The Affiliate Lifestyle Blog

Most of us will go through life and never realize how talented we truly are.

How much more we are capable of achieving each day.

How much further we could run, if we only pushed ourselves a little harder..

It’s time to set BIG goals and to work towards them every day.

Time to get off our butts and stop being lazy.

Now’s the time, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?

And we go through life, saying “one day.. I will retire and see the world..”

Or, “maybe some day I will get out of this job I hate and start my own business..”

Or, “I’m so unhappy with my life”..

Do we not realize our potential?

Change– daily. Change our attitudes, our exercise habits, our eating..

We can change, but it takes work.

I’m only beginning to learn these lessons – But each day, I try to move closer to where I want to be-

It’s the process of SELF IMPROVEMENT. Meaning, you are never too old, too fat, or too anything to change yourself and create the life that you want.

What are your goals? And what are you doing each day to achieve them?

Are you investing in your “life education” – Are you standing on the shoulders of giants by READING the amazing books available at your local library?

I’m FAR, FAR from perfect. But I know, that if I just work A LITTLE harder each day, get up a LITTLE earlier, run a LITTLE further, push myself to take RISKS a little more, and work each day on improving myself, just a little bit.. Then one day I will look back and see how far I’ve gone..

So let’s all WAKE UP to our true POTENTIAL and make small changes towards our goals today.. And have the patience and determination to do the same tomorrow, and the next day!

1) Check your email twice a day MAX (good luck with this one)

2) Check stats only twice a day.

3) Work on ONLY 1 thing at a time.

4) Close all open Windows (including AIM, Skype, Gmail, etc) except the specific project you are working on.

5) Write a to-do list in the morning which you follow.

6) Spend your time working on the thing that will potentially make you the most money.

If you just follow these 6 simple rules every time you sit down at your computer, I guarantee you will at least double your income in 30 days.

If you’ve never heard of Adwords Editor, match types, or basic keyword strategy, then this mp3 is for you!

Click the “Play” button below to listen to Mike Cowles interview me.

The interview was recorded last month. (Feel free to Right Click –> Save “As” to download to your computer / iPod).

In PPC, you are handsomely rewarded for helping people to find what they are looking for. If you want to be successful in PPC – keep that in mind.

When you fail to satisfy your visitor (ie. your campaigns suck and you are going broke), it’s usually because:

1) Your ad promised something that you didn’t have (ie. you used the keyword as the title of your ad, which was inaccurate)

2) You failed to provide visitors with the information they were searching for (ie. poor or untargeted landing page/post click experience)

3) They are confused. They don’t know who you are or why they are on your website (ie. your ad or landing page was misleading or confusing).

4) They are not ready to take action or buy (ie. you targeted someone at the wrong stage of the buying cycle)

5) Your offer sucks.

These are common problems to every PPC campaigns. You can learn to reduce these errors by:

1) Have an outsourced person from the Philippines write custom ad titles for every keyword

Use 1 to 3 keywords per ad group. Do not use the keyword as the Title of your ad (yes, I used to advocate the “keyword as the ad title” approach when launching a campaign, but I’ve realized this is lazy and undermines your success).

2) Test multiple versions of your landing page.

Don’t be afraid to have your designer create 3 different landing pages right off the bat.

Start collecting split test data the second you launch your campaign. Make sure to have 2 ads in each ad group.

Make sure Google analytics is installed AND GOAL TRACKING IS IN PLACE**. Don’t wait until after you launch your PPC campaign to do this stuff or you will be losing valuable information.

3) Provide custom copy on each landing page for all high volume keywords (this is the future of PPC/affiliate marketing).

Custom copy means a unique headline and intro body copy. Dynamic keyword insertion on your landing page is not enough.

3) Make sure you start your campaigns (and focus your time) on keywords that are highly relevant to the product/service you are promoting.

For example, if you are promoting a product on weight loss, it’s not necessarily a good idea to advertise on “recipe” keywords (ie. ‘chicken recipe’).

I suggest starting with 1000 to 5000 highly relevant, directly related keywords.

These are the top 20% of keywords in your niche which get 80% of the traffic as determined by the Google Traffic Estimator.

Once you get these keywords converting, expand outwards to cover a broader (less relevant) keyword base to see how it converts.

4) If you are an affiliate, split test your offer.

You can do this by rotating the offer on your landing page evenly, so that you are split testing the same offer across different affiliate networks. Or you can rotate in very similar offers.

Anyway, following these simple rules will improve your PPC success rate by 50% or more.

I just got off the phone with my friend.

Here’s what he’s doing:

1) Launching 5 new CPA offers per week in various categories by direct linking.

2) Each offer contains 200 keywords, including domain names as keywords

3) Bid price = Expected Conversion Rate x Payout

The basic strategy is to find winning campaigns fast using direct linking, then build out a landing page and full affiliate site.

He hasn’t had much success with this method, so he asked my advice about why it’s not working so well.

I was happy to answer this question

First, I asked him what his budget was for his latest campaign he launched. He told me $50. I asked him what his CPC was, he told me $2.93. So he basically got 17 clicks before he turned off his campaign, since none of those clicks converted.

Before I go on.. Do you guys see what’s immediately wrong with what has happened? This is a good exercise to think about for a second before reading on…

Basically, he’s bidding way too high. If he bids lower, he can drop his position down to 8 or so on the page and get twice as many clicks for the same budget.

Positions lower on the page also convert better.

I wanted to drill down further, so I asked him to look at the keywords which received clicks. He told me there were just a handful, maybe 4 that accounted for all the clicks.

This is another BIG problem.

Because those 4 keywords ate up all his budget, the other 196 keywords didn’t even have a chance to get clicked!

Which brings me to my second point– why is he testing only 200 keywords?

He was told that he should crank out these campaigns fast, and you want to bid on the top 200 keywords- if they don’t convert well then move on.

I think this is bad advice.

You may ask me, why would testing more keywords be beneficial?

I have a few logical reasons. Now that you have 1000 instead of 200 keywords in your campaign, you can bid much less and still get the same amount of traffic.

My first piece of advice was to lower his bids A LOT so that he can get double the amount of traffic for the same budget. My second piece of advice is to increase his keyword size to 1000, so he can again lower his bid price and receive the same number of targeted clicks for his budget.

As long as his keywords are highly relevant, I see no negative impact of adding more keywords to a campaign. Granted, it does take a bit more time to set up, but the trade off is well worth it.

Now, my third point.. (Hopefully I’m not boring you guys, and you are still following me here!)…

Does your test have statistically valid results?

The fact is that his budget was so small that he could not produce statistically relevant results, even on the 4 keywords that received all the traffic.

But nonetheless, let’s assume he did establish statistical significance with a $50 budget on a few keywords that got most of the clicks (assuming his bid price was WAY lower), can you then extrapolate that to mean the offer is or is not converting? Doubtful.

Finally, my fourth point…

Again, this has to do with “what are you REALLY testing here?”.. He’s basically testing a set of keywords from a particular traffic source going to a particular landing page. So even if he followed my advice and reduced his bids, and increased his keyword list to 1000, he STILL does not know if this offer converts.

Why? Well, he’s only testing the merchant’s landing page. Yes, you could find the occasional super-star of an offer that converts with the merchants landing page, but that’s the exception and not the rule. So he has to understand that he’s not really testing if the offer is even profitable, but if it’s profitable with one PARTICULAR landing page.

So now that I’ve gone on a long rant, I want to clarify. I love the idea of becoming more familiar with Adwords. In fact, I highly recommend the strategy of testing a ton of offers using direct linking, because you will learn how to drive traffic effectively and affordably, which is a critical component of success in affiliate marketing.

In short, all I’m saying is:

1) You also need to know that it’s better to bid lower and see the traffic level and increment your bid up, rather then blowing your budget on a few keywords when there’s a huge amount of search volume.

2) Bidding on a BROAD set of highly relevant keywords is always a good strategy. Artificially limiting that with a hard rule that says “only 200 keywords” is a bad move.

3) Understanding the importance of ‘statistical significance’ is very important to affiliate marketers trying to conduct accurate tests.

4) You need to be aware of what you are IN FACT testing (scientifically speaking). (Ie. What you are really testing is: will this traffic source convert with this particular landing page with these particular set of keywords.. and not “Is this offer profitable?”)

Peace be with you!

I lucked out and got a “media pass” for Affiliate Summit (because of this blog).. So I’m going to try to post about the event..

Here are the talks I’m attending:

Sunday, January 11th

Affiliate Meet Market: 12pm-6pm – This is basically a meet up for affiliates & networks. I’m going to meet my affiliate managers and check out what the other networks have to offer.

Affiliate marketing in 2009: 12pm-1pm – Looking forward to this one. I’m always interested to hear what Kris Jones has to say – he started as an affiliate and built a huge company based on profits from direct linking. Also, I’m a big fan of SugarRae. I think SugarRae’s blog post on the affiliate evolution is a classic.

The Black Ink Session: 1:30-2:30pm – Jeremy Palmer should be interesting to hear. He’s usually pretty open about his websites and affiliate strategies.

Automated Websites & PPC Management: 3:00pm-4:00pm – Creating systems/automation is a big part of my business and is key to every successful affiliate. I’m looking forward to this one.

Monday, January 12th

Opening Remarks from Gary Vaynerchuk: 9:45am – 10:45am – I saw Gary do a live show when I was in Miami. He’s a passionate guy with a lot to say, especially about the Giants & “bringing the Thunder.”

Advertising on Facebook: 11:30am – 12:30pm – This sessions might be good, or not. I’m going to ask Alex Schultz (from Facebook) why another advertiser can run an ad and get approved, while I submit a very similar ad 20 times and get denied!

Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best: 2:00pm-3pm – Video improves conversion rates. Period. Should be an interesting session. Another one I’m looking forward to.

Landing Page Testing To Increase Conversions: 3:30-4:30 – Great topic. Hopefully we will go into detail about testing methodology. I want to open discussion around conversions paths (which is a different methodology than multivariate split testing).. I’m exploring this with my landing pages now.

I’ll also be heading to the Prosper202 meet up.

Tuesday, January 13th

Super Affiliate PPC Marketing Strategies: 11:30am-12:30pm – I’m going to grill these guys! Should be fun.. You probably don’t want to miss this.

Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages: 2:00Pm-3:00PM – I want to learn everything there is to know about landing pages. I’m really hoping for good, open discussion on advanced topics and nothing lame.

The Art of Keyword blasting: 3:15-4:15PM – Looks like Ian Fernando got his own session, congrats buddy. He’s been making a name for himself and I’m interested to hear what he has to say about keywords. I run KeywordResearching.com, so I’m hoping for some hardcore keyword discussion.

I’m actually pretty pumped about the sessions. Usually the sessions are pretty basic, but this year they look very promising. I’ll keep you guys updated!

1) Success in affiliate marketing is the result of persistence, a great team (copywriter, web designer, programmer, keyword researcher), and a solid system that you can duplicate for different markets, and understanding how to optimize and scale a campaign.

2) You have to push yourself outside your comfort zone.

I have a good friend who is from Slovenia. English is not his native language and he’s not that great with computers. However, in just 2 short months he’s already learned how to choose offers, built a team, and has launched 4 websites, AND has learned how to write good copy!

3) You can’t get depressed if things don’t work out.

If something isn’t working, you must think about these important questions:

- “What are the other guys in my niche doing, that I’m not?”

- “What can I learn from this experience?”

Next, write down the “problem” on a piece of paper. Write down the variables involved. Write down possible solutions to the problem. Then write down actionable items. Rank the actionable items by importance, then get started on the most important item.

This process will help clarify your thoughts and help you become more objective (AND NOT EMOTIONAL) when launching and optimizing affiliate campaigns.

4) Learning from your mistakes is fundamental to success. If you keep getting the same results, then you need to change your process, or figure out what’s going wrong.

5) It’s ALL ABOUT SYSTEMS! Don’t reinvent the wheel every time you build a new website. Figure out a system to stamp out and optimize sites!

6) Work ON your business, not IN your business! Once you understand this concept, it will set you free, you will be happier and enjoy working more. This is especially important for the little stuff.. it’s always the little stuff that you think won’t take any time but then consumes an hour..

7) FOCUS on ONE thing at a time! Look, I’m not perfect. I check my email while checking my stats while chatting with my affiliate managers on AIM. .I’ve realized that this SUCKS! When I start the day by creating an action list, then diligently work on the list ONE thing at a time, I’m more focused and I get more things done!
LEARN from the BEST, SET ACHIEVABLE & MEASURABLE GOALS, THINK POSITIVE &

9) HAVE FUN! We are in the best business in the world.. Let’s remind ourselves how blessed we are and enjoy each moment, working diligently toward our goals for the new year!

Ok so there you have it! Now get back to work!

Good luck in 09!

If anyone is interested in meeting up in Vegas for Affiliate Summit, shoot me an email.. I’m arriving Saturday afternoon.

Affiliate Summit is a conference held bi-yearly that brings together affiliates, merchants and everyone in between.

Basically, it’s a chance to listen to some newbie related topics, visit booth babes, meet your affiliate managers and ‘gangsta’ affiliate friends, etc. It’s going on in just a few days: January 11th-14th, 2009.

I’ll write some blog posts to keep you guys in the loop.

It’s going to be a fun world in 2009, fellow affiliates. Prepare yourselves to fight ’till death!

I mean, let the games begin

As many of you know, I’m a competitive research junky. I think the best way to get into a new niche is to deconstruct the top competition: figure out what they are doing, what keywords and landing pages they are using, etc– then build a site using the same formula but better.

The beauty of spying on the competition is they’ve done all the hard work for you. If you see an affiliate advertising on the same keyword for a few weeks in a competitive niche with the same landing page, ya think he’s making a profit? Most likely.

Here’s an inside look at iSpionage:

Okay- now onto the fun stuff…

With the help of Leon and friends from iSpionage, we created an experiment to monitor some of the most expensive Adwords keywords.

The logic behind the experiment was that if someone is paying upwards of $5 to $15+ dollars per click, there is something that we can learn from them.

After a few weeks of gathering data, I downloaded the iSpionage report containing 51,996 ads from Google, Yahoo & MSN from 885 keywords.

If you are curious, here’s the list of high paying adwords keywords.

One of the first things I did was check out the most popular types of words these advertisers are using in their PPC ads…

Here’s the most common words found in description 1 among advertisers. Here’s the description 2 word frequency.

The average length of the Display URL is 23 characters.

18% of advertisers are showing a sub-page like www.mydomain.com/subpage.

65% of advertisers are using www. in their display URL.

8% are using a subdomain.

83% are using a .com domain

Only 40% are using landing pages.

Okay that’s all the analysis I have time for today.

Also check out my interview with the lead developers of iSpionage.

Cash4Gold is a company featured on many affiliate networks including NeverBlue, CX Media and Affiliate.com.

The company allows jewelry owners to send in their jewelry by mail in exchange for fast cash.

For each lead generated through their website, Cash4Gold pays affiliates $12-$13.

While doing some research, I noticed a post by a former employee of Cash4Gold. This post is found here and duplicated below:

I am a former employee of Cash 4 Gold. I did not know much about the company before being hired. On my first day of being hired, I was taught the “Cash 4 Gold Scam” from beginning to end.

1. The “refiner’s pack” that is used for you to put your jewelry is “insured for UP TO 100 dollars, ” according to how much they feel your items are worth, NOT appraised at

2. We receive your “Refiner’s Pack” within 3-4 days, but we are instructed to tell you that it takes “7-10 business days, for us to receive your pack, ALTHOUGH your package has already arrived.
3.Your jewlery gets appraised by hand/magnifying glasses/

a small weight pad, and a bottle of mystery fluid, which your items are then give a value for. Not million dollar equipment or specially trained jewelry experts.

4. Although the payment (check) for your item is dated within 24 hrs of testing your jewelry, we sometimes DO NOT actually send out the check until up to 3-4 days later.

5. We claim a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee or your jewelry returned, BUT THE CATCH IS, that the guarantee is contacting us within 10 DAYS from when your check is DATED. (This begins with the time it takes for the accounts payables dept. to issue the check and also including the transit time for you to receive your check in the mail. **** NOTATE THE COMMERCIALS THAT STATE U GET YOUR CHECK IN 24 HRS.***

5. IF you are lucky you will receive your check around the “7th-10th” bus iness day, AND more then 97% of the time Customers are outraged when they lay eyes on the amount of the check. Some Customer’s even receive a check for 0.01 cents. (TRUTH) Thats including items of great value (Diamonds, Platinum/ Gold and Sterling)

6. They sometimes even receive your valuables and like them so much THAT we CLAIM to not have received the items just so the “TOP” people or even “FAVORED” people can get first dibs on your items. From which point we issued an INSURANCE CLAIM for UP TO 100 dollars. GOD FORBID your items are worth more then a 100 dollars, and when you call in to check on the status of your items, we tell you ” YOU SHOULD”VE ADDED EXTRA INSURANCE ON YOUR ITEMS.” We do not have an actual Insurance company, they use customer service reps as the claim department agents.

7. For those who receive there check within the 10 day frame, GOOD LUCK with trying to get in touch with a cust. srvc. rep before your 10 days are up. Which after your 10 days, your items are “ALREADY MELTED” or NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR RETURN.”

8. For the “LUCKY” people who do get in touch with us within the alloted time frame, we already know what you are calling about. Customers want their items returned, because there
check amount is so insultingly LOW. The first thing a Rep will ask you is “HOW MUCH WERE YOU EXPECTING TO GET BACK?” This way we can know how much to “BONUS” you.

Definition of a BONUS: We issue low checks just to have you call us back if you are smart enough to realized that you just got scammed. For the smart one’s we are paid to offer u a bonus up to 3x the original amount of your check and you accept. For ex: Sally Smith receives a check for $27.86 for a rolex watch(which we dont issue value for), a class ring, a ring with diamond chips, a pair of earrings with emeralds, as well as a few sterling silver pieces, and maybe a few items that were really of no value. Now Sally Smith calls the cust srvc dept, where she speaks to a rep who seems so concerned and will see if she can do better with the amount by speaking to a “SUPERVISOR”. We then place the caller on Mute, and speak to our neighbors or doodle on a sheet, or twiddle with our hair for about 45 seconds, while we are supposedly speaking to our supervisor about Ms. Smith’s complaint. We then come back with an offer to “BUMP UP YOUR MELT DATE or any other lies the cust srvc reps can think of, and offer you a total amount of $53.20 which is a little under double the amount of your original check. In which case if you accept, the cust srvc rep makes a 15.00 bonus off of your transaction. If the cust srvc rep offers you under triple the amount of your orig check, she makes 10.oo in bonuses.

9. If you accept the offer, the deal is done, and you are told that the call is recorded(which most of the time, the record button does not work.)Just a way to make your feel binded by a verbal contract. IF you do not accept the deal, you have to return your check, and it takes sometimes up to a month to receive your items back after we receive the check.

10. If you only want the items that we do not find of any value back, you have to pay a 10.00 shipping and handling fee to have your own items returned, which varies depending on sales for that week. IF sales are good, there is no fee, when we are slow, you must pay.

Cash 4 Gold is definitely not a trustworthy or credible company to do business with. You are almost better off taking your items to a local pawn shop or shopping around for other companies. With the economony the way it is, Cash 4 Gold seems to be a way out of financial stress for some, but in actuality becomes a stress of its own. I would advice you to think twice before sending in valuables or items inherited and of sentimental value. Its not worth it. I am not doing this as a way of Bashing their money making process but more so to warn everyone.

Are affiliates becoming pawns to shady companies?