Affiliate By Night

More Marketing Contests

We posted awhile back about numerous Market Leverage contests being held around the Internet and all the quality details regarding each one. Luke and I joined in, of course, and ended up winning an iPod! There is certainly lots of incentive to join these contests and try to win some great prizes, especially when only minimal effort is involved.

Currently, there are some more contests going on that I thought I should bring to everyone’s attention since who doesn’t like winning free stuff? Famous blogger John Chow is running a Market Leverage contest until the end of August. Here’s what’s up for grabs in this latest contest:

• $200 and an iPod touch to the new ML affiliate who makes the most money by August 31st

• The first 10 affiliates to sign up and make $10 in commission get a 2GB USB pen

• For current Market Leverage affiliates, replying to John’s post gets you one entry and writing a blog post about the contest gets you five entries for a chance to win a Flip Mino camcorder.

The contest runs until August 31st and is really easy to enter, so make sure to take the time to sign up today and remember to sign up for Market Leverage for your chance to win!

Big Blog Contest!

Jason Henderson, owner of Big Marketing Online and competitor on the recently finished Top Affiliate Challenge, is running a huge blogging contest with over $40K in prizes being given away. Everyone who registers get access to a one hour webinar as well, so no ones comes away empty handed!
That webinar everyone wins access to is 1hr of consulting with Jack Humphrey of Authority Site Center – valued at $1000 – and that’s just for signing up for the Jason’s Newsletter Feed.

Here are some of the other great prizes that you could come away with for entering this massive blog contest:

• 1hr Private Consulting with Muhammad Saleem ($3000) of ACS Consulting

• 1hr Private Consulting with Dean Hunt ($2000), World’s Leading Buzz Marketing Consultant

• 4hrs Private Consulting with Ms. X ($5000), Leading Social Branding Expert who was responsible for bringing in over a million vistitors and over 45k signups in just two days for one client.

• Complete Website and Copy Critique on Video from Millionaire Copywriter Ray Edwards ($4500)

• 3 Copies of SpeedPPC Affiliate Pro by Jay Stockwell ($497 Each)

• 1hr Facebook Consultation by Mari Smith of Facebook Fortunes ($500)

…And much, much more! There are plenty of other ways to earn entires into the contest as well, all detailed over at his site. You only have until the end of the month though, so hurry up and register so you can have a crack at all these amazing prizes.

Popularity: 67% [?]

Pepperjam Network Incentive Program

Pepperjam Network has been running a great promotion this month for both current and new affiliates, and with just about a week left in the month I wanted to take a quick second and remind everyone of what the promotion is and how all of us can make some extra money.

For every new affiliate that you recommend as a current affiliate, Pepperjam is offering a flat $7 rate, which is a 40% increase over their normal payout per referral.

The other exciting thing related to this is that every new affiliate that joins the Affiliate Revolution will receive a $10 bonus just for signing up, sort of a welcome to the team gift from them to you! This is a great little bonus to mention to anyone you might be recommending the network to as an added incentive to join. This offer only lasts until the end of July however, so time is definitely running out. Make sure to Join Pepperjam Network today!

The third cool aspect that just recently got introduced and is focused more for current affiliates – since we can’t take part in the sign-up bonus – is the Blogger Incentive Program. Pepperjam wants to keep up a steady stream of referrals and new members, and while they are trying to bring them in with the $10 bonus for July, they also want to reward those bloggers who promote the network. Thus, for each post you write on your blog about the network, one of it’s promotions or new features, they will give you $10 as a thank you for the exposure. The best part is, you can do this up to 5 times each month and getting pre-approval is really easy. From where I’m sitting, that’s 5 blog posts per month and $50 in the bank right there. Not a bad promotion.

As far our experience with Pepperjam so far, we haven’t used them too extensively so far after a miscommunication early on led us not to have an affiliate manager for awhile. That problem was quickly remedied however, and the lines of communication have been very strong ever since and we are currently looking over several of their offers that we are looking to promote in the future. It’s a strong network that is committed to it’s affiliates and one you should strongly consider working with if you aren’t already – especially to take advantage of these great bonuses. PepperjamNetwork.com – Next generation affiliate marketing.

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Why I Love Affiliate Marketing

This weekend I was away – camping in New Hampshire for three days nowhere near the Interwebs. Nate was in Colorado for a friend’s wedding, too busy for marketing. But the best part about affiliate marketing is that it simply didn’t matter.

Sure we should have been getting more work done, testing new campaigns & keywords, mastering AdWords, etc. but still while we were gone, the campaigns we have going currently were sitting there doing their thing, making us money.

I really can’t think of any other industry — full or part-time — that such a situation would be possible (with the exception of the stock market, I guess, but not over the weekend).

Sure affiliate marketing has a lot of pitfalls *cough* Google *cough* and it isn’t nearly as easy as I for one (and probably Nate too) thought it was going to be, but when I can go spend three days in the woods without the Internet and still make money while I’m gone, it’s definitely an industry I would like to stick with.

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Affiliate Marketers Give Back, Support Breast Cancer Awareness

It’s truly awesome to see Affiliate Networks (and their affiliate managers) doing good things and giving back. That’s why I got really excited when I discovered that Jen, our affiliate manager from MarketLeverage, is teaming up with ML’s Debbie and the two are planning to walk a whopping 60 miles during the 2008 Seattle Breast Cancer 3-day Walk as part of the Affiliate Marketers Give Back team.

Breast Cancer is a topic very close to my heart since my mom is currently battling breast cancer for the third time in the last few years so I’m very thankful for Debbie & Jen’s work.

You can visit affilatemarketersgiveback.com for more info about the whole team, the walk, and what you can do to help (including donations, buying some schwag, etc.), and you can follow Jen & Debbie’s progress on their own blog, at ml60milewalk.blogspot.com. As soon as Nate and I start turning a big enough profit, some of my money is definitely going their way!

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The MOTHER of all MarketLeverage Contests

Well, as all of the afore mentioned MarketLeverage contests come to a close, the “Cow Next Door” John Cow today announced the biggest MarketLeverage contest to date. The Cow is lucky enough to have gotten the chance to give away a brand new iPhone 3G courtesy of MarketLeverage!

Although the prize is different than the other MarketLeverage contests, the way to win is pretty similar. There are a few different ways to earn “tickets” (subscribing to the Cow’s RSS feed, Twittering about the contest, etc. etc.) for a total possibility of 15 tickets.

No word from the original blog post on when the contest ends, but based on the prize – it might make sense for you to add up your tickets pronto. Good luck… but not too much luck, since I want that phone!

Click here to check out MarketLeverage for yourself.

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The Mistakes We’ve Made and What We’ve Learned

As I sit here working on some new campaigns (and tweaking some old ones), I’ve been thinking a lot about what Nate and I have done wrong so far in our short-lived affiliate marketing careers and what we’ve learned from it. I think all of our mistakes really fit into three tidy little categories:

Rushing Things

There have been a few different campaigns we’ve tired to launch, or products we’ve bought that were a waste of either time or money. I’ll be the first to admit that on more than one (alright, more than I care to mention really) occasion so far I’ve discovered what I thought was going to be a hugely profitable keyword, or a can’t-lose product, landing page, etc. and I’ve hurried to put up a campaign without doing the necessary research and optimizing to ensure the profit of said campaign. When you don’t have a lot of capital to play with (and we don’t) this is a very dangerous habit to fall into and one which will quickly deplete the little profit you’ve managed to scrape together so far.

What we’ve learned from this mistake: be careful and take your time! As they say, measure twice and cut once.

It’s Harder than it Looks

Affiliate marketing is often touted as a way to “get rich quick” and I think we (like a whole lot of other people online) definitely fell for it a bit. Granted, we didn’t buy any $90 eBooks or spend hundreds of dollars on any “automated” cash-pulling schemes or anything but I know I (and I think Nate would say the same) definitely assumed it was going to be easier to turn big profits right out of the gate than it’s proving to be. Granted, affiliate marketing is certainly easier to make money with than some other industries out there, but it’s certainly not a way you can get rich quick (without a whole lot of luck, anyway).

What we’ve learned from this mistake: now I know why they save 9-out-of-10 affiliates fail early in their careers – affiliate marketing ain’t easy. It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, and a lot of money to make a profit. But, if you stick with it, you will make a profit. To quote A League of Their Own (that’s right, I went there): “Hard? It’s supposed to be hard! If it was easy, everyone would do it!”

Jump!

I contemplated about getting my start in affiliate marketing for months before I finally took the plunge — with Nate’s partnership — and signed up. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it, able to afford it, able to learn what it took to be successful. Frankly, I was scared. While it’s never too late to start, if I had gotten started when I had originally wanted, I’d be that much further ahead of where I am today.

What we’ve learned from this mistake: The truth is, you can read all you want and learn all you want but sooner or later you’ve just got to do it! You’ll be happy you did.

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Design Coding: The Rap

I found this awesome YouTube video today from some guy known as m0serious, aka the “SEO Rapper” about designing the perfect landing page and how to optimize the page for search engine spiders. Give it a listen and turn it up for a little inspiration when the time comes to launch your next campaign:

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An Example of Thinking Outside the Box

Today I was driving home from work when I heard a radio commercial for a website where you can “enter your email address, follow the redemption instructions, print out a coupon and have a free xbox 360 mailed right to your door”. I immediately thought “affiliate site!” and went online to check it out when I got home. Sure enough, I was right.

While Nate and I certainly don’t have the kind of money necessary to buy radio time — especially a national spot, which I’m assuming it was. Maybe through the AdWords radio option — doing so must really be paying off for the affiliate whose running the ad (with the cost of radio advertising, they definitely wouldn’t be running the ad if they weren’t seeing some serious ROI!).

I’m sure none of you have the money necessary to run radio ads either (if you do, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. heh) but my point in writing about the commercial I heard is how important and how profitable thinking outside the box can be. Doing what everyone else isn’t doing is the key to making money with affiliate marketing when you don’t have a ton of money upfront to put towards pricey and competitive keywords. I’m sure there are dozens of ads competing for face time within the “free xbox” niche, so the particular affiliate running the radio ad went elsewhere where his competitors aren’t.

Whether its PPC with long-tail keywords which have fewer competitors; free classified listings sites like craigslist.org; Facebook & MySpace advertising; print classifieds (which are getting cheaper by the day); radio or television; or anything else you can think of, thinking outside the box really is the key to success.

Popularity: 9% [?]

HUGE Market Leverage Contest!

For anyone who isn’t aware yet, there is a pretty big Market Leverage contest happening right now all across the Internet. Currently, to my knowledge there are Market Leverage contests running on the following affiliate marketing sites: JohnChow, ZacJohnson, CDFNetworks and JonathanVolk. Each site is running similar promotions that include a ton of awesome giveaways.

What Could I Win?

Up for grabs in the various contests are the following items:

• $200 ML Amex Rewards Card – Preloaded with $200 to spend as you see fit.
• Flip Ultra Video Camera – Perfect or video blogging!
• iPod Nano – Engraved with the Market Leverage logo as well the site you won it from.
• USB Pen – Very cool Market Leverage pen that doubles as a 2 GB flash drive!

How Do I Enter & Win?

Those are the prizes that will be given away on each site, and there are numerous ways to enter each contest (which are all being run on a points system). You can comment on the post, Stumble it, Make a blog post on your own site mentioning the contest and linking to the host’s site, Join Market Leverage yourself, write a guest post and many, many other ways. I would visit each site to see the innumerable ways you can accrue entries for cool stuff.

Why Should I Bother?

First of all, free stuff is always cool and if you blog about the contest or comment on it you could get some good free publicity for your own site, which is always nice. Secondly, ML is a really good affiliate network and we’ve been using them here ourselves quite a bit and have been very happy with it so far, as well as our affiliate manager, Jen. They are all really friendly and helpful over at ML and really want to help you succeed, so you might as well join up too.

Bonus Prizes as well!

Each of the sites that I have already mentioned are all adding their own twist to the contest as well, with lots of bonus prizes.

At JohnChow.com, in addition to the prizes listed above, the winner will get a Nike bag filled with Market Leverage gear (cap, golf shirt, t-shirt, jacket). The iPod will also be engraved with your blog’s name on it too, which is kind of cool.

At JonathanVolk.com, the number of ways you can get points towards winning the contest is really long and varied, and he is looking for guest posters as well. A GREAT way to get yourself some publicity in the process. The iPod given away will be a Touch instead of a Nano, too.

At CDFNetworks.com, they offer some different ways to get involved in the contest as well and they are capping the number of points (entries) you can get at 5 so everyone that participates has a relatively equal shot to win.

At ZacJohnson.com, he is giving away an additional iPod Touch, USB pens as well as his custom T-shirt and bumper sticker. Some will be randomly given away and others will be given away to those who join ML and have the highest commission in the coming months.

If you know of, or are having a contest of your own for Market Leverage that I forgot to mention, post it in the comments section. Make sure to hurry up and enter yourself and put yourself in the running for some great prizes as well as becoming part of one of the best affiliate networks around.

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Time Management is Solid Gold

One of the most important things to practice when it comes to part-time affiliate marketing is time management. When you only have a few minutes (or hours, if you’re lucky) a day to devote to affiliate marketing, it’s important to schedule those minutes wisely.

As I’m sure everyone with half-a-mind and even basic understanding of affiliate marketing knows, it’s never a good idea (let alone profitable) to rush into a campaign. Landing pages often need to be made, keyword lists generated, and niches researched even before a campaign goes live. Then comes the tracking, the optimizing, and bid adjustments (just to name a few). Rush into any of these elements and you’ll undoubtedly end up with a losing campaign.

So, rather than just throwing everything against the wall and hoping something sticks, what I’ve found works best (for us; it may be different for different people) is to do one of these tasks at a time, per day. Design a landing page one evening after work, research keywords on your lunch break the next day, and so on.

In fact, it could be beneficial to make yourself a schedule. Devote the hours of 8-9:30pm every night (for instance) to each element of your campaign. Day one: design a landing page; day two: keyword research and so on for the 6 or 7 days it will take to have everything completed. By the end, you’ll have a fully-ready, full-optimized campaign poised to make you some serious bank with hopefully very little follow-up work needed. Once the campaign goes live, just repeat the process with the next offer, and so on.

While this practice takes longer before a campaign can go live (needless to say), it will save you in the end – both from money lost as a result of rushing (which is especially important when you’re operating on a tight budget like we are) and time wasted, when time is of the essence.

Popularity: 9% [?]