for one is admittedly part of the statistics of this breed of online shopper.

What this tells us is that as online marketers we need to think the same way these consumers think so we can ride the tide during these tough times. I hope I can expound later on how online marketers should face the challenge brought by this new shopping trends. For now, I would have to do more research so I can share them to you later.

Keys Areas in Affiliate Management

2009-06-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The affiliate industry is relatively young yet it is growing so fast especially in recent years that there is a current strain in labor market demand for Affiliate Managers. So I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the major responsibilities of an Affiliate Manager. I hope this can give an introductory idea for those professionals who would like to enter the industry as Affiliate Manager

I prefer to segment Affiliate Manager's tasks into 6 different key areas of responsibilites:

Key 1: Product Development

Improve/Develop Program Description.
Provide Compehensive Reports identifying SWOT of program/product.
Develop a deep understanding of successful affiliates and the competitive landscape.
Work with Product and Engineering to identify and document partner requirements to contribute to product roadmap.

Key 2: Relationship Development

Manage and maintain relationships with key partners to ensure that these relationships meet the strategic objectives for the partner.
Responsible for implementing new processes and tools to streamline day-to-day affiliate management tasks and proactive communication with affiliates.
Proactively provide necessary strategic marketing assistance and technical assistance to your entire Affiliate base through frequent announcements and one-to-one contact with your program’s most valuable Super Affiliates.
Responsive to communications coming from the Affiliate base, providing expert advice and answers in a timely manner.

Key 3: Strategic Recruitment and Removal

Increase Affiliate/Publisher base.
Improve Search Engine Performance for key terms.
Secure the confidence of existing active Affiliates.
Effectively activate already joined, but inactive Affiliates.
Deter, discourage, and eliminate inappropriate/illegal Affiliate practices.

Key 4: Powerful Tools and Creatives

Provide more productive creatives to publishers.
Provide additional affiliate tools.
Work cross-functionally with Marketing, Product Management, and Sales teams to drive key business initiatives.

Key 5: Return On Investment (ROI)

Increase revenue performance, EPC, conversion, reversal ratio, average sale, etc.
Track, analyze and communicate key metrics and business trends as they relate to partner relationships.
Forecast and grow partner program profits and overall revenue contribution.

Key 6:Business Development Management

Explore business partnership and joint ventures.
Identify important partners through networking, conferences, news/blogs and 3rd party tools.
Oversee all aspects of partner development, including relationship definition, contract negotiation, technical implementation, and launch activities.

Going Green Trends

2009-06-26T23:28:00.001-07:00

A new shopping trend has been shaping the market for the past two years.

This trend is more popularly hyped as "Going Green". The Green culture identifies with those people who pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyles, which can help protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations. This increasingly popular pursuit has slowly defined business and consumer decisions.

Recent consumer trend studies confirm that market now abounds with environment-friendly products. According to an April 30, 2009 eMarketer report, “Brands have ramped up their eco-friendly product launches in response to growing consumer demand. So far, the number of green product introductions in 2009 is on track to triple 2008’s total of 526, according to Datamonitor.”

Interestingly, many affiliate networks have introduced a new category which is usually labeled 'GREEN'. The trend is so defining that it would certainly help if affiliates open their campaigns to these green brands and products.

One of the new programs that I have been managing is the GoVios Affiliate Program. Supporting the Going Green philosophy, GoVios is Raising Awareness of How We All Affect the Environment in One Way or Another. All GoVios Mobile handsets are made from recycled parts.

Earn 20% with a growing trend nationwide!

Affordable Mobile Plans are one of hottest trends of the year and GoVios® is expecting BIG results. Consumers are searching the internet for deals and promotions for their Mobile plans. Don't get left in the dust and get these deals on your site today! Earn 20% commission with every valid registration. Join the GoVios Mobile Affiliate Program.

When you choose GoVios®, you will be able to partner with organizations that share our same vision through our Going Green® programs. GoVios is committed to Going Green® with programs such as recycling used mobile phones, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by using green technologies.

Get Your Affiliate Program on the Boards

2009-06-25T11:39:00.001-07:00

If you are not joined in an affiliate network, building your affiliate base can be an uphill climb even for the seasoned Affiliate Managers. It is important that you participate in various affiliate forums, message boards, groups and message boards. Many publishers go to these platform for information about affiliate programs. Participating and making meaningful connections opens doors of opportunites as well increase your program visibility.

To make the most of these forums and message boards, it is necessary that you participate in productive way, that is, you try exhibit yourself as resource person. Many publishers recognize such authority figure and would not hesitate to follow their program. On the other hand, posting comments just for the sake of having something to say may reflect negatively. It is also important that you read and follow rules of these message boards platform as you can receive infraction due to ignorance.

Make good use of the account profile, signature links and linkbacks. Many publishers do check these information. Personally, I gained many contacts and businesses through these message boards' contact information.

Tips for New Affiliate Managers

2009-06-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have been in touch with several new affiliate managers and I have been asked again and again to give some tips on affiliate management based on my personal experience. As we all know, Affiliate Marketing is a young but fast growing industry so it is not uncommon that we have related professionals migrating their career to affiliate management. With the growing demand, we should expect more people jumping to our fence.

One of the basic advise to newbies I give is that they should learn to be an affiliate yourself. This way, you can walk in the shoes of your affiliates to find out the inner workings of their business. Essentially, you need to teach yourself HTML and apply it in your web site, blogs, newsletter and email communication. This will also help you in solving usual coding problems or technical issues that your publishers would encounter. Another benefit of having a hands-on being an affiliate is that you will get to learn about other affiliate programs particularly those of your competitors. As you pick up the links from these competitors, you would be able to see how they communicate to their publishers as well as get ideas on the creative they provide.

I have also delved in PPC campaign to get a good idea on how the Search Specialists are doing their craft. As these people are the usual driver for your program, you would be able to communicate more effectively as they would sense that you know what their needs are.

Insight into affiliate online promotions

2009-06-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

One of the key to affiliate marketing is harnessing the relationship between the publishers and merchants. Part of it is to convey the right information regarding promotions to the publishers.

I recently came upon this survey from Performics which would help you streamline your campaigns to advertisers' promotions that appeal most to publishers. Take note that this information or feebback are raw data only.

* Fifty-three percent of affiliate publishers expressed the most interest in “free shipping” promotions, followed by “exclusive affiliate channel offers” (48 percent)

* Long-running offers are preferred by 31 percent of affiliate publishers, followed by 28 percent preferring new offers weekly

* A majority of affiliate publishers (58 percent) prefer one week advanced notice for communications on upcoming short-term advertiser offers

* Expiring offers are preferred by 48 percent (“agree” or “strongly agree”) of affiliate publishers

Publishers and advertisers with strong relationships and effective promotions are one piece of the puzzle, but it’s also essential to understand consumer behaviors and reactions to promotions. I will discuss later the feedback from consumer side.

No Reprieve For Wall Street, Great Times for Forex

2009-06-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Stock Trading is unlikely to get a reprieve next week as relentless worries about U.S. banks and the economy could embolden bears to drive the market below the 12-year lows hit on Friday.
Investors are waiting for further action from the government in its campaign to shore up the financial system. In these critical conditions most investors are pulling their money out of the falling stock markets and looking for available alternatives for investment.
Many investors have found this alternative in the forex market. Unlike other financial markets the forex market is showing resiliency in this crisis. This is due to the fact that in the forex market one invests in a currency's value relatively to another currency. One is always buying and selling at the same time. Therefore one can profit when one currency weakens against another just as much as if it were strengthening against the same currency. In fact, the instability that the global crisis has introduced into the market is considered by many to be a positive thing. Volatility in the forex market, despite perhaps making it more risky, also provides greater opportunities for profit. The sharper the swings the currencies go through against each other, the more forex traders stand to profit.
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