Aminology

Any serious mailer will tell you that the high volume mailing business isn’t something you can just jump into - you need real technical know-how, a decent amount of start up capital, and a good amount of experience to make it worthwhile.

However, you can easily send several thousand emails a day without having to invest in a hefty setup.

Here’s a quick step by step method I’ve been using to send up to 500 emails an hour:

1) Buy Atomic Mail Sender . It costs £55 (around $100) and it’s a nifty little software which allows you to mass mail by connecting to an external smtp server. I personally use this software, and it gets the job done. Any other reputable mass mail software should also be fine.

2) Get a Hostgator hosting account. The hosting account type you need to purchase depends on your mailing needs. Anything up to 500 emails an hour will work fine on a $5 a month shared hosting account. Even if you have a list that runs into the thousands, you can easily just schedule the software to mail a maximum of 500 emails an hour - that way you could effectively send over 10,000 emails a day. If you need to send a signifantly more amount every day, then just opt for a dedicated hosting package, which allows unlimited emails.

3) Set up your mail sender app with your hostgator smtp mail server settings. Hit ‘test’ - if successful, you’re ready to go.

4) Import your mailing list. Hit send. Make cash.

I won’t go into CAN-SPAM laws here, so just remember, keep it legit. Not that a few hundred/thousand emails would get you into trouble anyway ;]

So it looks like Viacom’s $1bn case against Google over Youtube is going to work against not only Google, but over Youtube users too, as Viacom will now be able to gain access to the names and IP addresses associated with Youtube viewers and uploaders that have ‘infringed’ upon their copyright.

While I strongly doubt Viacom is going to sue anyone over watching clips of the Daily Show on the site, I do think it’s a possibility that Viacom will go after Youtube account holders who have uploaded large amounts of video footage of programs owned by Viacom.

Even more worrying, is the problem this would cause video marketers, who employ tactics of mass downloading videos from the popular video sites, mass watermarking them with their own websites’ URLs, before mass uploading them to video sites again, including Youtube. And because of the scalability and automation involved in such an operation, the damage against individual video marketers could be severe, should Viacom choose to take action.

Let’s just hope they’ve been using proxies…

I started using Prosper202 a few days ago, and I’m glad I made the effort to download it and get it set up on my server to test it out.

Prosper202 is a 100% free self hosted tracking tool, designed to be used to track your affiliate marketing campaigns. It takes no more than 5 minutes to install, and once done setting up campaigns becomes a breeze.

Prosper202 allows you to track and identify the top converting keywords and ads, as well as see a live auto-updating view of visitors interacting with your affiliate campaigns. The interface is extremely user friendly, with instructions provided in each step explaining the various actions required from you.

Perhaps the only real downside of the tool is its inability to record your real CPC costs - you have to enter an estimate CPC bid which is hardly accurate considering how click costs always fluctuate. As a result, the ROI generated in the stats also becomes inaccurate and completely useless.

However, this is hardly an issue, as your ROI can (and should) be calculated based on the stats generated in the actual affiliate network and your PPC account. Prosper202 does the job by telling you exactly which campaigns, which keywords and which ads are converting in a very manageable and friendly interface, and for a free tool that is one hell of a good deal.

This morning I found out that one of my sites had exceeded its monthly bandwidth limit, and had been disabled immediately without prior notice. The affected site was hosted on Heart Internet , a UK hosting company.

Now these guys have been a pretty solid host for the the past year or two I’ve been with them, and they are usually very quick and helpful with customer support, which is why I am still with them. But what they just did does nothing to help their business, and only annoys their clients even more, because I personally lost several hundred dollars overnight as a result of them pulling down my site because of the exceeded bandwidth limit.

What’s even more frustrating is that I received no email or any kind of warning telling me I was coming close to my bandwidth limit. They could have at the very least sent me an automated message when I was coming close to reaching my bandwidth limit so I could upgrade my hosting package beforehand.

The affected site is back up now, but I hope Heart Internet and any other host with the same policy take a note of this.

Perception is a powerful thing. Information packaged in the right format can be used to produce a different kind of response from your readers, and can even act as the tipping point in securing a lead or a sale for an offer or product you may be promoting. When implemented correctly, it can be a powerful tool in helping you increase the amount of leverage you have in your business.

Affiliates and Product Vendors: Affiliates and product vendors can package information and give it away for free as a bonus product to incentivise a product sale. The information itself can be anything related to the product, but for best results the information should truly act as a ‘bonus’ and complement the product directly.

For example, if you are promoting a weight loss guide, a PDF on healthy food recipes entitled ‘Delicious Weight Loss Recipes You Won’t Believe Are Good For You’ can be offered as a ’special, limited time bonus’ for anyone that purchases the product through your link. This is just as well if you are a product vendor, as a bonus product which appears to be scarce and ’special’ will boost conversion rates for your primary product sale.

Bloggers: You have a blog and want to better the relationship and trust you have with your readers. Let’s face it, if blogging is your thing, there is a certain point at which most people tend to switch off and not listen to what you’re saying, and this affects the type of bloggers who ‘lack style’ the most.

A way of overcoming this is to hit them with different formats of information. Video and audio both work great in giving your readers a whole new perspective of you and what you have to say. Geoff from CantGetRich did this by launching his podcast series , which increased his readership and got himself sponsored. Free reports through the form of PDF files also work great when you want to put extra emphasis on something you’ve written up - PDF files are also generally given more attention and respect than a standard blog post. With a little branding and a touch of hype, you can make the information you have to offer much more exciting and special than it really is , which doesn’t matter as long as your readers are happy, and as long as your readers are happy and you have their trust, pitching a service or membership to them is much easier.

Email Marketers: This is mostly in reference to those who manage lists of 100 to 100k subscribers, as opposed to high volume mailers who deal with ‘deploying’ millions of emails a day. As with the previous point, audio and video work great, but PDFs in particular are necessary if you have something long to say, because I sure as hell don’t like reading long emails, whereas I have on many occasions read long PDF reports. A PDF report containing information of value will also allow you to appear as a ‘giver’ - someone who just wants to help out and share the wealth. And if you keep your subscribers keen with good quality (and of course free) information, pitching a product or offer becomes much more fruitful when it comes to conversions.

For you email marketers that like to have a more personal relationship with your lists, a link from your email to a blog post containing video footage of yourself works great in not only getting your subscribers to pay special attention to what you have to say, but it also allows them to change their perspective of you as a person, (hopefully) for the better. On top of that, doing this through a blog allows your subscribers to engage in conversation with each other through the commenting feature of your blog post. Always encourage conversation, it helps build relationships and community which will ultimately work in your favour.

A few points on video and audio :

-A personal video to your readers or a promotional video for your prospects can create a kind of intimacy between you and your readers/prospects that can’t be achieved through writing. Even if you don’t like to appear in the footage, a collection of related images along with an audio of you talking about an idea or a product can be much more powerful and effective in increasing appreciation and trust your readers/traffic will have towards you than text, which will ultimately benefit the rate at which you can convert your readership/traffic into sales and leads.

-Audio also works great, but I like to consider it as one step behind video, because it only deals with one of the human senses, while video is both a visual and aural experience.

***

The core message behind this post is simple: when you give something of value to people, they feel compelled to return the favour. And giving away information which has a high perceived value is one of the best and easiest ways to secure the kind of response you are looking for, whether it be increased readership or more business.

So there I was on tfl.gov.uk, a site made for londoners to plan their underground tube journeys, when I encountered this notice included in the route which had been generated for me:

Funny how ‘minor delays’ is mentioned so casually in the same sentence as ‘unexploded World War II bomb’.

I’m talking about these types of offers you find on CPA networks: ringtone offers which incur hefty recurring payments for the consumer, ‘debt free’ loan offers which charge the recipient ridiculous repayment rates, ‘bizz-opp’ products which only mention the large weekly/monthly subscription payments in the small print, the list goes on and on…

Ultimately, it is down to the consumer to make sure they read the damn small print. But a major part of this business is to make the lead/purchase occur as fast as possible: landing pages are optimised to convert well and convert FAST. A typical zip/email/cell submit page is entirely focused on getting the consumer to enter their details in the field and hit submit without pausing to read the small print, which is conveniantly displayed at the bottom of the page in a font which challenges you to read it all the way to the end without causing your eyes to water.

If you promote these kind of offers then you know what I’m talking about.

I would personally never fill in a email/cell submit myself, or recommend a friend or family member in debt to apply for one of those debt solution/loan offers, and I’m sure you wouldn’t too.

So why do we do it?

In case you’re wondering, I’m not taking a ‘holier than thou’ stance. I myself have promoted offers I deem as ’slightly shady’ in the past, in fact, I’ve got a few running now too. Heck, I even made a post about one of my ‘debt free’ campaigns last month.

But I’m interested to know WHY we do it.

It seems like it all boils down to greed - those offers pay damn well after all, don’t they?

29/06/2008 update: Unfortunately, many misinterpreted this post and thought I was recommending foreign writers solely because of the cheaper rates they usually offer. Just to clarify, I very rarely hire a writer who isn’t fully fluent in english. I do however, have no problems hiring a foreign writer who is an expert with real credentials in the niche I want content written.

This is the first post in the new ‘Ask Amin’ category.

This question was asked by Nick from Illeat.com (a blog which he claims to rarely update), the man behind AdGridWork .

Hey Amin

Got your contact info from nickycakes and while I was chatting with him on the phone today, he mentioned that you had a guy that you get decent quality articles from. I was curious if you’d mind sharing as I’ve burned through about a dozen writers in the past month and all have had the literacy of 12 year olds. If not, maybe point me in the area that you hired your writer at?

Thanks in advance,
Nick

Hey Nick

I outsource most of my content from elance.com - and because of elance’s system which allows you to really look into the providers background (what projects they’ve done, how much they’ve earned, the feedback they’ve received, where they’re based, what skills they have, etc), the content I end up with tends to be of a good quality, as I make sure I choose a provider that is well qualified to do the work I require.

There are a few writers I go back to if I need more content in a specific niche, but I normally don’t use the same writer to write content for more than one niche.

It may be a good idea to hire foreign content writers with expertise but relatively poor writing skills who charge much less than their western counterparts, and then get another writer that is fluent in english to make changes to the content so that it reads well. If you’re picky with the content you receive (like I am), try and find at least one good writer you can rely on to go over your content and edit it so that it reads well. If not, be prepared to either edit all the content you receive yourself, or accept it as it is.

For example, I recently posted a project on elance requesting a large amount of content on a health related niche. Out of the 10+ bids, one provider really caught my eye. The amount they wanted was roughly the same as the other bids, but they claimed to have over 9 years experience as a professional healthcare writer. So I checked their profile, went over to their feedback page, and sure enough, they had completed a large number of health related projects with consistant ratings of more than 4/5. I took the provider on for my project and I received the content by the deadline I had set. The one problem I did have with the finished content was that although the english was fine, it didn’t really feel good to read. In this case, I actually edited the content myself. I’m normally too lazy to do this all the time, so I usually just pay another writer to edit the content.

I’d like to also add that with elance you can really formalise the whole process: include business terms which must be agreed upon before the project begins and set ‘milestones’ where certain work must be sent. Elance also has an escrow system which means that the provider will not get your money until you release it to them, which you can do once you have received and reviewed all your work.

Digitalpoint is also a great place to get super cheap but (all too often) super poor content. I wouldn’t recommend outsourcing your content on forums unless the provider is clearly established or unless you simply want to use the content for SEO purposes.

Cheers,
Amin

Two weeks ago Nickycakes started a contest where anyone could win his Xbox 360 by being the first to make $1K with Advaliant after signing up to the network through his referal link. I thought I’d give it a shot, so I signed up and got approved the next day. I actually expected some big shot affiliate to hit the $1K mark pretty soon, but after the ‘cakes posted his update two days later, I knew I could do better than those already in the lead.

I was the first person in the contest to hit $1000 in earnings with Advaliant . You can read Nickycakes’ post here .

I made my $1K by running debt relief ads on Facebook. I made and tested dozens of ads. Here are two of the more interesting ones I posted which despite having poor CTRs, managed to get a good volume of traffic without getting slapped with $1 clicks.

This ad did best when targeted at 25-45 year olds in the United States. I had a 0.06% CTR on this ad, which was the best CTR I managed to get in this particular campaign.

This ad was targeted at all college kids in the United States. I had a weak 0.02% CTR on this ad, probably because of the mention of a zip submit, but it converted well.

I kept these going until I won the contest, upon which I killed them and scrapped the campaigns because the profits were eventually simply not worth the ad spend.

I will definitely be working with Advaliant in the future, my account manager Geoff Marcy is a top guy to work with too. In fact, Advaliant sent an Xbox 360 to Matt Marcin who came second in the contest. Matt definitely deserved it more than I did, because he made the $1K in less than 24 hours, while it took me 3 days to hit the $1K through Facebook. Having said that, Facebook did severely limit the amount of traffic I could have potentially done, for the simple reason that lunatics are running their social ad system.

A big thanks to Nickycakes and Advaliant for this contest and for each sending out an Xbox 360 to me and Matt!

Affiliate marketer ‘aim’ from the Wickedfire forum started a thread on “why affiliates are the bitch of the industry“. His post was targeted at affiliates who operate within the CPA area, and he was certainly on the ball with a lot of his points.

Posts like this are important because it gets affiliates thinking outside of the box. The more you promote as an affiliate, the more you experience, and the more you experience, the more you understand about how the whole system works.

I invest most of my time and money into creating and marketing my own informational products. My marketing campaigns in the CPA area are primarily for me to gain a greater understanding of affiliate marketing so I can in turn apply it to my own business, and gain inspiration for future projects.

There are certain types of offers which are prevalent in almost all the major CPA networks out there. Ringtones, cash loans and weight loss products would be a few good examples. While I personally don’t like to promote the more shady and ethically questionable offers, there is an abundance of good quality offers that can not only be promoted, but also replicated.

Let’s use a health product as an example.

Green Tea Extreme is an offer that you can find on the NeverBlueAds network. The payout for this product is $25/sale, so it’s pretty clear the advertiser is making much more than this with each sale.

After spending huge sums of money into marketing the product, an inquisitive affiliate marketer would start to think beyond the payout and reflect more on the actual business model itself:

“If I’m making so much money as a single affiliate, how much is the owner of the business making?”

That’s certainly the question I asked myself soon after I got into affiliate marketing, and it is the reason I prefer to have affiliates working on my affiliate program rather than be an affiliate and work on an advertisers program. You have got to remember that the advertiser has many affiliates promoting its product, so no matter how much you’re banking on that particular product, the advertiser is banking at least 10 times harder.

So how do we go about replicating this specific business model?

I’ve only just pulled this offer out of NeverBlueAds, and I’ve never promoted the product before, but I still have a basic idea of how I could go about doing this myself.

As we are not dealing with digital and informational products here, the product creation stage becomes much more complicated. Which is why we avoid it altogether.

I would go ahead and import the product instead. And the easiest and quickest way to do that would be through Alibaba.

So I go on Alibaba and search for ‘green tea pills‘. The search generates more than a dozen green tea pill products to choose from.

Here’s one item that looks interesting:

Green Tea Soft Capsules

Because I am using this is an example, and have no interest in promoting and selling green tea pills (at the moment anyway), I haven’t gone ahea and asked the supplier for a quote. But I know for a fact I can get the pills MUCH cheaper than the commercially available ‘Green Tea Extreme’ pills.

In fact, I did a similar search some time ago for weight loss pills, and discovered that weight loss pills can be imported very cheaply, no where near the prices they are being marketed and sold at right now.

What’s even more insane is that we can find many suppliers that offer ‘private labeling rights’. This means that the actual goods will be sent completely unbranded, with permission granted to you to label it under your own company brand.

‘Green Tea Extreme’ could just as easily be one of the cheap green tea capsules we found on Alibaba.

With the goods and branding completely sorted, we come to the real meat of the action. The marketing process. I need not go into this any further.

Why?

Because as an affiliate, that’s where your real skill lies. You’ve worked with the networks, you know how things roll, and you know how to market anything.

Seasoned affiliates can market practically anything on offer in the networks.

What most should realise is that they can use their affiliate marketing expertise to push their own product even better than the advertiser they are working for.