Ad HustlerConfessions Of A Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Convert2Media is a newish network on the scene but is run by industry veteran Ruck formerly from CashTactics.net.  His blog used to rock and now his network does too.  Ruck sent out an interesting email today to all of his affiliates:

Morning C2M,

I wanted to drop a note that Convert2Media is not going
to be dealing with Email Submits for now on. Seriously,
they are the biggest headache in the world. From Advertisers
and Agencies scrubbing to the offers just stop converting for
odd reasons, we are doing away with them.

The retarded part of all this is when this stuff gets pulled uneducated
affiliates assume and place the blame on C2M. A little clarity here, if
you dont get paid, we dont get paid. Plain and simple.

I will put up a more detailed response for anyone that may
want more clarification on this in the forum but for right now,
please pull all email submit offer links immediately. I’m seriously
sick of the bullshit we have to deal with and more importantly
that these offers have so many flaws that providers of these
offers have a number of options to screw you out of money.

The buck stops now with Email Submits. Until I can find a solid
provider or someone different out there that will actually respond
to customer service, we just arent going to deal with it.

Please pull all email submit links immediately.

Thanks,
Ruck

Some people may think a move like this is crazy considering the shear volume that can be generated through email submits.  I think this move solidifies why Convert2Media is going to be the network to watch in 2009 and beyond.  Ruck is not just some suit sitting in an office trying to run a corporation.  Ruck was a top affiliate who knows what it’s like to be in our shoes.  By removing email submits from the network he is doing something that not many other networks do.  PROTECT THEIR AFFILIATES.

I’ve personally generated huge volume on email submits but they are the sketchiest offers on any affiliate network.  Email submits are scrubbed and shaved to hell.  Some are so blatently obvious that they rob affiliates blind.  I think that more networks should take convert2Medias lead and either ban email submits OR be damn sure that they aren’t participating in shady tactics. Yes, there is a lot of affiliate fraud on email submits, but if you are paying an affiliate to generate a lead which is defined as the user entering their email address, thats what they should be paid on, REGARDLESS OF QUALITY.  As an email submit advertiser, if you don’t like the quality you should ban the affiliate from promoting your offer, not steal their traffic.

If your not already an affiliate of Convert2Media, join now.  You won’t regret it.

Ad Hustler

There’s a lot of different people and styles of marketing in the affiliate marketing industry.  Some people like to keep it completely clean and safe.  Some people are shady.  Some people are in between.  I feel like more and more people will be pushed into some shadier styles of marketing/tactics this year.

Why do I think this?

Every time you turn around one of our traffic sources is cracking down on something.  Facebook hates mobile, they hate weight loss, they hate profit.  Google pulls the same stunts.  Google hates ringtones, they hate landing pages that collect info, they hate berries, they hate landing pages with no content, they hate blog style landing pages.  So what’s a pimp to do?

All of these crackdowns and policing just force people to get more and more shady.  On Facebook, advertisers cloak their ads or they change the landing page after an ad gets approved.  People are now teaming up to cloak Google.  Who would have ever thought that publishers would get together to beat big brother?

The bottom line is that all of these crackdowns and shake ups will result in one thing.  The people getting cracked down on will get smarter, take more risks and turn up the shady factor a notch.  My suggestion to traffic sources is to let the market rule.  If enough people are scammed with blog style landing pages, people will stop believing them.  If every sponsored search result on Google is NamesWeightLoss.com people will become suspicious.  You don’t need to be big brother and protect everyone from us evil affiliates.  We will wear out our own welcome and only the strong would survive.

Keep Hustlin’

Ad Hustler

So as is everyone, I am phsyched for Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Vegas.  The schedule is filling up.  I got to thinking that some affiliate networks treat their affiliates a whole lot better then others.  Maybe that’s an unfair statement.  Maybe it’s just that certain affiliate managers treat their affiliates better then others.  Here are some cool things some affiliate managers/networks have set up so far.

Copeac

My affiliate manager Jeff is taking me to a nice Sushi lunch.  Can’t beat that.

Copeac is also having a killer party at the Palms called Thrilla In The Villa.  Its at The Palms  Sky Villa 1/12/09 at 10PM and is by invite only.  What this means is that if you want to go, get on your Copeac affiliate managers ass and give them a guilt trip for not inviting you.  Copeac are cool people and i’m sure their party will be loads of fun.

NeverblueAds

My affiliate manager Scott is taking myself and Ian Fernando out for dinner.  I’ve never actually met scott so I look forward to it.

Hydra Network

April will be taking me out to lunch.  I’ve also never met April so it should be a good time.

Buy.At

Honestly, I have very little idea who these guys are but they still inbvited me to their party at the Palms.  The party will be at The Moon Nightclub at The Palms on 1/10/09 at 10:30pm.   This is also an invite only party.  I look forward to finding out what these guys are all about.

Ads4Dough/Wickedfire Get Together

Ads4Dough in conjunction with Wickedfire are throwing a little get together at The Rio on 1/10/09.  This small get together is exploding and they are running out of room to take people.  My suggestion is to hop on wickedfire and RSVP so you can get in and chill with all your favorite degenerates from wickedfire.

Ianteract/Paradigm Visions Dinner

Ianteract and Paradigm visions have teamed up to take a special few out to a really nice dinner at Rum Jungle at the Mandalay Bay.  Paradigm Visions is probably not a very well known name in the industry but they are cool people and I suggest you check out their network.

Yep Revenue

My boy Elias, owner of the coolest damn affiliate network in the industry is taking out a Penthouse at The Venetian.  He’s having a get together for his industry friends.  Can’t wait for this one.

Tatto Media

Tatto are a bunch of true gentleman.  In gentleman fashion they will be having a cocktail party similar to their Ad Tech NYC party.  Should be fun and I look forward to attending.

————

I’m sure there will be tons more parties and get togethers but these are the ones I have penciled in so far.  It seems like a good portion of networks are doing some great things for their affiliates.  SOme companies that seem to be dropping the ball however are:

CX Digital - They send out a broad invite to a “Billionaires Party” that is supposed to exclusive and then tell you to contact your AM for more information.  What?  How about the AM just send an invite if they want you at the party.  Sort of insulting.

Affiliate.com - Haven’t heard of anything.

Xy7.com - Haven’t heard of anything other then a brief mention that of you did some crazy amount of business with them before Summit, they would give you a “Free” invite to their party.

————

If any other events come to my attention I will update this post.

Ad Hustler

You may have heard a lot of big names in this industry say that payout of an offer doesn’t matter, EPC is all that matters.  It’s human nature to think that the offer with the bigger payout will make you more money.  Duh, seems like common sense right?  Unfortunately, common sense doesn’t always prevail in affiliate marketing.

What is EPC?
Earnings Per Click.

How is EPC determined?
Take the total amount you made on an offer and divide it by the amount of clicks it took to make that much money.  For instance let’s say you run an offer that pays out $10. Let’s also assume you convert 1 in 50 clicks to a lead.  Your EPC will be 20 cents ($10 divided by 50 clicks = 0.20). Pretty simple math and most networks do this for you automatically in their reporting interfaces.

So now that we are all on the same page about what EPC is and how to calculate it, here’s the question.  Let’s say you run the exact same offer at 2 different networks with the exact same payout.  Will the EPC be the same?  Technically it should be, but in practice, is it really?

I decided to do a small case study to find out:

12/19/08
Network A: 0.12 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.07 Cents EPC

12/20/08
Network A: 0.13 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.08 Cents EPC

12/21/08
Network A: 0.14 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.10 Cents EPC

12/22/08
Network A: 0.14 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.09 Cents EPC

12/23/08
Network A: 0.12 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.08 Cents EPC

Consistently, the offer on Network A performed better then the offer on Network B.  Keep in mind, same offer, same payout.  It sounds weird, but this can happen with any offer on any network.  A 4-5 cent difference in EPC can add up big time if you are sending tons of traffic to the offer.  At 5,000 clicks per day you can make an additional $200-$250 per day on the offer just by running it at the network with the better EPC.  Just because Network A performed better on this test, DOES NOT mean that every offer of theirs will perform better split tested against Network B.  There are tons of variables that can effect the performance of an offer on a network.

The lesson learned should be pretty simple.  Always split test the offer you are running with the same offer on other networks.  You could be leaving a lot of money on the table by running an offer that is underperforming the same offer on another network.

Ad Hustler

There are a lot of people that want to get into affiliate marketing.  They read all of the forums and the blogs and envy those people speaking about how they make money online.  Some of these people go as far as going to conferences or meetups to discusss affiliate marketing but have still not launched a campaign.  My advice:

Launch a Friggen Campaign Already.

Just do SOMETHING!  Stop reasearching cool tools.  Stop talking to people on AIM trying to get them to give you the secret bullet.  The secret bullet is work.  Once you do the work, you will probably fail.  You then learn from that failure and launch another campaign that does a little better.  You will keep failing and tweaking and eventually succeed.  I would imagine most people having success at affiliate marketing are the people putting in the work, rinsing and repeating.

Want my advice?  Just do it!

Ad Hustler