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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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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Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year Holiday. I have been off work for a total of 11 days, have travelled over 1000 miles in total, visited so many friends and family members and even had a minor car crash in between!

I had intended to dedicate a couple of days to developing my new membership site which will be my first venture into the Publisher world, but on the way back from my local Mall, some idiot rear-ended me. It took almost a full day to sort out a hire car, insurance and garage etc and in the end I didn’t get anything done.

In the run up to Christmas I had made some good consistent sales with Clickbank which was great, but from Boxing Day to 2nd January I had no sales, everyone was partying or on vacation, certainly not buying electronic products online!

So onto my goals for 2009.

1) Consistency from Clickbank Sales – at least $1500/month after refunds

2) Complete and launch new Membership Site on Clickbank

3) Revive my Everloss and Efficient Planet campaigns

4) Continue to diversify with CB products I promote to avoid fluctuations

5) Sell off some of my sites that I do not have time or passion for

6) Try to make a regular additional income flipping sites building on success in 2008

7) More regular posting on this blog with more tips and tricks

Build a number of subscriber lists to promote future products to

9) Continue to be an active member of Nichechoppers Forum

10) Do all of this while keeping my well paid day job and hopefully getting a promotion!

Anyone else set some Affiliate Marketing Goals for 2009? Post them in the comments.

James

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In the last month several new Forex products have been launched on Clickbank, to name a few:

Forex Detector released from the Nichechopper Stable

FAP Turbo release by Marcus Leary (currently No1 on Clickbank and climbing – could top 1000 gravity!)

Forex Boomerang is another one from Norb at Nichechoppers

Pipzu is from DP and Nichechoppers regular “Kinitex”

And it doesn’t stop there, Norb has another big launch planned for next March, not sure why the wait, but what I do know is that with every new Forex product he launches he has learnt from the previous one and the marketing is refined to improve sales.

I have taken a different approach to marketing these new products as one of my main review sites has unfortunately been “sandboxed” by Google, even though it is a PR3 and was No1 for the main keywords it is now in the depths, not to be seen for a few months, I suspect this is due to a high number of links being added over a short period of time, this needs to be the subject of another post so I will leave it there.

With PipZu I have just registered a few review type free blogs, completely BUM style.  FAPTurbo I have bought a nice domain which is being used as a lander, I have been driving traffic here as well as some direct with a hoplink from Adwords, I have made two sales so far from about $20 investment so profit is about $100.  The problem is that Google has done it’s usual adjustments and now clicks on Page 1 cost too much for me.  Still gettting some traffic though so will keep that ticking over.  With Forex Detector I have again bought a good domain as a lander and directing articles there, my ezine article is currently No1 on Google for the name.  One sale this week which was a massive $92 commission.  Let’s hope it sticks and doesn’t get refunded.  Forex Boomerang is the same as Detector, but no sales yet.

The main difference is the way FAPTurbo has blown up at over 700 gravity on CB, this means there is an incredible buzz around and the name is well known, this results in more searches for the name and then clicks via Adwords.  I haven’t tried PPC on the others as there are hardly any searches, I would rather make sales organically from these as it is easier to get on Page 1 with them without paying for it.

I am just wondering if the market is saturated now and the consumers are so confused about all of the outrageous claims of incredible profits and the different price tags etc.  If I was going to buy one of these EAs I really would struggle to know which one to go for.  FAPTurbo could hit 1000 gravity on CB, I wonder if any product has got that high before.  It just shows you how quickly the likes of Commission Blueprint fades from the top spot after all the big email campaigns have stopped!

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