Twitter Explosion

Twitter’s still a relatively new toy and it’s been noted that some people are raking in the cash with it, however recently it seems the twitter advertising scene has exploded with some of the most well-known affiliate marketers buzzing about their methods, case studies (and tools) that will help you earn thousands from Twitter.

Are you earning money from Twitter advertising? I’m personally not attacking this front right now and would love to hear from others their experience with this new method!

Are Your Affiliate Networks Trustworthy?

Lately it seems more and more people are getting ripped off by bogus affiliate networks or getting huge amounts of their leads scrubbed (see what is lead scrubbing).

Most people see networks as big corporate sites that can be trusted with your cash, SSN or bank details – what most don’t realize is that pretty much anyone can start their own affiliate network nowadays, there are so many paid scripts available to start your own anyone can run one.

Before you start sending thousands of paid clicks to an offer, first of all make sure you trust the network. Find other people that use it on forums or blogs, make sure you know your affiliate manager or at least have their contact details and don’t instantly pound the offer – the advertiser might be a nervous wreck and start blocking your paid traffic – bad times.

Remember that anyone can start a network now, stay safe.

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If you own multiple sites (landing pages, review sites, mini sites) then undoubtedly you need to some reseller hosting. Reseller hosting allows you to host multiple domains in one easy to manage account. You can also sell hosting space to other people (essentially you’ll have free hosting or make a profit!).

Anyway if you want one month’s free reseller account to test the water then click here and at the checkout use the code CACTUS – hurry though, this coupon ends soon!

Are You Working Or Just Pretending To?

I read a lot of affiliate marketers blogs, my favorites being Jonathan Volk, ShoeMoney, Tyler Cruz – many favorites from AffBuzz – anyway I’ve started reading some lesser known affiliate marketers blogs, people like me who aren’t quite on AffBuzz yet (feel free to recommend me to them though ). One thing I’ve noticed are posts like “Effective To-Do Lists” and the like, I’ve posted that kinda stuff before but I’ve noticed a lot of distracting posts too.

Most startup affiliates never end up actually getting anywhere because they’re far too busy avoiding the hard work with meaningless tasks. I’m talking about stuff like;

Signing up to endless affiliate marketers newsletters
Think about it, they’re just affiliate marketing to you, eventually they’ll try and sell you their tools, books or whatever else they’re promoting. It’s great to get one or two guides under your belt – but you don’t need everyones. I personally recommend reading ShoeMoney X training – maybe that and a PDF or two from John Chow and you’re good to go!

Making endless lists
A short and sweet to-do list is great. When you’re adding 100′s of items to it and not *actually* ticking anything off then you’re not really going to get much further.

Reading too many forums
I read a few forums. Mainly I snoop around the Affiliit forums a few times a day, maybe pop over to the PPC-Coach forums and once every few days check out a few others. But I try not to spend more 30 minutes on a forum a day, get the info you need, post something useful, leave!

Don’t re-read
My final point is re-reading, I’m guilty of this one myself! If Blogger A writes an article on ‘The main differences between YSM and Adwords’ and Blogger B writes the same titled article. Don’t read in-depth in to both. Read one and maybe skim the other. This doesn’t apply to all articles of course, but for generic topics try to avoid reading everyones identical view.

My point is don’t waste your time reading how to affiliate market, spend your time actually affiliate marketing! The best way to learn is by doing it, so go get stuck in there!

Last Chance – Affiliit.com’s $1 7-day trial ends today!

Just a quick note to say, any of you interested in joining an affiliate marketing community with tons of tools, videos, tips, techniques and a thriving forum – the 1 dollar 7-day trial ends today!

Click here to take advantage of it!

What is Split Testing?

So this morning I’m checking my blogs traffic sources in Google Analytics and find I’m getting quite a lot of organic traffic. I didn’t realize before, but I’m getting hundreds of hits a month from the term “what is lead scrubbing”. If you slap that in to Google, I currently rank 5th in the SERPs. I wrote that post because a few people asked me via comments and email, since that post is helping a lot of people, I figured I’d answer more questions that I get asked by startup affiliates.

Today let’s find out what split testing is. Split testing is mainly used by affiliate marketers in two different areas; landing pages and ad variations. By using split testing correctly it’s easy to improve your conversion rate, click through rate and quality score.

Ad Variations

Split testing ads is a great way to get a higher click through rate (CTR) and it’s fairly simple. First of all let’s say you’ve got an adgroup with 1 ad, the title is “Buy Blue Widgets – $9.95 Today!”. The CTR is 0.5% with this headline, now to split test, you’d let the 1st ad get around 50 clicks then pause it. Now you’d create a second ad with a minor difference, let’s say the new title is Blue Widgets – Free Shipping!. Once this ad has about 50 clicks, you now have two sets of data to compare. If the 2nd variation got a higher CTR, such as 1.0%, then we’d choose this ad.

Split testing doesn’t end there, now that you have the higher performing ad, you can delete the old one. Now repeat the process, trying to get a higher CTR, if another ad gets a better CTR and/or quality score then switch to that ad. Just remember to test each ad fairly (I use 50 clicks normally, some recommend 30, some 100!) before you discard it.

Landing Pages

Split testing with landing pages is easy, especially with free tools like Google Website Optimiser (or Optimizer for our American friends). The same technique is used, let’s say you have a buy now button that’s red, and it’s about 400px from the top of the screen. We could try a split test where the button is black and 200px from the top, did your CTR to the merchant increase or decrease? Adjust accordingly! It’s that simple.

Split testing really is that easy and it can really increase CTR, QS and conversions. The key to split testing is to make subtle changes, just one small thing at a time. If you do this, you can change everything on your page, one by one, seeing what happens to your statistics. This is the kinda stuff newbies skip or haven’t tried before that can really turn a campaign around.