Make Affiliate Money

There once was a time when you had to pay for the site which would create Adsense looking text adverts displaying Clickbank products, now Clickbank offer this for FREE.  They call it Clickbank HopAd Builder.

If you are a Clickbank affiliate you will probably seen this advert for the HopAd Builder on the right of the account page.  Note the new colour scheme (nasty red and yellow) that Clickbank introduced today.

There are two options, create text adverts (look like Adsense) or create tabbed Adbox with options for different keywords.  I am not keen on this idea as it is asking too much of the visitor to select which adverts they want to see.  I am therefore going to focus on the text ads.

Unlike Adsense which automatically searches the site content and displays adverts relating to the keywords found in the content, the CB HopAd Builder relies on you inserting a keyword.  You add the keyword, your CB ID, an optional Tracking Code (TID) as shown below, note that it shows you example ads on the right hand side, make sure you refresh to check the right sort of ads for your keyword are showing, you might want to try a few options because “ppc” might not be the best keyword, “adwords” might be better.

Like Adsense set up, the next options relate to the size of the adbox, the text size and color scheme, the one difference is the option to set “target” which means you won’t lose the visitor to the new site, your site/blog will remain open.  As before, the size and style of the box is a bit of trial and error, don’t worry if you don’t get it right as everything is editable html later on.

The next step allows you to copy and paste the html code for inserting into your website or blog.  The HTML can be edited, Clickbank has a complete guide for that here -  https://www.clickbank.com/hopfeed_guide_popup.html

Below is an example of the text HopAd Builder box with adverts relating to the keyword “ppc”

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I recently found that one of the Forex products I was promoting had suddenly stopped selling the product and instead replaced the Sales Page with an email opt-in page. The Automated Forex Grail was a Forex Expert Advisor which I started promoting late, but still made over $300 in commission until last week.  then the Publisher decided to rip off the hundreds (if not thousands) of affiliates who continued to unwittingly send hops to this site so that he could collect email addresses to exploit later without having to pay clickbank or affiliates commission.

I reported to Clickbank immediately and got this response!

Can you please provide me with more detail as to how you feel the vendor is stripping affiliate commissions? We take these matters very seriously.”

Isn’t it obvious?  Anyway, I explained what I said above about the publisher being able to contact potential customers direct and sell direct.  I then got this response…

“They will be removed from the Marketplace this evening.

Thank you, ”

And they have been removed from the marketplace and hops don’t work, you get this message..

“The target url was invalid. Please contact the publisher to get it fixed.”

So no notification to affiliates, no warning to change your hoplinks, to start promoting something else.  There is a flaw in this process.  All I can suggest is that you regularly check the sales pages for the products you are promoting and if you find anything suspicious let Clickbank know, they will take some action.

I got off lightly, only spent a little bit of money on ppc sending clicks, but one unlucky guy spent $1000 on www.automatedforexgrail.com two days before based on past commission it had made (this was an affiliate site not the official one).  He contacted me asking what he should do, but he is bummed.

I must add that most publishers are legit, some really bad apples get greedy, you just need to keep an eye out for them.

JZ

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Firstly, sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. Things have been pretty mad in my offline world. The company I work for announced a redundancy program in late March and my job was at risk. Luckily I was not chosen to be made redundant this time, but two of my close colleagues were made redundant last week.

This wake up call has really made me think about what I am doing, the kind of commitments I have, both financially and emotionally. When you are faced with the possibility of losing a very good steady income you begin to think about what you are spending and what you could do without. It also made me think about the income I make online and how crucial it might be if the worst did happen. It also gave me comfort to know that I would have a way of making money, and in theory could make much more online if I had the time.

In a perverse way I was actually kind of excited about being thrown out of my comfort zone and being forced to make a go of it on my own, both with online efforts and other consultancy options (there are simply no jobs right now). I even bought a great domain name for a company and investigated the possibility of creating a limited company and checked out the cost of things like Professional Indemnity Insurance. Unless forced to or without the guarantee of income, most of us will not leap into the unknown and leave our comfort zones, the commitments we have are so great.

So back to Affiliate Marketing!

In the last three weeks I have switched CB accounts again. The last account had a period of no sales for 5 days and I created a new account, surprise surprise, instant sales! This new account has now made me $1000 in the past 17 days averaging 1 sale per day and $55 per sale.

Today I banked a check for $722 from the previous account so this account switching is definately working for me. As I have said before, I cannot be sure that those sales would not have come if I had kept the hops to the old account, but I am not willing to take the risk.

There has also been a Google update since the last post and that has again brought mixed fortunes, some sites have increased PR such as this blog and some dropped, most have increased in traffic and SERPs which is what is important, would rather be No1 for my chosen keywords than PR5! Both would be nice!

I have also been doing a bit of domaining. I bought a site in December for $25 and sold in March for $35. Now that is not a great profit, but it was due a renewal so would have started to cost me money. I also did nothing with it between buying and selling and it made me no money. It was a product name domain and that product is being offloaded by the owner so I thought it best to get rid. At the end of the day, if you can make 40% profit for doing nothing then lets do it more and more!

I am going to sell off a few other sites which are doing nothing and will start to cost me in renewals, this should raise a few $$ for PPC or to buy other sites.

Finally, I have bought fxter.com which will eventually be a Forex Blog for all things Forex, not just Forex Robots which is what most of my sites are based around. I hope to use this blog to create an opt-in list and be able to jump on big product launches etc much quicker and easier than I do currently. Also we the number of forex related sites, backlinks to this blog should be good for SERPs and traffic.

Hopefully it won’t be as long before my next post.

James

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I recently wrote a review of the Nichechoppers Program, which I have been a part of now for over 12 months.

Last week there was one of Nichechoppers legendary Product Launches, it was actually very low key and leaked early to members of the VIP program.

Within 48 hours of the launch nichechoppers creator, Norb Czufis, produced a video giving a blow by blow account of how this launch made over $25,000 for the publishers.  The video can be seen here.

Now you may be thinking, yeah great so the Publisher made a ton of money, what has that got to do with me.  Well, think about it.  That $25K represents less than 30% of the sale price, which means us affiliates made roughly $50K in commission from this launch!

This is my account from last week.  As well as demonstrating what our share of the pie is, this screenshot also demonstrates something I mentioned earlier about changing accounts.

Obviously there is no proof that I would not have made these sales through my previous clickbank account, but surely it cannot be a coincidence that my fortunes changed almost overnight and I am now back on track to make a 4 figure monthly income from Clickbank again.

I really have Nichechoppers to thank for 90% of my success, not just this week, but for the last 12 months.

Why not find out for yourself what Nichechoppers has to offer you by Clicking Here >>

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I recently wrote about a theory that certain Clickbank Accounts are “blacklisted” and possibly have a more strict anti-fraud process here Sales on Clickbank slow? switch accounts

After a significant drop in Forex sales I had nothing to lose by trying this out.  The results are clear, I have made nearly $600 in less than three weeks.  That is nothing like I was making last year, but it is much better than the previous three weeks!

I have moved most of my hoplinks to the new account and while there is no way of proving I wouldn’t have made those sales on the old account, I am happy to go with it and will move the majority of the other hops there too.  I have now met the Clickbank Customer Distribution Requirement and look forward to receiving a check in the post soon.

Customer Distribution Requirement

ClickBank accounts cannot be used for the sole purpose of collecting rebates or otherwise extending credit to yourself or others. In compliance with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria is met:

• Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers and
• Sales made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers.

Other news…

I have recently been asked to review a new product “The Flipping Fool” by the publisher and now that I have received the review copy I will give it a good look over and write about it here very soon. Website flipping is something I am really getting into now, my previous experience of it has been pretty good, see previous post Domaining by Accident

Sign up to my RSS Feed to make sure you don’t miss my review.

James

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I got this idea from DigitalPoint Forums where someone said that they “rotated” their clickbank ID regularly.  The poster noticed that if they switched their CBIDs to another account they owned, they instantly started making sales.  It was thought that a particular account can get flagged if a lot of “high risk” credit cards are attempted on it or from certain high risk countries.  Clickbank has some pretty sensitive risk management rules!

Anyway, I thought I would try this and see if it worked.  The simple answer is YES!

I opened a new account (was planning to do this anyway for a new product I am developing) and then changed the CBID on one site and some of my PPC adverts.  Within three days I had made two FAP Turbo sales and over $150!  My old account that received twice as many hops during the same time made one $33 sale!

I am going to make some changes to other sites to make changing account ID easier and then rotate them.  This could be a regular thing for me if it works, the only problem being that you have to meet the initial criteria of 5 sales and different credit cards etc each new account and get paper checks to start with, but on current progress that shouldn’t be an issue.

Keep trucking. JZ

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For some time now I have realised that DigitalPoint Forums are only good for two things, backlinks and cheap content writers, and I had to think hard to think of the second!

DP forums are full of newbies from far flung places asking stupid questions like “How can I make a million dollars in 1 week?” “How much money are you making?” “I haven’t made any money from Clickbank, I have done nothing and it’s been a week now, what am I doing wrong?” – OK so I am paraphrasing!

The other thing DP is full of scammers, whether it be people using “modified” clickbank screenshots, “gurus” taking hundreds if not thousands of dollars from unsuspecting “newbies” desperate to make money online or new Clickbank Publishers blatently copying other successful Publishers products entirely including the sales page!

Almost exactly a year ago I joined Nichechoppers after reading some very useful and helpful threads on DP written by Nichechoppers creator and Clickbank Publisher Extrordinare Norb Czufis.  His amazing graphics, brilliant products and willingness to support his affiliates rather than exploit them.  He was offering 75% commission on all his products as he fully understands the fact that an affiliate sale is one that he would not have made without them.

When I joined the Nichechoppers Family it was basically just a forum where affiliates could contact Norb and discuss the different products and marketing methods.  It has grown incredibly to an amazing affiliate marketing resource with 1400 members and almost 12000 posts!  It’s bootcamp for the new guy, it’s deregulated tactics for the intermediate guy and networking heaven for the seasoned publisher and marketer.

Affiliates can :

• Fast-Track your learning curve by 1000%!
• Get in on big pre-launch campaigns early
• Make your first sales within days
• Get personal training and step by steps
• Promote OTO’s, Recurs or BIG items
• Mingle & network with big earners
• Learn how to go from affiliate to publisher
• Learn marketing from audio, video, to great reads
• Once a Niche Chopper, always a Niche Chopper

These are some of Norb’s Clickbank Accounts, he creates a new one for each product and his own affiliate marketing accounts:

Publishers will be able to:

• Get your knowledge base PAR for product dev.
• Access to recruit from our top affiliate bases
• Mingle with other publishers and grow faster
• Resources, top designers, writers, visionaries…
• Learn what affiliates need – & deliver overnight
• Review case studies of 6 figure programs
• See how to create and launch your first success
• Watch others achieve success & inspire you
• Stop chasing your tail – we’ve done that for you!

What has Nichechoppers done for me?

I have Nichechoppers to thank for 90% of the success I have had with Clickbank sales, over the last 8 months I have banked over $8000, over $1000 a month during very difficult economic times and with competitive niches like Forex, Weightloss and Home Energy (all of which are Nichechoppers products).

I really think Nichechoppers has something for everyone, whether you are a complete Newbie, a seasoned Affiliate or a Publisher.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN ME AND OTHER SERIOUS MONEYMAKERS AT NICHECHOPPERS >>>

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It is no secret that Clickbank has been having some problems recently, in making some big changes to Worldwide currency options and issues with tracking hops, many people are starting to ask about alternatives to Clickbank.

I thought I would share my experiences and opinions of the alternatives that I have used and tested with varying success.

Paydotcom

this is the closest alternative to Clickbank, operating in a similar way, putting publishers of electronic products in touch with affiliates. Again, the commissions are high, between 50% and 70%. The main difference is that the publisher pays affiliates direct via paypal at a certain point in the month. The other big difference is that there are no where near the number of publishers or products to promote on paydotcom. I was looking for some alternative Forex products there but only found one or two pretty lame looking ones.

Plimus

I don’t know much about this as I have only just signed up, but I was approached by a publisher who wanted me to promote his forex product, but he was promoting only via Plimus. Need to do a bit more research and find out the details, at first glance there aren’t many products and you have to ask Publisher to promote the product.

Tradedoubler

Other than Clickbank this is where I have made some decent money. This is a worldwide affiliate network that has some big name companies and has great tracking and affiliate materials.  This is a CPA and CPL company which has a lot of offers paying fairly low % commissions, but I have focused on bigger payout things like Franking Machines which payout £50 for a lead, I have had two of these with very little effort.

There are lots of other CPA companies such as AzoogleAds, NeverBlue, commissionjunction and affiliatefuture which have have used in the past.  I have made some money with affiliatefuture but the % commission is low and the items that are promoted are low ticket items so I haven’t made the minimum payout yet.

CJ is a pain because you have to apply to promote the companies/offers.  This seems stupid to me, surely they would be happy to make sales whoever they come from?  A lot of people make big money promoting AzoogleAds email or phone sign ups, you need cheap or free traffic to make that work.

In conclusion there isn’t really a viable alternative to Clickbank at the moment with the variety of products and high payouts, there are a lot of loyal publishers and even more loyal affiliates, if you are thinking about launching a product you would be mad not to put it on clickbank!

JZ

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Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.

The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.

When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.

JZ

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Matt Cutts confirmed via Twitter (how very 2009!) that the PR Toolbar update happened on 30th December 2008. Twitter/MattCutts

This latest update has brought mixed fortunes for my sites, some coming out of the “Sandbox” and some going in, but most significantly after a period of 7 days without a sale on Clickbank, the last three days have seen commission of over $250 on a variety of products from a variety of sites, some that have never produced before.

I really hope this update is the turning point for my most significant sites and brings some much needed consistency to my Clickbank sales.

Anyone else seen some significant change in PR or site ranking?

Don’t forget PR does not actually mean you get high ranking on searches.

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