Tag: Affiliate marketing

Commission Autopilot is A Huge Success!

Paul Ponna’s newly released Commission Autopilot software suite has blown me away.

I have long been an advocate of article marketing, but the truth is that article marketing while still an effective approach is not what it once was.

What I liked about article marketing was its dual role as a source of both traffic and backlinks. I use these for both my own affiliate marketing efforts and as a way of helping my offline clients get found online.

What Commission Autopilot does is focus on an entirely separate group of highly ranked internet sites that have existed for years but somehow stayed off the typical internet marketers radar. These are the document sites like Scribd.

I actually have had several items on Scribd for several years, but did not realize what potential the site offered until I saw the advance webinar Paul had for people on his list on New Year’s day.

Once I watched his webinar, I jumped on the product buying it for my own use, and made sure I was signed up as an affiliate to promote it. In this case, because it was too good not to share with the good people on my lists and who read my blogs.

Now I am a little disappointed, because Paul is using the traditional sales video with it’s standard sales format to promote the product now that it is available for general purchase. The webinar I watched was far more persuasive, because in it he actually showed more of the power of the software, it action vs. merely extolling it’s promise in the sales video.

The primary offer consists of two separate software products. The first makes it super easy to identify high quality articles based on any keyword you select, and allows you to attach your link to the front or back end of the article or both.

The second software element, distributes that article or articles to the top 18 document sites on the internet. Several of which are in the top ranks of all internet sites and get millions of viewers daily.

The bottom line is that these articles you post benefit from the high Google Page rank of these sites and show better than the traditional article marketing sites I have used in the past. They also pass Google Juice to my sites.

Since the articles are closely associated with the long tail keyword I initially seached with, they are highly targeted and the people who find then via Google or direct access through the site are just the people I want to see my affiliate offers or send to my blogs or other internet properties.

All of this is done in minutes once you learn the ropes. Yesterday, I create nearly a dozen projects, each of which resulted in 180 high ranking backlinks and will eventually send hundreds if not thousands of visitors to my targeted sites over time.

Paul is strongly hinting that he will be taking this site down shortly, and is scheduling training classes to help people learn how to utilize the software more effectively.

I am used to people saying things are in short supply, but in this case it may be true. I urge you to take a quick look. I bought in a flash once I saw it’s potential and think you should as well.

 

For more info go to: http://etncovers.com/EasyRedirect/AutoPilot

 

[tags]Commission autopilot, Article marketing, affiliate marketing, paul ponna[/tags]

How To Decide Which Clickbank Product to Promote.

As affiliate marketers we often rely on Clickbank for inventory to sell.  It offers products to sell in a lot of different niches.  Quite a few in many of the more lucrative fields.  Some pay to promote, others may not perform.

Deciding is a complex mix of knowing your competition, the quality of the site, its products, gravity, and trend lines, etc.  Some pay more,  some have residuals.  We can analyze all the above or rely on pure guess work.

Now in the past, I looked and ultimately kind of grabbed a product and ran with it, if only to get the experience.

But as you get more systematic and start following a plan of consistent action for massive results, you want to focus on the best products, which when coupled with your best efforts yields maximum profit.

But you can’t be wasting your time researching the sales page of junky Clickbank products that won’t sell. Your time is too valuable.  Instead spend your time focused on the best options and use the ones that best fit your particular niche and approach. Your results will be better, for the same amount of effort.

There is an easy way to discover the best performers.

Brad Callen introduced a free plug in for Firefox, that highlights the best performers from among all the products listed on Clickbank.

It’s easy to install.  I have, and it works great.

The plug in color codes each product offering on Clickbank, and reports critical information on its marketability.  Those colored green, met a set of standards for marketability that is proprietary to the product. The red ones didn’t and are to be avoided.

You will succeed faster by focusing on those products with stronger prospects.

The one rub is that it’s kind of a black box.  We don’t really know the full contents of the equation they use to decide who gets green and red and why.  But we can get a pretty good idea by listening to their introductory video. Enough to make a decision on.

http://askearlabout.com/CBSurge.php

Do you think it makes sense to try it for a while? Would it help you find better products to promote?

The basic version is free so you can test drive it for years if you want.

Once it’s working for you, upgrade to the paid version, but no need to do that now. Unless you want to.., of course.

Whether you are working facebook, twitter, blogs, email marketing, moble or more, Clickbank is a huge resource – no matter what your niches.

Your objective is to promote the cream of the crop, not the poor performers.

This free tool will eliminate 80% of the clutter, so you can focus on the 20% of solid offers that will pay you for your efforts.

http://askearlabout.com/CBSurge.php

 

[tags]clickbank, CBSurge, firefox, plugins, firefox plugins, affiliate marketing, niche marketing, twitter, blogs, email marketing, [/tags]

 

Mass Money Makers Hits Top of Clickbank Gravity

Today Matt Bacak and Adam Sultanic announced that they had set a new record on Click Bank for Gravity.  Gravity is an often misunderstood internal indicator that I have heard explained in multiple different ways, but is essentially a measure of how many affiliates are making money with a product in the past time period. A high gravity suggests a high level of active market success.

They have done a superb job of lining up tons of top marketers and middling ones like myself to promote their launch. I, for example, got about 10 snail mail communications from them in addition to multiple online pitches.

One attractive part of the deal, is the low price just $37 (although that will rise to $47 tomorrow). Low price means a lot more people will take advantage of the offer which means more sales.

Another attractive part is that both Matt and Adam are in the trenches marketers.  They actually do this stuff themselves and do it very well. They are speaking from strength and practical knowledge. What sometimes hurts “in the know” people though is that they sometimes forget that they learned a lot of things step by step, and will on occassion assume people know stuff they don’t.

That is the strong point of the Mass Money Maker product, and surprisingly one of the points that rubbed me wrong.  They do an excellent job of explaining the basics, in detail. First in theory and then by showing a step by step process to do what they are teaching. As an experienced marketer myself, I found it frustratingly detailed.  Their first video is an hour long and didn’t teach me anything new. But if you are newer to the process, it may well give you an essential theoretical underpinning. So while I was bored, you may well have found it critical. They then follow with a two hour phase 2 video which also is largely theory. But the time it was done I was chomping at the bit to get going.

Finally, they though they got into some meat. Now again I picked up most of this already in the past from Adam via his Niche Profits Classroom program he does with Adam Short. But it does belong here and is critical element to understanding how to target keywords that you can rank for on Google. And that tidbit is well worth the price of the course by itself.

Now another thing, I didn’t like was their use of Market Samurai in their video. They have created a new software designed to perform all the tasks they describe in the program, and include it as part of the program, but as it wasn’t fully ready when they recorded the video portion they use Market Samurai as an alternative. Now I bought and use market samurai myself, and highly recommend it, I thought it would have made sense to do the videos with their software. It’s clear they had a scheduling problem and this was their solution.

While it may seem as though I am griping a bit about the product, the truth is that they have done a good job of creating a set of resources and a how to set of videos that can take a newbie to intermediate marketer through all the steps needed to become an effective affiliate marketer.  Way too many people, myself included start out wrong. Some of us are pig headed and refuse to give up and eventually learn how to do it. Most people just give up. Those who grab this course and software and pay attention to the theory that I hated, and take action following their tips will do well, very well in fact.

Now they do push their favorite hosting service and autoresponder. In my opinion, you don’t need to use their recommended services, I don’t but that said, the ones they recommend are fine. You gotta use someone. Beyond these basics that everyone needs and has to pay for, most of what they recommend are free services, and that is another strength of what they teach.

Most people looking to make money online are doing so because they currently need more money, not more ways of spending money.  The approach they teach is certainly one of the most economical approaches an their asking price for this training and software is a true bargain.

I’d appreciate it if you would use my link for Mass Money Makers

[tags]mass money makers, market samurai, clickbank, affiliate marketing, Matt Bacak, Adam Sultanic[/tags]

A Provacative Suggestion

The secret to success in any venture online or off is to understand that persistent focused action pays.  In internet marketing circles that is as true as anywhere else, but in few fields are the temptations to wander from one thing to another as strong or as ever present.

If you are interested in supplementing or replacing or greatly surpassing your current income, I invite you to listen in on the following video I put up on Youtube.

I was on my way out of town to attend a family wedding a couple of weeks ago when Affiliate Silver Bullet launched.  As a result, I did not promote it, but since returning I joined myself, and after a few weeks I’ve decided that this is one of those programs I really should promote.

Do yourself a favor and join it yourself and then take persistent focused action to drive traffic to your affiliate silver bullet sites.

Go here to learn more: Affiliate Silver Bullet

[tags]Affiliate Silver Bullet, Affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing tips, affilate marketing tools, [/tags]

Do You Want A Job or a Business?

In this third session on product creation, I want to drive home a very simple point.  I do so, because I am guilty of doing this wrong in the past.  When I started my first significant home based business I took my hobby which was a version of stamp collecting and created a job out of it as an eBay marketer.

I thought I had a business, but all I really had was an online tread mill, where I was working long hours getting product scanned, described and listed every day and then packaged and shipped.  Frankly it took the joy out of my hobby and did not lead me where I wanted to be financially.

Thus in today’s video, I want to stress just one point.  You need to be thinking about creating a business online an not a job.

[tags]affiliate marketing,information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, home based business[/tags]

Affiliate Marketers, You Need to Change

The easiest way to start making money on line for most people is via affiliate marketing. But, if you really want to make significant money you  need to give serious thought to creating your own information product.

In this second video in my Information Product Creation Series I explain some of the reasons why.

[tags] affiliate marketing, information product creation, product creation, information product, info product, info product creation, ethical bribes, opt in forms, email marketing [/tags]

How to Choose Your Marketing Model and Avoid Chasing Rabbits, Dead Ends and False Rainbows

The Following Article is from Marlin Sanders and is used with permission. In the article he promotes his recent release the Writer’s Secret. I recommend this to you, if your meet the criteria Marlin explains in the article below.

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If you were to look at the inbox on my email account, you’d see a zillion billion emails from marketers telling you all the things you need to buy to succeed online.

Whew!

You can’t buy all of ’em, read all of ’em or do all of ’em.

What a pickle you have yourself in now!  What do you do?

I just keep teaching and preaching the road less taken.  Here’s how to avoid dead ends and stay on the straight and narrow path to online success by focusing on the ONE thing you must do.

Know what model you’re following

There are different models for making coin online.

1.  The affiliate model

You promote affiliate programs by getting organic search engine ranking or buying pay-per-click or other types of ads.

If you DO use affiliate marketing, make SURE you’re building your own list BEFORE you promote affiliate products. Your list is absolutely key.

— Article marketing is an organic seo (search engine
optimization) play. This is what MOST people do who are on the affiliate model.

Article marketing DOES work. But it’s much better if you drive your clicks to what we call an email capture or name squeeze page. That way you can get people on your email list and follow up.

Just understand that if you’re doing article marketing, it’s a play to get traffic from the search engines and also the article directories you submit to.

The downside of the affiliate model is you’re doing the hard work of getting new customer and putting them into someone else’s funnel. The hardest thing you will EVER do is get a new customer.

So as an affiliate, you typically do the HARD part and often make only a 1-time commission for this while the OTHER person, the merchant, sells product after product to that new customer and pays you nada.

Now, I have an affiliate program. But we pay on many back-end or follow up sales and not just the initial sale.

But would you rather be at the top or the bottom of the food chain? I advocate being at the top where others are YOUR affiliates.

Understand that a lot of people who advocate the affiliate model use that approach as a trojan horse to recruit affiliates for THEIR products.

Nothing wrong with the affiliate model to start with. But become a producer and promoter as soon as you can.

— Buying ads

Anything that focuses on pay-per-click (ppc) or other methods of buy advertising is usually an affiliate model.

2. The Web 2.0

For the most part, all the talk you hear about web 2.0 translates into getting higher rankings in Google or the search engines. So it’s an organic seo play.

Web 2.0 sounds like it’s some new beast. For the most part, it’s a way to get inbound links to your web sites with higher authority and trust. There’s also the possibility of getting traffic from the web 2.0 sites themselves.

You’re still either promoting your own products or someone elses as an affiliate. And if it’s the latter, you’re doing the hard part of getting new customers and putting them into someone else’s funnel who will THEN suck out the lifetime value (that is, a whole bunch of other sales in a compressed time frame) and pay you zilch on those sales.

I try to play fair by paying backend commissions to my affiliates.

3. The CPA model

CPA (cost per action) is an affiliate model where you typically get paid per action like lead generated vs. per sale.

You’re STILL promoting someone else’s product vs. your own.

The challenge with the CPA model is you typically aren’t building a list that has clear cut needs you can sell to over and over.

What you ARE doing is putting people into someone else’s recurring billing system. MOST CPA offers are built on recurring billing. With Visa’s new crackdown, that will likely change.

There’s nothing wrong with this model. But I prefer an evergreen model where I build customer equity. In other words, I build a list of loyal customers with common needs and desires who buy from me over and over again.

4. The organic seo model

This concept dominates a lot of the affiliate models and a lot of online marketing talk.

I actually enjoy learning about this model and have a filipina working on it (I hired her using the gameplan at outsourceplan.com).

Anyway, the downside of this model is it’s SLOW to get those rankings and requires skill and know how. And the big thing is, you’re subject to Google slaps, whims and algo changes.

Google can change HOW it ranks sites and overnight your income can be zapped. OF course, there ARE other search engines and you can lower your risk by spending part of your time focusing on those also.

I think seo has a place if you outsource it properly. But I think it’s risky to build your whole business on it.

One of the problems in learning how to do organic seo is there are so many theories about what works and doesn’t.

The main game here is to get inbound links to your website. But Google changes their mind about what types of links are acceptable and what aren’t.

So you have to always stay on top of the game. And there is a ton of conflicting information. I’ve invested a lot of time and money just boiling the topic down to some evergreen things you can do that aren’t likely to get zapped by Google.

The other problem with this model is that the amount of competition for keywords KEEPS increasing! More and more people keep looking for low competition keywords.

So the competition for low competition keywords keeps increasing and you have to work harder to maintain rankings for those “easy” keywords.

This is OK. It’s all a game. And with proper effort and outsourcing it’s doable. I wouldn’t base my entire business on it because of the risks involved.

The MAIN thing to know here is when you see people tout all these huge numbers from an organic seo model, you can BET there’s a whole lot of something going on in the background. And probably quite a bit more than they let on about.

5. The PPC model

My friends Joel Peterson and Kirt Christensen totally rock at this.

PPC is good if you can watch your numbers very closely.
You’re spending money so you have to really stay on top of it.

The risks are similar to organic seo. Google likes to change the rules as soon as most people figure out WHAT those rules are!

Which isn’t all bad. It weeds out the competition.

You should know that a LOT of the gigantic numbers printed in sales letters for products about ppc are from selling things that are very broad market like ringtones.

If the product being promoted isn’t revealed in the ad, this should be a clue.

You’ll ALSO find out that a lot of the big success stories involve products that are either recurring billing or very large ticket like $3,000. If you can get people on a webinar and sell something for $3,000, by all means DO IT!

I’ve never concentrated on verbal selling enough to do that. I don’t like doing it. It’s not my cup of tea. Just understand that anytime you see really large numbers tossed around, what is actually DONE to make those numbers usually isn’t revealed.

Which is my beef with some of the products sold on the topic.  If you don’t show me HOW to do what YOU do but CLAIM you do, then you didn’t play fair.

Is the method fully disclosed? From what I see, a lot of the ppc stuff never reveals HOW the numbers in the sales letter were actually generated.

PPC is a pretty complex Game.  Still, if you focus on it, you can do well.

I don’t like having my future depend on the whims of Google.  Yuk!
I also don’t like watching numbers that closely.

But if you’re willing to spend 25 g’s in a month to bring in 100 g’s, you CAN do it via ppc.

If you DO PPC, you’ll probably need automation tools like the one Joel Peterson showed on the webinar I did with him the other day.

Very cool tool.  I also like buying banner ads as Joel does because there’s a lot less risk of a Google slap than with search.

I’m EXPLORING doing ppc with this software.  I need to see if I can get a process worked up that my oursourcer can use.  I don’t do this kind of thing myself but don’t mind outsourcing it.

6.  The Writer’s Secret model

The Writer’s Secret is about producing and promoting your OWN products.

And it’s about getting traffic via your OWN affiliate program, which is hands down the best source of traffic in many niches.

Here are a few advantages of the model:

a.  Full disclosure

There isn’t some deep dark secret you have to join a high-end coaching program to discover.

b.  It’s simple, logical and practical

I’m NOT saying anyone can do it.  I AM saying it’s pretty darned logical and practical.  And it’s reasonable to think someone who works at it can do it.

c.  It’s evergreen

Nothing about it that’s going to “stop working” or “get slapped” tomorrow.

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How To Choose Your Model
========================

1.  Know what you ARE and are NOT good at

If you’re good at spreadsheets and detailed work, ppc is a great choice  for you.

If you’re good at routine, sustained effort over an extended period of time and you’re analytical, organic seo may be your cup of tea.

If you’re good at writing, creating or talking on video or screen capture video, the Writer’s Secret approach may be for you.

2.  Choose a method with full disclosure

Do NOT start using a method where all the secrets aren’t revealed (or available at a cost you can afford) and where you have to spend $250, $500 or $1,000 a month for coaching to get the REAL scoop.

A lot of systems sound good. But the info product on it is really a glorified teaser for the coaching program.  So the method isn’t actionable to you.

You MUST have an actionable, doable method that does NOT have these deep dark secrets you don’t know that are required for success.

3.  Ask yourself if your model matches your abilities

Right now, the idea of video sales pitches is making the rounds.
It’s a great method.

Really works.

BUT — if you can’t talk, don’t like to talk, aren’t verbal or articulate, then save your money.

If you like to write, follow a writer’s path.

If you like to talk, then do video products and teleseminars, webinars or video sales letters to sell your products.

4.  See through the fad pitches

When your inbox gets POUNDED with people endorsing a new product or method, it has LITTLE to do with how great the product or method is and a LOT to do with how skilled the person was in doing reciprocal mailings, networking and pulling off a major launch.

It has VERY little to do with the actual value of the product FOR YOU.

Keep your head screwed on.

5.  Once you know your model, focus on your model.

Cut out the noise.

You can’t know everything nor do everything.

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Marlon Sanders helps people with hopes and dreams figure out how to turn those into reality by selling stuff on the Internet.  http://www.thewritersecret.com

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A new wave is breaking, want to go for a ride?

There’s a new wave underway in internet marketing circles. And , if you want to, you can be part of the transformation. I just got permission to invite you to join in a major new product launch that is on the cutting edge of this new wave.

First let me tell you about the new wave.

The new wave is taking online marketing techniques and applying them to new niches, including off line businesses. I have started to do this myself, and the results so far are incredibly promising.

With the economic downturn, more and more on and off line businesses are struggling, and looking for better ways to compete and stay alive. This new wave is rushing into an eagerly waiting marketplace.

Within every economic collapse are sown the seeds of the new emerging businesses, and I highly recommend you find a way to orient your business to take advantage of the changes.

The new product.

Is presented by Jason James. It’s been in development for two years and builds upon the free GiveAway concept that I and thousands of internet marketers have used to build our online businesses.

Jason is on my “Good Guy” list. I’ve purchased and benefited from his past products and respect his as a “class act.” When he puts out a product, I know I can count on having positive response from my customers.

The giveaway has been very effective, and what Jason is doing with this release is making it possible for you and me and others to effectively run our own give away events in non internet marketing niches. That may or may not sound exciting to you at the moment, but let me assure you, it will become a vehicle for many people to establish themselves in hundreds of different niches in short order.

But the opportunity I am offering you today is to become part of the launch for this winner of a concept. The product won’t be released until February 3rd. I am not even allowed to promote the product until January 20, except to recruit additional joint venture partners like you.

Whether or not you are interested in running your own giveaway events, you can profit from the launch if people on your list may be. If you are interested in becoming an affiliate promoter of this new product all you need do is sign up at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2791188

If you have any size list at all, I recommend you do.

PS: This isn’t the whole new wave by any means. But it is part of a major trend, and an excellent way to start moving your self into position to be part of it.

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2791188