Easy2Earn Dollars

Going into this year’s Affiliate Summit West, I wasn’t looking towards anything spectacular and didn’t have any big aspirations. I was excited about being on the “Advertising on Facebook” panel, but had no idea how beneficial it would end up being.

During the first day of the summit while walking through the meet market, I was surprised to see that Facebook had their own booth, along with plenty of staff members from the company. Not only were these members from Facebook, but they were actual team members from the Ads department and they actually understood the frustrations we have been experiencing with the Facebook approval process and their advertising platform.

I met with almost all of the members from the company, but spent the most time with Alex Shultz who is the head Marketing Exec at Facebook and also has a deep background in affiliate marketing. While in the meet market we ended up talking for about an hour and it was great to hear about the changes to come.

The next day Alex Shultz, Dan Murray, Myself and ShoeMoney were on the “Advertising on Facebook” panel. The room filled up quickly and ended up with standing room only. In addition to answering plenty of Q&A from the audience, the following points were discussed.

- Shoemoney briefly talked about how he is using Facebook Ads for local advertising and driving leads for car dealerships and dentists in his area. This method of advertising is extremely new and lucrative because barely anyone is doing this.

- There is a misconception by some that Facebook has a “college crowd”, but this is so far from the truth. There are currently over 150 million members on Facebook and some of the fastest growing demographics are over the age of 25.

- Facebook members from NON-US countries are one of it’s fastest growing areas, with Italy recently leading the way. Foreign clicks are cheaper along with less saturated.

- When setting up a new campaign, make sure to test multiple images and text headlines. Alex mentioned that the TEXT headlines of ads actually factor more in the overall CTR than the image used.

- While other social networks may start at .10 or .25 per click, it is possible to receive clicks in the .02 to .04 range. Price factoring comes down to a click through rate and cpm process. Continually tweaking and improving your ad campaigns for a better click rate, will result in lower click costs.

- Cloaking links is not fooling anyone at Facebook. They are aware of “black hat” methods and are in the process of taking actions against these advertisers and accounts.

- When Alex was asked what offers he would run on Facebook to make money, he said “dating” and “weight loss” offers are always in the top performers.

Overall. the “Advertising on Facebook” panel went well. More than anything else, I was thrilled to see Facebook made the effort to attend and put themselves out there to get real user experience stories and feedback. They know the ball is now in their court and they have made mistakes in the past, but are working to improve the system. There is no easy fix and this will take time, but improvements are on the way.

I know Alex and the Facebook team will be looking over the comments in response to this blog post, so please feel free to leave any comments, complaints or improvements you feel would be useful.

As if Facebook advertising wasn’t awesome enough, it just got better. Earlier today I received an email titled, “Announcing New Facebook Advertising Metrics“. Now usually when you receive an email from an ad network or stats place that they have improved their stats tracking… it’s usually nothing big, or just some new crappy stats. With Facebook, they actually have provided some value here.

Here is a breakdown on the different new reports you can pull from your Facebook advertising account:

“Responder Demographics” report: Facebook users spend a lot of time connecting with friends and family on Facebook – uploading photos, writing on each others’ Walls, posting notes. Now you can find out who is interacting with your ads. This report provides the aggregate age, gender and geographic location of the users who have clicked on your ad.

“Responder Profiles” report: In addition to age, gender and geographic location of the users who have clicked on your ad, we’re happy to provide psychographic information of these same users. This data is aggregated from user profiles and shows common interests, favorite TV shows, movies, books and music.

“Advertising Performance” report: This report will give you a downloadable version of the performance information you already see online– impressions, clicks and click-through rates—as well as a new section for performance data by unique user and performance data specific to your ads that contained social actions, if applicable.

So what does all of this mean? Basically you now has an amazing amount of new data to work with. You can download the files and open them up in excel and breakdown the type of visitors your ads are attracting. To see that Facebook has opened up and allowed this information to be accessed through your account is simply awesome.

Being able to see what your users are interested in, and what they are doing within Facebook, will give you even more of an edge to making your ad campaigns more successful.

In the announcement email, Facebook also says “these reports are only the beginning“. It will be interesting to see what they offer next.

A few days ago I released my first post on “How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!“, along with the picture of my $306,373.24 check. Due to the massive exposure and questions generated from the post, I thought I’d bring you the second installment to How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months! This time we will go with a Q&A theme.

What is the web site you made all this money with?
The site I was able to have so much success with is MySpaceNow.com. There is no programming on the site at all, and it’s made up of over 10,000 pages of content, such as images, myspace layouts and social networking applications/flash. Yes… you can imagine how long that took to put together. However, when you are seeing results, you just want to keep making your project bigger and better!

What is the current status of your site?
My myspace resource site is still running and still turning a decent amount of profit each month. The traffic is lower than it used to be, but that’s expected. I was one of the first to get into the “myspace resources” niche, and now it is more saturated than ever.

What is/was your site traffic?
I first started the site from scratch and with no traffic. The first method of advertising, were a few text links on a couple of my other sites. Next was to get the word out on MySpace and other social networks. Once the users started to grab content and link back to my site, it was golden. The high point for site traffic was around 185,000 uniques per day. Currently the site receives around 15,000-20,000 uniques per day. Yes, this is quite a drop… but as mentioned above, I haven’t focused on this site in over a year now.

Having Multiple Dedicated Dell Servers to Manage Traffic was a Must.

When was the last time you updated the site?
I’ve been quite busy with many other projects, so realistically, I haven’t touched or updated the site in nearly a year. Meanwhile the site still receives several thousands of visits per day, while also earning several thousands a month. My only maintenance is monthly servers fees, which are much lower than they were back when I was working on the site full time.

How did you make so much profit over costs?
The myspace site I created was a huge viral success. Once a few sites picked it up, the traffic was tremendous, and search engines were sending me a ton of traffic as well. Since I did not have to worry about marketing costs, I could focus on providing content, managing ad space, and making sure the site was always accessible. The main costs in running a site like this (outside of the hundreds of hours of time spent), are server costs. Over $100,000 was spent on shared hosting, buying new Dell servers and hiring a server management team to make sure everything was always running.

What were your advertising and hosting costs?
As mentioned, the site was pretty much all viral. After running the site for several months with no advertising costs, I decided to give Google Adwords a shot. I was able to target towards some pretty cheap traffic, since my Quality Score was super high, and this was a niche market that wasn’t oversaturated (yet) and click prices weren’t insanely high. Marketing through Google Adwords brought in over an additional MILLION clicks. Even after $27,721.89 in adwords cost, the site still had no problems clearing seven-figures. Hosting costs ranged per month from $300 (when first starting out), to up to $10,000 a month, before buying my own Dell servers and hosting myself.

I was able to generate over 1 MILLION clicks using Google Adwords!

What other ad networks did you use on the site?
In my last post, I focused on some of the big earners from the site, which were Yahoo Publisher Network, NeverBlueAds, CasaleMedia and ValueClick Media. Other earners on the site were InterClick (which is another cpm banner network), Miva (which provides screensaver/wallpaper downloads), Google Adsense (generated nearly six-figures in revenue), AuctionAds (I posted multiple times on my earnings with them), WidgetBucks (another new program, which I also posted earnings on)… along with a few other networks. All of these advertisers combined generated over seven-figures in revenue for the site… which clearly covered the hosting costs, making this a seven figure profitable site.

You made a lot with Yahoo, but what about Google Adsense?
Originally I had no expectations for the success of this site. I was providing a service and it exploded quickly. Once the traffic was flowing through the site, it was time to test different ad placements and to see what worked. Luckily, the Yahoo Publisher Program had come out (and accepted my site), just a few weeks after my site went live. I was originally running Google Adsense, then started running Yahoo Publisher Network instead. After comparing numbers, Yahoo was providing much better numbers. I would continually rotate advertisers on the site and see which performed best. While Yahoo earned nearly seven figures alone on the site, Google Adsense accounted for nearly six-figures in revenue as well.

Google Adsense in itself generated almost $100,000 in Extra Revenue.

Would you have sold your site if you had the chance?
The opportunity to sell this cash cow of a web site did come into play around the 7th or 8th month of it’s existence. I wrote a post about this a while ago, which was called “To Sell or Not to Sell“. While I was offered nearly a seven figure package deal for the site (more/less depending on performance), I’m still glad I never accepted their offer. The parent company that was interested, was purchasing up a bunch of Social Networking Resource & Entertainment sites… which they then all turned into crap sites. I also heard that this company screwed many of their “partners” on payments owed from their buyouts.

Why did you wait until now to post your check?
I’ve never been one to look for attention, or brag. The intention of posting my check was not to impress anyone, but to stress to everyone the possibilities before you. Yes, the check was received back in 2006. However, keep in mind… this blog is still less than a year old. I have literally spent the last year debating on whether or not I wanted to be put in the spotlight, if I was to post this check. But I decided to take the risk… my intention is the same as always, I want you to succeed, make money online and live the dream that us affiliates and ppc marketers are living.

Why didn’t you post your resource site in your original post?
The main reason why I didn’t like my resource site in my original post is because this is a blog, and it’s purpose is to keep people coming back and giving them more. A lot of people were leaving comments, asking what my site was. You were not being ignored… you were part of the process. Not only have I released my site information, but also how I promoted the site, my advertisers and actual earnings numbers.

Is this your only big and successful web site?
I’ve been making money online for over 11 years now, since I was 15… and have never had any other job. A one-hit-wonder I am not. Over the years I have adjusted to every market change there has been. I’ve done freebie sites, permission based email marketing, ran my own ad network along with my own network of entertainment sites. Was this site one of my biggest and fastest money makers? Yes! I saw an opportunity here and made the most of it. I am now focusing on several other different niche areas and projects.

Aren’t you worried people will copy your site idea now?
They say being copied is one of the highest forms of flattery… well, when you own a web site, and you’ve been copied… IT SUCKS… but, I’ve been copied plenty of times before. There is still plenty of money to be made in this market, but it’s also plenty saturated! You want to make a resource type site? I say “Go for it!”.

As mentioned before, I’ve been making money online for over a decade now, (since I was 15!) and have some close friends that advise me on what I should post and what I should not post on my blog. There are risks associated with everything. Some have warned me about giving away too much information. However, if I didn’t meet up with these people in the past, that took their time to help me along the way, I wouldn’t be where I am today… I only wish to do the same for you and all of my blog readers. Yes, it may be risky providing the amount of information that I do, taking risks and trying different things is how I got to where I am today. I’m willing to take that risk to benefit my blog readers.

JumpTV (www.JumpTV.com) is the world’s leading broadcaster of television over the Internet. With over 300 channels from 75+ countries, JumpTV delivers its audience news, sports and entertainment content on a real-time basis from all corners of the globe. JumpTV has viewers in over 100 countries who watch channels on JumpTV.com via ordinary Internet connections on their home computers, laptops, Internet-enabled television sets, and 3G mobile phones.

JumpTV allows viewers to remain connected to their homeland by providing an easy way to watch their favorite television networks, sporting events, dramas and movies from anywhere in the world. JumpTV channels are available on a subscription basis and select content is available for free to audiences in the United States. Channels are also available as part of national, regional or lifestyle packages. In addition to offering live streams, JumpTV offers complementary content on a Video on Demand (VoD) and Pay per View (PPV) basis.

Our credit monitoring service includes a free 3-in-1 Credit Report with information from all 3 national credit bureaus - TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. The report includes your complete, unabridged credit information plus all 3 credit scores.

We call it a merged report because the 3-bureau information is printed side-by-side in an easy to read format that makes it simple to compare reports and spot any errors or inconsistencies.

Since credit bureaus do not share their data with each other, it is important to check your credit and scores at all 3 bureaus to get an accurate picture of your credit records. Most lenders review all 3 credit reports before deciding whether to extend you credit, and they use the average of your scores as a guide.

The 3-in-1 Credit Report is valuable because it lets you see exactly what your lender does. You can use this information to negotiate better rates on credit cards and loans to save money. If your credit is damaged, you’ll like the free credit score analysis which provides excellent tips on how to raise your score.

Once you login and receive your credit report online, you should print a copy and review it carefully, circling any unfamiliar information. Signs of fraud and identity theft include strange addresses and accounts you do not recognize. Follow up on these and any other items by contacting the creditor directly at the telephone number or address listed on the report.

Your 3-in-1 Merged Credit Report includes:

• Personal Information: An overview of your current and previous addresses, current and past employers and spouse’s name.
• Account Summary: Detailed information about your open and closed credit accounts including mortgages, car loans, credit cards, store charges and other loans. This section lists a 7-year payment history, current balance, limits, historic high balances, and date the account was opened. It also includes whether the account is up to date, and current status such as paid, settled or sent to collections. This section is typically the longest.
• Public Records - Lists foreclosures, bankruptcies, liens, divorce settlements and legal judgments against you. In general the less information that is listed here, the better, as these items tend to be viewed negatively by lenders.
• Inquiries - Lists names of all institutions and/or individuals who have requested your credit report in the last two years. You may see places where you have applied for credit, prospective employers or landlords, and current creditors who regularly check your report to make sure nothing has changed and you can still meet your obligations.

In addition to your free 3-in-1 Credit Report, you will also receive:

• 3 Credit Scores - These scores are very important as they determine whether or not you will receive the credit you seek. Many lenders do not scour your credit report; they simply look at your credit score to decide.
• Personalized Score Analysis - Along with your 3-in-1 report you will receive personal tips based on your scores to help you understand and improve your score.
• Credit Monitoring Service - Around the clock monitoring of your credit ensures that all changes to your reports will be reported to you within 24-hours, giving you real-time warnings of any fraud or derogatory notations to your file.

The legalsounds mp3 site is very slow loading and a very depressing gray color but if you can see past that to the discounts you might be enticed to stay.

Webmasters can join the legalsounds affiliate program where you earn 35% of all payments made by customers you attract.

With so many affiliate programs and networks out there, how are you supposed to know which are best for you. Tyler Cruz has created a great looking affiliate network directory, called PublisherSpot. Not only does the site have a great setup for his reviews on networks, but the overall navigation and setup of the directory is easy enough as well. There are currently 39 affiliate network reviews on the site, with more to come. Here are a few highlights of PublisherSpot and why it’s worth your time to check out.IN DEPTH NETWORK REVIEWS:
Reviews posted on PublisherSpot are in great detail. Tyler writes a decent amount on the following fields for each of his network reviews: Features, Control Panel (Main, Reports, Profile, Campaigns, Merchants, Mail), Registration, Publisher Support, Payment, Referral System and an ending Summary. Instead of having to browse through an actual affiliate network to find answers to your questions, you should be able to find everything and more in each network review.

How does your current ad network compare to the competition?
These Networks are ranked PublisherSpot’s “Editor’s Choice”

SEARCHING ABILITY:
Instead of just a search box like many other directories, PublisherSpot has some very detailed search fields. Search capabilities include Rating, Category, Minimum Payment, Payment Frequency, Payment Methods and Ad Creative. I think it would be out of the ordinary for many people using the site, to specifically search out programs based on their minimum payments, or frequency… but they are cool features to have. Better yet, at the bottom of each review, there is a full run down of the program and their pay out structure. Whether you are searching programs based on the specific fields above or just browsing through each review, you will see the key information you need about each network.

An Easy to Read Breakdown is Available on each Network Review.

YOU RATE THE NETWORKS:
With an affiliate directory, you are never sure if the reviews or listing are biased or not. PublisherSpot has gone beyond a flat text review, and implemented a voting system that takes an average from all votes for that specific network. Instead of just seeing the feedback from one person, you are given an overall review rating from others currently using the network. Should PublisherSpot become a player in the affiliate directory space, these rankings could give a nice scale on the best performing networks.

How was your network experience? VOTE for your network on a scale of 1 to 10.

PUBLISHERSPOT FORUMS:
In addition to the network reviews, PublisherSpot also has a forum. The current topics of the forum focus on affiliate marketing, network reviews and general discussion. The forum was just launched on May 22nd, so the activity is pretty minimal. No matter the site, the goal of running a successful forum is one of the hardest. I would recommend that Tyler tries to get some affiliate managers on board to possible answer any questions or give advice to active affiliates.

Network, Communicate and Share Ideas on the PublisherSpot Forum

IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE NETWORK:
So what will it take for PublisherSpot to become a major player in the affiliate market space? Tyler is already working on getting extra exposure to the site by ordering several reviews from popular blogs, which already focus on affiliate marketing. I would also recommend listing some active or current offers available through the networks. It nice to get a review on networks, but what’s inside also matters. One of the toughest factors will be focusing on growth efforts and participation for the PublisherSpot forum. Everyone wants to have their own active community, but how many do you actually want to join and be active in. Instead of putting full efforts into a forum, the option for user comments and feedback for each review might be a better choice. Feel free to list your comments, advice and opinions for the site as well.

When I first saw PublisherSpot several months ago, I thought it was a nice idea. With the recent updates in place, it could become a nice resource for anyone looking to get into affiliate marketing. With the establishment of PublisherSpot, Tyler is also lining himself up the possibility of a big sale in the future, should someone come along and want to purchase the site. The great thing about a site like this, is that once you build up the database and content, it continues to work for you and make money. I’m looking forward to seeing more improvements and growth down the road from PublisherSpot.

Zac Johnson

I think a lot of us affiliates tend to think too small. Even if we are doing well, we often have a narrow scope and stay in our comfort zone. For most of us that comfort zone is PPC, social traffic, or SEO and that’s it. I know I am guilty of this thinking too. But as large as the Internet is, there is only so much traffic you can get especially from PPC.

So here is an example of thinking really big. I’m sure most people have seen the catchy TV commercials for Freecreditreport.com. This company is spending millions of dollars per month on a multi TV network ad blitz. The commercials are even getting a secondary boost as a viral hits on Youtube. Basically a marketers dream come true!

Who are they:

Freecreditreport.com or consumerinfo.com is Experian’s own affiliate to drive traffic to the Triple Advantage subscription service. (Subscription services are king for money makers). So even though you can get an actual free credit report by law every year, people are signing up for this subscription service for credit monitoring. This is the exact same service on Commision Junction’s network that you can promote to earn $12-24 per signup.

Their site is another example of a super clean landing page with a single clear call to action:

You and I could do this!

Freecreditreport.com is essentially a real world blueprint of how to scale an affiliate campaign to an extremely large level. They aren’t doing anything that all affiliates couldn’t do. Now obviously you don’t jump straight into a mulit-million dollar TV campaign. But if you have a successful campaign running and you know it could appeal to people offline as well, this is a great way to start thinking. With disciplined savings of PPC profits over time, you could eventually invest in this kind of big time advertising. Then the sky really is the limit.

I know this is the route I hope to take eventually with the affiliate business. How about you!

Everyone’s goal is to quit their day job. I know that was mine. A few people of have asked me in emails if I think they should quit. Well, these were my recommendations.

1. First and most important is establish an earings track record. Demonstrate to yourself that you can consistently generate income for at least 6 months to a year. Anyone can have an early success making money online, but it’s the ability to do it over and over in different niches that is key. Offers get shut down, accounts get Google slapped, and earnings dry up. If you aren’t able to keep it going and repeat the process, don’t quit yet. You need to be diversified in your online income, just like the golden rule of investing.

Click here for Free Industry Resources!

2. Get rid of debt. If you are going to be self employed, you can’t live like the typical consumer with a mountain of debt. Pay off all credit card debt, student loans, car payments or any other consumer debt. Most people will still have some form of housing payment like rent or a mortgage, but that is the bare minimum debt I would carry. Ideally, you want to be completely debt free before quitting.

3. Build up your savings. You simply can’t live paycheck to paycheck with affiliate marketing. I might be conservative, but I wouldn’t recommend quitting a day job until you have at least 1 years living expenses in the bank.

4. Figure out your health insurance situation. If you have a spouse that will continue working that has insurance, that is great. Otherwise check out premiums for yourself. They aren’t that expensive, probably a couple hundred bucks a month, but much more than you paid as an employee.

For me, the time leading up to quitting my job was the hardest I have probably ever worked in my life, but it can be done. And now (knock on wood) I will hopefully never have to work for anyone again. But it all comes from laying the groundwork before you give that final notice and walk out the door.

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With so many affiliate networks out there, how are you supposed to choose and what makes you work with one more than others. Here are just a few factors that come into play when I’m deciding what affiliate networks to work with.

A Personable Relationship
Probably my number one factor when working with a network is to have an established relationship with the company. Being able to contact my affiliate manager on AIM through out the day is a big plus. With most of the networks I am working with, I find that my affiliate manager has become a good friend, rather than just another business associate. I feel comfortable holding a regular conversation with many of account manager and am open with them on ideas on how to better increase campaigns and landing pages. I want to work with an affiliate manager that is fun and not always pushing offers down my throat.

Premium Rates & Exclusive Offers
Getting paid the top tier rates and receiving “premium” or “exclusive” offers is awesome. Going back to my “Personable Relationship” point, I would gladly stay with a company I have been working with for a while than jump to a new offer if they have an offer for a few percentage points more. A network that goes out of their way to bring you high rates, premium offers and tries to keep me happy will always get my business.

It’s Not Hard to Point Out Networks that Take the Extra Step!

These were just a couple of my BIG points that I look for when running with an affiliate network. If you are making money online, you are probably make some of your revenue (if not all) through an affiliate network… so what are you looking for when you join an affiliate network, or what do you love about your current revenue generating network?