Affiliate Marketing Business – The Year For Me

This is my first post of 2009 so I figured that I would write about a priority goal this year and about mistakes I made last year and will never make again in this affiliate marketing industry.

2008 was the best year for me in this industry.  Mostly from PPC. I discovered how to use contextual advertising to its best while spending small amounts in my CPC.  I learned that if you are running on search and you NAIL a great ad copy, you will get a killer quality score and cheaper clicks and then you expand.

Up until about a month ago, I was using tracking software that someone had made for me when I started in the industry.  It was custom, outdated but it had worked wonders for me while it lasted.  Soon enough I bit the bullet and tried out Prosper202 because of all of the hype I heard.  It is probably one of the best tools I have ever seen offered to affiliates for FREE.  If you are an affiliate and you need good tracking then I suggest you install this tool.  If you cannot figure out how to use prosper then you can use the Tracking202 for free as well. It is web based and so simple that any idiot could figure it out.

2008 was great for me but 2009 needs to be better. Affiliate Summit East is coming up this weekend in Las Vegas and Jon and I are excited to go.  I need to expand on my ideas and meet some new people and make some new ideas.  I will never discuss how much I earn per year, or how much I made last year but it was key to achieving every goal I had last year and to help me start my new ones this year.

I have been digging around with the idea of media buying. That is something that is in the works and it takes a chunk of change (minimum of 10k with many of the big wigs such as myspace).  That is pocket change to some people I know in this industry and to others, its a gamble.  My goal is to get this rolling while maintaining my PPC efforts and staying up to date with the newest info and software.  I fell out of the loop in 2008 when I stopped being interactive with the forums and my friends in this industry.  It was still a great year for me, but it could have been better if i figured out things like Prosper SOONER.

One key mistake I made in 2008 which I cannot express to people enough.  If you are new in this industry then you need to make sure that you sign up with TRUSTED networks.  Do some research before you go off throwing your money into a company that is going to screw you in the end. By screwing, I mean shaving leads, stealing your keywords and then “attemptin” to keep your money.

It happened to me with 2 networks in 2008.  One is CJ as I wrote about earlier this year and the other I will not say because it was part of the deal in me getting paid.  What happened was a great campaign popped up on the network. It was one that I had experience in with its niche so I knew I would kill it.  I did amazing with it, about $30k in the few weeks it was active.  Once day I was told that I needed to take down the site, stop promoting it, etc because I was bidding on keyword that the advertiser did not “like” (they had nothing to do with trademark).  I took down the site and waited and to make a long story short, it took me 8 months to get my final payment.

The offer was pulled from the network because they did not comply with the advertisers rules OR put any of the TOS in the campaign for the affiliates to see. In turn, they tried to place blame on the affiliates and hold $$.

The worst part of all of this…. Which pisses me off to no end and I am sure it has happened to many other affiliates that I know…  The keywords that were converting for me that the advertiser demand I stop promoting..

Since the very next day that I took down my site and stopped promoting with those keywords, THE ADVERTISER WHO ASKED ME TO STOP HAS BEEN BIDDING ON THOSE VERY KEYWORDS.

They stole from me. From my idea, unique.  Its sad but it happens.  Which is one point to everybody that you should mask your keywords so that nobody knows them but you.

It has been almost 3 years for me in this business. I love it. My goal is to keep at this in 2009 alongside the other business Jon and I plan on opening and make this a prosperous year. In my 3 years I have worked with probably over 20 networks and I have to say that out of all of them the people at Copeac and Advaliant have been the best.  Danielle at Copeac and Alla from Advaliant have been amazing.  All of the other employees inside their companies including Eddie from Copeac have been informative and helpful in getting me what I need when I need it instead of blowing me off like some other networks do. That is what being a real affiliate manager is all about.