Showing posts with label affiliate marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affiliate marketing. Show all posts

Exchange Blog Posts With Smorty

Smorty is a blog advertising network along the lines of PayPerPost but with a bit of SocialSpark thrown in. I have used Smorty in the past for a few posts on some of my various blogs and really liked the payment setup as well as how they handled the posting requirements. The biggest drawback for me at the time was the community was small and the opps were limited. Because of this I gravitated to PPP and other mediums for earnings through posting and links.

Blog Advertising - Get Paid to Blog

During this time PayPerPost became IZEA and launched SocialSpark. Well Smorty is not just sitting around being passed by SocialSpark and PayPerPost. They have launched a great new option for Smorty members. Smorty has a new Post Exchange Program that is growing the Smorty community to become stronger by helping each other. It aims to build a strong and ongoing inbound link structure and increase your online traffic. It is completely free to use and all approved blogs can participate. Post exchange works on a point based system. For every post you write, a different blogger can write a post for you in return. Exchange as many posts as you can until you have used up your chosen category of bloggers. For every post you write, a post will be written for you by a different blogger, one for one.

This is very similar to the sparks on SocialSpark. You don't get paid for the post but you do get to help out a fellow blogger in the process. If you haven't had a chance to check out Smorty you should stop over and give them a shot.

Blog Advertising - Get Paid to Blog

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED or clicking the links below to subscribe to my feed, bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites. You also might want to check out my other blog Cman's Cognitive Content.

I Am Giving Away Free Gas And Making Money Doing It

I just wanted to write to you all today about one of my most recent successful affiliate marketing campaign. I am having great success simply giving away free gas. With all the headlines, as if it isn't obvious to anyone that drives a gasoline powered vehicle, about high gas prices people are searching for ways to save money on gas. What better way to capitalized on current conditions that to give a way FREE GAS. I wrote an article about this time last year titled Boca Java, Rush Limbaugh And Affiliate Marketing, and it was all about how to capitalize on existing national advertising and buzz about a product to make yourself a lot of money. This article still drives a lot of traffic and earns me quite a bit. I am still running my Boca Java ad campaigns across the net and earning a good chunk of change from that campaign alone.

I am also doing very well still with my most successful campaign of all time Mr. Beer. You wanted the best coffee or the best home brew kit....you searched for it you probably clicked on one of my links. My newest campaign that I am having great success with is giving away free gas.

With the soaring price of gas everyone is looking for ways to save money on gas. What better way to save than to get your gas for free? You can capitalize on all the news and hype surrounding the high gas prices and make yourself a little bit of gas money along the the way.

This is a campaign from NeverBlueAds which not only is it one of my favorite affiliate programs NeverBlueAds is one of the best out there. This campaign can be promoted using Web, Email, Search, or DLS. The offer IS NOT incentivizable, but it does have a great payout. The offer converts on a very quick and easy 1st-page zip submit. That is it...All the person has to do is enter their zip code and you get paid. The payout is a decent $1.25 / lead. With such an easy action leading to such a good payout you almost can't lose. So why don't you head over to NeverBlueAds, sign up if you haven't already, and begin making money giving away free gas!



later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

Get more profitable and productive information by subscribing to my FEED or clicking the links below to subscribe to my feed, bookmark my site, or add me to your favorites. You also might want to check out my other blog Cman's Cognitive Content.

Better Leads More Affiliate Sales

Just wanted to pass along some information on another excellent source of quality leads. The Lead Dogs specialize in one thing – getting you the high-quality b-to-b sales leads that turn into sales and make you money. Whether you do email marketing, business to business telemarketing, direct mail, or other forms of marketing, and no matter what you are trying to sell The Lead Dogs can fill your sales pipeline with qualified opportunities to drive revenue right into your pocket.

Better leads equals more sales which is more money for you.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Hey Affiliate Marketers! Got Leads?

What do you do to build a prospect list? What are your mechanisms for capturing information and building a list?

If you are an affiliate marketer having a good targeted list is a very important tool in your money making arsenal. To ensure the success of any business venture whether online or off, your customer base must continue to expand. You probably understand that buying sales leads and targeting your prospects through email, direct mail, or telemarketing are proven and cost-effective ways of increasing sales and enhancing revenue. These activities generally lead to new market share growth and new customers. Those to things are keys to affiliate marketing success.

There is a company called Kingsbridge supplies quality, demographically based sales leads to optimize your online or offline marketing efforts. Each list they provide is unique and tailored to meet your needs. Looking to do a targeted email campaign? Kingsbridge has the ability to take tons of data and create a personalized, high-quality sales leads list for that campaign. They have exceptional service, a must quality for me, and they offer an awesome 4 HOUR DELIVERY for their lists. If you have never thought about buying a leads list you really should check into it. It is a great way to jump start an affliate marketing campaign. You can really maximize and optimize the earnings from your affliate marketing by using targeted lists.


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Did I Reach My $1500 January Goal?

Now that the month of January is over I had a bit of time to total up the numbers. I know I was anxious to see if I had reached my goal. I know many of you were probably wondering the same thing.

Oh yeah, In case you missed it I set a goal for this blog to earn $1500 in January. When I set this goal it was on January 15th and I had earned a total of $606.33 so far for the month. I was very determined to meet the goal and I tried to keep everyone updated as to my progress. Now it is time to see the final numbers.

Here are the final earnings numbers for the January.

Affiliate Sales: $937.18
Paid Posting: $430.34
Contextual Ads: $73.88
Ad/Link Sales: $10.00
Misc: $11.37

Total MTD: $1462.77

A new earnings record for the blog!!! While not quite to my $1500 goal it is an average of roughly $47.19 per day for the month. I have to admit I am a little disappointed. I know I was very close, but close is still not good enough for me. Stay tuned for what is coming February. I will be busy the rest of the weekend but come Monday I will be posting my February goal as well as details on the February contest.

I will be giving away a FREE Domain w/ One Year of Hosting!

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Quick Tip For Beginning Bloggers & Affiliate Marketers

Who are you? What kind of a person are you? What are you hobbies and interests? What are some things you are passionate about? The reason I am asking is that in my experience the people that do the best and actually stick with and put in the work and time necessary are the ones that blog from their personal experience. I might get in trouble saying this, but it isn't simply put up a site and make big bucks tomorrow. I know there are a lot of people out there selling and hyping some product or system that will make you a dot com blogging millionaire overnight. I'm not knocking them. I've even bought a few of them. Almost all have great ideas, strategies, techniques, and software that can help you in making money blogging and with affiliate marketing.

Bottom line though is that it takes time to write quality content. Just a quick tip, post as much original content as possible and very little pre-written articles. It takes time to build relationships with other bloggers. It takes time to build links both incoming and outgoing. It takes time to build a reputation.

There are soooo many that start this thing up and then quit a few months later. You can make good money online through blogging and affiliate marketing but you have to endure through the crappy times. Sounds very cliche I know but believe me there will be some times you don't feel like blogging in the slightest and want to quit because you aren't seeing a return. Those are the times when having something you love something you are passionate about, something that is more personal helps immensely.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Bidvertiser Has New Wordpress Plugin

Just a quick heads-up to all of you Wordpress users. Following the successful launch of BidVertiser Ads for Feeds, they have added even more solutions that allow you to keep your current feed address (including FeedBurner!) when running BidVertiser ads for Feeds. Their new WordPress Plugin will allow you to seamlessly embed the BidVertiser Ads in your feeds

If you sign up first as an advertiser you can $20 in free clicks with Bidvertiser.





After registering as an advertiser you can also setup your publisher side and your referral links. Bidvertiser has a very generous referral program as well as a good network for your ads. They also have a good publisher side as well.


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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$1500 January Update - MTD: $770.58

In case you missed it I have set a goal for this blog to earn $1500 in January. When I set this goal it was on January 15th and I had earned a total of $606.33 so far for the month. As you can see I had not yet earned half of my goal yet the month was already half over. I am determined to meet this goal and I wanted to keep everyone updated as to my progress.

I will only give totals through yesterday as I am not done earning yet today! The totals will be through the end of the day Thursday. Without further ado...

Here is where the earnings stand for the month.

Affiliate Sales: $491.05
Paid Posting: $232.14
Contextual Ads: $34.61
Ad/Link Sales: $10.00
Misc: $2.78

Total MTD: $770.58

That is an average of a little over $45 per day so far this month. If I maintained that rate I would fall just a bit short of my goal. Although if you look at the earnings for the 16-17th after I set my goal and started my push the average jumps up to about $82 per day. Counting today the 18th there are 14 days left in the month. I will need to average just a touch over $52 per day to reach my goal.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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How & Why To Put Links In Your Blogger Post Title

How To Put Links In Your Blogger Post Title


Well this will be short and sweet because the process is extremely simple. You simply put a link in the title. You use the html link format. Here is an example using the title of this article.

That is exactly what you would put in your title field for your post. What you would end up with when you publish the post would look like this.

How & Why To Put Links In Your Blogger Post Title

The only difference would be that the words you don't have the link to would still link to the articles permanent URL. So you would have a title where part of it links to the articles permanent URL the other part you defined when you entered the title would link to the URL you chose.

Why Put Links In Your Blogger Post Title


Now the question is why would you do this? Now I wouldn't do this for every title but it can be an effective SEO tool and also good from an affiliate marketing perspective. Remember your article titles on your main page are H2 tagged, and should be H1 on your post permalink page, but I will go into how to make your post title an H1 tag on it's permalink page in another article. Google and most other search engines put great emphasis on the H1 tag as pretty much the most important part of the page. That is why placing a relevant properly key worded link in your post title can really help what you are linking to in search ranking. Think of this as more of an internal linking strategy than an external one. In other words say you have an article on basket weaving and you happen to mention basket or weaving in another post title. You could link from basket or weaving or both to the article you are wanting to boost.

Another internal link SEO strategy is to actually publish the article and then go back and insert a link back to the article using the most important keyword from the title. In this strategy all of the words in the title would then still link back to the article, but you would in effect have two links to the same article in the same title. That is actually how this articles title is set up.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Great Coffee Deal From Boca Java, Rush Limbaugh's Favorite Coffee

Boca Java - Rush Limbaugh loves it and so do I


I have talked about Boca Java quite a few times on this blog. Not only is it my favorite coffee, but it has been one of my best affiliate marketing campaigns. The coffee is roasted to order and the aroma when you first receive the box at your home is amazing. Their flavor Bananas Fosters Float is my favorite coffee ever. I even wrote an article on touching a bit on buzz marketing with Boca Java coffee titled Boca Java, Rush Limbaugh And Affiliate Marketing.

Boca Java's Great coffee deal!!

I just got an email about Boca Java's newest deal. It really is a great deal. Not only do you get what I consider the best coffee you get 3 free gifts as well. You get 4 bags of great tasting fresh roasted gourmet coffee and the 3 gifts for only $19.95! That is a great deal but for all of you affiliate marketers out there it gets even better.


Affiliate marketing campaigns with Rush Limbaugh & Boca Java


I have several affiliate networks that I use and there are two that offer campaigns from Boca Java coffee. NeverBlueAds is the network offering this great deal I am talking about here. Commission Junction though just announced double commissions for this weekend on Boca Java as well as some great featured offers not found on NeverBlueAds. I still prefer NeverBlueAds Boca Java campaign due to the high payout of over $26 per sale. Even with the CJ double commission offer many sales wouldn't pay out that much. If you are looking for a great affiliate marketing opportunity head over to NeverBlueAds, sign up, and search through their great selection of campaigns.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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NetAudioAds Pay-Per-Play Advertising Affiliate Program

NetAudioAds Pay-Per-Play advertising is an Audio-only advertising channel backed by one of the BIG 5 search engines. The System works on a bid management system similar to Google AdWords and will compensate publishers just like Google AdSense but with one critical difference. As a publisher you will earn revenue on 100% of their traffic... no clicks necessary! You will earn this percentage on 100% of your website traffic that lands on a web page where you have inserted the PPP code. Compare this to only getting a few clicks from google or yahoo and you can see the potential.

The System is a way for advertisers (Like Harley Davidson or Taco Bell) to serve a 5 second audio advertisement to website visitors. It is a way for advertisers to target their 5 second audio ad to specific interests, demographics and geographic locations.

Net Audio Ads is not new, it has been running for 2 1/2 years, has over 66,000 advertisers and over 550,000 websites responsible for up to 43 million impressions of advertisers' 5 second audio ads on a monthly basis. Their partnership with a major search engine will allow NetAudioAds to increase their audio ad impressions from mere millions to billions on a monthly basis.

They are also offering a great affiliate program. It is only for a limited time though. After February 1, 2008, the program converts to a "Host Only" model, meaning you will only make revenue from the ads placed on your own site. The affiliate programs pays weekly and pays on 3 tiers. This is a great opportunity you should not pass up. If you really want to maximize your earnings with NetAudioAds you really need to head over and sign up now before the affiliate program is gone.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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A Valentine's Day Affiliate Marketing Bidz War

I just wanted to talk about the differences in campaigns for the same advertiser, and why you may or may not use each one or the other. I am going to examine 3 different types of campaigns. The advertiser I am going to use today is Bidz.com. I picked them because I have multiple partners that offer campaigns and we do have Valentine's Day on the way. If you haven't read my articles on the Benefits of Multiple Affiliate Campaign Partners you should take a minute to check it out and then read this article.

Bidz.com Short Form Conversion
Action: Converts on 1st Page info submit
Payout: $6.00 / lead

This campaign pays out without a purchase which can be a plus. The only thing required on this is for a person to sign up for a Bidz.com account. The payout though is only $6.00 per sign up. This wouldn't be bad for PPC campaign as in my experience you will get a much higher conversion on sign up than on actual sale. If you find you are getting a ton of clicks but no sales you would probably want to switch over to this campaign and probably see your commissions improve.

Bidz.com CPS % Campaign
Action: Converts on User Purchase after Registration has taken place
Payout: 16% Per Sale
Action Referral Period: 30 day(s)

This campaign pays a percentage, 16%, of each sale. Once an individual signs up and actually makes a purchase within 30 days of registration you get paid. The drawback on this is that honestly a 30 period isn't the greatest as many offer 45 and as high as 90. Another is that there actually has to be a sale. As I said you will get a higher conversion of sign ups than actual sales, and if the affiliate has a small to medium average sale the percentage may not be that much. My experience with Bidz.com is that between this and the first option you will almost always come out ahead with the fixed $6.00 per sign up. The average sales just aren't high enough to make up the difference in conversion between the sign ups and sales.

Bidz.com Fixed CPS Campaign
Action: Converts on User Purchase after Registration has taken place
Payout: $30.00 Per Sale
Action Referral Period: 30 day(s)

This campaign pays a fixed $30 per sale. Once an individual signs up and actually makes a purchase within 30 days of registration you get paid. The drawback on this is the same 30 period and of course the necessity of the sale. Again you will get a higher conversion of sign ups than actual sales. The advantage of this campaign over the previous two is the high payout. You would need 5 conversions on option 1 and a $187.50 sale on the 2nd campaign to equal the payout on this one. The average sale on Bidz.com isn't close to $187.50. This option for me and how I market the best option.

The reason I showed you all three is that payout terms can vary greatly amongst Affiliate Networks and you can once again see the Benefits Of Having Multiple Affiliate Networks. It does depend somewhat on your marketing strategy and style. If you do email, paid search, or organic search this will have an impact on conversion. It is all about having options and finding what works for what you do.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Super Bowl Plans For Your Blog

Are you doing any Super Bowl tie-ins on your blog? Have you thought about using the Super Bowl as an earnings boosting tool? As an affiliate marketer I am always looking to leverage something to my advantage. With all the media attention surrounding the supposed biggest advertising event of the year, you should be jumping at the chance to make some money. There are a ton of affiliate programs that tie-in with the Super Bowl. I have stated it many times taking advantage of existing buzz surrounding a product or event is a must tool for affiliate marketers.

Are you planning a Super Bowl party? I know I am not, but I have a friend who is pretty much pulling out all the stops. I have been hoodwinked into helping out a bit with the planning and the "marketing" of it to our friends and family. I don't know all of what he has planned, but I have an idea I might pitch to him. He may have thought of it already, but he hasn't mentioned it.

Gigmasters.com, founded in 1997, is the Internet's premiere booking service for live music and entertainment. Gigmasters provides live music and entertainment for special events such as weddings, corporate functions, and private parties. Super Bowl XLII party entertainment planning has been extremely popular this year.


Gigmasters' database of talent includes thousands of professional performers and ensembles located throughout the United States and Canada. Photos, audio, video, client reviews, and secure booking are included among the plethora of booking tools which are provided for Gigmasters clients. You can visit the Gigmasters Super Bowl Party Planning for more information

I think that having some kind of entertainment at the party, other than drunk footbal fans, would be pretty cool. I'm not suggesting a clown mind you but a DJ, or a cool cover band of some kind would be a nice addition to the party and could be for before, after, or even halftime of the game.

What, if any, are you blogging plans for the Super Bowl? What about personal party plans? Do you think having a DJ or live band would be cool for a party or a bit over the top?


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Benefits Of Multiple Affiliate Programs

For the longest time all of my campaigns were through Commission Junction almost exclusively with a few small individual affiliate programs thrown in. I was comfortable with Commission Junction as I have had a relationship with them for almost 10 years now. At the end of the 3rd quarter last year after talking with some other prominent affiliate marketers during some of my mentoring and coaching sessions I realized what I was missing by not using multiple affiliate ad companies.

I made the leap and joined NeverBlueAds, LinkShare, and the As Seen On TV Network affiliate programs. This gave me a much larger selection of campaigns to choose from but also put me in a position where I could much more easily negotiate better terms for programs at different places. One great example was my Boca Java campaigns. I had been running them through CJ with good success. Once I joined NeverBlue I was able to more than quadrupled my earnings on this campaign alone by moving to a set CPA from a percentage based commission structure at CJ. I went from about 5$ per sale to 26$ CPA with NeverBlue.

Having multiple affiliate programs to choose from not only gives you great flexibility in choosing campaigns based on what is hot, time of year, etc. but it also gives a you greater earnings potential. I encourage you to branch out a bit and join up with several "clearinghouse" type sites like NeverBlueAds, LinkShare, and the As Seen On TV Network. I think you will be happy with your choices of campaigns and also the larger affiliate income you will most likely earn.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Do You Do Offline Advertising For Your Blog?

I know quite a few bloggers that think offline advertising is not necessary or simply a waste of money. I beg to differ. I have found that if done in the right way offline advertising can be a very effective tool to drive traffic to your blog. Quite a while back I had some business cards made up for this website and carry several with me at all times. That way if someone asks what I do I can hand them a card and tell them I make a lot of money online with affiliate marketing and blogging. Many times there curiosity is raised and they want to know a bit more. I always will tell them to check out the site, browse and read through some of the articles and then contact me through the site or at the email address on the card. I have gotten several great referrals (one makes me quite a bit each month) for some of my affiliate programs this way.

I also do some direct mail for a few of my affiliate offers and also for my real-estate flipping business. These are usually targeted mailings to specific screened individuals. I have found this to be an effective tool for certain affiliate programs and a great way to build up a contact list for other offers. I talk to a lot of people, that is just my personality, and I will get a surprising number of contacts each month from just this method alone. I usually try and mail each new contact at least one offer in the first 30 days. I do all of this online from printing out address labels to managing contact lists. I have found that you can usually get better deals online for things like address labels, business cards, and direct mailers. I can go to the office store and pay big bucks for a pack of labels and spend my time and more money on my ink to print them or I can just jump online and get some cheap address labels and save a bundle. I don't get near the returns on these types of affiliate direct mail campaigns so I don't want to be shelling out a ton of money on the mailer, the labels, the postage, etc.. I want these to be as inexpensive as possible to maximize my returns.

For a blogger or an affiliate marketer it is smart to utilize all means available to build your prospect list and to drive traffic to your blog and offer pages. Offline advertising if done right can be a great addition to your traffic building and affiliate sales portfolio.

Do you do offline advertising for your blog or affiliate campaigns? Have you ever made up business cards with your blog name and URL to hand out to people? If so what are some of your experiences?

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Advertise Using Fundraising

How many parents just jump for joy when your child brings home a fundraising packet? I know I certainly don't. Traditional fundraising is really very annoying. Little kids and even adults running around selling everything from candy bars and fruit to exorbitantly overpriced wrapping paper and stationary sets. In recent years many other fundraising options have come available. Many large national and regional retailers have programs where a group can sign up and a portion of sales generated by that group's constituents.

Well there is a new site Shoutback.com that has a new idea in fundraising. It combines the new group-buy-percentage concept with online sponsorship and affiliate advertising. A group signs up with shoutback and then invites it's members using their own contacts from your existing email address book. The more members that join, the more money that is generated for your group. With my father being a pastor I can see how this could be a nice fundraising tool for a group like a church or church school. It would be a nice alternative to the traditional sales type fundraiser.

Once a group signs up and has members those members then can benefit your cause just by shopping, selling, and saving through the Shoutback.com website. They can also take advantage of special business offers, deals, and auctions. This is where you as an advertiser comes in. You can sign up with Shoutback as an advertiser and then you can choose groups to sponsor and set up a budget. This will put your ad in front of the group members. The more groups you sponsor the more people see your ad. This also gives you a bit of ad targeting power as you can pick groups in a particular location and with a certain type of members. This is pretty much PPC advertising so that is what your budget is for.

I think this could be a nice addition to an advertising portfolio. Being able to target geographically and to a point demographically is a great option. You would also be helping out local groups looking to raise funds. You can advertise, and possibly make some money yourself all while helping groups you choose raise some money. Seems like a win-win for both groups and advertisers alike.


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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2007 Blog In Review

Well another year is in the can and new one is already flying by. Can you believe it is January 2nd already. It seems like the year just started yesterday. I just wanted give you all a year ending review of this blog.

Most Popular Articles


The 12 Links Of Christmas
These articles were pretty much just full of links but the title, and the links, obviously caught people's attention. These were a great year end traffic building and link building series. Day 1 was actually my biggest article of the year with over 1000 visits in just a few short days.

What The F Does The C Stand 4
My first and most successful contest.

The Stripping Aristologist
My second contest and I think the reference to stripping and a big word most people probably didn't know helped this one along.

Boca Java, Rush Limbaugh, And Affiliate Marketing
This is still the article that gets the most search traffic. It is also one of my highest converting affiliate offers for the site.

Hits4Pay Program Review
This has been a great Pay-to-read program for me. This article gets high search traffic and I get good conversions on people signing up. It has been a very successful non-traditional affiliate program as I get paid from them every month.

Feed Failure In 5 Easy Steps

I wrote a bunch of facetious articles around this time.

Your So Vain - Top 10 Reasons John Chow Probably Thinks This Blog Is About Him
My most popular early article. It still brings in some good search numbers.

Profitable Productive Blogging Traffic Numbers


Here is a screenshot of my visitor for the last 30 days. The chart is from Feedburner with Google Analytics overlayed on top. You can see that toward the end of the month there is a divergence between the two. That is the time when I installed the "New" google analytics code. I am thinking of switching back as it doesn't seem to be reporting accurately.

As with all sites my traffic fluctuates quite a bit but has really picked up in November and December. For those two months I am averaging roughly 6500 visits with about 10000 pageviews. For the year from March when I started I have had, according to google, 38,157 visits with 56,336 pageviews. You can see that quite a bit of both is from the last 2 months.

Profitable Productive Blogging Revenue


I don't do really like the practice of reporting revenue numbers though I might change my mind at some point. I do set goals for myself though. I am happy to report that this blog met and surpassed my income goals I had set. My biggest earners for the site were affiliate links, paid posting, ad sales, and contextual ads in that order. Contextual ads has been coming on strong though with the addition of Kontera toward the end of the year. Also I started with NeverBlueAds at the end of the year as well. They offer better payouts, and great customer service, on some of the campaigns I was running through Commission Junction.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Quality Leads = Direct Affiliate Marketing Conversions

If you have a great high converting affiliate program but don't have anyone to send it to it doesn't do you any good. Or if you send it to 1,000,000 people that aren't interested in the slightest that doesn't do you any good either. Having high quality sales leads is a great boost to an affiliate marketer. Here is a top 10 list of ways to boost your direct affiliate marketing campaign. This list is courtesy of Lead Dogs, where you get "marketing with more bite."

Top 10 Ways to Boost Direct Marketing Results


1. Have an offer and don't hide it. Don't just put "Get your free CD" in the last paragraph of your brochure. Boring. Include a picture of the CD in a prominent location with your phone number and Web address.
2. Use telemarketing before the promotion to research, build, or clean up target account lists for improved results.
3. Use telemarketing after the promotion to ensure that your message is heard and ask for an opportunity to meet.
4. Give a unique URL that points prospects to information specific to your promotion or campaign.
5. Personalize all aspects of your direct marketing campaign either via direct mail, phone, or the Internet. We all know something about everyone that we're marketing to. So leverage it.
6. Call your contacts first and tell them a promotional mailer is on its way. It gives you an opportunity to get referrals and it allows you to put "The information we discussed is enclosed" on the envelope.
7. Build a relationship marketing system that includes delivering the right offer to the right prospect at the right time.
8. Know an organization's "pain chain." This includes each person in each area of the company that is affected by not having your solution. Ask for them by function or title when gathering referrals.
9. Always utilize multiple response mechanisms such as toll free numbers, Web addresses, business reply cards, etc.
10. When you get a response - unleash a tsunami! Go after the "pain chain," or everyone in the company that the problem affects.



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Targeted Lists Are Key To Successful Affiliate Marketing

Having targeted, preferably double opt-in, email (and snailmail) addresses in my opinion is key to a successful email or direct mail marketing campaign. Having a great landing page, or other vehicle, that captures potential customers email, and mail, addresses is a must have tool for any affiliate marketer.

Looking to do a mortgage lending campaign, you want addresses for people interested in a new mortgage or refinance. Wanting to run email ringtone campaign, you want cell phone owners, and probably a younger demographic. You don't want to be sending ringtone ads to older folks in their 70's that have never owned a cell. You can see the importance for screened and targeted lists.

There are several ways to get such a list. You can build it yourself through a collection vehicle of some type such as a good landing page, a site newsletter, etc.. Or you can buy consumer mailing lists both email and snailmail targeted lists. I use both methods. I have several landing pages where people enter email addresses as well as buying lists for some campaigns.

I can't say I would prefer one always over the other. I have been successful with both. Obviously creating your own is cheaper, but can take a long time. Buying lists can be a risky deal if you don't take care who you are buying from and how they get their lists. A site that I use is called Guaranteed Lists.

At Guaranteed Lists, they don't just sell lists and leads, they help show you the way to profit! They provide valuable marketing expertise, which most of us don't have, to help make your campaign succeed! Guaranteed Lists has just about the largest business database available anywhere, with information on more than 13 million US companies and 57 million companies worldwide, ranging from large public corporations to small privately owned firms. With over 280 million consumers available from Guaranteed Lists, it's easy to find your perfect prospect! You can choose your guaranteed prospects using a variety of demographic data selections like age, gender, length of residence, and income.

What do you do, if anything, to capture potential customer's email addresses? Have you, or have you considered, purchasing a targeted safelist? What are your methods for marketing? Do you do offline direct mail? Would you consider it?

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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