Things Friends Are Up To

Haven’t made a post in a while, I’d like to get back to posting more but I’ve said that before, so we’ll see what happens. I’ve had some industry friends come out with a few things though and figured they were worth sharing.
 

Local Lead Plan from Chad (CDF Networks)

I’ve known Chad for a while now, I’m sure many of you guys read his blog CDF Networks. If you know anything about him from his blog/tweets, it’s that he’s a good and honest guy. He doesn’t need to tear it up on rebills and acai because he knows what he’s doing outside of that realm (ie real marketing…acai is like taking candy from a baby).

Today is the official launch of his infoproduct Local Lead Plan. He gave me a free copy and it’s actually pretty awesome. The product is all about generating affiliate like commissions, only from local businesses, not affiliate networks/global offers. This is something he’s been doing for a while now and has gotten really good at it. It’s also something that’s very easy to share because for the most part, it’s local. He’s not too worried about you stealing his campaigns because they’re where he lives and already his clients.

If I were going to do this I’d join my local Chamber of Commerce that has business events for networking local businesses. That will give you a nice variety to pick from, and from there it’s about approaching them and letting them know that you can send them a bunch of new customers if they want to set something up. You’d then build an affiliate site for them and send them online traffic and get paid based on how many customers you send them.

I see this as being nice because it’s a little extra work (instead of just grabbing an affiliate link), but in the end you get more control. I have a feeling that most businesses won’t have much idea about what you’re talking about, which makes it easier for you to dictate the rates and commissions.

I believe there’s some nice eBook price slapped on of $79 or something…but honestly it’s worth it. If you’re struggling at all with online affiliate marketing, Local Lead Plan is definitely something you can profit from. Not get rich quick, but certainly can get rich.
 

Tatto Media Bi-Annual Affiliate Survey

Tatto Media just released a survey they took with over 2,500 affiliate marketers participating. They asked some general questions about the industry and got some cool figures/graphs. Shoemoney did a blog post about it a few days ago here.

Some of the more interesting points :

  • Nearly 68% of affiliates were promoting on 2-6 different networks, while approximately 22% were promoting on 7-15 different networks. Only 2% of respondents promoted on 36 or more. 50 affiliates out of every 2,500 are promoting offers on 36+ networks? Oh mama, for me it’s always been 2-6.
  • 60% of respondents believe that affiliate marketing-related tradeshows and conferences are valuable to their business, with the majority, 55%, stating that Affiliate Summit is the most valuable. Found this kind of interesting, I thought it’d be higher than 60%. Trade shows like Affiliate Summit are awesome for business, if you don’t get something out of it, it’s because you’re doing something wrong…not the conference not serving it’s purpose.
  • Many affiliates read various industry blogs for information, but nearly 42% said ShoeMoney was the blog they read most. NickyCakes was also popular at 35%. Not a surprise that Shoemoney came in at the #1 affiliate blog read. 35% from Cakes surprised me though, maybe it’s because he won affiliate of the year (for…what exactly? I didn’t know that referring a bunch of the original acai guys, traveling to Asia, and coming out with an overpriced product was what Shawn was looking for). Only kidding Cakes, I jus’ mad ;). My blog came in at 15% which surprised me…I haven’t been posting at all I figured it would be lower.

You can download the full report and check it out here.

On a side note, HasOffers a while ago opened up some different and paid options for their affiliate network software. If you have a product and you want affiliates on it, starting your own mini-network is a good place to begin.
 

Volk-nation Tearing It Up

When he’s not at a freakish family birthday party or hanging with his boo Mrs. Volk, JV has been taking the guru world by storm. He released his free affiliate marketing guide, and since then jumped from ~3,000 readers to almost 15,000. He posted some stats on his blogs 3 year anniversary :

# See about 1,003,980 affiliate blogs stop blogging.

…shit! That’s me.
 

Neverblue Escape

If you’re a Neverblue affiliate you may know about their Out of Bounds contest. You can win an all-expenses paid awesome trip to Vancouver Island and do a bunch of outdoor activities like jet-skiing. Neverblue is a solid network and I’ve always been a fan of networks that don’t use DT. One of the ways to win is by becoming 1 of the 7 affiliates with the highest incremental revenue gain. That means you don’t have to do ridiculous volume, you just have to show the best growth on your offer.
 

Twitter Ads

Twitter really isn’t my friend, but they are releasing an ad platform. I haven’t read too much into it, but TechCrunch reports they’re starting with a CPM model and I read on Wickedfire that these will show up in searches only. With the amount of bots performing searches this would really water down CTR and skyrocket CPC.

Maybe a blogger will find an exploit and become famous like meeeee (please understand my sarcasm in almost anything I ever say).


24 Comments

  1. April 14, 2010

    Excellent post. Thanks for the update and keep up the great work!

  2. April 14, 2010

    I want to be famous!

    I’ve had you in my RSS for awhile and it finally popped up with a post!

  3. April 15, 2010

    Thanks for the mention man! What have you been up to recently?

  4. April 16, 2010

    Heard about the Local Lead plan, seems like a program that could be very useful. Thanks for the links and different happenings in the blogosphere… I appreciate it!

  5. April 16, 2010

    Hi guys,

    Welcome back!!! It must be nice to take a break. (smile) Thanks for letting us know what some of your friends are up to.

    Kind regards,

    Sam
    X

  6. April 17, 2010

    Volk is doing will with hes Ebook making his brand expand like wild fire!

  7. April 20, 2010

    I think that the local lead idea is a great idea. Going to have to really look at that one!

  8. April 22, 2010

    Good to hear you are still alive and kickin!

  9. April 25, 2010

    The trend is likely to be local advertising. So definitely interested in info about it.
    Thanks for the recommendation.

  10. May 6, 2010

    Great work and keep posting.

  11. May 17, 2010

    As far as the Twitter ads, I really think its going to be make it or break it for twitter. If they can generate the revenue to make an income, they will be in a great position, however if they don’t…. then they will severely regret not selling Twitter when they had the opportunity to. Really there is alot on the line for Twitter if you ask me.

  12. It’s hard to deny the success of someone who makes more than $400k/month from PPC. Those numbers will definitely have you say hey, look at me. Would be sort of like being offered to be taught basketball by michael jordan or golf by tiger woods. Not something many would want to pass up!

  13. June 13, 2010

    Thanks for the update. I am like you twitter is not my friend.

  14. July 6, 2010

    Thinking about it the other day, I think we need more updates like this post! Would be kind of neat to get an update on what other bloggers are up to!

  15. August 5, 2010

    great post keep going
    i like your blogs thanks

  16. August 6, 2010

    Good Post I appereciate your Blogging and Want more postings

  17. Silent Generators
    September 3, 2010

    Very good Post I appereciate your Blogging and Want far more postings

  18. September 12, 2010

    I like prosperent. Java ads, no more affiliate liks inside of content body. No penalty from google.
    Easy fix:)

  19. September 12, 2010

    Prosperent is way to go

  20. September 22, 2010

    great idea dear……………………..

  21. October 4, 2010

    Thanks Admin, You got a really useful blog I have been here reading for about an hour. I am a newbie and your success is very much an inspiration for me.

  22. January 5, 2011

    awesome post.i am much looking for your future post.

  23. August 18, 2011

    Great post, really enjoyed reading

  24. December 21, 2011

    nice round-up of the events – thank you, wish you did that more often

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