If you are involved with affiliate marketing it is important that you have a good relationship with every affiliate company (Neverblue, Pepperjam, etc.) that you do business with. More specifically, you need to strike up a relationship with your affiliate managers.

Below are several things that your affiliate manager can do for you:

1. Point you towards the best offers. It goes without saying that you will always be on the lookout for high converting, high payout offers. No matter how much experience you have, make sure your affiliate managers know that you are interested in this type of information. Remember, they have access to all the stats that you need to tweak your campaigns.

You don’t have to follow every bit of advice given by an affiliate manager, but you should definitely consider what they have to say.

2. Are you looking for a better payout on a particular offer? While you may not be able to get it, asking your affiliate manager for help is the first step in the process.

3. Beginners need all the help they can get. When I first started out with affiliate marketing I did not know the first thing about choosing an offer, scaling my campaign, etc. Fortunately, I found that most of my affiliate managers were more than willing to help.

Don’t buy into the hype that affiliate managers only want to work with the “big boys.” Everybody has to start somewhere, and you should rely on your affiliate manager for help – no matter how much experience you have.

4. New offers. As an affiliate marketer it is important to get involved with the “next big thing” before everybody else. To ensure that this happens, you must have a great relationship with your affiliate managers. This way they will communicate new offers to you, as soon as they are available.

5. Technical support. Are you having a difficult time adding a banner to your site? Does it appear that your stats are not tracking properly? These are the types of issues that your affiliate manager can help you with. As you gain more experience you may not run into these problems as regularly. That being said, you never know when you are going to need a little bit of help.

Don’t ignore your affiliate manager. Instead, form a bond that can benefit you now and in the future.

After much consideration, and several weeks of comparing traffic sources, I decided to run a “test campaign” on Facebook. The results were just about what I expected from my first attempt using Facebook advertising on a new site.

Here are the details:

1. I decided to run the campaign with my auto insurance quotes service. While this is a competitive niche, the ability to target specific users allowed me to focus on those who would be most interested in my offer.

2. Although I went back and forth on my daily budget, I set it to $25 and let well enough alone. Since I only planned on running the campaign for two days as an experiment, I didn’t want to get out of control with my spending.

3. I targeted both males and females in 10 states between the age of 18 and 25. Why 10 states? The affiliate program that I run pays more for some states than others. To ensure the highest possible profits, I opted for the highest paying states – each of which pays $13 or more per zip submit and subsequent click.

4. Within a few hours, my budget had been reached and 41 clicks were registered. Now that Facebook had done its part, it was time to see how well the traffic converted. After all, the whole point in buying $25 worth of traffic was to earn more than this in the end.

5. After giving my stats a few hours to update, the results were in: I earned a total of $42 and change from the Facebook traffic. This worked out to a profit of $17. When compared to the amount of money earned by “big time affiliates”, this is nothing. But for a small test with a “difficult to crack” niche, it was quite promising.

Of course, one question remains: would the campaign scale if I decided to spend $100/day or more? If so, and the numbers hold true to those above, a daily budget of $100 should lead to a profit of $68/day.

With such small numbers it is difficult to say if this plan has long term sustainability. When I find out, you guys will be the first ones to know!

The following is a sponsored review of Direct Agent’s “Dream Getaway” contest. Nothing in this article has been modified by virtue of payment.

It’s contest madness around the affiliate scene, and when networks see a mutually-profitable opportunity… it’s tough not to offer your best earners a “dream getaway” of their own. While we’ve heard from the likes of Market Leverage, AZoogleAds and Motive Interactive, I really haven’t seen much from the folks down at Direct Agents, one of the freshest affiliate managers out there.

With the recent “dream getaway” promotion, affiliates will have the opportunity to partner up with Direct Agents and VistaPrint to rack up the big bucks and win a vacation to boot! There’s nothing more satisfying than earning $1000s with an affiliate network; that is, unless of course you are getting an exclusive beach vacation on top of it all! I’ve never recommended Direct Agents before as an affiliate network, but this is primarily due to the fact that they are new on the scene. With that being said, let’s have a closer look at the network and their latest promotion.

The Direct Agents Network

After being named America’s “fastest growing company” by Entrepreneur Inc. and USPACC, Direct Agents has really turned up the tempo by recruiting some all-star affiliates and quickly becoming one of the industry names. Working as an interactive advertising agency, they are experts in performance marketing and media-buying services. While professionals in brand name optimization and organic growth for interested businesses, they have also been delivering profitable results for their publishers (that’s you!) around the clock.

I have very much enjoyed my transactions with the company thus far, and they seem like a culture that just plain “gets it.” When you sign up with an affiliate company, something that I highly recommend you do at multiple networks, you will want to work with the team that has the most responsive agents on call… guys that think and operate just like you do. Best of all, they are entirely long-term focused, so you can rest assured that Direct Agents will be there for the long haul.

The Contest – Win a Trip to One of Five Fabulous Destinations!

Direct Agents has teamed up with VistaPrint to offer a vacation to the winner’s choice of five beautiful locations. How this works, is that through the month of March and April (ends April 15th), the affiliate that earns the most money through the Direct Agents network will win first prize, a choice of vacation. Even better, the second and third place winners will get themselves a great prize as well!

The “grand prize winner” will have their pick at five great destinations, and all of the travel expenses will be covered by VistaPrint and Direct Agents. But you won’t be alone, as the competition prize includes a stay for you and a friend! Here is the full list of locations that you can choose from if you take home the gold:

• Jamaica
• St. Lucia
• Cabo San Lucas
• The Dominican Republic
• Bahamas

Personally, I’ve never been to any of these resorts… but I have heard great things especially about Cabo San Lucas and St. Lucia, even though they might not be as well recognized as Jamaica, The Dominican Republic or the Bahamas. Certainly, you can’t go wrong here.

Second place and third place both win some great prizes as well… so you won’t be disappointed. If you are the runner-up, you’ll get your pick between a new Macbook Air or a Sony Vaio! These are two huge offers, and the prize is stated as being worth $2k, so you know you are getting one heck of a notebook!  Third place will even win a big $500 bonus in the form of an American Express gift card. Lots of prizes are up for grabs, so I highly encourage you to sign up if you are interested.

How to Enter

Just to repeat, the contest promotion will run from now until April 15th, and there are three prizes awarded for the three top affiliates for Vista Print offers in the Direct Agents network. Whoever brings in the most leads for VistaPrint will win the grand prize, a “dream vacation” from Direct Agents. Second place will win a Macbook Air or a Sony Vaio, and third place will get themselves a $500 AmEx gift card.

So how exactly do you enter? Anyone who is signed up with Direct Agents is already eligible, so all you will need to do is register a new account and you are on your way. There are currently three offers that you can promote for Vista Print, and the good news here is that they are all relatively high converting. I have advertised VistaPrint myself, and have actually used them in the past to print business cards, so it is definitely a company that is worth promoting. Better yet, because it is only VistaPrint offers that are eligible… you’ll have a huge advantage over your peers with this leveled playing field.

Got any other questions? Ask em here! Good luck to everyone that participates!
-Jimvesting

Have you ever come across a website promising a free prize? Maybe they just give out seemingly “free” money to you like Cash Crate or Treasure Trooper do? These websites are referred to as “Get Paid To,” or GPT, programs… and the secret is that they are very profitable for the business owner. Imagine if you had an advertiser willing to pay you $1 per sign up, and you could get 1,000 people to do it for $0.50… sounds crazy? It’s not! The Get Paid To business model is still holding up in these bad times, and I want to get you in the game.

First of all, a brief disclosure.  I am not going to encourage all of you to drop what you are doing and start a business. There are a lot of GPT websites out there because it is so profitable, so you have to be a hard-worker if this is going to work. Additionally, a bit of background information would help immensely. Tons of GPT websites are started on a daily basis… and there are really only 50 “established” websites. Because too many people get started, and then stop working and give up, the GPT line of work is something that you should be interested in before getting into it.

I want to break up this series on how to make your own GPT website into two parts. First, we will cover getting started up… including things like forming your concept and organizing paperwork. Second, we will get into the actual systems that you can use to get your dream into reality. I think that all of you have the capabilities to be entrepreneurs… and the industry absolutely thrives in bad times when people are increasingly looking for second incomes. Let’s get going!

Step One: Think Up A Brilliant Idea

Here’s the key to running a successful GPT website… are you ready for it? The key to running a successful GPT website is holding your visitors’ attention! Okay, okay… so right now you are thinking that I am wrong, right? It’s not the entertainment business, I’m not making movies here. In effect, the entire function of GPT is to make money… so who cares if it’s fun or not… right?

This is where I think that many people slip up. Having a concept that really hits it out of the ball park is more important than anyone else thinks. Why? Clicking in an out of offers is BORING! In general, people will start giving up and not frequently visiting your website like they should if there is nothing interactive about it. Visitors lose focus, and stop caring about the $0.50 light at the end of the tunnel. As a businessman, it is your job to keep your guests working on your site, and conversely bringing in more revenue for your business.

Let’s check out some examples. Treasure Trooper is the webs #1 GPT by foot traffic, and #2 on our list of the Best GPT Websites for 2009. Why? They play off of the whole “tribal adventure” theme, and everything on the site makes you feel like you are running through the jungle collecting gold coins and fighting bad guys. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but because there is an interactive storyline surrounding their service… it is very hard to leave the computer screen, and that is exactly what we want!

The moral of the story is that you need a killer idea, or “theme” if you will, in order to run a successful business. Start thinking about just how you are going to captivate your audience… and put it in motion! You should jot down a few ideas, make it a bit more fine tuned, and look for the next big idea that you think people will enjoy and keep coming back for.

Step Two: Removing the Personal Liability From Your Business

We talked last week about how to start a business. Essentially, owning a business is all about removing personal liability (at least in the way that I think of it). When you really get down to it, anyone can run a “business.” However, unless you are fully registered and protected as a legal entity, your personal assets are at 100% risk. Therefore, by registering for an LLC. (recommended) or S-Corp., you will be removing personal liability from the equation and greatly enhancing your upside.

There are a few steps to take here, and I think that you should do all of the following before you officially open up your new “get paid to” website for business:

1. Register an LLC. or S-Corp
2. Draw Up Articles of Organization
3. Protect Your Service with a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

It might be a bit of work on the front end, but don’t think that it is not a necessary step. Trust me, you will feel a lot better being able to sleep at night when you have some kind of downside “insurance” if you will.

Step Three: Forming Partnerships with Affiliate Networks

Now comes the tricky part, you need a way to offer your customers “incentivized” offers and surveys to complete for cash. What you need, instead of going to advertisers individually, is a middleman marketer… or what we call an affiliate network. In a nutshell, this is a company that services ads from advertisers and let’s you market them for profit. Typically, you can gauge how “good” a network is based on how many offers they have and how well they pay in relation to other networks. Yes, that’s right, all affiliate networks are not equal.

Because of a recent onslaught of fraud and defaulting, many networks are a bit concerned with allowing traffic through incentivized. However, unline many would have you think, there are still quite a few willing competitors on the market to service your account. Here is a list of some of the best ones just to get you started:

• AzoogleAds
• Hydra
• CPAStorm
• MaxBounty
• IncentaClick
• Commission Junction
• ClickBooth
• Copeac

Remember, NEVER advertise a non-incentivized advertisement on your GPT website. This will result in an immediate ban from your affiliate manager. You can only use the affiliate offers as they are designated to be used, and every network will tell you this information on the main page of the affiliate offer. This is just a word of caution before you start breaking rules!

Bottom Line: Get Paid To programs are increasing in popularity as household disposable income decreases around the world. If you have an entrepreneur spirit, it’s not hard to use this to your advantage and start your own GPT business! We’ve laid the groundwork, come back tomorrow for a look at how you can set it all in motion and actually build up your GPT empire!

-Jimvesting

The following is a sponsored review of Offervault.com, and has not been affected by virtue of payment for the reviewed posting.

Chances are, if you are a website owner or an online marketer of any sort… you have stumbled across quite a few affiliate networks in your time. An affiliate network is essentially an online middleman between you, the publisher, and large advertisers looking to get their product out to interested people. By signing up with affiliate networks like Market Leverage and NeverBlueAds, you can rack in some serious cash; there are many people out there that I know personally making $100k+ annually from this alone!

Sounds great, eh? Well what’s the problem. As all of these services are free, the best of us will sign up to numerous networks. Because they all claim to have the “highest payouts in the industry,” it is necessary to register for multiple affiliate networks in order to find out who has the best deal for you on a per-offer basis. Believe me, when you are making 100s or 1000s of transactions monthly, the difference between $2.00 and $2.10 is HUGE in retrospect.

Logging in and out of multiple networks to find that sweet deal is very time-consuming… and just downright painful to have to go through over and over again. There really hasn’t been a service that can simplify it all for you… until now! The answer to your struggles is OfferVault.com, a constantly updating index of over 11 thousand affiliate and CPA offers that is fully searchable for your convenience. Let’s have a closer look!

A Look at the System:
In order to get a better feel for this website and exactly how it can help you make more money with affiliate offers, I have made this quick video run-through look at the system online. If you are thinking about signing up, why not check out this look into the system before you do to see if it is really worth your while, eh?

Clearly, there is a significant advantage to running the OfferVault system. With all of the offers in stock, you can quickly determine which network presents the most advantageous opportunity to you as an affiliate marketer. Heck, even if you aren’t a “super affiliate” you can still earn a pretty penny using OfferVault to your advantage.

The Pros and Cons of OfferVault.com
Let’s have a quick look at the upside benefits and downside issues with the system that we are looking through. I have a few things that I absolutely love about this website, but a few minor issues and things I would like to see improved.

Pros:
+ Contains a wide array of advertiser offers from dozens of networks
+ Easy to navigate and search for offers
+ FREE to sign up and use!

Cons:
- Design is not very aesthetically pleasing
- No way to search for “type” of offer
- Still a few major networks missing from the list

Bottom Line: Overall, I feel that OfferVault.com is a very interesting service that is definitely worth your while to sign up to and use. Any free service like this can be a valuable tool to use, and is simply too hard to pass up. With that, I do indeed think that OfferVault is worth your time, so check it out!

-Jimvesting