Ad HustlerConfessions Of A Serial Internet Entrepreneur

There is an age old debate of whether to use a landing page or direct link traffic to an affiliate offer.  I get asked all the time which is better.  Everyone has their opinions.  I have a simple tip that I use to increase conversion rates.

Get the customers clicking!

I find that the more a customer clicks around and is physically engaged in a page, the more likely they are to do what YOU want them to do.  You’ll notice that a lot of lead gen type offers break the fields of information that they’re collecting into many different pages.  They usually start with simple inputs like drop downs, progress into less vital information like zip codes or email addresses and then later present the user with forms to collect more personal information.  Once a user engages with the page, they feel like they’ve started something that they want to finish.  This increases conversion rates.

What if you created some type of a game that was really just a front-end for an affiliate offer?  You could get the user clicking, engage them and then present them with the offer.  You could even use the game to better qualify the traffic to almost guarantee a SUPER HIGH conversion rate.

There is my idea for today.  You can make a lot of money with it.  Who is actually going to put this tip to use?

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Quite some time ago I wrote a post called How To Fix Prosper202 If Spy/Analyze Stops Working.  If you run a lot of traffic to your Prosper202 setup you probably find yourself having to dump the databases often.

Yesterday, the one and only Wes Mahler left a comment on that post stating:

Updated so you don’t have to manually do it each time, we just change the MYSQL TABLE type so it’s no longer a memory table, which removes having any limit at all.

the issue with the above post is it dose clears it, but it’ll fill up again if you have lots of traffic. this fix changes the table type so it won’t have a memory limit any more and will never happen again

The fix can be found at the Prosper202 forums but I’ll copy it here just to make your life easier:

To fix this problem, run this command in your phpmyadmin

ALTER TABLE `202_clicks_spy` ENGINE = MYISAM

ALTER TABLE `202_last_ips` ENGINE = MYISAM

The discussion thread can be found here.  Hopefully this saves you from having to dump your databases on a regular basis.

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One thing that bugs the heck out of me about Prosper202 is that it never got a really good offer rotator.  One thing that happens to me when I start new campaigns is I tend start a new “affiliate campaign” under an “affiliate network” with the intention of running that campaign with that affiliate network.  After some split testing I find that another affiliate network is getting much better epcs so I run the campaign at the new network.  The problem is that I forget about it for a while and then when something happens with the campaign and I need to make some link changes, I can’t find the campaign anymore in my prosper202 setup.

One way to solve this issue is to tweak the way you use Prosper202.  For instance rather then creating an “affiliate network” you can create a “campaign type instead” and then put campaigns underneath it to stay better organized and not tie campaigns to affiliate networks.  Here is an example:

Rather than having an affiliate network name as the top level of that campaign, you have a campaign type.

I just find this helps me stay better organized.

Do you do this or have any other hacks for Prosper202 that you use?  Let’s discuss in the comments.

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Affiliate/Online marketing is an interesting industry.  A lot of the players are younger guys & girls with very little business experience.  Being young I think that the language and attitude of a lot of people you’ll meet in this industry are different then other places of business.  There’s also a lot of joking around, partying and a friendly nature between different business associates.  Take the affiliate/affiliate manager relationship.  A lot of affiliates are very friendly with their affiliate managers and vice versa.  What I find obnoxious, is when people don’t know the difference between joking around and wasting my time when I’m talking serious business.  Here are 2 examples:

Affiliate: Hey man, I’m looking for an auto insurance lead gen offer that accepts social traffic.
Affiliate Manager: Better Get Geico
Affiliate: haha, seriously
Affiliate Manager: I got one so easy a caveman could do it.
Affiliate: ok what is it?
Affiliate Manager: Did you know 15 minutes could save you 15%?
Affiliate: OK, im going to go ask another network because your a jerkoff.

Or This example:

Yesterday I saw an ex-affiliate manager of a certain network say they were looking for a job.  I have some connections to get people jobs as affiliate managers.  I sent her a message

Me: How good of an affiliate manager are you? Do you have a lot of really big affiliates? I may know of a company looking for AMs – Lemme know
Her: Im an awesome affiliate manager of course What company are you referring to? Thanks!!
Me: Do you have a big book of business?
Her: These fuckers know me all over the world!

Uhhh, ok.  With a response like that, she’s the last person I’d recommend for a job.

Joking around is fine and fun but know the difference between when someone is talking serious business vs. just killing time.

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Affiliate Summit West 2010 Las Vegas edition is upon us.  I can assure you, that you won’t see that same coverage of ASW10 anywhere but AdHustler.com.  Each morning I will be writing about whatever happened the day before.  if there’s drama or hilarity…I will Find it.  Follow my ASW10 experience.  Stay tuned and tell your friends to keep an eye on this site.

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