All posts in Ask Me

Wow, so this is the end of the list. I didn’t get to 100% of the questions in the Ask Me thread (which is now closed to comments :)) because a lot of you guys asked like 10 questions each lol. There’s probably another 100+ questions in each individual Q&A post, but I stated numerous times to ask all questions in the original thread. So sorry if you can’t pay attention. I got to almost all of them though, here’s the last batch. It’s been fun.

Kerry asks…

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?

 
Right now it’s about 3 websites. I used to have some really big sites, those tapered down a little bit so I worked on developing some other sites to pick up the slack. Now I should be having a couple massive ones emerging soon that I’m hoping can make a decent coin. You certainly don’t need 100 sites making a little bit each, read one of my earliest articles here at UA, Diversification or Domination?

David asks…

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?

 
1) The pixel is placed on the “thank you” page of the merchant. I have my own software planted on my sites.

2) Each affiliate ID will have it’s own page, and they should be able to pop your Google pixel right onto your specific landing page.

iPhone Hub asks…

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?

 
1) Not really sure what you mean, you mean show a random persons landing page and critique it? I’ve kind of done that before and it’s a little crude I think, so nah.

2) I’ve talked about that many times in previous posts. For your sake, I look at stats on the affiliate network overall on the offer, search volume of the top keywords, how the offer page looks, the potential I have to make money on the offer, and searching the offer and finding other affiliates promoting it. If there’s volume, other people promoting it, and good conversion rates I’ll give it a shot.

Mike asks…

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!

 
Where can you not have a pixel placed? I’ve never run into a problem where the advertiser won’t place a Google pixel on your page. That’s the easiest and quickest way. If they really won’t place it, there are ways to do it in PHP. Basically you write your ads like http://www.yourlandingpage.com/key={keyword}. When the user hits your page, it passes the keyword via PHP and can store it in a database or log file. Then you embed that keyword into the subid of your affiliate link, which you can then check in the affiliate network. It’s pretty simple PHP, but I still recommend using Adwords.

Learn how to do it via PHP here

askalotofquestions asks…

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 :)

 
Just use the Adwords pixel.

J Dizzle asks…

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?

 
None of the skills you described are technical. They’re all correct and influence my success, but they all have to do with mental power…brain power. That’s where it comes from, to be a successful marketer you have to be smart, or lucky. I like to combine both of those and the result is usually pretty nice.

Toki Tover asks…

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?

 
1) Not going to lie in the beginning I spent 8-10 hours a day EVERY day on the computer. For the time challenged, just get in as much time here and there as you can. Managing your time is a skill, trust me. Shift things around here and there and fit an extra hour in every day to just spend hardcore on a computer learning and testing.

2) Zero info products, I’m not a sucker :).

3) Just ignore them and keep plugging away. Affiliate marketing takes time in the beginning yeah, but you can spend an hour setting up a campaign, then you test it for 24 hours (in which time you do no work), and then spend an hour the next day optimizing what you just tested.

Popularity: 3% [?]

simon asks…

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

a) Saturation.
b) Conversion rates.
c) Bid prices.
d) Can you sell it?

Marko Nikolic asks…

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?

I just straight up make my pages like regular websites in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Some of the pages have a blog attached, but the main page is just a site/landing page hybrid.

Matt Marcin asks…

Have you ever considered trying Incentive Affiliate Marketing? If not, why?

I’ve considered it, yeah. But it’s a different game just like anything else, and right now I’m putting 100% into what works, and that’s straight up lead gen PPC.

Steve asks…

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.

$100 bucks really isn’t much to test with. If you want to run some serious tests, I’d save up some more money and then maybe start with Yahoo, clicks will be a little cheaper there. Once you do some testing and find out what keywords work in Yahoo, move them over to Google. Adwords isn’t for the faint of heart or budget.

Alex asks…

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.

If they won’t contact the merchant directly, do it yourself. Of course they don’t want you going direct, they’re going to lose all of your commissions. Tell them that you still want to work with them but only if they can get you what you need, if not you’ll go direct. You need to have some revenue force behind this so your words actually count for something though.

Rob asks…

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?

It sounds like your account history may be horrible, because page 10 for $2.00 on longtail keywords is pretty bad. It’s really bad actually there’s no way your ad should be that far down. Try making a new Adwords account with those keywords and bid $2.00 and see how it goes.

DutchRiven asks…

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?

Three phases :

Phase 1 – Bodyparts hit once a week, 6-10 reps moderate intensity.
Phase 2 – Bodyparts hit twice a week (Upper/Lower), progressively 8 rep max, 6RM, 4RM, 2RM…full intensity.
Phase 3 – Bodyparts hit three times a week (Full Body), 6-12 reps depending on the day moderate intensity.

Each phase is 4 weeks long. 20 minutes low intensity cardio done right after each workout.

Webmogul asks…

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?

I’d say it’s about a week before I actually start sending traffic to the offer.

Adrian asks…

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?

I talk around with networks, see what’s been performing well. Check out conversion rates, other affiliates promoting these offers, search volume, etc. If it all looks appealing to me, I’ll whip up a LP and research keywords to begin a test.

y-eikow asks…

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.

a) Same window.

b) In-house software I had built to do that.

Popularity: 3% [?]

airbball23 asks…

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

 
For the most part I create my own. Every now and then I have to outsource some PHP work on it.

Vista Sidebar Gadgets asks…

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?

 
Advertisers pay to have their ads there, and those are the links they give me.

AffMarketingNot4Everyone asks…

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?

 
1) Individual, met him at a conference.

2) Depends. Simple ringtones pages are simple, other pages have boat loads of content.

3) No.

Monkeyboy asks…

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

 
I’m not, I play by the rules ;).

art asks…

Which tools do you use to build your websites?
Do you build a frame around the affiliates landing page or create new landing page?

 
1) Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Pagespinner (Mac program).

2) Sometimes I’ll iFrame the offer on my domain AFTER they click through my original landing page.

Ruud asks…

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?

 
1) To my own landing pages, I don’t like direct linking.

2) Yes I have. For the most part I stick with one merchant on the page. I used to have some success with a couple review-style pages, but I seem to have more success focusing on 1 merchant.

Hyder asks…

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…

 
The best advice I can give is through blog posts on here. I want to help everybody but unfortunately that would leave me with 0 minutes for my own stuff. So the best I can do is answering questions and writing articles on Uber Affiliate.

Frank Abagnale asks…

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)

 
1) Nope, sorry :).

2) It was worth $3,000. InfinityWebDirectory.com the owner kind of let it die off. It was PR5 and was making a few hundred a month from paid submissions.

3) I haven’t done proxies in over a year, couldn’t tell you how the status with things is now. Back in the day, I would have told you just replicate your proxies and make 1,000 of them.

Pedoua asks…

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

 
A hybrid basically just looks almost like a simple graphic landing page, but contains perhaps a menu with links to articles within the site. Basically a landing page loaded with content that isn’t designed for the user to click on, but is still there for Google to read.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Mike asks…

1. Do you run your business as a company or individual?
2. When you started out, where the banks confused as to why your credit card bill was so high and how did you manage to get such a large limit as you don’t have a long history?
3. If you were limited to 3 affiliate networks, which ones would you choose to use?

 
1) S-corp.

2) Amex is kind of a rolling limit. Once you pay off your card fast, they up your limit and it keeps going up as long as you pay it off.

3) CX Digital, Neverblue, and Hydra.

Karolis asks…

What would you do differently to get where you are today faster? What things you would avoid doing and so on.

 
Read this blog. Seriously though, I’m perfectly happy with the speed it took me to get where I am. I’d say don’t be afraid to lose money. The faster you test things out, the faster you find what things work.

ash asks…

how do you go about tracking each campaign profit / losses? do you have some kind of automated system, or update it all by hand?
atm im doing it all manually. takes forever every day or so to check everything is still making profits.

 
I use the pixels from each search engine and track it that way. For example get your Google pixel and then have your affiliate manager place it on your offer page. Everything will be tracked inside Adwords and you can see exactly what keywords/ads converted.

Affiliate Marketing Basics asks…

Paul, what’s the best way to approach a super affiliate like yourself if I wanted you to promote a product or service and have you say yes? What sort of things do you look for that will help seal the deal?

 
1) Exclusive offers. Willing to set up a private label that I’d host.

2) Higher payouts than any other similar offers out there.

3) A great product obviously…and I mean a great one, not just one you think is great and want me to push.

4) Bi-weekly wires AT LEAST to start.

David asks…

How much do you make total a month after expenses? What is you average profit margin percentage per campaign? Thanks!

 
Too deep in the rabbit hole to reveal. Profit margins vary, some campaigns have 40% margins and others 100%+.

SteveH asks…

I have been told to only focus on aff programs with at least $15 / transaction comp. Do you have criteria on min comp, or is anything open? Hi vol, low comp, low vol, hi comp? does it matter to you?

 
Doesn’t matter. As long as I can find a way to make it convert, I’ll run it. I know it’s not a magical answer but there’s no perfect answer to “what payout products should I sell?”.

Vista Sidebar Gadgets asks…

What kind of offers do you recommend for newbies?
What do you think are the big changes coming in Affiliate Marketing this year?
Name the #1 you do that enables you to run a successful affiliate operation, vs someone who fails at affiliate marketing?

 
1) Talk to your AM and find out what offers have a decent payout and are converting well ($1.00+ EPCs). That should at least give you some area to figure things out in.

2) More competition and coping with Adwords slappage. A lot of affiliates got screwed a month ago, and it’s not the first time it’s happened.

3) I lose a ****load of money testing out offers. I lost 10 grand last week on an offer.

Cut asks…

Why does nickycakes hate you? Even tho he comes to your blog everyday?

 
No idea, people just like to be negative Nancy’s sometimes. It probably pisses people off that posting and earnings screenshot of revenue makes your blog popular. Oh well, it’s not bragging it’s smart marketing…not hurting anybody either.

Darius asks…

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?

Lead gen exclusively right now. It’s what I learned on, what I know, what I’m having success with, and I’m going to keep scaling it away.

Jason asks…

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? :)

 
1) Reviews are $500 a pop.

2) Probably YSM since it’s got the most volume out of all the others.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Frank E asks…

You mentioned the importance of finding a business partner to grow your affiliate revenue. I chat up established affiliates all the time but they never give me the time of day, because I have nothing to offer them that they dont already have. I even met a few in person at ad-tech NY, but still no luck in any partnerships.

So how does a new affiliate go about finding a business partner?

 
Instead of looking to partner with someone larger that already knows everything you do, try and partner up with somebody in the same shoes as you. Perhaps you’re having moderate success with affiliate marketing. Find someone else at the same level as you, and then suggest that you should both run some campaigns together and have 10x the success. Also don’t ask them to partner within 5 minutes of meeting them. Hang out for the day and maybe even another day and get to know eachother, and that’ll even give you a better idea if the partnership would even work.

Andrew Payne asks…

I know there are many variables involved but out of your experience what seems to be the most important strategy or step to bring an unprofitable campaign to profitability? and if you don’t mind going into a little detail.

 
Really hard to say on that one, as some changes may have bigger impacts than others. If I’m running a campaign and driving 2,000 leads/day, getting an extra $2 on the payout is going to put an extra $4,000 profit/day into my pocket. A campaign can go from zero to hero just from that. If I’m working on a smaller campaign with say 50 leads/day, increasing my landing page CTR from 50% to 65% can bring more profit than just an extra buck or two on the offer. And then even at the ad level, doubling the CTR of an ad will bring in twice as many clicks and if the campaign is profiting, twice as much profit.

ykw asks…

When testing a new offer…

-> do you use direct linking or put together a simple 1 landing page website? you use Yahoo for that initial testing?

Your most profitable campaigns…

-> tend to be comparative landing pages or specific offers?

 
1) Neither. I always put at least a few pages of content on each landing page I test.

2) Specific offers, although I did used to profit a lot from a review-style page.

airbball23 asks…

what host would you recommend to host landing pages? Where do you get your images from? Do you scrape them from flickr or buy royalty free pics?

 
1) I’ve actually hosted landing pages on shared hosts and haven’t noticed a difference when moving over to dedicated. Hostgator is classic shared, Mediatemple is midrange dedicated (what this blog uses), and something like Rackspace is pretty expensive.

2) I’ve done both, and other times I just rely on wherever the designer gets them from :).

Aaron asks…

1. Which method of advertising through PPC do you find more profitable – Adwords or YSM?
2. Do you like to promote high volume/low commission items, or do you look for high commission items that may not have as much volume (but with the goal to move a lot of volume)?

 
1) As far as being profitable, Adwords because of the much higher volume. YSM is still profitable as well.

2) I say in the low-mid range commission items. None of my campaigns are higher than $40 right now, I might test out DentalPlans.com which would be the highest payout I’ve gone for. Oh yeah I tested out Forex leads which pays $200/sale and that sucked for me.

llya asks…

Can you show us at least one of your profitable landing pages?
Or, if not, can you explain how you take a campaign to the next level/scale it out?

 
1) Nope.

2) Maybe if you read my blog I will :).

dkhiani asks…

I can’t find the post now, but I read either on diorex or CDF blogs that for campaign testing purposes you could :

(1) put the url of a relevant content site in your adwords ads and have adwords give you a good quality score on that.

(2) Then immediately after that you go in and change the urls in the ads to the actual landing page that you want (that you know wouldn’t quality score well) so you could start off with reasonable click costs.

Is this true? can this be done ? I think google would catch on too soon before you got enough clicks to establish profitability.

 
Not exactly sure to be honest. I just build sites that will get a good quality score on their own, and try to build a really good domain history with my own domain in Adwords.

Investsting & Passive Income asks…

what are the best ways to monetize my site?

I’m trying aff links but so far the income is ZERO from them. any suggestions or resources?

 
Well it’s a blog, so try paid advertising and Adsense and see how that works out. Offer reviews as well.

Tihomir asks…

I am doing PPC since a few months but I find it difficult to scale. Most of my campaigns make me some profit but I have no idea how to expand them. My eCPC is pretty low so I cant afford to bid higher.

How do you tweak for higher eCPC ?

 
I think I’m going to fall asleep when I keep posting…this……link………

Richie asks…

Have you tried http://www.ppc-coach.com/ ?
What do you think about it ? Would you recommend it to PPC newbies?

 
Can’t say I have, haven’t heard anything about it either so I can’t really give a valuable opinion.

Popularity: 3% [?]