Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

This has to be one of the juiciest pieces of Internet marketing news recently…

Clickbank has decided to support recurring billing… which means that Clickbank won’t just be home to ebooks and software, but also member sites. That’s good news for merchants who want to set up or migrate an existing members site to Clickbank, but also for Clickbank affiliates who will be able to promotes member sites and hopefully share an ongoing percentage of the sales revenue.

Check out the press release here.

edit: information for affiliate payments on recurring billing products…

“For recurring billing products, ClickBank allows publishers to set a rebill duration up to 99 months (initial payment + 98 rebills). If you are selling a recurring billing product, your affiliates will earn a commission for the initial payment and all additional rebill payments. The commission rate offered at the time of the initial payment remains the same for the rebills. Keep in mind that the initial payment must be equal or greater than the subsequent rebills. Therefore, even though the commission rate stays the same for all commissions earned, the dollar amount affiliates earn for the initial payment may be greater than the amount they earn for the rebill payments. If a recurring billing product or subscription is cancelled, no future commissions will be awarded.”
(source)

Do you read Michael Campbell’s “Internet Marketing Secrets” newsletter? If not, you really should. Michael is one of the “old school” of Internet marketers… we’re a select group of marketers who have been marketing online for a decade or more. In fact, Michael says he’s been providing Internet marketing advice since 1988… that’s nearly two decades!

We’ve written newsletters, sold products, built relationships, and, most importantly, helped others succeed.

We’ve seen the rise and fall of numerous “fads” and “gimmicks”.

We’ve seen the “dot com” boom and crash… and grow again…

We’ve seen new Internet marketers rise… and also some spectacular falls.

Over the decade, we’ve seen what Internet marketing is really all about. Michael knows better than most. Check out his latest newsletter here, and sign up if you don’t already receive it by email. It’s one of the best available.

If you’re earning Adsense income, or trying to, you should take a few minutes to watch this Google video containing optimization info. Yes, tips from Google (not “Gurus”) on how to earn more Adsense income. How refreshing.

I watched one of the movies by the Traffic Tactics guys (Carlos and Lupe Garcia) and saw that it was based around a website from 2004. I’m sorry, but what anyone did in 2004 is not particularly relevant to 2007, unless it’s an Internet marketing “mainstay”, in which case most people would have already heard about it.

I mean, what can be presented as “new” when your examples are from 2004? With the way the digital medium works, news is zipped around the blogs, found in the search engines, reviewed on the forums, chatted about on instant messengers, mailed out to lists and generally known to everyone within minutes… if not sooner.

So, I didn’t bother checking further into Traffic Tactics, and it looks like my instinct was right. Check out this blog post by Eric Holmlund whose “tell it like it is” style I find to be really refreshing.

Chad Curl is giving away a free ebook called the “List Building Formula” and it, naturally, describes how to go about building an email list, establishing and building a relationship with that list and then leveraging the list to generate profits.

I skimmed the ebook and enjoyed it. If you’ve bought a course like Michael Cheney’s “11 Days To List Profits”, or something else covering list building, you may not need Chad’s ebook. But if you’re looking for basic “nuts and bolts” information on building your own list, this is a great free ebook.

Yesterday I had technical issues with my modem/router. (Don’t worry, this isn’t a technical post. I can’t stand networking protocol jargon. It makes me ZZZzzzzZZzzz)

So I was without an Internet connection for a while.

A long, dark, relentless time.

I couldn’t look up any answers to my technical problems because… No Google!

I couldn’t check my bank balance because… No Bank Websites!

I couldn’t play my favorite online game because… No Net Access!

I couldn’t check how to spell words because… No Google! (I love how they say, “did you mean octagonal”?)

I couldn’t check my favorite news websites or blogs because… No Net Access!

Of course, I couldn’t check my email, answer support tickets, upload webpages, post to my blog or anything else to do with my online business either.

I was lucky my kettle still worked and I could make a cup of tea to calm down.

I very nearly went outside!!

I hereby admit to being totally addicted to the Internet.

A message I sent to my lists yesterday…

I just wanted to let you know about Web2Submitter, a handy piece of software which helps you get links and traffic from the Web2.0 sites such as Digg, Netscape, Reddit etc.

If you’re not using these Web2.0 sites to help promote your content, you’re missing out on some easy ways to get links, spiders and traffic to your sites.

To learn more, just watch the movie on the page here…
http://www.NeilShearing.com/2/

… what could be simpler?

The software is like article submission tools and directory submission tools… they don’t do everything for you, but they do store your login details for each site and your submission details (either an article you’re submitting to an article directory, a link you’re submitting to a link directory or a news story/blog post you’re submitting to a Web2.0 site). You simply log in to each site in turn and submit your info.

I like these tools.

There’s a free directory submission tool here, and I think there will be a free article submission tool too… but for a Web2.0 submission tool, I’d recommend checking out Web2Submitter.

I’ve been testing Google Cash Detective. Chris Carpenter graciously let me install it and see how it works.

Basically, it looks for Google Adwords ads that are run continuously over a long period for any keywords you give it. The software can detect which ads are affiliate ads because they will be running direct affiliate links to the merchant. When an ad is running continuously and pointing direct to a merchant, it’s reasonable to expect that the ad is profitable. Armed with that information, you could replicate the ad and bid slightly higher thereby “bumping” the previous affiliate down a slot (or kicking them off altogether if Google applies their “one ad per affiliate link” rule). You would thereby usurp the previous affiliate and their profits.

It sounds good in theory… a very smart system. But Michael Campbell voiced his reservations… “The author doesn’t seem to be aware that ads - at least in my country - are copyright. In addition, many of them contain trademarks, servicemarks, slogans, brand names and other forms of ownership in the words and phrases.

Most companies record all their online activities. If an identical ad suddenly appears there could be legal action. It’s also a potential liability risk for all parties involved.

What the author is telling me to do - in my opinion - is ethically and morally wrong. And it breaks at least two of God’s 10 Commandments.

It’s sad really, because otherwise it’s a decent product. If they had gone about promoting it a different way, I might have got behind it. But not this way. I’m taking the high road and steering far away from this nonsense.”

Wow. Strong stuff from Michael. Rarely does he get so vocal about a product.

It didn’t stop an avalanche of people buying Google Cash Detective as soon as it launched. In fact, they sold out almost immediately.

Of course, there’s copycat software on the way. I’ve heard of at least one marketer referring to Google Cash Detective and his version which will be available soon.

It must be very worrying for Adwords advertisers who are linking directly to products/services via affiliate links…

If my server was slow to respond over the past week, I apologise.

I’d installed too many pieces of server-side software that run automatically and they kept firing off auto-commands causing the server to slow down, then fall over.

So, the “cron jobs” have been pruned and we’re back up and running smoothly.