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The Big List of Affiliate Marketing Events
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Have you seen the recent redesign of the MaxBounty affiliate’s page?

The new site is easy to navigate and has a nice clean look. For anyone doing CPA marketing, MaxBounty has a ton of offers. If you’re not already part of the network, be sure to take a look.

I met Steve, one of their founders, when I was at AdTech New York last year.  We had a nice chat and I decided to check out his CPA network. All I can say is that I’m glad I did. Great offers, great AM and always pays on time. What else can I say?

If you need an affiliate manager, ask for Adam.

Join MaxBounty here.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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The last day of Affiliate Summit East included another keynote address (which I did not attend) and more breakout sessions.  I only attended one session which was the one on the convergence of MLM and affiliate marketing.  It was presented by Debbi Ballard who is a consultant for the MLM industry and Kevin Grimes who is an attorney specializing in legal matters related to the MLM industry.

It hadn’t occured to me that many CPA networks would be considered an MLM if they had more than one affiliate tier.   So if the network pays you a percentage of the sales generated by another affiliate you recruit through your referral link, that qualifies them as an MLM company.  Kevin also touched upon the issue of FTC compliance and how affliates are considered agents (and not independent contractors) of the CPA network under certain legal statutes.

Besides attending the session, I also visited the exhibit hall again.  If you really want to talk to companies on the exhibit floor, the second day of the exhibits is definitely a better time to visit.  The booths are not as crowded and you won’t have a mob of people surrounding you or the people you are trying to meet.  I was able to talk to a few companies that I totally missed on the second day because of the crowds.

Popularity: 33% [?]

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Okay, there is no Day 1 because I couldn’t make it there on Day 1.  I heard good things about the Affiliate Meet Market and I wanted to try to make it but it wasn’t possible due to prior commitments.  Anyway, I got a mentor for this Affiliate Summit as it was my first event and I wanted to get to know more people.  According to my mentor, the Meet Market is a lot more relaxed than the exhibits so you’ll get more time with the people that you want to talk to.  For those who attended, do you find this to be the case?

Anyway, on to Day 2…

I don’t have any photos posted here because you can find them on a lot of other blogs.  I’m sure you’re more interested in content rather than photos anyway.  I attended the Chris Brogan keynote which I found to be boring.  Keynotes are tough, especially when the topic is too broad.  I did attend two other sessions that I found useful.  The first one is the Landing Page Optimization session by Tim Ash (great speaker + great content) and the other one was a Q&A panel for Facebook advertising.  The panelists were Alex (a rep from Facebook), Zac Johnson, Shoemoney and Dennis Yu (moderator).  I got some good tips out of both those sessions.

If they ever have the Affiliate Summit in NYC again, I hope that they find a new venue (Shawn and Missy - are you reading this?).  The exhibit floor at the Hilton is very cramped and the multiple floor layout is not the best.  I think many people didn’t even realize there was another exhibit floor upstairs and it was a lot more sparse than the one downstairs.  I was at AdTech last year at the Hilton and it was even more crowded.  Thankfully AdTech this year is moving to the Jacob Javits convention center.

I also attended the 202 meetup that was held in the afternoon.  It was an unstructured time and I got to meet a some some new people there.  I got through the exhibits and spoke to some old contacts and met some new ones too.  There were quite a few networks there but not all of the ones that I’m working with.  No Google, MSN or Yahoo booths there.  I find that a bit strange since the affiliate space is a good place to recruit new users or get existing users to increase their ad spend.  Also, there aren’t any media buy networks around.

I’m looking forward to see what Day 3 brings…

Popularity: 34% [?]

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I’ll be at Affiliate Summit tomorrow at the New York Hilton so if you see me, come up and say hello! I’m looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones.  This will be my first Affiliate Summit event, so I’m excited to be there.

Popularity: 34% [?]

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Update: 11/17/09

I have to officially induct StatsJunky into my Hall of Shame. Please DO NOT buy this software. I cannot recommend it any longer since I have tested it for a few months and it does not do what it claims. Many of the networks are not even tracking in this program. I have support tickets that are over 2 weeks old that have not been answered. I know of many others who are complaining as well that they fell for the birthday special and ended up with a dud.

—-

I just bought StatsJunky because they are currently running their birthday bash offer which lets you get the software for a one-time payment of $297 rather than the $79 per month for the professional version.  I have come across Stats Junky before in the past but I wasn’t going to pay the monthly fee for it and I was also concerned about data security.  Other solutions such as Tracking202 is server based rather than a desktop application like Stats Junky.

They claim that the login information to various accounts are not being passed to their central server but is kept encrypted on your PC.  You could take their word for it and there are ways to check what’s actually being sent from your computer.

What I like about it so far is that it works for what I need it to do.  For the longest time, I have been looking for an application that is able to pull in my stats from both the advertising side and the affiliate network side.  This will save me a lot of time not having to log in to each one of my accounts to pull the stats.  Of course, no application is perfect and Stats Junky isn’t either.  At the moment, it doesn’t pull in stats from networks using Direct Track.  So if you’re only with those networks, you’re out of luck.  The issue seems to be that Direct Track isn’t allowing third parties to access their API.

Anyway, many of the networks I’m a part of are not using Direct Track, so I can still find a lot of use for this.  One more thing that wasn’t working for me was Traffic Vance.  I could set up the login to my account but I coulnd’t pull any stats.  Hopefully this will get resolved in the near future.

The user interface is well designed.  Everything is self-explanatory and I didn’t have to read any of the documentation.  Basically I downloaded the software and was pulling in stats within minutes.  I haven’t tested out the tracking functionality yet.   Essentially the program adds a custom subid for each keyword that you have and when you pull in the stats, it will reconcile the costs and revenues.

Having all your stats in one place can save you lots of time but it can also give you an overview of your daily profit or loss.  You can also sort through the numbers based on EPC and conversion rate so that you can see in one glance which campaigns are working well and which ones aren’t.  Another nice this is that you can also view all your ads in the PPC platforms (Adwords, Yahoo, MSN) on one screen.  It works a lot faster than going into your account online since all the stats are already downloaded locally on your machine.

So if you are part of more than one PPC platform and 3-5 affiliate networks, StatsJunky is something you should definitely consider.  The sale ends on July 23rd so jump on it if you can.  By the way, it works on Windows so you’ll need to set up a virtual machine if you’re on the Mac.

Popularity: 40% [?]

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Okay, so just what is CPA Ninja all about? First of all, here are some vital stats.

Launch date: June 25th, 2009 (1pm EST)
Creators: Marty Rozmanith and Matt Trainer

The course contains 12 in-depth videos of how to create SEO-friendly blogs that will get your sites ranked and get the free traffic flowing to your sites. There are 4 modules and each module contains 3 videos. In addition to the free traffic, you will combine some paid traffic strategies to further ramp up your profits.

Here’s a peek at the contents of the course…

(Note: I will update the review as I go through the videos… so check back often)

Module 1 - Getting Started

Video 1: Understand What Really Matters (Duration: 24 Minutes)

The first video is done by Matt Trainer. He goes through the importance of focusing on one method of making money at a time. There are a lot of ways to make money online but without focus, you will find yourself swamped with information overload. He also goes over why he likes CPA marketing over other methods. Also, find out what are the top 4 things that really matter in this field.

Pros: I like it that he tells people that CPA marketing requires time AND money. That’s the truth. You won’t be a success overnight.

Cons: He uses too many curse words.

Video 2: The Goal Using Real-world Examples (Duration: 9 Minutes)

The second video has Marty interviewing Matt about one of his actual sites that was used to promote a CPA offer. He was making $300-400 net profit per day from this one site and one CPA offer. This video will give you an overview of the whole idea of using blogs to promote CPA offers. The example he shows uses WordPress Direct as the backend system but if you are familiar with WordPress, you can easily create these blogs without having to pay extra for WPD.

Pros: Discusses a number of things you can do to increase conversions. Shows an actual live site.

Video 3: CPA Basics From A Million Dollar Insider (Duration: 1 Hour 10 Minutes)

Luke Jaten interviews Matt to learn how the CPA machine works. It covers topics such as how to apply to CPA networks, what is an affiliate manager, what markets are always hot, what is EPC, how to gauge demand in a market, etc. This is a long video - take lots of notes.

If you’re already familiar with CPA, then this video is very basic. But if you’re new to CPA, then there is a lot of good information here.

Pros: Gives you resources on how to monitor demand and catch market trends. There are also some nice tips on lateral thinking to avoid expensive keywords in PPC. What CPA marketing pitfalls to look out for.

Module 2 - Take Action

Video 4: How to Drive Traffic (Duration: 24 Minutes)

This video is all about getting traffic to your CPA offers. Matt reviews his top 3 favorite ways of driving traffic - Media Buys, PPV, and PPC.

Pros: Tells you about the pitfalls of media buying.

Cons: Quite a general discussion with not too much details.

Video 5: Setup Your Websites, Part 1 - Money Page (Duration: 24 Minutes)

Marty goes over how you can set up your “Money Page”. This is the page where you will host the CPA offer and drive all the traffic to.

Video 6: Website Infrastructure, Part 2 - Your Traffic Blog

Module 3 - Prime The Funnel
Video 7: Lessons From The Site Examples
Video 8: Infrastructure, Part 3 - Finish Your Blog
Video 9: Turbo Keyword Research & Setting Up PPC Campaigns

Module 4 - Make The Money
Video 10: Tracking and Optimizing Your Return On Investment (ROI)
Video 11: Reduce Hassles & Eliminate Errors with StatsJunky
Video 12: Scale up your profits

There are a couple of preview videos that are available to explain a bit more of what this course is about. Check out these videos…

In Preview Video #1, Marty interviews a guy who is making $25,000 per month using these techniques.

Preview Video #2 is where it really gets interesting as Marty and Matt interview Amish Shah on some of the ways he uses to get traffic to the CPA offers he is promoting. Listen for some golden nuggets in there.

My verdict: This course is geared more towards the beginner. If you’re an intermediate or advanced affiliate marketer, then you probably do not need this course. But if you’re mainly focused on PPC and would like to learn how to get some more traffic to CPA offers using SEO-optimized blogs, then it might be something worth checking out. While the techniques it teaches can be implemented with free tools like WordPress, the downside is that you might have to shell out more money to get WordPress Direct if you are less technically savvy.

Technorati Tags: CPA Ninja, Marty Rozmanith, Matt Trainer, Amish Shah, CPA Ninja Review

Popularity: 54% [?]

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There are generally two groups of affiliate marketers - those who specialize in SEO to bring in free traffic and then those who use paid traffic sources like PPC and media buys to promote CPA offers. CPA Ninja School is an upcoming course which includes detailed training videos to show you how to merge the two and generate free traffic to convert CPA offers. It’s put out by Marty Rozmanith and Matt Trainer. If you haven’t already seen some of the videos they have put out, definitely take a look because it will give you an idea of what the course will be about.

CPA Ninja School is geared more towards beginners or those who are well-versed in PPC and want to learn how to get some organic traffic to supplement their paid traffic sources. You really don’t need to be technical to learn how to create blogs that will rank well in the search engine. The videos will provide step-by-step instructions that anyone can follow. I will do a more detailed review of the course as I have been able to preview it.

Technorati Tags: CPA Ninja School, Marty Rozmanith, Matt Trainer

Popularity: 53% [?]

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