Category Archives: Affiliates

Learning about Affiliate Marketing

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There is one thing that I haven’t spent much time doing during my career as a blogger and that is learning about affiliate marketing. It seems like it is a whole strange world off on its own, with different rules, and business ethics. It looks like it can be very hard to compete and really make a living in the industry, with so many of the learned players gobbling up as much money as they can as quickly as they can.

I recently ran across a forum where many of the members are making four figures a day in their various making money online endeavours, and I must say, it is very intimidating.

Have you tried affiliate marketing, and were you, in your own mind, successful? Let me know in the comments below.

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Originally posted on May 7, 2011 @ 7:02 pm

Designing your way to winning graphics

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True multimedia connoisseurs are always on the lookout for events which will trigger their creative selves. Graphic artists, for e.g. are always hunting for contests based on graphic designing – logos, banners, stand alone illustrations or larger than life masterpieces, it’s an exciting world out there. Most of the graphic design contest events (about 80%) are conducted online – through related websites & blogs. It is very important to keep a tab of the dates (final date of submission, etc.). Also verify the genuine nature of the organizer of this graphic design contest – many are plain hoaxes. Do not forget to check whether you fit into the eligibility criteria of the contest – it will be a pity if you discover you are not eligible after you spend many hours & much more neurons over the masterpiece.

Get details about the specifications of the artwork. Many of the contests will be a part of some or the other advertising or promoting campaign for an upcoming venture, product or a social cause. Get information about the size, orientation (landscape or portrait) and the resolution of the graphic that is required. Many contests will restrict you to particular software or a group of software that can be used for developing the graphic while there are many who won’t care where the graphic comes from.

Check the output format desired & it’s parameters. While sending the raw file for verification, barcode it (see the available tutorials for your designing software) before you release it to somebody. This will help protect the originality of your artwork.

Originally posted on May 15, 2011 @ 3:47 am

Economy in Shambles: Blogger Opportunity

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Despite the economy not heading in the direct that we would like it to head in, this shift has created many new opportunities for bloggers and web workers in general. While marketing and advertising budgets will be the first to go in many companies, the side effect might be an increasing number of affiliate programs, where bloggers can start promoting the sale of various brand name products for a cut of the proceeds, becoming, in effect, the new marketing and sales team for many companies struggling to maintain a profitable balance sheet.

If you have ideas on how to make money online, your opportunity is at hand. You might have been or be looking at a potential layoff, so why not find some free time and spend it on building a blog, website, affiliate portal, or something that could, eventually, contribute to freeing you from office desk slavery.

With low startup costs, the only thing you have to loose is some time and energy, and the distraction might not be such a bad thing if the economy tumbles further.

Pick your favourite products or services, and contact them about some affiliate deal. Even if they don’t have a system in place yet, they might just say yet, in order to capitalize on the potential skills, energy and intelligence of content producers online.

Originally posted on October 16, 2008 @ 5:27 pm

Powerful Ad Service with PerformancingAds

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Now that PerformancingAds has officially launched, I wanted to take some time to talk about my experience with it so far.

I was lucky enough to have early access to PerformancingAds as it was being developed, and a fair bit of my feedback and criticisms were dealt with early on and while I am sure I will always have more criticisms as the service develops, for all intents and purposes, PerformancingAds meets ninety percent of my advertising management needs.

Who Created It?

If you recognize the Performancing brand, then you already know who is behind the PerformancingAds service. For those of you that don’t know, Performancing is a blog with a similar audience to this one and has had writers who have always become very successful in making a living through online endeavours.

Performancing has always been home to some of the best content online, and some of the strongest secondary brands.

Ryan Caldwell has been spearheading this project, and as he has with other things he has built, he has put nothing less than his full heart and soul into making this project a success.

Why Another Ad Management Service?

One of my first questions to Ryan was always “why would you want to start another ad management service?” There are so many players in the space, and so much competition, and while I know Ryan as a success in everything he attempts, I wondered if he was taking on a niche that was just too heavily saturated.

Was there room for another advertising service in the blogosphere?

Performancing Ads

Features

Ryan didn’t want just another service promising the world and he worked hard to deliver something that would fulfill the needs of many bloggers currently trying to monetize their blogs. He would bring a bunch of great sites together in a directory, while also working hard to bring in companies willing to advertise.

Automate advertising inventory
PerformancingAds allows you to manage your 125×125 pixel advertisements on your WordPress blog. Not only making it easy to show the ads, and position them, but also adding your site to a marketplace where advertisers can easily find your site.

Take PayPal Payments
It allows you to take all forms of PayPal payment, even if your personal account doesn’t normally allow credit card payments.

Book on your own site
One of my favourite features is that PerformancingAds allows you to book ads on your own site for free, making it easy to control affiliate program ads or place ads outside of the normal payment system.

Advertising exchange system
PerformancingAds also has a traffic exchange system, where, like other banner exchange systems, you can have your ad placed for free on other sites, and in return, you allow banners to freely be placed in one of your advertising locations. Don’t worry, there is no dropping “cards” to game the system here.

Quick Payments
Also, unlike other systems, any balance in your account gets paid on the first of the month. No waiting thirty or sixty days to get your money.

Featured Sites Already Using PerformancingAds

PerformancingAds CouponThere are many great blogs already using PerformancingAds, and some have already had some amazing success, including one publisher that has already sold ten ads during the short open beta period.

Links go to PerformancingAds advertising pages for listed sites

Affiliate Program

Here is the best part in my opinion. Even if you don’t want to manage your own ads on PerformancingAds, you can still make money using their affiliate program.

You’ll earn $10 per unique sign-up and 5% of the recurring revenue on all advertiser ad buys.

That could quickly add up to a fair bit of passive income if you get a few advertisers signed up through your affiliate link. If an advertiser spends $500 per month thanks to finding PerformancingAds through you, that means an extra $25 per month in your pocket. If you found ten people of similar ad buying habits, that could mean $250 per month in income, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The Catch

Didn’t think I was going to mention any negatives, did you? I believe in transparency, and despite the advertisements I have on this site, I won’t compromise my ethics. There are some downsides to PerformancingAds which I have already addressed to Ryan. Some he can do things about, and others, he can’t.

The first issue is that you need a WordPress plugin to power the advertising service on your blog. If he releases new versions of this plugin, because it isn’t in the WordPress plugin directory, I will only know about new versions from the PerformancingAds main site.

The next issue is related to the cut that PerformancingAds takes from ad sales. They take a fifty percent cut. This to me is frustrating, and could really limit their growth. Also, with the way they currently run the distribution of revenue, they take 50% of the rate that you set. So if you put up advertising spots for $20, you get $10 and they get the other $10. For the service that they are providing, as well as the marketplace, this might be worthwhile, but I think that the split should be done differently.

I have already made some suggestions regarding this, and I know Ryan and company will take them seriously.

The other small issue is that booking ads on your own site was not very refined last time I used it, and that could easily lead to some frustrations from publishers, but I haven’t tried it out since the launch announcement.

Conclusion

If Ryan and company puts the same level of passion behind making PerformancingAds a success as they’ve done on other sites, then I am sure it will be a success.

The biggest barriers right now in my opinion are the limited number of advertisers knowing about PerformancingAds, and the revenue split keeping away people that feel uncomfortable with a 50/50 split no matter the potential marketplace size or power.

Full Disclosure: I will be working for Ryan starting in August, and I have been a close friend of his for a while now. I have had access to the service from its infancy, and have information on new features coming down the pipe, but this hasn’t clouded my judgment, at least, not all that much.

UPDATE: The revenue split has changed, with 60% going to the blog owner, and 40% going to PerformancingAds, with a sliding scale based on some currently unknown criteria.

Originally posted on July 25, 2008 @ 4:50 pm