Ask Me Anything

Ask me questions about anything: affiliate marketing, blogging, making money online, my life…anything.

Q&A posts are the easiest for a blogger to write (because your topics are predetermined), and sometimes the best for readers (because real common questions get answered. I’ll start by answering a bunch with text, and then if there’s too many questions to type, I’ll do some with video also.

Fire away!


37 Comments

  1. Darius
    March 24, 2008

    “First time commenter, long time reader”

    Paul, I love the site and all the info you put up.
    OK, enough gassin’ your head, my question is simple,

    Of the 3 major campaigns, or more general, of your style,
    Do you deal with PPL exclusively or do you run specific product campaigns or a combination of the two?
    If only one, do you feel that there isn’t enough money in the other or is the ROI not as good?

  2. March 24, 2008

    As my email isn’t working at the moment (gaah!) I’ll ask here – would you do paid reviews, and if so, how much?

    More on topic, which PPC would you recommend most apart from Adwords? :)

  3. March 24, 2008

    I didn’t have a questions, but i sure enjoyed reading the others, Keep it up!

  4. March 24, 2008

    do you create your own landing pages or you outsource it?

  5. March 24, 2008

    if you outsource, you have any recommendations for good designers?

  6. March 24, 2008

    Oh and.. another question…

    It seems like you’re not cloacking your affiliate links on the right sidebar of your blog, why?

    Did you ever split test it and found it was better this way? Or you just didn’t want to bother cloaking the links?

  7. AffMarketNot4Everyone
    March 24, 2008

    Do you use an individual programmer or a company? Where did you find?

    Are your landing pages, the simple ringtone type landing pages, or are they more complex in design, with multiple pages?

    Do you think direct linking is worth it?

  8. Monkeyboy
    March 24, 2008

    How are you affected by the new Adwords slap that involves display urls?

  9. March 24, 2008

    Which tools do you use to build your websites?
    Do you build a frame around the affiliates landing page or create new landing page?
    Which affiliate programs do you work with..cj, clickbank, etc.
    Do you focus on new products or traditional products?

  10. March 25, 2008

    Do you send PPC traffic directly to the merchant’s website or to your own landing pages? If both could you define what percentages of direct traffic are?

    Have you ever tested multiple merchants on one landing page and if yes, did it increase your benefits?

  11. March 26, 2008

    Do you think you would be willing to give suggestions to other affiliates out there, such as me, on their landing pages and how to improve certain aspects of their sites – taking into consideration what they’re to achieve with them, like more sales/leads etc…

    Heck, I’d pay you if you want! Just not too much now, we’re not all super affiliates ya know.

    If yes, I’d like to be first in line please! Thank you!

  12. March 26, 2008

    Could you show us one of your expired old landing pages?

    The directory site you sold, what was the URL? and why was it worth 8,000$?

    Best tip for a proxy network owner? (I have a few, but making low revenue each day)

  13. Pedoua
    March 26, 2008

    You say you create hybrids. What are hybrids, can you give us a clear example? Perhaps an URL to such a business model?

  14. Pedoua
    March 26, 2008

    That would be awesome! I’m right after you in the line.

  15. simon
    March 26, 2008

    what are the main factors to keep in mind before select an offer to promote????

  16. March 26, 2008

    Do you or have you used LPGen or Extreme Conversion? Am I better off creating my own landing pages and putting them on a blog or frame offers with LPgen? What about framing an offer to test it and if that works then create a landing page on a blog?

  17. March 26, 2008

    Have you ever considered trying Incentive Affiliate Marketing? If not, why?
    I have been doing it for about 2 months now and it has been working very well for me.

  18. Steve
    March 26, 2008

    Say I’m starting my campaign with a budget of 100 dollars a week. What’s the best strategy in terms of what Google views as best practices if you know what I mean? Like should I bid high and set it to use my weekly budget in a day or bid low and have like a 10-15 dollar daily budget? Or am I just better off saving the 100 bucks a week and wait to launch my campaign?
    Ultimately I would prefer to begin sooner but I dont want it to hurt my campaign in the long run.

  19. Alex
    March 26, 2008

    How would you go about trying to get an offer white labeled? It doesn’t seem like the network you’re with would appreciate it (since they’ll lose their cut), and a lot of networks (such as Azoogle), don’t have the option of even contacting a merchant directly.

    Thanks

  20. March 26, 2008

    Question about long tail keywords. I have a campaign that has several ad groups, using the common keyword technique, all with about 40-100 keywords in them, all exact match. The QS is “ok” but they still show up on like page 10 or 11, even if I bid $2.00. The root of my keyword is highly competitive but not the long tail versions. Should I give up and try to find something with less competition, or is having all of your keywords appear on page 10+ still going to pull in leads/sales, if you have enough keywords?

  21. DutchRiven
    March 27, 2008

    How does your exact workout routine look? Not necessarily the weights but what exercises, reps/sets etc.? And if you do cardio, what and how long?

  22. March 27, 2008

    From the time you decide to run a new affiliate, how much time to do devote to research for the program, PPC, keywords, etc. before taking the plunge?

  23. March 27, 2008

    i asked him this b4. he never answered

  24. March 27, 2008

    well i said what was a successful campaign int he past for you that you no longer do?

  25. Adrian
    March 27, 2008

    Hi Paul,
    how do you go about analyzing niches? I mean, there’s so many, how do you decide to pick one over another? Do you have some sort of criteria that you use?

    Thanks,

    Adrian
    P.S. If you want a REALLY good workout, checkout “New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle” by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove. I’ve got it…its good :)

  26. y-eikow
    March 29, 2008

    I wasn’t lucky with my first questions, but some were answered through others.

    Second try:

    a) Do your affiliate links open a new window or stay in the same one?

    b) What software do you use to A/B test landing pages? I can’t find any mention in your UberGuide.

    Thanks!!

  27. Kerry
    March 29, 2008

    I know that its probably a numbers game where 70% of you income comes from one website while the other 30% may spread across your other sites.

    But how many websites do you have active now for you to be able to make that money? 10,20,100?

  28. David
    March 30, 2008

    Hi Paul,

    1. Do you use Google’s conversion tracking on your own site or the merchant’s sites?

    2. How do you handle a situation where the merchant already has Google’s conversion tracking code installed (as they run their PPC in house) but you also want them to place your own Google tracking code because you also promote through PPC?

    Thanks.

  29. March 31, 2008

    1 can you comment on other people’s landing pages?
    2 will show us how you go about how you pick a product to promote? in other words, what do you look for in a program prior to spending time in testing it?

  30. Kerry
    April 1, 2008

    I read a post you made about hiring a team.

    What was a sample of your work order when trying to find a programmer? Because finding a writer can be easy.

  31. Mike
    April 1, 2008

    How do you track the conversion per keyword or even per ad when you’re sending traffic to cpa or other offers? With the inability to place conversion tracking on the page where the conversion takes place, how can you measure this? How can you even measure which keywords lead visitors to click from your landing page to the offer page? (assuming you use landing page)

    Everyone is always talking about the importance of tracking, so some insight to this would be of great help!

  32. askalotofquestions
    April 1, 2008

    If you had a programmer build you a keyword conversion tracking software what were the writer specifications you gave your programmer? What would you say So us newbs can get help at elance :)

  33. Kerry
    April 1, 2008

    The interview you had with Wes Mahler you mentioned you had an “in house built software” used for tracking and CTR and stuff? What did you mean by that? Did you hire a programmer to build this for you, if so what were the writer specifications you gave your programmer to build you this?(I understand if you do not want to answer this)

    Keep up the blog.

  34. J Dizzle
    April 4, 2008

    What is the most important technical skill you consider yourself having that has helped you become successful? Is it your ability to find unexploited campaigns, find unexploited keywords in popular campaigns, discover creative ways to market a campaign, create effective landing pages, or create effective ad copies?

    Thanks.

  35. April 16, 2008

    What was the time effort you put in from the beginning? People still have 9-5’s with kids… what would you tell them on how to start with hardly no time, which you had plenty of?

    Did you ever buy any info products to teach you how to do anything of the things you are doing now?

    I am getting flack from people that I tell about how I want to get into this, they tell me to steer away because to play the ppc game i need a ton of money and time. What advice would you give me about that issue?

  36. April 17, 2008

    In the beginning,before you sent off your w-9 form to the various networks, were you already an s-corp or did you put individual/sole prop. first?

  37. April 24, 2008

    Hey Paul,

    Do you do any personal mentoring or coaching?

    Thanks,

    Toki