Associate Programs Newsletter #18
CONTENTS:
1. 11 sites earn more than $5,000 a month
2. I don’t think this guy really needs my advice
3. Who wants Two-TierMarketing.com?
4. How in the world are you doing it?
5. Calculating CPMs of associate programs
6. Sales figures revealed at last
7. Advice for associate program managers
8. 1:1 credit and payment for clicks
9. Sales drop when follow-ups stop
10. Web tracking increases traffic and sales
11. News in brief
12. My fake classified ads
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1. 11 sites earn more than $5,000 a month
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I like pay-per-lead programs which enable webmasters to earn money without selling anything. Irv Brechner, of Princeton, New Jersey, has a site which offers only programs like that Transact! – smartbiz.com/transact.htm .
Irv has a no-nonsense approach. He doesn’t claim he’ll make you rich. He doesn’t suggest you try to make a living with associate programs. What his programs are good for, he says, is filling up spots where you haven’t managed to sell advertising.
Here’s his letter:
Allan:
I’ve been reading your newsletter and following various affiliate articles and posts, and thought I’d write to update you on a program which is now paying out over $100,000 in affiliate commissions per month – without any sales being required!
While TransAct! is listed on your site, I think it’s time for an update for your visitors and newsletter subscribers.
TransAct! generates leads for magazines like US News & World Report, Fast Company, Money and others; club members for Disney, Family Points, Consumer Info and others; and prospects for Dining a la Card, Hoveround, First Source Lending and many, many others. Every lead does NOT require any kind of sale – in most cases people simply fill out a form.
When compared with the slim 5% to 10% offered by most programs which actually require a sale to be made, ours is superior: most of our payouts are $1 to $10 per lead, with the average being about $1.50. A $1.50 lead bounty is the same as a 5% commission on a $30 sale.
More importantly than that is how well our affiliate members are doing. In September, we’ll pay out commissions of $100 or more to over 1,000 sites. Of that:
* 124 earned between $500 and $2,000
* 32 earned between $2,000 and $5,000
* 11 earned over $5,000 including 2 over $10,000
These are big dollars! Plus in October we will be giving out over $5,000 in prize money to the top five performing sites for five different offers.
Plus, our most popular offer is a sweepstakes that pays sites for each entrant! I encourage your readers to visit and sign up at smartbiz.com/transact.htm .
Thanks,
Irv Brechner
Director of Marketing Technology
ALC Interactive
(Be prepared to devote quite a lot of time sifting through all the offers. When I joined up, Irv sent me a 46k file, and more offers arrived soon after. Oddly, I couldn’t find my personal code among all that and had to e-mail Irv to ask for it. But that’s a minor detail – Irv has some good offers worth trying.)
[UPDATE: This program has closed.]================================================
2. I don’t think this guy really needs my advice
================================================
Greg Schliesmann writes…
Allan,
Great work, buddy.
Just wanted to introduce myself, I’m Greg Schliesmann – jvmarketer.com
. My site’s been getting about 150,000 unique visitors per month – and a million page views per month. It’s really surprising. I set the page up to give me credibility in my offline joint-venture deal making ventures. But since the first week, my web traffic really took off.
I didn’t design the site to profit directly from visitors (at first), but since I’ve been getting so many, I feel I could probably benefit from some affiliate programs. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Greg.
Greg’s site – jvmarketer.com – is a collection of Internet marketing articles and links to useful sites. Greg rates the articles and sites with one to five stars. It’s a neatly designed, easy to navigate, highly useful site. When you visit, be prepared to spend a whole weekend there.
[UPDATE: The site has changed.]What can I suggest to a guy who obviously knows a lot more than I do? With 150,000 visitors a month he ought to be making a tidy sum just from ordinary old banner advertising. Greg, I suggest you contact a few dozen firms which have associate programs and ask them if they want to advertise on your site. They’re nearly all in a hectic rush to gain more associates because it’s a cheap marketing method.
If you then want to fill up a few unsold gaps with associate programs, remember that the most successful resellers nearly always add value in some way. For your site, perhaps you could rate marketing courses, marketing books and paid marketing newsletters. You could write a 200-word review of each and give each one a star rating. I would love to see all the marketing material described and rated. I’m sure it could be an enormously popular page.
Here are four marketing courses/books to get you started:
Corey Rudl’s The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet – https://www.associateprograms.com/corey
Jim Daniels’ Insider Internet Marketing
Thomas Harpointner’s Secrets To Making Money On The Information Super-Highway and Electronic Marketing Business Kit
You can find lots more marketing products and services in our affiliate directory. I’ve been told that a few of them are rubbish. I would love to seem them reviewed, too.
[UPDATE: All multi-level programs have been removed from the directory.]You could also try offline products – one which has worked for me and one which hasn’t. You couldn’t go wrong with Web Cards, which pays you $1 when someone asks for a free sample, and now also pays commissions on sales. It is an excellent product. I regularly earn more than $100 a month. The CPM? I haven’t a clue, because as well as banners on my site I mention it in my newsletter and it’s mentioned in an article I wrote for another web site. You could try promoting another form of offline marketing: I.D. IT! Plates, shiny chrome plates with your URL on them which you put on the trunk of your car. These have not been a success for me, but there’s still a good chance they will be popular once people start seeing them on cars and want one themselves.
One advantage: There’s a two-tier commission structure and with your traffic you could sign up 100 or 200 webmasters to earn commissions for you. If you bought a copy of ID IT! Plates with your URL on them and put a photo on your site that should boost sales – another example of adding value instead of just putting up a banner. You could put one on your desk or wall, too.
IDITPlates.com/ How about adding a touch of humor on a marketing theme? You could get an artist to draw a cartoon for this one: Guys! Use them to attract women: milliondollarsales.com/
[UPDATE: That affiliate program has been discontinued.]If you had the time (and staff?) you could rate URL submission services, web hosts, search engine ranking assistance, web designers, press release services . . . and then direct people to the best one. This is starting to sound like just about the most useful site on the Net for Net marketers.
You don’t have the time to do all that? Why not appoint a guest expert for each area? I sure you could work out a satisfactory way of sharing the revenue.
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3. Who wants Two-TierMarketing.com?
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One thing you could do, Greg, is hunt for programs which have a two-tier commission structure. With your traffic you could sign up webmasters who would keep selling for you even if you stopped your marketing. Examples include AIS, which sells several products and services. Here’s one: AIS Merchant Services (accept credit cards)
It pays $US175 commission on the first tier, and when the reseller you sign up makes a sale, you earn $50. I’ve made only two sales, but if 10 or 20% of my resellers are clued up sales people, I’ll do well.
Another two-tier one is John Ferber’s Jokes4U Daily Ezine. This has nothing to do with marketing and the payment plan won’t exactly make you rich. It pays 5 cents with a 2 cent second-tier payment. John calls that a one-level MLM (I think that’s a joke.) However, the big advantage is that people can sign up without leaving your site – they stay around and you can sell them something else.
[UPDATE: This affiliate program has been discontinued.]My prediction: Expect to see a whole lot more two-tier associate programs. They have a lot of the advantages of multi-level marketing without the bad name.
If someone hasn’t already grabbed the domain name Two-TierMarketing.com what on earth are you waiting for? You had better nab Two-Tier-Marketing.com and TwoTierMarketing.com as well, just to be safe. It could be the smartest investment you ever made.
Just send me 10% of the profits. Thanks. :-)
Perhaps you should also buy TwoTierPrograms.com etc as well. Don’t leave any holes for your competitors to jump into. I’m sure you can think of a few names I should have bought when I chose AssociatePrograms.com. Yes – they’re gone now.
Two-TierMarketing.com was still available today. If you want to see if a name has been taken, go to https://www.betterwhois.com
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4. How in the world are you doing it?
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Here are two letters I’ll answer together.
Hi Allan,
You posted on your message board that you are making about $1000 (US) a month marketing Corey Rudl’s program. How in the world are you doing it? I have tried several associate programs and have had zero luck. What is your secret?
Anthony McNeil
Vietnam War Stories
geocities.com/pentagon/4099
—
Allan
… May I ask which ones have done you best with the least costs? As you see my Dutch descent shining :-)
Jonathan R. DeMallie
FREENet2Phones
OK. I’ve answered similar questions before – see the newsletter archives – so I’ll be fairly brief. The least cost? Well, you can join most programs without paying anything. On the other hand, the most expensive one I’ve ever bought is Corey Rudl’s course and it’s my biggest money-maker by a long way.
1. Attract a lot of traffic by offering a useful and interesting product or service, and then promote it. Don’t expect to find one marketing “secret”. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of things you can do to promote a site. Read books and study a lot of marketing advice sites. If you learn only one good hint from a book you should get your money back many times over. Here is a huge list of marketing and promotion sites to get you started. I haven’t updated it lately and there are probably a few dead links. Sorry. I’ll get back to it one day…
satcom.net.au/success/success5.html
2. Don’t worry too much about what programs work best for other people – choose ones which suit your niche market. And choose ones you’re interested in – so that you will enjoy adding content to your site that enhances them. You may be surprised by what does sell. I was amazed when I found out this week that fruit sells well on the Net. Experiment. I describe some good associate programs at Best affiliate programs
3. Add value (don’t just publish banners; add something interesting), either on your site or in your newsletter or both.
4. Another option (perhaps best of all): Don’t follow any of these suggestions. Think up something outrageous and original and then tell a few friends, who will tell a few friends . . .
5. Build trust by being ruthlessly honest. People are desperately looking for someone who cuts through the garbage and tells them whether somethings works or doesn’t. I tell people when a program doesn’t make money for me. I think that’s why they seem to trust me when I say something does work. For example, Jonathan Mizel has a subscriber-only section at The Online Marketing Letter in which, among other things, he ruthlessly reviews Link-O-Matic software, telling you all the bad aspects along with the good. It’s the most thorough review of the software I’ve seen. I don’t know whether Jonathan is honest or not, but his writing sure makes me want to trust his word.
6. For me, Corey Rudl’s marketing course seems to suit my site perfectly, because it is aimed at webmasters who want to make money – the exact market for Corey’s marketing course. One reason for the sales could be found in the way I operate. Several times I’ve given a bit a free advice to someone and then two months or so later, that person has written and said something like: “Just thought I’d let you know, I bought Corey’s course using your URL. It’s my way of saying thanks…”
I’m really grateful to the people who do that. It helps make all the late nights and missed walks on the beach worth while.
By the way, I don’t recommend you set yourself up as a giver of free advice – unless you have a team of people to help you. I now receive so much mail seeking advice I can’t answer it all properly and it’s seriously affecting the running of my little business. Goodness knows why people write to me – there’s an enormous number of far more successful people to choose from. (A much better place to start is I-Sales HelpDesk.)
[UPDATE: For help, visit our friendly helpful affiliate forum]=========================================
5. Calculating CPMs of associate programs
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Bay Smith reported last week that he earned $10 from NextCard Internet Visa from about 2000 visitors to redshoe.pcflowers.com .
Joshua Reimer of PromotionWorld comments:
“Okay … if you think about it, that isn’t bad. Bay is really getting $5 CPM (per thousand impressions). If you compare that with some banner networks (such as Flycast, eAds, ValueClick etc) that is really quite good.
“Of course, compared with companies like Web Cards which pay around $10 to $15 CPM, it isn’t nearly as good. But those companies are hard to find.
“I always try to convert my earnings from an associate program into CPM form. It makes it easier to compare it. I hope this puts things into perspective a little,” Joshua says.
(Well, maybe. But I didn’t earn anything from about 12,000 visitors.)
Joshua has agreed to calculate the CPMs of a few more associate programs and report his findings in a week or two in the Associate Programs Newsletter – and in his own newsletter.
[UPDATE: Joshua Reimer is no longer the owner of PromotionWorld.com.]=================================
6. Sales figures revealed at last
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Gordon Currie – webmaster of Rivenguild.com – has told me a few times that he is very pleased with his association with Amazon.com . At long last he has revealed how much his bookstore makes. He agrees strongly with Sunni Freyer that making associate programs work is “not only a numbers game, but also requires targeting and like anything else, marketing”.
“At the MYST/RIVEN Bookstore ( gfcurrie.com/bookstore ) we sell about 15 books,” Gordon says. “Our target market is MYST and RIVEN fans only. We are currently selling about $4400 to $5300 a quarter. (Average commission: about 12% of that.) Our traffic is high though and our target market likes the fact that we offer reviews, pictures of the books and also break the books into topic areas.
“One tip worth mentioning … our sales did drop quite a bit when we went to a framed site. :+( for the bookstore.”
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7. Advice for associate program managers
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Sunni Freyer writes…
Allan
It concerns me greatly when I post an affiliate link which when clicked brings my site visitor to a page where there is immediate mention of the affiliate program and the money to be made from joining it.
My firm is using affiliate relationships only to provide site visitors with excellent services/products that we don’t offer and that we truly believe they would benefit from or that would satisfy their needs. To that end, we are working to avoid just the quick posting of a hyperlink. Instead, we are currently writing copy that will detail the benefits of the subject service/product to our visitor, as well as why we recommend it.
Our referral is worth dollars and we do expect to be paid a commission for that referral or sale … just as is done in the offline world via our mark-ups.
However, our recommendations and copy, imho, are diluted and subject to suspicion when the visitor clicks and sees the affiliate promo.
I am not suggesting that announcement of the affiliate program be stopped or tucked away in such a manner that it cannot be found. I have concern only when it is on page one of the referred-to page. Seems that the pitch and offer for the product/service should be there and then, perhaps, the affiliate promo should be in a deeper or next page.
I saw this immediately with the AISMedia link, although they certainly shouldn’t be pointed to as the only site doing this.
Sunni Freyer
President and CEO
CFNA Inc: The PR Agency
https://www.cfnaonline.com
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8. 1:1 credit and payment for clicks
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Michael T. Glaspie writes:
Hi Allan
The BannerCo-op is one of the fastest growing banner exchanges on the Net and for good reason.
They offer free membership in ways that no other exchanges do. For example, you as a member earn a full 1-1 credit. This means each time you have a visitor to your web site you receive an exposure of your banner on another member’s site. And when a visitor clicks on any paid ad appearing on your site you get 10 cents. The co-op doesn’t sell impressions on a costly CPM (cost per thousand) basis – just guaranteed visits to your site on an affordable click-through basis.
If these two great benefits aren’t enough to sway you into a free membership, consider this: with the Co-op’s multi-page code you can actually receive multiple full 1-1 credit to have your banner ad shown elsewhere on the network from a single visitor. With all of this including the option to exclude competitors from advertising on your site and free instant online banner building tools, you’ve got everything to gain from membership at bannerco-op.com .
Michael T. Glaspie
bannerco-op.com
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9. Sales drop when follow-ups stop
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WebPosition told me I had 300 “unconverted referrals” so I asked how many were likely to result in sales. Here’s the answer from Adam at WebPosition:
“This is hard to say. The reason is the lead itself. The Internet consultants who resell do really well while a shopping mall might get a ton of downloads and not do well. It’s the quality of the lead. The consultant has a more targeted prospect. Another variable to consider is the follow-up letters. The resellers who use our follow-up system always do better than the resellers who do not. Our sales drop 50 percent when follow-ups stop.”
https://www.associateprograms.com/webposition
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10. Web tracking increases traffic and sales
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Gordon Currie – webmaster of the enormously popular Rivenguild.com – says he increased traffic and sales at his site by using web tracking. His banner revenue went up 11% to 17%. He gets about 700,000 page impressions a month. I interviewed him to find out how webmasters can benefit. He came up with so many answers, the article is far too long for this newsletter. It’s at AssociatePrograms.com/search/tracking2.shtml
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11. News in brief
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Communities
Wally Bock takes a look at what community is, how online communities differ from those in the physical world, and what the implications are for organizations and businesses like yours in his “white paper” at Bockinfo.com
Impersonal touch
Kevin Watson of mgnet.com.au says he has become involved in an associate program on behalf of a client – missinternet.nu – and doesn’t like the “impersonal” approach adopted by merchants. He says merchants and hosting sites should carefully choose each other, “matching product banners with site content and market audience and working together. The merchants seem to be playing a numbers game though, and simply aim to flood the internet with their banners.”
Safe-Audit
Safe-Audit says in its latest newsletter that although it has very strict conditions for its CPM banners, with affiliate banners “you can induce to your heart’s content. Use any message you like to get people to visit. All we care about are results. You can even use email, discussion lists, newsgroups, classified advertising, chat or any method that you can dream up either online or off-line in order to achieve your results.” Safe-audit has introduced special URLs which the webmaster can alter to suit, so you’ll know which promotional method is achieving results.
[UPDATE: Safe-Audit disappeared.]
StrikingItRich.com
Just a reminder: Jaclyn Easton’s book “StrikingItRich.com: Profiles of 23 Incredibly Successful Websites…That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of” is available from Amazon.
https://www.associateprograms.com/striking-it-rich
Free pass-around
Last week Sunni Freyer reported that her newsletter had an additional 1,000 or more from free pass-arounds, which she would prefer to stop. David Beroff of Free Feedback Forms – Freedback.com/?d4b_sig – comments:
“Hello!? Your audience multiplies itself by 50% at no additional cost or load to you, and you’re upset!? This is a dream come true! Even your advertisers love you for this; why the concern?”
Selling fruit
Does fruit sell on the Net? Yes! Barry Gainer, President the Indian River Gift Fruit Company (“We Ship the World’s Best Gift Fruit”) – https://www.giftfruit.com and https://www.indianriver.com – told I-Sales he achieved $1.5 million in retail sales last year at the two sites. His associate program may be worth trying.
Angry at eToys.com
Thom Reece says he is angry and amazed because eToys.com – the biggest toy store on the web – decided his site was “personal” and offered to pay him only 12.5% commission instead of the generous 25% it pays commercial sites. Thom says he pays more than $100 a month for his “strictly commercial” site – viamall.com/kaubusiness/ – to be hosted on a secure e-commerce enabled site (Viamall/Yahoo Stores). The explanation from Kerry Kilar at eToys.com: “We ask one question, ‘Did this person buy this URL?’ If the answer is ‘Yes’, then it is a business.” Looks as though a bit more flexibility is needed.
Search engines
In the latest issue of Web Marketing Today newletter Dr Ralph Wilson takes a comprehensive look at how to achieve better rankings in search engines. It’s an excellent article. https://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt3/issue49.htm
Easy navigation
Helen F. Lacy of Lacy Enterprises has a solution for Web Cards and any other company having trouble offering clear navigation: Javascript headers and footers. Phil Tanny tells you how in the latest issue of his top notch newsletter for webmasters, OakNet News.
[UPDATE: Phil sold the business to Advertising.com, which wrecked it and abandoned it.]
Future World
Future World at future-world.com/clone has reached “a significant milestone”, reports Michael Claasz of $Net Profit$ – mike5941.hypermart.net. “You can now clone your own 200+ page internet showroom in under 15 minutes. Earn up to 50% commission on sales as well as personal purchases,” Michael says.
Clever promotions
PulseTV.com reports that one affiliate placed Bill Clinton’s face on a dancing image of “Baby Cha Cha” with a link to the Bill Clinton Grand Jury Testimony order page. Another affiliate created a trivia contest for the Rocky Horror Picture Show and linked to the “Rocky” order page.
[UPDATE: PulseTV closed its affiliate program.]
CDnow rewards program
CDnow has launched a customer incentive program called Fast Forward Rewards which gives customers points which can be redeemed for products.
internetnews.com/ec-news/1998/10/0201-cdnow.html
CDnow and N2K are planning to merge and create the Internet’s biggest music store.
zdii.com/industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=RTN0747871243
[UPDATE: CDNow links now redirect to Amazon.com.]
Success tips
Have you a marketing success tip you would like to pass on – while gaining free publicity for your site? You can find one of my hints among a whole lot of others at author Jaclyn Easton’s site:
StrikingItRich.com
Click on Guaranteed Success Tips in the Bonus Section
[UPDATE: This site has closed.]
According to a survey by Nikkei Multimedia, email advertising has emerged as the hottest ad category – receiving a higher approval rating among online users than other forms of Internet-based advertising. Where You should Be Buying Internet Ads (It’s Not Where You Think)
zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2328.html
Cyberian Outpost has reported better-than-expected second-quarter results despite a bigger loss.
news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C27053%2C00.html
Store packages
Paul Lang has reviewed major shopping cart/store packages including iCAT, Yahoo! Store, MerchandiZer and Merchant Manager.
https://sellitontheweb.com/ezine/features.shtml
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12. My fake classified ads
(no one paid for them . . . I’m just trying to
drum up a little business for myself)
*************************************************************
GET GOOD PUBLICITY FOR ONLY $55
Get good publicity for your business. The Internet News
Bureau will send your press release to 2000 journalists
for as little as $55.
newsbureau.com/welcome.cgi?1034
TRY WEBPOSITION FREE
When someone does a search for your products or
services, do you appear in the top 10 or does your
competition? WebPosition software monitors and
analyzes your search positions in the top search engines.
It then helps you improve those positions and bring in
more traffic. Try WebPosition FREE at:
https://www.associateprograms.com/webposition
WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF THE NET?
Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired Magazine, has
written a book “New Rules for the New Economy” which
will be published next week. “I find Kevin’s vision to
be insightful, incredibly interesting, and most
importantly – thought-provoking,” says John Audette
of I-Sales. Amazon is selling it for $13.97 – 30% off the list price.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0670881112/associateprogram/
THE SEARCH ENGINE THAT PAYS
Refer-it – the search engine that pays – will pay you
$2 or $3 for each person who signs up for a basic or
premium membership.
refer-it.com/owner.cfm?OWNERID=1337
[UPDATE: This affiliate program has closed.]
DISCOVER LITTLE-KNOWN SECRETS used by marketing pros
which will let you build and promote your own
high-income online business. Discover how you can turn
your computer into a virtual cash-machine and make
money completely by remote control.
aismedia.com/secrets/index.htm?AG45x0018
[UPDATE: This affiliate program has closed.]
All the best,
Allan Gardyne
