Here’s my video review of Affiliate Cash Snipers. I included an explanation of what Affiliate Cash Sniper is, what it does and how it works. I even show you the software in action… creating a sniper and hosting it on my website for you to see what it looks like and how it works. Highly recommended!

The Affiliate Cash Snipers product is server-side software which you simply access with a username and password. After logging in, you create “Interactive Filter Widgets” to promote affiliate products from one of several merchants such as Amazon, Wal-mart and JCPenny.

Amazon-Example-Widget

The widgets are modelled on the drop-down menus that are commonly used on merchant’s websites to help customers find the products they want to buy more quickly. (see the example from Amazon, right)

You can place the widget, which is basically an interactive advert, on any webpage… either your own, or someone else’s if you have permission or buy the advertising space. The widget contains your affiliate link, so any sales resulting from clicks to the merchant will generate affiliate commissions for you. I made a diagram showing how the concepts works. The idea is that the interactive ads get a better response than banners, and because the visitor has made selections about the product they want to buy, and they land on the specific page for that product, there’s a better chance of a sale being made and affiliate commissions earned.

affiliate-cash-snipers

The best part of the Affiliate Cash Snipers system is that all the server-side coding is totally hidden from you. In the video, above, I show how simple it is to create a widget to promote telescopes on Amazon. After logging in, you just select Amazon as the merchant and drill down to the required category, then decide whether to include an image in your widget or not and a few other customisation options. When your happy with your choices, the server gives you javascript to copy and paste into a website. The sniper I created was done in just a minute or two, and I put it online for you to see at Affiliate Cash Sniper Example. You can see a picture of it, below…

OK, so business times are tough, but do we really need this double-punch to UK affiliates?

Firstly, the EU has brought in draconian rules about privacy where it’s no longer good enough to have a privacy policy saying that “our website uses cookies to blah blah blah”. Now, according to the government and the UK’s Information Commissioner, you HAVE to get consent. But even their implementation is a shambles. Just look at this…

Information Commissioner's Office

So, they’ve ALREADY SET a cookie, which you don’t get any choice about because it’s “essential“, but you can clear your cookies… but the website won’t work properly… What?

How the heck is that going to work for e-commerce sites? Are they just going to deem all their cookies as “essential”? What about affiliates… are they immune because the cookies are set, technically, from the Affiliate Network’s servers? What about sites using Analytics… are they technically set from Google’s servers? How the heck are affiliates supposed to know the difference? Read more here.

… and just when you thought that’s the “Monday madness” story out of the way, there’s this amusing tale from a UK merchant (Megabus) at AffiliateWindow who has listed a bunch of phrases and said that any affiliates ranking in the top ten of Google’s natural search results for those phrases will be in breach of the affiliate terms and conditions. This is a partial list of the phrases. I have checked it personally… and no, it’s not an April Fool as far as I’m aware…

Travel from £1
Travel from a pound
South West Trains
SWTrains
Metro link Manchester
East Midlands Trains
Virgin Rail
Virgin Trains

Seriously. Did the world just go stark-raving mad and no-one told me?!

It seems that they’ve backed away from the original list of “words you can’t appear in the top ten search results for” [trademark /sarcasm], because according to this affiliate forum thread, the original list included…

VIP
1st
First
Arriva
Eurolines
Oxford Tube
Greyhound
Raileasy

Seriously. Don’t rank for “VIP”, or you’re out of the affiliate program! LOL

Way to go MEGABUST!

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of SEO work on my websites and I noticed a new trend… traditional e-commerce merchants setting up “affiliate-like” websites where they post third party reviews, solicit user-generated comments, videos and photos along with hosting profile pages and encouraging web 2.0-style interaction.

Here’s my video report…

What do you think?
Have you seen this new trend in your niche?
In the future will all merchants have ecommerce sites and “affiliate-like” websites?
Can a “review site” owned by a merchant ever be impartial?
Will “traditional” affiliate websites get less traffic as a result of these “affiliate-like” sites?

[Thanks for your comments. The spammers found this post, so comments are now closed]

It’s not nice getting messages like this from a company who’ve been paying me regular commissions for years, but what can you do?

Paridox Ventures, Inc. sent you $xxxx USD

Note from Paridox Ventures, Inc.:
Dear Affiliate, As indicated in last months email and payment, we regretfully inform you that due to the changing business climate, we have closed the ThirdSphere Affiliate Program. This is the last payment you will receive. This payment is for commissions you earned in March 2010. Thank you for all your effort no matter if you just joined or have been with us for the last 8 years. Best Wishes for you continued success Dean Church and the ThirdSphere team

So much for that, then! I earned over a thousand bucks from them in 2009 and nearly $10,000 in total since 2004!

I wouldn’t mind as much if the company had gone bust, but simply closing the affiliate program, continuing to trade and pocketing the cash I would’ve earned in commissions seems to me somehow more annoying.

Thirdsphere is still active and, as I write this, their affiliate program signup form is still there.

I just sent my affiliates an email mentioning the new promotion for our product launch tomorrow…

http://www.bizinabox4u.com/

Unfortunately, I spelled it bixinabox4u.com!

So, 1,400 people will get an email sending them to a domain name that doesn’t exist. DOH.

But, in a new world record (for me, at least), I grabbed the domain name, pointed it to my webhost, set up an account for the new domain on the server and uploaded a quick redirect file. Within a grand total of about 5 minutes, the work was done. The DNS propagation was instant and the domain redirect to the correct page.

Hey, it cost me a few bucks for the domain registration, but at least 1,400 people won’t get frustrated clicking on a link that doesn’t work… and I won’t have to send a “whoops” follow-up email to them all.

Phew.

Long-time marketing mentor of mine, Michael Campbell, has opened a “vault” where he shares his advanced tips and strategies for marketing online successfully.

I’ve had a sneak peek inside, and the vault delivers. It’s a place I’ll be visiting often to get the latest strategies from Michael, a guy who quietly makes money online without massive fuss and marketing hype.

What’s in the vault? Well, Michael says the topics they cover include…

* Traffic Generation
* Social Media Strategies
* Mininets and Linking
* Affiliate Revenue Models
* Audio and Podcasting
* Video Production Techniques
* Motivation and Inspiration
* Creating Your Own Products
* Building Joint Venture Partners
* Persuasion and Conversion
* Sales, Advertising and Marketing
* List and Readership Building
* SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

So that’s pretty much everything, then!

You can find out more here… Michael Campbell’s Internet Marketing Vault

I set up a WordPress blog a few months ago that uses tags. I didn’t think much about using the tags, to be honest.

If you notice, I don’t have tags on this blog.

But, the new blog used a newer version of WordPress, complete with shiny new tags, so I added them when I made a new post.

Check out the results…

A lot of the pages that the search engines sent traffic to were tag pages.

How cool is that?

I just read a very good article on how to use WordPress tags correctly by Dr Andy Williams. You remember Andy? He was the guy ranting against unethical Internet marketing tactics. So it’s no surprise to see Andy putting out quality, useful advice on his blog for free, and showing the unethical marketer’s how things should be done!

(note the affiliate commissions at the end of the article… coming from the tag pages. Nice tracking, Andy… and a nice little earner!)

How like Allan, to launch a brand new service without the hype and hoopla that most Internet marketers create to sell their new gizmos.

It’s what you’d expect from one of the longest-serving and most respected members of the Internet marketing community.

So what’s the new service?

Allan says…

“In collaboration with affiliate coach Dan Ho, we’re announcing a new writing service, Content Kingdom -http://www.Content-Kingdom.com – whose writers will write original, unique articles for you.”

“Pricing is $11 for each 400 to 700 word article, which is very competitive. Most people pay those rates or higher even when finding their own freelancers, and Content Kingdom removes that headache and hassle.”

“You should receive excellent value. We’re in this for the long haul and we want you to be happy with the articles you receive.”

Thanks Allan.

I’ll be checking it out!

===
Update: It seems like people want the short-version of the story. Here it is:

A few weeks ago Commission Junction sent me an email saying I was in violation of their terms and conditions and that I needed to take down a specific webpage at www.incomemax.com or they would close my Commission Junction account.

The webpage they wanted removed framed a page from the babycenter.com website. I guess there’s a relationship between babycenter.com and Commission Junction. However, the page at Incomemax.com doesn’t use a Commission Junction link and was created back in the year 2000 in response to a request (presumably from babycenter.com). So the page was created before the account that Commission Junction was threatening to close even existed!

When I raised this point with Commission Junction they agreed that I was not in violation of their agreement. They didn’t apologise for being wrong. I think they used unnecessary bullying tactics and should take longer to investigate each incident before threatening to close accounts.
===

If you’ve got a few minutes, here’s the movie version…

(for a much larger version, click here)

I don’t think it’s right that Commission Junction can try to bully me into taking down a webpage when they were 100% absolutely, categorically, in the wrong.

What do you think? Should Commission Junction have done just a little bit of research before firing off a legal email threatening me with account closure? How long would it have taken them to work out that the incident they were complaining about didn’t even use a Commission Junction link?

Am I right to get worked up about this? Is it an important principle to defend, or am I over-reacting?

It usually takes a lot to get me into “rant mode”, but Commission Junction managed it!

Want to know more about Goobert, then check out Michael’s new Affiliate Marketing Podcasts… you’ll get the 13-page Goobert PDF report as a free bonus.

Michael calls Goobert, “the fastest way to get free traffic and start generating affiliate revenue within hours. Guaranteed” and, “In my tests, I can ramp up to 400 visitors per day in less than a month working only 20 minutes per day.” Wow! I’ve just reviewed it, and I think Michael could’ve sold the Goobert report for $67, easily.

Incredibly, Michael’s Affiliate Marketing Podcasts are just $15.95, and you get the Goobert report thrown in for free.