Associate Programs Newsletter #170
CONTENTS:
1. Are you visible or invisible?
2. "Why can't you be more like him?"
3. CJ shake-up helps Leadhound
4. Earn $5 just for referring an affiliate
5. Raise your bids before GoTo does
6. No. I didn't send you a virus
7. Did you win free banner advertising for a year?
8. How merchants can reduce credit card fraud
9. Lively debate on ClickBank merchants
10. New mailing list for job hunters
11. 36 affiliate manager articles in ebook
12. Thought for today: Increase your IQ
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1. Are you visible or invisible?
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Occasionally I think enviously of affiliates who do their Internet marketing anonymously.
These feelings of envy tend to creep up on me when I'm looking at my e-mail in-tray and seeing a couple of hundred e-mails clamoring for my attention.
I never made a carefully considered decision to try to have a high profile on the Net. Back in 1996 when I began selling my own recipe ebook it never occurred to me that there was any other way.
If I wanted to sell things, I'd have to make myself known, I assumed.
It was years later that it occurred to me I could have chosen a different path.
One affiliate I've met earns a comfortable living from small sites which don't have his name or even his e-mail address on them.
As far as he's concerned, his job is simple - he just hurries his visitors along the road to the merchants. If his visitors have any questions, as far as he's concerned answering them is the merchants' job.
Think of the advantages of being Mr Anonymous:
He doesn't get hundreds of e-mails a day. (Some anonymous affiliates don't even say who they are when they buy a domain name. They use an anonymous, unmemorable company name.)
He doesn't receive spam because he doesn't post his e-mail address anywhere.
He can take a weekend off or have a vacation whenever he chooses.
He doesn't have any staff to pay or supervise.
He doesn't receive lots of phone calls which waste his time.
His time is HIS. He can spent almost 100% of it concentrating on what he does best.
If he wants to, he can choose to spend a week leisurely studying a new marketing book or analyzing his competitors' sites.
If you track him down and contact him, he doesn't feel obliged to answer your e-mail.
He's in control - well, as much as any affiliate who's relying on affiliate commissions can be in control.
However, Mr Anonymous has disadvantages, too.
He spends a lot of money on advertising and relies totally on affiliate commissions - often small - for his income, so there's little room for error.
He feels awfully exposed on the pay-per-click search engines. It's all too easy for a competitor to see exactly what he's doing and copy his techniques. An overly optimistic amateur can outbid him and then be replaced by another optimistic amateur.
He relies heavily on the major free search engines where he feels very vulnerable. He knows only too well how precarious his position is. A top 10 position in AltaVista can suddenly disappear overnight for no apparent reason and take a month or so to be regained.
He worries about the changing nature of the search engines. It's getting harder and harder to rank highly with a one-page site, so he has learn about themes and clusters (as described so well by Michael Campbell in his book "Nothing But Net".[UPDATE: No longer available.] and his Vault updates.)
Sometimes he spends considerable time building a new site, buying advertising and testing, testing, testing - and then abandons it because he cannot make it profitable.
Because he doesn't want to write a newsletter, he's not collecting e-mail addresses. He has no database of names to fall back on. He's not earning residual income, and he has a nagging feeling that one day his nice little business will collapse.
He's constantly looking for ways to diversify, so that if one wheel falls off, he can keep chugging along.
Some days, he looks enviously at his high-profile friends...
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2. "Why can't you be more like him?"
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The other day, Joanna and I were discussing the pros and cons of being visible on the Net.
The topic usually arises when Joanna thinks I need some time off and I'm thinking of all the products I've promised to review, the sites I've agreed to look at and all the as yet unanswered emails from people wanting a piece of my time.
We talked about an affiliate who does things anonymously and Joanna asked: "Why can't you be more like him?"
(She's too kind to use those EXACT words, but I got the message.)
Well, I suppose I could be more like him, but I'm not sure I really want to be.
Publicity has been good for our business. I love the way good publicity tends to multiply.
When I launched AssociatePrograms.com in early 1998, I was broke, and borrowing money to spend on advertising never even occurred to me.
In those days, almost everything I did was free.
I took part in forums, I began writing a newsletter, I told my story on an "About us" page, including a photograph of me holding a snake - http://www.associateprograms.com/pages/About-Us .
At first, nothing much seemed to happen.
I made lots of mistakes and worked every possible minute, learning how to fix those mistakes, and earning people's trust.
Gradually more people visited the site. Slowly the newsletter subscriber numbers grew.
New friends published links to AssociatePrograms.com on their sites and in newsletters.
Jim Wilson mentioned me in his newsletter.
John Audette put in a kind word.
Within a year, I became so busy I had to quit my day job.
I began to get requests for interviews, which were published in newsletters and on web sites. Those interviews sparked more requests for interviews.
Marty Foley included a section on me in his book, "Internet Marketing Goldmine" - http://AssociatePrograms.com/goldmine .
His book won great reviews and so while Marty sold books, I received priceless free publicity.
A flurry of marketing books came out which mentioned me and AssociatePrograms.com favorably and I even won an award or two.
Chris Pirillo was kind enough to say my newsletter was "one of the only ones worth reading".
Neil Shearing included me in his 10 "Internet Success Diamonds" - http://AssociatePrograms.com/diamonds/ .
Thom Reece invited me to speak at his e-commerce conference in Hawaii. I love seminars not just for the knowledge you gain but for the opportunity to make new friends.
I'm awed and continually amazed at the way things have continued to snowball. There's insufficient space here to thank all the people who have helped me.
With any luck, they've also been pleased by the work done by my staff, Nathan Power at http://PayPerClickSearchEngines.com and Christopher Pearce at http://LifetimeCommissions.com (60 programs now!).
As publicity grows, my link popularity pleases Google, which helps me get more publicity, which gives me a good ranking at http://www.Alexa.com ...
That Alexa ranking impresses people who are looking for joint venture partners. They contact me and sometimes end up giving me more publicity...
So I score well when people using "Internet Success Spider" - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/spider - do a search for super affiliates...
...and so the publicity snowball continues to build. While I don't have the millions of visitors achieved by some sites, what I do have is way beyond anything I imagined when I started.
The beauty of all this is that it's low-cost marketing. It works in good times or bad.
Meanwhile, hardly anyone knows who Mr Anonymous is. A search at http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ shows that almost no one is linking to his little web sites.
Although he's earning good money with affiliate programs, he's more nervous about the future than I am.
NEXT WEEK:
Are you anonymous? Here's how to strengthen your affiliate business.
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3. CJ shake-up helps Leadhound
==============================
The shake-up at CJ.com was wonderful news for Leadhound, a small affiliate network which offers pay-per-click, pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead programs.
"For Leadhound it seemed to be a perfect alignment of the stars," says Vice President David Kassar.
"We had just spent four months writing new code to take our service to the next level, and compete against the likes of CJ.com.
"Leadhound launched the new services on June 16th, which was about the same time CJ.com merchants were up in arms about the new price hikes.
"Our rates are simple, whatever the merchant wants to pay for we keep 30% of the commission payment, and the balance gets paid to our affiliates.
"A couple of key points that have helped make Leadhound successful in recruiting new merchants is that we do not charge a set-up fee, nor do we have a monthly fee. Merchants need to deposit $500 into their account that is 100% credited towards the affiliate commission payments," says David.
Founded in 1999 in Orlando, Florida, Leadhound has more than 20 employees. In February it opened an office in the UK.
You can join here:
http://AssociatePrograms.com/leadh
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4. Earn $5 just for referring an affiliate
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To encourage people to promote Leadhound, the affiliate network is paying an extra $5 for each affiliate you refer.
As well as that, you're paid a 5% second tier commission on everything those affiliates earn.
That's a generous offer - $5 just for encouraging someone to sign up for an affiliate network.
Move fast to promote this one. I don't expect the offer to remain long.
Leadhound has only a small selection of merchants but says it's one of the fastest growing affiliate networks on the Net.
You can join here:
http://AssociatePrograms.com/leadh
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5. Raise your bids before GoTo does
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In September, old 1 cent bids at GoTo will start costing 5 cents. Right now you have a wonderful opportunity to move many of your listings far ahead of your competitors. Fred Kelley explains...
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/articles/41/1/FindWhat-profitable
[UPDATE: GoTo.com is now called Yahoo! Search Marketing.]
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6. No. I didn't send you a virus
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Last week about 25 of my readers wrote to tell me that I had sent them a virus with this newsletter.
No. That's not what happened.
Trying to be helpful, I described the nasty SerKam (deliberately misspelled) virus and published the brief text message which arrives with the virus.
Some of you cleverly use anti-virus software which scans for those words in the body of an email and sends an automatic reply warning the sender.
Unfortunately, you probably also automatically deleted last week's newsletter. You can read it online:
http://www.associateprograms.com/articles/203/1/Affiliate-forum-marketing-tactic
(To make it easy to warn anyone who sends me the virus, I've cut and pasted a message about it into an email signature. I've received thanks from people who had no idea that clicking on an attachment could launch a virus.)
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7. Did you win free banner advertising for a year?
==================================================
I've just drawn the latest lucky winners of free banner advertising for a year on AssociatePrograms.com.
The winners are:
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Would you like to go in the draw to win free banner advertising for a year? It's easy. All you have to do is provide a link to http://www.AssociatePrograms.com. Thank you!
[UPDATE: This offer has closed.]
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8. How merchants can reduce credit card fraud
=============================================
Affiliate merchant Neil Shearing of ScamFree Zone has managed to reduce his credit card chargebacks to almost zero.
If you sell online (or if you think you might), check out his article where he describes the resources - mostly free - that have helped him save a lot of money by reducing fraud.
http://scamfreezone.com/t.cgi?a=103067&e=/antifraud/
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9. Lively debate on ClickBank merchants
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My criticism of ClickBank merchants who are depriving affiliates of some of the commissions they earn sparked some lively debate on the Associate Programs Message Board.
Many ClickBank merchants offer visitors several payment methods - via credit card, check, money order and PayPal - but reward affiliates only when a credit card is used.
One of the merchants selected at random, Joseph Iorio of http://www.getwebhits.com , says he DID track PayPal sales for nearly two months and paid more than a dozen affiliates for those sales.
Another merchant says she was thinking of her customers. It hadn't occurred to her that what she was doing was unfair to her affiliates.
You can follow the discussion here. Look under C for ClickBank.
http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php
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10. New mailing list for job hunters
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Job hunters seeking affiliate management opportunities or just wanting to keep an eye on the job market now have a new mailing list to check, set up by Neil Durrant. You can subscribe here:
affiliatemarketing.co.uk/employment.htm
Amazon and Toysrus.com have extended their partnership, launching a co-branded children's learning site, Imaginarium.com. The site features educational toys and games for children, along with parent and teacher recommendations.
ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/12354.html
An affiliate program manager needs to know not just which referrals lead to immediate sales, but what else those referred visitors do.
affiliatemarketing.co.uk/behaviour.htm
Shawn Collins tries to persuade affiliate merchants that it makes sense to look after their affiliates by setting long cookie times. I hope the message isn't falling on deaf ears.
clickz.com/article/cz.4148.html
Yahoo is testing pop-unders - which automatically launch a Web page underneath an open browser window - on its news and travel sites. Yahoo is considering whether to sell pop-unders on its sites.
news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6700236.html
ListBot refugees have only until August 20th to retrieve their subscriber lists from ListBot. I use and recommend Postmaster General.
[UPDATE: I now use several newsletter distribution services. I like best and strongly recommend http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/aweber.]
More than 75 merchants joined Commission Junction last month.
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11. 36 affiliate manager articles in ebook
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Shawn Collins has compiled an e-book of his 36 affiliate manager articles that ran on ClickZ. The e-book was created with E-Book Compiler and it enables the user to read all of the articles offline, and also search across all of them for keywords.
Shawn has experience both as an affiliate and an affiliate program manager. His articles are drawn from that experience.
For only $15, you get the convenience of having all the articles in one easy-to-search format.
[UPDATE: This link no longer works.]
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12. Thought for today: Increase your IQ
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The other day I was invited to attend a Ken Varga conference. While doing a little research on Ken I came across this gem:
"Did you know you can increase your own IQ or that of your kids by 50 points just by doing one simple thing every day? It is something that most of the geniuses throughout history have done all their lives."
- Ken Varga
Kids-parents.com/
(read the free chapter)
[UPDATE: This site is no longer online.]
To learn more about this amazing mutli-millionaire, see Kenvarga.com
All the best
Allan Gardyne
