Glend Article

Commission Junction why it works and why it doesn’t

Monday, August 18th, 2008

I get asked all the time if I use Commission Junction (http://www.cj.com/) on my sites or promotions. I do use CJ on my sites but I don’t use them as much as I could or should. I will discuss the ups and downs with CJ and why I use them sparsely.

First, CJ is great because it has tons of businesses and ads all in one place. If you are looking to do either CPA promotion or Sales promotion this could be the place for you. Of course they have the E-bay affiliate program which can make you lots of cash.  CJ gives you lots of options and products to choose from in one place which is great.

Second, CJ’s interface is not intuitive. While getting to your reports of statistics and sales is easy, but if you are trying to search for new advertisers plan to spend your time searching. The search works but it appears that for some reason some of the biggest companies are the hardest to find. A perfect example is.... Read More

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What it takes to make it BIG in online marketing

Monday, August 18th, 2008

People ask me all the time how i got into doing what i am doing and how i became a player in online marketing. So i figured i would provide a little insight.

1. It takes focus! - it is easy ESPECIALLY when you work online to get distracted by emails, instant messages, fun sites (that can kill a lot fo your time). So stay focused, If need be don’t check your email during the day, turn off any instant message clients so you can accomplish the tasks at hand. In affiliate marketing don’t get overwhelmed by the number of offers just go after a few and target those untill you make them work.

2. It takes perseverance! - You have to be the type of person that even though you are losng money you keep trying. Even when Google Delists you, you keep trying. You can’t give up in online marketing, as it is constantly changing there are new battles daily with victories and defeats you have to be able to take both in stribe.

3. Don’t get Complacent! - Yes its great when t.... Read More

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CJ affiliates Spybot Search & Destroy Immunize is killing your Sales!

Monday, August 18th, 2008

So a Few days ago on one of my computers i was getting popups randomly. So i went and downloaded Spybot search and destroy to have it search for adware etc.. and i noticed they had an immunize function now. After search ran i had it immunize also just to cover all bases. Well the next day i was coming to my site and clicked on my Yahoo search marketing banner on the right and noticed it went to a dead page. I thought hmmm….. thats odd. Maybe my link is old or something, went in and put in the new code and still went to a dead page.  I tried both browsers IE and Firefox… both dead page.  I gave CJ benefit of doubt and thought maybe just an issue and will be resolved in few minutes or hour. Well i forgot about it untill the next day, I tried again still a dead page. So i decided to email CJ about this. Below is the email response I got.

Dear David,

Thank you for your inquiry.... Read More

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Why Not Tracking Your Campaigns can Cost you Money!

Monday, August 18th, 2008

You can read everywhere that people suggest you track you campaigns and statistics, even on this blog. Meaning not relying on Google, Yahoo, Msn or other networks to rely on them to send you just the country or target traffic you are paying for.? There are many programs out there that you can pay for that will track the IP??s of your visitors and be able to tag to a certain campaign, or you can have one built. I personally had one built for me as the ones out there worked but I couldn??t get the information I wanted or get it in the way I wanted it. Yes this cost me a decent penny to get this tracking program built, but it has paid for itself already several times over.
Take this example. I am running a campaign on yahoo search marketing and I was checking my program stats and noticed that I was seeing a lot of traffic from foreign countries and my whole account is set to US only.? So I dig thru my stats for Aug 1 thru 13 and find that anywhere from 10 to 25% is from.... Read More

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Leaving Your Day Job to Work Online

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Many people know that in October of 2006 I left my day job (Electrical Engineer) to work online full time, and i get asked all the time how i did it. Well today i am going to go over some things i did to prepare for that day but also how i came to the conclusion that it was worth the risk. ***

First thing I suggest to anyone is that if you are currently doing it as a hobby don’t use the extra money to just have fun, use it to pay off debt. When i turned in my resignation at my day job the only debt i had was my mortgage, no car notes, no credit card bills. I was able to do this because i planned ahead and used the extra money i was making online to pay off those debts. I would highly suggest this to anyone that is considering leaving, that is if you have debt at all.  (If you don’t already have one, build up a nest egg that you culd support your family for atleast 6 months, i recomend a year but 6 months will do.)

Second can i handle working from home or do i need a.... Read More

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Clicks Don’t Equal Sales

Monday, August 18th, 2008

I need a computer to count how many times I see a user post in a forum or send me an email saying. Affiliate marketing isn’t real i sent 10,000 visitors to the offer or site and didn’t get one lead. Usually the main reason it doesn’t convert is the traffic is untargetted or the traffic isn’t really traffic.

First there are programs/sites all over the net that will popup, under, intersestial for a split second your ad/landing page in a window then 98% of the time the user just closes it or it gets closed by a program. But the programs call these visitors when they aren’t. These are those get 10000 visitors for 5 bucks etc… I have tried one or two of these I won’t lie but the traffic is JUST TRASH!

Secondly I find people are taking the wrong traffic and pushing it to the wrong offer. Example one guy emailed me that his stuff wasn’t converting and he was pushing a ton of traffic to the offers. They were mortgage offers. Well the traffic he was pushing was .... Read More

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You are having success with a CPA offer now what?

Monday, August 18th, 2008

So you are having success with a CPA offer, now what? I received this question via my contact form so i decided to answer it.
Here are a few questions that go thru my mind when i have success with a CPA offer:

1. Am I reaching all of the audience i can (Meaning advertising on other advertising networks, sites etc)
2. A. Should I create a landing page If i am sending it directly to the offer page (will it increase conversions?)
B. Can i improve My landing page/site?
3. Should I bid more to capture more clicks? or Should i bid less and see if my conversions hold? (I usually test both)
4. If I am not already setup to promote via Natural Search Engine rankings, is the offer going to last and make it worth it to target natural rankings?
5. Is there a similar offer that i can promote the same ways?
6. Can i target another audience with this offer?
7. Try different Ad copy to see if i can get better click thru ratio.
8. Have I resea.... Read More

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How to Track Keywords & Tell Which Keywords Convert

Monday, August 18th, 2008

First off thanks to all those who have used the new contact form it works great… almost to great as i got TONS of questions. So i decided to answer my first one today which revolves around tracking keywords for your campaigns and how to tell which ones convert. The Actual Question is:

How do I know which KeyWord is converting the best? 

1. How Do You Know Which Keyword is converting best?

• First you have to Track your Keywords either using 3rd party software, custom software or simple code.
• The Simple code can take the searched Keyword and tag it in the subid placement.

Place this code in between your head tags:

<?php ob_start();

if(isset($_REQUEST[’kw’]))    

    {    

         $kw = preg_replace(’/%20/’,’ ‘,$_REQUEST[’kw’]).””;

        $k1w = urldecode( $_REQUEST[’kw’] ).””;  

    }    Read More

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Which CPA Network is the Best?

Monday, August 18th, 2008

I get asked this all the time which CPA Network is the best? Well honestly it is a tough question to answer but yet it is easy. It is easy to say what CPA Network is best for me but it is hard for me to say for sure what CPA network is best for you. I use MANY CPA Networks, but i do have a few choice networks that are my bread and butter. But this post isn’t about me it is about you and what CPA network will work best for you.

First, search the CPA networks, see who has good reviews and reputation with other webprenuers. You can do this by visiting blogs, forums and even searching for review of CPA Network X. Once you narrow your list down to 20 or 30… yes there are hundreds of CPA networks out there but the key is finding the right one for you.

Second, DON’T automatically signup for all those networks. Contact them and ask them about their offers, ask for a list of there offers (with links if possible) and even rates (not all will give you the list of rates but i.... Read More

Posted in Affiliate Tips, CPA Networks | No Comments »