RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a revenue-sharing arrangement between online merchants and distributors (affiliates) in which the affiliate earns a commission.

 

 

Update on the Clickbank Spammer

By

The affiliate spammer mentioned in Affiliate Spammer and the Super Affiliate Handbook has been blacklisted from promoting any ClickBank products.

Coincidentally, shortly after I received that confirmation from Clickbank, that post received a very nasty comment from ‘chris', who called me a thief and various names associated with the female anatomy. I trust that ‘chris' was the spammer in question and I'm glad that he's angry.

Now let's hope that ‘chris' grows up and gets angry at himself long enough to learn a valuable lesson that his mother should have taught him – cheaters never prosper – at least not in the long term.

[tags]Super Affiliate Handbook, Rosalind Gardner, affiliate, spam, Kowabunga, Clickbank, spammer[/tags]

Affiliate Spammer and the Super Affiliate Handbook

By

On August 1st, I received an email promoting the Super Affiliate Handbook (included at the bottom of this post), purportedly from the affiliate manager at MP3Dollars. I paid little attention to the email, thinking it was perhaps valid as I was once an affiliate of theirs and also have a friend who used to work for them.

I was later contacted by the real MP3Dollars affiliate manager who told me that the affiliate responsible for this email (CB affiliate ID mycpa2003) had in fact busted into their email server and sent the message out to all of their affiliates. Well, it turns out that he busted into the Kowabunga system as a whole and sent that email to affiliates of many of their merchants. I'll say this about that.

I hate spam. I don't do it, nor do I condone the actions of those who spam to make money online as affiliates. I find this case particularly abhorrent as this idiot's actions affect me personally.

Clickbank has been informed of the problem and at very least the affiliate will be black-listed from promoting the Super Affiliate Handbook. I do however hope that Clickbank acts on my recommendation to terminate the spammer's account.

Ultimately, it would be wonderful to see networks such as Clickbank, Commission Junction and Linkshare work together to share such information and terminate all of this affiliate spammer's accounts.

In reviewing my records, Clickbank affiliate mycpa2003 sold 14 copies of the Super Affiliate Handbook between August 1st (the date the email was sent) and August 12th.

So as not to profit from the avails of spam, I made a donation of $658.00 (the total amount of sales and double my earnings from those sales) to one of the many charitable organization that I regularly sponsor. It would be my wish that mycpa2003 change his cheating and lying ways and do likewise.

[Read more…]

BidClix Closing Today

By

Recently purchased by aQuantive, advertising network BidClix is shutting its doors today. Today is also the last day to verify your contact information with BidClix f you have an account balance and are entitled to a payment or refund.

Too, as of August 6th, you'll no longer be able to login to your BidClix account – so if you have an outstanding balance, get in there and make sure you are set up to receive your due.

Final checks to all verified accounts will be sent between August 8th and 30th.

My Favorite Business Model

By

If you've read my book, you know that my favorite affiliate business model is selling subscription memberships that pay commissions on a recurring basis.

Sage-Hearts.com is based almost exclusively on that model. Most of the programs that I promote pay 50% recurring commissions on dating service memberships – which most people maintain for around 5 months.

Given a choice between a one-time flat fee of 200% of the purchase price or a recurring commission of 25%, I'll almost always choose the latter.

Why?

[Read more…]

How One Affiliate Gets Ultimate Exposure

By

What would it mean to you if your affiliate site was linked to from a site that had a link from CNN?

  • Credibility?
  • Increased exposure?
  • More traffic?
  • More conversions to sales, perhaps?

Well, it meant all of the above and more to Super affiliate, Colin McDougall. (That's a pic of Colin and I at the Affiliate Summit in Orlando in 2006.)

Here's what happened.

Colin was watching the evening news and learned that personal bank account information was being stolen at a point of sale debit terminal using blue tooth technology.

With an estimated 10 million Americans having their personal information stolen and misused in some way every year, Colin knew that visitors to his financial affiliate site would be interested in the subject of identity theft.

He also prepared a step-by-step worksheet to help those who suspect that they are victims of identity theft.

From those pages he promotes LifeLock, a product designed to prevent identity theft which is backed by a $1 million dollar guarantee.

After building those pages he sent his opt-in subscribers a newletter informing them of new identity theft pages, which produced a hefty number of sales.

But Colin didn't stop there.

He then wrote and submitted a press release to PRWeb to announce the launch of its identity theft prevention campaign intended ‘to increase awareness and provide help for those who have been impacted by this crime'.

That press release was picked up by a blogger on BloggingStocks.com who refered to Colin's site in his own piece about identity theft.

BloggingStocks.com is a finance related blog which is part of the Weblogs, Inc. network owned by AOL – and an authority site that is linked to by CNN.

This is where the ‘getting' gets good.

By result of that reference, Colin was asked to do an interview for Code Red!, a radio show about personal security and safety broadcast from Washington, D.C.

Woohoo! Talk about a feather in the credibility cap!

Not only that, but increased exposure to his site meant more traffic, higher conversions and more sales.

If you visit Colin's site, Crediteria.com, you'll see that it isn't the prettiest site on the web. But that doesn't matter – what matters is that Colin gives his visitors good information and resources to solve their problems and concerns.

He also submits press releases on a regular basis which helps him build credibility and authority within his niche.

That in turn attracts more visitors to his site, newsletter subscribers and ultimately increased sales.

Ultimately, this is the perfect example of how a Super affiliate works.

No Skype Promotions in Mainland China

By

Skype - call the world at rock bottom pricesHere is a portion of a note that I just got from the Skype Affiliate Team regarding promotions of their product to people in Mainland China.

“Due to legal reasons, affiliates are no longer authorised to promote Skype in Mainland China. It is with great regret that we request you to cease the promotion of Skype in this country, with immediate effect.

We will be honouring the 90-day cookie policy and will be awarding commission for all sales generated prior to today, 17 July 2007. Please ensure all banners, text links and ad campaigns are removed as soon as possible, as no commission will be awarded to sales generated from China after 31 July 2007.”

Interesting considering Skype reportedly had over 25 million Chinese users toward the end of 2006, and supposedly growing at 100,000 users a day.

Hmmm… but they didn't explain reasons for the change.

Perhaps Skype can't afford to pay the commissions? Hmmm…

[tags]Skype, China, affiliate, affiliate marketing[/tags]

Revenue Magazine: Web 2.0 and More

By

I had hoped to pick up the latest issue of Revenue Magazine while at Affiliate Summit, but it hasn't been published.

I then realized that I hadn't yet mentioned the May/June issue which focuses on Web 2.0, going global, building (or killing) your reputation, brand recognition and more. In the regular departments, Mike Moran asks the question “Do you know enough about search spam to stay out of danger?” and I discuss affiliate recruitment in the Affiliate's Corner column.

Did you get your copy? It is available as a digital version and here's a special offer for affiliates only: Get 5 Issues For Only $19.99.

[tags]Revenue magazine, affiliate marketing, affiliate, web 2.0[/tags]

Categories