RevenueQuest

As I sat and watched my friend and teammate graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Geographic Information Sciences yesterday, I started to think, “What degree would help most in affiliate marketing?” The first two degrees to pop in my head were marketing and computer science.

I think marketing is pretty obvious as it is in the name. Affiliate marketing really is all about selling a product to the public. When you get a user to your landing page, that is your one shot to make the visitor want to buy. You need to persuade the visitor into thinking that he needs what you are selling/offering.

Where is affiliate marketing done? On the internet. And where is the internet used? On computers. It only seems natural that a computer science degree would come in handy while in the affiliate marketing-business. Now some of the things you learn while earning a computer science degree are not applicable to affiliate marketing (languages like C++ and Java). But many of the ideas and practices you learn are used very often.

After thinking about it a little more, I realized that there are many different degrees that teach skills that can be used in affiliate marketing. For instance, advertising is used to get traffic to your landing page using PPC, email, and other methods. Psychology can be used in analyzing how your visitor/customer thinks. We all know there is a heavy dose of business in affiliate marketing. Even accounting could be helpful in managing your finances as a self-employed worker.

What I am getting at here is that many of the things you have learned in your schooling and everyday experiences can be applied to affiliate marketing. Never have a closed mind when thinking about affiliate marketing. The best ideas could come from the least expected people and situations.

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Wow, what a relief. Finals are finally over. I had three exams today and I am pretty spent. This semester I had some pretty difficult classes (Mechanics of Materials, Differential Equations, Dynamics, and Thermodynamics were the tough ones). Now I’m looking forward to some solid time just affiliate marketing and running.

Some updates on the affiliate marketing front…

I was running some good volume through Facebook last week and I was seeing great margins. Unfortunately, NeverBlueAds had to drop my payout from $1.60 to $.60 because the advertiser said my traffic wasn’t converting. I told my affiliate manager that I understood. I don’t want the advertisers to lose money when using these affiliate networks because it is bad for the industry.

With that said, I spotted that same advertiser the next day running a copy of my ad on Facebook. I know a lot of people on Facebook are copying ads already and it’s something you just have to live with. But that wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was that the advertiser said my traffic wasn’t good enough, but they are now running the same ad copy to the same demographic that I was running. That makes the advertiser look awful.

On a good note, I found an offer two days ago on Hydra that put me back over $100 profit yesterday. The margins aren’t quite as good as the last offer I was running, but as Farmer Hoggett says in Babe, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

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Copeac announced today that they are starting a new promotion for all new publishers. If you can generate $5000 with them, they will give you $500 cash back. That’s 10% of your earnings!

Copeac is part of Intermark Media and is one of the larger affiliate networks around. They currently have over 450 offers to choose from and have many of the top offers like Blockbuster and many incentivizable offers. If you are looking for a new campaign, sign up and take a look at what they have to offer.

To sign up for the cash back promotion, submit your affiliate application and enter promocode: CASHBACK.

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I know I said no more records unless it was dramatic, but I think breaking $100/day PROFIT for the first time is a pretty big deal. Margins were unbelievable yesterday at 115.5%! All of the revenue was run through NeverBlueAds.

New Total Revenue Record: $228.80

New Profit Record: $122.61

Unfortunately, I’m having issues driving the same kind of traffic today. I guess it is time to do some more testing!

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I’ve always loved reading everyone’s income reports. They were always really motivating and jaw dropping at times. I also enjoyed monitoring the bloggers’ growth from month to month and I wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately, I never had anything worth reporting.

Last week, this all changed. I got some great tips from a friend that got me up and running. Margins were pretty slim at first (and I actually had one day in the red), but as more and more money came in, I was able to increase that profit margin all the way up to 70% yesterday! It was a great way to end the month.

Anyway, my new record for a month (well, more a week really) of affiliate sales is $748.61. This came at a cost of $606.26 for a total profit of $142.35 and a margin of 23.5%.

Those numbers do seem kind of low — I did some testing that failed miserably (think of it as an investment in my education) and that really dropped my margin down. But hey, anytime you can spend $100 and get $120 back, things are looking good. I sent all my traffic to AzoogleAds and NeverBlueAds this month.

This next month I want to do $1000/week and try to keep a 50% margin. If I do that, I should enter the summer $2k richer! I also would like to get another campaign going as most of this was generated from one campaign.

New Records Yesterday

For those of you keeping score, I set some more records yesterday.

New Total Revenue Record: $217.55

New Profit Record: $93.02

New Cost Record: $124.53

Now I promise no more “record” posts until I have something dramatic to post.

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Paul over at UberAffiliate just got a tip from a friend in regards to new publishers at CX Digital (Incentaclick). Every new publisher that earns $7000 in his first month will receive a $750 “signing bonus.” For some of you, I know this isn’t too much to ask.

If you do manage to break $7000 in the first month, you will already be well on your way for reaching the first payout threshold on their loyalty program. You can earn gift cards, gaming systems, kitchen appliances, iPods, plasma TVs, and other great stuff.

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I wanted to let you all know that I continue to be going in the right direction. Since my last post, everyday has been in the green. My margins have also been increasing. Yesterday I actually finished the day up $19.50. Here’s a look at my growth this past week with Azoogle (where I have been doing almost all of my business).

As you can see, that eCPC has been going up everyday. I can thank my affiliate manager for giving me a pay increase on one of the offers for that.

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The last week or so I have been doing some PPC for the first time since January. One of my friends gave some great insight into a niche I had never tried before and it is paying off as I now have a new record.

New Total Revenue Record: $43.25

Unfortunately the day didn’t end up being profitable. I actually spent $50.25. This is because I was doing lots of testing and three campaigns cost a combined ~$24 and only brought in $10.

I am very confident that today will bring me out of the red… for good.

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I just received an e-mail from Yahoo! Search Marketing regarding their minimum bids. The $0.10 minimum bid has been removed from sponsored search. It sounds like they have implemented something similar to Adwords with minimum bids varying per keyword.

Here is what their e-mail said,

“Starting in the next several weeks, the minimum bids for a number of Sponsored Search keywords will no longer be fixed at $.10. Your new minimum bids can be lower or higher than $.10. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10.”

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You know what is the easiest way to make money? Collecting interest. If you do not have a savings account by now, you are wasting your money. Seriously.

I recently opened an ING Direct Orange Savings account that is currently yielding 4.10%. There are a couple of savings accounts that are higher, but I have found ING Direct’s Orange Savings accounts to be one of the best. When I began looking for a savings account, naturally the first place I looked was my bank. Unless I had more than $10k in the savings account, I would only collect 0.5-1.0% interest. That is awful! Even with more than $10k dollars in the account, they still didn’t match ING Direct.

The other great thing about ING Direct is they have a sweet little referral program. For every person you refer that makes an initial deposit of over $250, he gets $25 for opening the account and you get $10 for the referral.

That is why I am offering you guys $25! All you have to do is fill out my contact form and let me know you want $25. I’ll send you the rest of the information.

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