21st Century Affiliate Marketing

I originally wrote this in July, 2007 on another of my blogs. That was back when my affiliate marketing business was growing and I was happy with the direction I was going.

Some of these points are just as valid today as they were then.

I have learned several lessons that I think may be valuable to anyone who reads this. You may agree or disagree, but at least give it some thought.

1. Anything that is a good value today will be a good value a year from now.

2. The more the hype, the less the value or longevity.

3. If it has a deadline, run away, don’t walk, run - in a zig-zag pattern.

4. Don’t send your valuable prospect away on first contact. Try to get their contact information so you can follow-up - yes, build your list. (I wish I’d done more of this.)

5. If you can’t understand the compensation plan after reading it twice, you may never understand it, so maybe it is best to avoid it.

6. Always try to get residual income rather than one-off commissions.

7. Try to get life-time customers.

8. If more than five people email you about something the same day, avoid it.

9. Spillover is a myth. It may happen now and then, but don’t depend upon it.

10. Earning money - no matter how you do it - is work. It takes longer than you think and it takes more creativity and effort. Nobody will do your work for you.

11. Don’t spend more than you can afford. Define your budget and stick with it. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.

12. Don’t go into debt to try to make more money. Pour a percentage of your revenue back into tools and marketing. As a result of this, I’m spending more on marketing every month than I made the first two years of online marketing. But, it’s all a percentage of income. I have no debt and I intend to keep it that way.

13. It takes a long time to start earning money with online marketing (unless you are very lucky or very good at what you do). It took months for me to earn my first commission check, and several more months before I got my second one. Now, I get checks from several companies every month. It did not happen overnight, but it can be done with perseverance, even if you make a lot of mistakes along the way.

14. Don’t pay attention to how much money someone is claiming to earn. There is a huge difference between gross and net.

15. Help others grow and advance, don’t take advantage of them just to get their money.

When I originally wrote this, I was doing a lot of testing with traffic exchanges and downline builders. I was actively promoting two MLM companies. Today, I’m doing none of those things.

So, the comments about spillover really have nothing to do with affiliate marketing, because they’re more appropriate to anyone involved in network marketing. I got so tired of getting emails telling me that some “big-hitter” was going to start promoting to his “massive” list and there was only so much time to get involved in his program if we wanted any spillover. To the best of my recollection, from testing several different programs, I think I received half a dozen people in my downline from spillover and never made a penny from it.

In every case, I lost money in the process. That’s why I no longer do any of that.

In regards to #14, it’s not just a difference between gross and net. Some people will actually lie to you! (Surprise!) Anyone with a graphics program can dummy an income statement.

I’m not saying that all of them are dummies or lies, but I know that some of them are. Don’t believe everything you read or see. Caveat emptor.

What do you think?

Agree? Disagree? Let’s talk.

Act on your dream!

JD

I was reading several blogs and forums where people were talking about how much money they earned (or didn’t earn) from affiliate marketing in October.

The more I read, the more I realized that I’m not doing as badly as I have been feeling.

After all, I earned a living from this for quite a few years, and, even if my income has dropped quite a bit over the last year, I’m still earning more than many people are.

Now, I know that sounds selfish and I hope each of you has greater success with your affiliate marketing efforts in 2010 than you’ve had in 2009.

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been reading about many people who are working hard to earn something and still haven’t made any money at all. I can remember how frustrating that is. When you’re doing everything you know how to do and it isn’t producing any results, it can be a very difficult and disheartening experience.

I remember how happy I was to get that first commission check from Amazon.com quite a few years ago. Over the years, I’ve received checks from a number of companies and I still get a thrill when I endorse and deposit them.

Although they aren’t coming nearly as frequently as they used to, a few are still arriving and I’m thankful for each of them.

I’m wondering now if I’ve lost my way with affiliate marketing. At one time, I worked hard to send people to Amazon.com and looked forward to commissions from them. It was fun finding products and telling my readers about them.

Those were products that real people were interested in.

When I say “real people,” I’m talking about folks who aren’t interested in affiliate marketing. They were people who saw a link to something that interested them and they purchased it. Sometimes they purchased several things totally unrelated to what I was writing about and I earned a commission on each of those sales.

Now that Amazon.com dropped me after NC passed the new tax law this summer, I’m wondering if there is another company that would be a good substitute. I still love recommending books and some other consumer products, but don’t know of a good company with which I can work.

Do you have any suggestions?

As those of us in the United States get closer to our annual Thanksgiving Day holiday, I’ve been looking at things from a different perspective.

I think I’m over being stressed out about all the things that have gone wrong in the last year or so and I’m starting to focus more on what can go right over the coming year. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to hang on this year and now I’m setting my sites once again on prosperity instead of mere survival.

A year from now, I expect to be in much better financial shape than I am today, and to get there I’m going to have to create a new plan and work hard to achieve it.

One of the things I’ve identified is that this blog is not an income producer. Lots of people read it, but few purchase anything. Most of my sales come from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with making money online.

Years ago, I was advised by someone who knows a lot about online marketing and he said then, and it is even more true now, that the world doesn’t need any more websites and blogs about making money online, especially when the people building those sites are not very successful themselves.

I’ve talked about being interested in too many things for my own good, and not being specifically interested in a few things I could build a site around.

My brother, before he became disabled, loved drag racing. It was a life-long love and a few years ago I started building Georgia Drag Racing for him. He was working to write a book about the golden years of drag racing in the Atlanta area and was making great progress before he got to the point where it hurt too much to sit at a computer for very long.

So, that site has seen its best days and will be declining over time as less content is created. Still, surprisingly, it remains one of my best-earning websites, even though it has many links to Amazon.com that aren’t earning me anything and which I haven’t had the time or energy to remove.

It’s not at all about earning money online and I think that’s the key to its success. It attracts people who enjoy drag racing and they’re willing to spend money on their hobby.

I’ve watched as others have done the same thing. I know of people who have built successful, money-earning websites based on such diverse topics as dealing with insurance problems, telling Halloween and ghost stories, juggling, repairing computers, kitchen counter tops, organic gardening, hydroponic gardening, modeling advice, and dozens of other niche subjects that interested them and which they built into sites that produce a substantial annual income.

I have been trying to find a niche for myself in which I could do the same thing, but so far I haven’t found it.

At least, now, I know all the things I will need to do to build and publicize such a site if I can ever identify a topic that I can love and be willing to write about every day.

I’ve come close to such a niche, but it is not really what I’m talking about.

I love living in the mountains of Murphy, NC and I love the people, scenery, and pace of life here. I’ve been promoting the area and a few businesses off and on over the years and this year I’ve been concentrating on building Murphy Connections, a social networking site, and Murphy Gold, a site for promoting a few locally-owned, small businesses that are located in the Murphy NC 28906 ZIP code.

I’m starting to have some success with those sites and look forward to spending a lot of time working on, and improving, them over the coming months.

Another site that I enjoy, but whose earnings have dropped dramatically since I removed all the Amazon links is my Act On Your Dream! site.

Basically, I lost focus on that site, but I’ve been brainstorming a lot of ideas and now have a plan for updating that site on a regular basis. Now that Sitesell has made Content 2.0 free for all SBI sites, I’ll be adding more interactive features to it over time. In fact, I think that I’ll be blogging less as a result.

In fact, I’m going to be taking some of what I’ve written in my blogs and repurposing it on that site to see how it works.

Even though I’ve just gone through the worst 12 months of my life, I still believe that we can achieve what we want if we identify our goals, make good plans to accomplish them, and then put in the required work to make it happen. In as little as a year from now, we can make big changes in our lives.

I’m going to be acting on that belief.

What about you?

What do you think?

Is affiliate marketing working well for you?

Have you identified niches that are good income earners?

What company do you recommend as a substitute for Amazon.com?

I welcome your comments and look forward to discussing them.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve been going through some pretty major changes this year and real life has interfered with some of my marketing activities.

Fortunately, I have some marketing systems that run on automatic, even when I’m tied up doing something else.

Linkscout, created by Paul Antonevich Jr., is one of those automatic systems that has worked well for me for over four years.

Unfortunately, when I resurfaced about a month ago, I found that Linkscout was down for a complete redesign, and I’d been promoting it rather broadly.

So, I’ve been watching the site pretty closely since I learned it was down. The projected date for reopening kept slipping, but I can understand that. I’m sure there’s a lot of work involved in a site that does as much as Linkscout.

Yesterday, I checked, and my marketing page at Linkscout was active, again.

It looks very different than it did the last time I saw it, but the old familiar features are there.

Unfortunately, when looking at it with fresh eyes, I realized I was still promoting a number of affiliate programs and other sites that I no longer want to promote.

So, I spent a couple of hours this morning making some changes.

I deleted some of the websites I promote - well, that’s not accurate. As with any major change, there are always bugs to be found and squashed.

Deleting websites and sponsor boxes are two things that aren’t working this morning.

I did not find a workaround for the sponsor boxes, but I did find that I could hide a website without deleting it. This worked well. So, now, I’m just showing the websites I still want to promote in 2009.

One of the beauties of Linkscout is that you can promote as many websites as you want on one page, and you can even do it for free if that’s what you want.

If you don’t already have an account at Linkscout, you can sign up for one today, at no cost.

In addition to marketing your websites, there is an affiliate marketing downline builder, where you can add your affiliate codes to the existing affiliate programs you want to promote.

I noticed that there were a couple I wanted to add, but the add affiliate programs function is not working currently. Hopefully, Paul will get that working soon.

One of the problems I noticed is that there are a lot of affiliate programs in that list that I have tested and decided not to promote, some because I tried them and found no value and some that just look like obvious wastes of time without even trying.

But, I guess that’s to be expected with most downline builders.

All I can say is be careful of what you join and promote. Your reputation is on the line.

I noticed that I was promoting 66 affiliate programs, but I cut that down to 18 this morning.

One of my mantras in 2009 is “focus.”

I find that Linkscout is an okay system for free members, but it is a much better deal for upgraded pro members.

Paul calls the pro membership an Associate or Gold account.

We all know that free services are somehow subsidized by paying members, right?

If you are a free member, your site will show some of the links of the paying member who sponsored you. With the new redesign, I’m not exactly sure how that works, but I’ll be watching it to learn more.

So, what does an Associate member get for your money?

First of all, you get a lot of advertising points that can be used to bid on keywords for your websites. That makes it easier to get your pages shown when others search by keyword.

I bid relatively highly on terms like “affiliate marketing,” “internet marketing,” and other relevant terms for what I do.

I’m happy to pay for my Associate membership on Linkscout, and, if you’re serious about marketing, I think you’ll find it to be a good value, too.

You can upgrade to an Associate membership easily.

While I can honestly say that I really like Linkscout and am happy with the results that I get, it is not perfect. Like all other systems, it has a few warts and things different individuals may not like.

On the whole, however, I like it much more than I dislike a couple of features, and I get good results.

Have you tried Linkscout? What’s your opinion?

Act on your dream!

JD

Rate this:

2.9

For the last several years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time joining, using, and evaluating various ways to promote the products that enable me to earn a living as an affiliate marketer.

Among the things I’ve tried are traffic exchanges and downline builders.

I got to thinking about this earlier today as I was revising a couple of my Squidoo lenses: traffic exchanges and downline builders.

It seems that some people have strong opinions about them, both positively and negatively. Some are well-informed, others aren’t.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I think traffic exchanges have their pros and cons. I’m neither a fan, nor an opponent, of them.

Let’s look at a couple of things quickly, just to get the ball rolling.

What is a traffic exchange?

The simple answer: You look at my site and I’ll look at yours.

That may have been true a few years ago, but no longer accurately reflects the changes and innovations they have undergone.

Now, I think of them mostly as advertising sites.

I don’t try to show my websites on a traffic exchange. Instead, I try to promote myself and make an impression (hopefully positive) on the people surfing the exchanges. That’s one of the reasons I use the photo holding the steel rose. I’ve been told more than one time that it stands out.

Whether that adds to my professionalism or detracts from it is a different discussion.

Still, people remember that picture and recognize me on other sites as a result.

So, I’m promoting my personal brand.

Secondly, instead of showing my sites, I promote using fast-loading splash pages with the goal of getting someone to click the link and go to another site where we can build a relationship and maybe work together down the road.

Truthfully, I’m not doing as well at that as I should be doing.

I know what needs to be done, but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.

For the last couple of years, as Mom’s health declined and I spent more time caring for her, there were many days when I was just too tired to do anything that required much work or creative thinking.

However, surfing the traffic exchanges was something I could do, and I actually enjoy seeing what others are promoting and then deciding for myself what I think about them - both the product or service and the person doing the promotion.

Since I still wasn’t all that sure what I wanted to promote on the traffic exchanges, I spent most of my time building downlines.

What’s a downline?

I’m not sure, but I think this term comes to us from the multi-level marketing business. Also known as MLM and network marketing.

The idea is that you get paid for making sales of your own to people who are not involved in the particular company and you get a smaller commission on sales made by the people you “sponsor” into the company.

In other words, your efforts are divided between selling products and services yourself, and building a team of others to do the same thing.

This is called leverage.

In actuality, for most of us, it becomes a time sink that does not produce the results we want.

I’m not very interested in MLMs and I only promote two of them. I’m in the process of deciding whether I want to continue with either of them and will make that decision by my birthday on July 1.

I won’t link to either of them in this post, because I don’t want to get side-tracked.

So, a downline is a group of people you have sponsored, plus the people they have sponsored, going down some number of levels as determined by the company.

Let’s move away from thinking about MLMs and downlines and turn our attention to traffic exchanges and downlines.

Do you have to build a downline in a traffic exchange?

Of course not.

You can spend your time surfing and reap the benefits of your own efforts.

Or, you can introduce others to the traffic exchanges that work best for you and help them get results, too.

I seem to be much better at introducing people and persuading them to join than I am at helping them get results. I’m not proud of this and it’s something I’m working to change.

Why spend the time and effort to sponsor someone in a traffic exchange?

There are a couple of reasons.

In most traffic exchanges, you become an affiliate and can earn commissions from any purchase made by the people you sponsor. I regularly get commissions from several traffic exchanges, and the people who sponsored me are also earning commissions based on my purchases.

In addition to monetary commissions, I also earn credits based on some percentage of the pages the people in my downline surf at that exchange. The more people in my downline and the more pages they surf, the more credits I earn.

These credits can be applied to showing websites (or preferably splash pages or squeeze pages), banner ads, and text ads.

In other words, the more people I sponsor, and the more pages all of us surf, the more advertising I can do on the site.

Of course, that applies to the people in my upline as well as any of the people in my downline. Each of us has the same opportunity to build our network of people and gain the benefit of the work we all do. When I spend time surfing, the people in my upline earn credits, too.

But, will the people who see our sites read them and click on the links?

Now, there’s the crux of the issue.

If you are showing your website or blog - especially if they take a long time to load - you’re probably wasting your time with traffic exchanges.

Years ago, that was the whole point: showing your website to someone. I’d show you my website and you’d show me yours.

That has changed over the years.

Traffic exchanges now have timers that frequently run under ten seconds, and only a few now require you to look at a site for 20 or 30 seconds before you can click on the next page.

If you have multiple links or an involved page, it will rarely be read and you can’t depend upon anyone clicking on any of your links.

Well what’s the point, then?

The days of putting up websites and/or blogs and making easy sales as an affiliate are pretty much over. Sure, you can earn some money doing it - maybe even a few hundred dollars per month - but you really can’t build a business just by doing this.

Now, you have to build a sales funnel and carefully plan your marketing activities.

Traffic exchanges no longer lead to direct sales - they are just part of the picture.

Think of a funnel.

There is a large opening at the top and a smaller opening at the bottom.

Traffic exchanges have their place at the top of the funnel. Sales take place somewhere between the top and bottom of the funnel.

The conversion percentage for any given offer you show on a traffic exchange is rather low, and can be very low for banner and text ads. So, to make it worthwhile, you have to show not just a few dozen views, but thousands per month.

That’s why most of the exchanges (all that I know of) have the option of paying to upgrade. With most upgrades, you get several hundred credits, which means that you can show your ads (splash or squeeze pages) by buying them rather than surfing for them.

Additionally, most of the traffic exchanges offer credits for sale. So, if you have an offer that converts well enough to earn a profit from it, you can theoretically buy as many credits as your budget allows and continue to grow your business until the offer no longer converts at that level. When it becomes unprofitable, it’s time to change the offer.

So, now, we’re entering a completely different type of marketing.

The savvy marketers use the traffic exchanges to introduce themselves to the surfers and offer something in exchange for a valuable item: the email address of someone who is interested in what you offer and permission to contact them using that address.

Instead of trying to make the sale directly, the goal is to have someone sign up to your mailing list. All reputable marketers who do this use some form of autoresponder service to manage the emails and comply with the CAN-SPAM laws.

When someone opts in to receiving your autoresponder series and/or newsletter and/or blog post updates via email, you now have not just one opportunity to make the sale, but multiple opportunities to build a relationship, pass along useful information, and hopefully make a few sales down the line.

If you do it right, you can meet hundreds or thousands of people who value your opinions and the information you pass along. Offer good information and many of them will look forward to hearing from you.

On the other hand, if you do nothing but sell, sell, sell and think of them in terms of email addresses with credit cards, then you’ll fail, fail, fail.

We are people and if you respect us and help us get what we are wanting, we’ll be happy to hear from you.

If you disrespect us or take us for granted or don’t do what you promised when we gave you our email address, then we’ll click on that link at the bottom of your messages and unsubscribe from your list.

So, it’s a two-way street. We’re building a relationship, and that takes time and real effort.

Also, as you know from in-person relationships, some are long-term and others are quite short. We may meet you on your splash page and get one impression, but learn to know you better on your mailing list and see a completely different person.

Perhaps we’ll grow to like you better or we may learn that you don’t offer as much as we originally expected.

Effective marketers build a list.

The people who don’t do well with traffic exchanges are those who try to do direct marketing through them.

The people who may do well are the ones who use traffic exchanges to meet new people and build a relationship over time.

I understand this and appreciate it. In fact, I’ve subscribed to hundreds of mailing lists over the last few years, and continue to subscribe to twenty or thirty that I look forward to reading. In this case, I’m also including blogs that I can subscribe to via email.

What I don’t do as well as I plan to do is to write newsletters on a regular basis and share what I have learned with others who are interested in the same things.

I’ve taken a lot of steps in moving in that direction. I have built a couple of forums that are ready for user participation. I have a couple of social networking communities in place, as well.

I have an Aweber account to manage my mailing lists and I’ve learned how to use it.

Now, I just need to focus on building my lists, and keeping each of them focused on the information I promise when someone subscribes, and providing a place where my readers can interact with me and other readers.

To do this, I’ve had to change a lot of things I was doing so I can move in the right direction.

This blog is one example. I moved it from its old site to a new domain and now it’s powered by WordPress, which makes it much easier to manage the discussions that build as you comment on what I write about.

Other examples include static websites that I’m rebuilding over time. When I first built them, I didn’t know all that I know now and they aren’t built to be part of my marketing funnel.

So, as I have time and energy, I’m converting them into sites that offer good information and each page will also be rewritten to invite the readers to respond to one offer.

It takes a lot of time and effort to do this correctly, but I’m convinced that it’s the way successful affiliate marketers, and network marketers for that matter, will continue to be successful in the future.

It’s hard enough to get someone to visit a site, let alone purchase something on the very first visit.

It’s much easier to offer free information to a first time visitor in return for subscribing to a list. Even if the conversion (subscription) ratio isn’t all that high, it’s still better than trying to sell when you first meet.

I still have a lot to learn, and even more to implement, but I’m making the effort to do so. Are you?

In some ways, bright people who are new to online marketing will have it a bit easier - if they follow the good advice that is out there. Learn how to build a marketing funnel, focus your efforts, and do what you say you’re going to do.

When someone signs up to your list, help them learn what you originally promised.

I wish I’d known that when I first started online marketing way back in the 20th century.

I’ll say this. If you don’t want to be part of the internet marketing niche, then it is probably true that traffic exchanges are a waste of time, because you’re not advertising to the right people.

If you work in a different niche, then you’ll need to find a way to attract other people who are interested in that niche. Probably the best way to do that is to build a site with information that can be found when people search on Google or other search engines.

Even if you do market to a niche for which traffic exchanges are effective, you have to remember that you have to do a lot of advertising on the traffic exchanges to get the results you want, because of the low conversion rates.

So, what do you think about downline builders and traffic exchanges?

Are they worth your time and effort?

Do you have a different, and better, approach?

I look forward to your thoughts and opinions.

Act on your dream!

JD

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3.1 (1 person)

On their blog, Aweber announced Exciting Changes to the AWeber Affiliate Program. You can visit the blog to learn all the details and read comments from other affiliates.

Here are the basic details:

Based on your feedback, we are happy to announce the following changes to the AWeber affiliate program:

1. All commissions will be raised to 30%. This includes existing 1st tier commissions of 20%.

2. Second tier commissions are being phased out to meet Paypal’s terms of service and enable paying of affiliates via Paypal.

3. Your affiliate cookie will be a 1 year, first visit cookie.

4. You will soon have the option of being paid via PayPal or postal check.

5. All affiliates will be paid once a month, on the first of every month.

6. The minimum check payout will be $30.00 for US affiliates and $50.00 for affiliates not based in the US (This applies to both PayPal Payments and postal payments)

All of these changes will be effective on April 8th, 2009. The only exception will be the PayPal payment option, which will be available in the near future.

I have mixed feelings about these changes.

Let’s start with the only real negative I see.

I don’t like that they’re using a first visit cookie. Most of the affiliate programs that pay me the most use a last visit cookie.

What’s the difference?

With a first visit cookie, a purchase will be credited to the first affiliate to introduce you to a business or product. The great majority of people do not purchase on the first visit.

With a last visit cookie, a purchase is credited to the affiliate who convinced the person to buy. Since that affiliate, the last one visited, probably is the one who actually persuaded the prospect to purchase, I believe that is the affiliate who deserves credit, and a commission, for the sales conversion.

Let’s look at an example…

Let’s say that Bob is vaguely interested in autoresponders, email marketing, newsletters, and making it easy for his readers to subscribe to his blog posts via email. He really doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do or which service is best for his needs.

Bob comes across Nancy’s website and she explains some of the benefits of using Aweber’s service, as opposed to other services that are available.

If Bob clicks Nancy’s affiliate link to visit the Aweber site, he will have a one-year cookie set in his browser that identifies Nancy as the affiliate who introduced him to the service.

If he purchases on that visit, or shortly thereafter, Nancy deserves credit for the sale and an ongoing commission.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

However, Bob probably won’t purchase immediately, or even soon. He’ll probably forget about it, get distracted, or something else will stop him from purchasing.

Later, maybe months later, he comes across Steve’s website and is reminded about Aweber.

Not only is he reminded, Steve makes a compelling argument for purchasing the services that Aweber provides. Bob’s mind is made up and he goes and subscribes to the service.

In this case, with a first visit cookie, Nancy will still get the credit and commission for the sale, even though Bob purchased as a result of Steve’s marketing, not Nancy’s.

However, with a last visit cookie, Steve would get the credit and commission for the sale.

I believe that would be appropriate since it was his efforts that finally persuaded Bob to purchase.

I don’t like first visit cookies for affiliate sales.

Regarding the other changes…

I’m always happy to hear that someone is willing to pay me more for my sales efforts. I have no argument with that.

The change from a 10-year cookie to a 1-year cookie is largely irrelevant, because most cookies would not persist for ten years, anyway.

I like the option of being paid by PayPal.

Although I like two-tier affiliate programs, I don’t have any real opinion about Aweber changing to a one-tier program, especially if it makes it easier for some affiliates to be paid via PayPal.

All in all, I like the changes Aweber has made to their affiliate program, but I would really encourage them to change to a last visit cookie for determining who gets the credit for a sale.

In my opinion, Aweber offers the best services related to email marketing and I’m a happy customer and affiliate. I intend to use their services for a long, long time.

Are you an Aweber affiliate?

What do you think about these changes?

Act on your dream!

JD

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2.9

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you know that I’ve been struggling with my blogs and websites and how I’m going to focus my efforts more in 2009.

You’ve also noted, I suspect, that some of the posts I have here don’t really relate to affiliate marketing.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve created a new blog and resurrected another one, and now I have my three primary blogs set up for real work. There are a few more things I need to do, but they are ready to go.

21st Century Affiliate Marketing

This blog will be focused more tightly on affiliate marketing. I won’t be talking as much about Twitter tools, social networking, and similar topics, unless they can be tied directly to being a more effective affiliate marketer.

John Dilbeck And Friends

I’ve moved my John Dilbeck And Friends blog from it’s former home at johndilbeck.editthispage.com to it’s new home at JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com and now it is powered by WordPress.

This is the blog where I’ll be talking about social networking and other things in which I’m interested. It will be a general purpose blog, but I don’t plan on talking about politics or what I had for breakfast!

Murphy, NC 28906

Finally, I’ve resurrected my Murphy NC 28906 blog, updated it to WordPress version 2.7, changed the theme, and added some bells and whistles. It will be used exclusively for talking about people, events, organizations, businesses, and things related specifically to Murphy, NC.

Because of more pressing issues, I neglected that blog for most of 2008, but it will be much more important to me in 2009 and in future years.

Before too long, I’ll be reintroducing my Murphy NC community and a announcing a brand-new website for promoting local businesses on the Internet.

More focused on my two primary goals in 2009

With these changes, I think I’ll be able to segment my efforts and focus on my two primary goals for 2009:

1. Continuing to build my affiliate marketing business and making it more profitable.

2. Promoting local brick and mortar businesses in Murphy, NC. I’ll also be doing much more offline marketing consulting with local business owners.

I hope this will make this blog more interesting to those of you who are interested in affiliate marketing.

What do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

Rate this:

2.9

I’ve been offline for the last week or so and I’m happy to be feeling a little better today.

Normally, in the fall, I suffer from allergies for about six weeks and apparently there is an abundant crop of ragweed this fall here in the mountains of western North Carolina. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sneezing, coughing, and wheezing and just haven’t felt like doing anything, even blogging - which I love doing.

I love fall and I’m looking forward to the beautiful leaves in this part of the world. We’re already seeing some nice orange and red leaves on the sumac plants and sassafras trees. They are the harbingers of much more beauty that will soon surround us.

So, I suffer through the allergies until frost kills the ragweed and enjoy the beauty of nature when the leaves turn. Autumn is a season I dread and love at the same time.

Today I was going to try to catch up on my email, but I got sidetracked by an article that CT Moore wrote about Ethics of Affiliate Blogging.

In that article, he talks about the importance of creating a disclosures page that explains to your readers about affiliate marketing and the companies you promote and from which you earn commissions.

Now, on a blog like this, I think it’s pretty obvious that most (but not all) of the links are affiliate links and that I earn a commission when you purchase as a result of following one of my links.

But, what about your blog or website? Do your readers know that you may have more than one reason for linking to a product or site? Do you get paid to promote something?

In some areas, affiliate marketing or any other form of commercial activity is not welcome. In fact, a few short years ago, it was illegal to do any kind of commercial activity on the Internet. So, there is still residual ill will towards people who market online in some parts of the Web.

If your blog is not obviously about affiliate marketing, do you need to create a disclosures page to explain to your readers that you get paid for promoting certain products and services?

That’s an interesting question.

At first, I thought that I didn’t need a disclosures or disclaimers page for this blog, but the more I think about it, I’m starting to think it may be a good idea for at least two reasons:

1. It makes what I’m doing more transparent to you, the reader, so that there is no confusion about the fact that I earn 100% of my income from affiliate marketing.

2. It would make a good page to list all the companies I promote, with an affiliate link to their sites and maybe a short paragraph explaining why I promote their products and services. For two-tier and multi-tier programs, it would also be a good way to link to where you can join their affiliate program.

Disclosures or Disclaimers?

So, assuming that maybe this is a good idea, I’m wondering whether I need to create a disclosures or disclaimers page, or both.

In journalism, a reporter is expected, and sometimes required, to disclose anything that may show links between a story and the writer. For instance, when reporting on a financial story, he or she may be required to disclose the ownership of stock in a company in the story.

Wikipedia says that full disclosure “in media refers to disclosing the interests of the writer which may bear on the subject being written about…”

So, let’s say you have a passion for beekeeping and that’s what you write about. Do you need to disclose to your readers that you may earn income by recommending books about bees and you use affiliate links to promote certain brands of beekeeping equipment and supplies?

If you blog about politics, do your readers have a reasonable expectation that you earn income by promoting some sites or products?

I think it really depends upon your niche and your readers.

If you report news, then I think there should be a separation between editorial and advertising content, as is required by (most) newspapers and magazines.

If you are an authority on a subject and your choice of topics to write about may be influenced by financial interests, then I think disclosure of the facts is a good idea.

What about a disclaimers page?

Wikipedia says, “A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally-recognized relationship. In contrast to other terms for legally operative language, the term ‘disclaimer’ usually implies situations that involve some level of uncertainty, waiver, or risk.”

When applied to affiliate marketing, some disclaimers are probably a good thing. It is a subject I need to explore some more.

Most affiliate programs disclaim earnings potential statements, and some earnings claims are illegal. The FTC requires all claims to be factual, not misleading, and that you be able to back them up with proof.

On my Act On Your Dreams! site, I have a page about Home Business Information and link to some FTC pages about claims and advertising that may be useful to you.

An example of a disclaimer can be seen on Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Marketing Blog. For instance, in his article, Top Affiliate Programs - August 2008, you’ll find the disclaimer: “Disclaimer: While we attempt to include only legitimate programs in this directory, no warranties are made. Please research each company carefully to arrive at your own conclusions. If you experience difficulties with any of the programs listed, contact us, so that we may investigate them.”

This disclaimer is used to reduce risk by disclaiming any warranties that may be expected from listing what he considers the top ten affiliate programs for the month.

He recommends that you perform your own due diligence in investigating the company so that you arrive at your own conclusions instead of relying on his recommendation.

Finally, he offers to investigate programs with which his readers may have experienced problems.

Another example can be found on The Affiliate Marketing Edge Disclaimer Page, which has a lengthy legal document that looks like it may have been professionally prepared by an attorney.

Darren Rowse has a different kind of disclaimer page, ProBlogger Disclaimer, where he talks about what he gets from his blog and what it costs him.

In the current design of his blog’s theme, he links to the disclaimer page from the very bottom right corner of his blog.

Allan Gardyne has a page called Legal Stuff where he makes some common-sense disclaimers and disclosures.

You can find many other examples by searching on Google for terms such as “affiliate marketing disclaimer” and similar phrases.

What to do?

After spending a couple hours thinking about this and looking at other sites, many of which I didn’t mention here, I’ve decided that I need to add a page for this site’s policies and another for disclosures. I’m thinking that I can combine privacy policies and disclaimers on one page, and use the disclosures page to talk about the affiliate programs I promote and why.

What do you think?

Are you actively promoting affiliate programs on your sites, blogs or elsewhere?

Have you considered the importance of creating disclosures, disclaimers, and/or policies pages for your sites?

I’m very interested in your thoughts about these topics.

Disclaimer: I’m not an attorney, don’t want to become one, and have never played one on TV or elsewhere. I’m not offering any legal advice here.

Act on your dream!

JD

Rate this:

2.9

Last month, Joel Comm’s newest book, Click Here to Order - Stories of the World’s Most Successful Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs, was released and currently ranks #2230 in sales out of all books sold by Amazon.com.

This is not a step-by-step how-to book for new Internet marketers. If that’s what you are looking for, you should probably look elsewhere.

Click Here To Order tells the stories of some of the earliest Internet marketing entrepreneurs who succeeded beyond their dreams. You may know some of their names, already.

In fact, if affiliate marketing is part of your business revenue model, you may even promote products that some of the people in this book created.

From the product description:

While the general public is familiar with the larger Internet companies such as Yahoo!, Google, eBay and Amazon, very few are aware that small business is thriving online like never before, especially in the realm of information products. Click Here creates an entertaining and instructive narrative that provides an in-depth look at the unintentionally underground movement known as Infoproduct marketing, and the people who have profited and succeeded in the industry.

This edition of Click Here to Order is a 300-page paperback book. The list price is $17.95 and, as you probably know, is offered at a significant discount by Amazon.com.

Marketing on the Internet can be a very lonely business since we spend lots of hours in front of our keyboards and sometimes lose sight of what we want to accomplish because we get so bogged down in the details of what we’re doing.

Sometimes, it’s good to get away from the details and learn about the pioneers in this business. Who are they? What did they do? How did they do it? Why did they become so successful?

You’ll find some of these answers in Joel’s new book.

If you are interested in the history of the Internet marketing pioneers, and you want to learn more about how some of the best copywriters made their first dollars with online marketing, you’ll probably enjoy this book.

This is just one of the books about Internet marketing that I recommend in my Amazon.com bookstore.

Do you want to learn about Infoproducts and how to create them?

You can download, for free, Monique Harris and Ken Evoy’s excellent ebook, Make Your Knowledge Sell!.

While it won’t do the work for you, you’ll learn how to create an infoproduct of your own.

They provide great information about picking good ideas, writing to persuade, packaging your infoproduct, marketing it, and making sales.

Make Your Knowledge Sell! sold thousands of copies over the last few years, and now you can get it free. What are you waiting for?

Who knows, maybe you’ll be one of the people who’ll be featured in some future book about successful Internet marketers!

Read Click Here to Order for background knowledge of the business and how it has developed. Get inspired to do more by reading about the people who blazed the trails some of us are following.

Study Make Your Knowledge Sell! to learn many of the details and skills you’ll have to master to create your own infoproducts.

You can get started by learning affiliate marketing before you create your own products

Perhaps you’re not yet ready to create and sell your own infoproduct or service.

One of the best ways to get started in online marketing is to become an affiliate for a company with top-selling, high-quality products and services and then earn commissions by recommending them.

That’s my preferred business model, as you can tell from the name of this site.

I highly recommend Ken Evoy’s Affiliate Masters Course, and you can download a free copy here from my site.

Even if you choose to create your own products and sell them, you’ll want to know more about affiliate marketing. After all, you may create a great product and want to have affiliates helping you sell it.

Act on your dream!

JD

Rate this:

2.9

Ken Evoy just released the new, updated, 2008 edition of his highly acclaimed Affiliate Masters Course.

So, what is the Affiliate Masters Course and what is it all about?

From the introduction to the course:

The Affiliate Masters Course is an intensive 10-DAY course on becoming a high-earning affiliate champion.

How? By “building income through content,” the proven, C-T-P-M way!

An affiliate business is one of the easiest ways to get your feet wet in e-business. You send visitors (i.e., potential customers) to a merchant’s Web site that you are representing. If they buy or complete a required action (for example, fill in a form), the merchant pays you a commission. No fuss, no muss!

That, in essence, is the beauty of the affiliate concept. You can be up and building an online business in record time, at minimal risk. Top-notch merchants supply everything (i.e., excellent products, ordering, credit card processing, and delivery). All you need to do is to put yourself in the path between customers and quality merchants… and earn a commission for your efforts.

So what’s the best way to put yourself on that critical pathway?

That’s what the course teaches you, the best way to put yourself in the path between interested customers and quality merchants.

From the introduction to the Affiliate Masters Course:

Upon completion of this course, you will have the power of C-T-P-M working for you, helping you to build a flourishing, profitable and stable online business. With the right process, you get the right results!

Be forewarned about the Affiliate Masters Course, though. The material we cover will be extensive in scope. It will require effort and commitment on your part, as does anything important that yields rewards. Most folks have to train or go to university for years to prepare to earn a substantial income stream. Your mini-university course will accomplish this by the end of this e-book.

I don’t mean to scare you. All of it is manageable. Take your time to digest the information properly before you start to work on the prescribed action steps.

Use the Goals-of-the-DAY and Ongoing Goals as your guideposts, your beacons of light. Understanding the concepts will boost your confidence level in applying them. Even as adults, we never lose our need to know why things work the way they do.

It’s critical that you finish each DAY of this course before you begin the next. The DAYS build on each other. Always keep in mind that you are following a step-bystep process.

Please don’t feel that you have to rush. Work at your own pace, as time allows. This is not a race. Sometimes, you will be able to devote large blocks of time each day to the course. At other times, you may have only 15-30 minutes per day to spend on it. In this situation, it could take you a week or more to complete a “DAY” of the course. And that’s perfectly normal!

It does not matter how long it takes you to complete the course. The key is to set aside a realistic amount of time each day to “do” the course. You’ll find it was time well, no best, spent.

I downloaded a copy of the new edition this morning and I’ve been reading through it with interest.

Here are the 10 days and what you’ll learn:

DAY 1 - Intro To Affiliate Business Basics
DAY 2 - Brainstorm Your Site Concept
DAY 3 - Develop High-Profitability Topics
DAY 4 - Plan Your Monetization Models
DAY 5 - Refine Final Concept And Register Domain Name
DAY 6 - Build A Site That Gets The Click!
DAY 7 - Build Free Traffic
DAY 8 - Build Relationships
DAY 9 - Know Your Visitors
DAY 10 - Monetize!

It’s good to see that the time-tested, proven steps for building your affiliate marketing business are still here (as I knew they would be), but the web has changed since the last version and some of the sites and tools are new.

I don’t remember if I first studied, several years ago, the Affiliate Masters Course or Make Your Site Sell!.

At the time, the Affiliate Masters Course was a free, multi-part, course delivered in email using an autoresponder. Make Your Site Sell! was a huge ebook that cost about $20.

After studying both of them, I rebuilt several of my websites and, over the next few months, I started making affiliate sales and began to earn regular commissions.

Later, when Site Build It! was introduced, I subscribed and studied all the training materials and the step-by-step Action Guide in order to build a profitable site.

Now, I’m applying what I’ve learned over the years to the Squidoo lenses, websites, blogs, forums, and social networking sites that I own and/or manage.

The more I learn, and the more I apply it, the more I earn. You can, too.

The Affiliate Masters Course is one of my very highest recommendations. Download it today and start your journey to becoming an affiliate marketing master.

Act on your dream!

JD

Rate this:

2.8

I’ve been a member of SFI Marketing Group for over five years and, in general, I have very positive thoughts about, and experiences with, this company.

I believe it is one of the very best companies for people who are brand new to affiliate marketing to learn how to promote online. They offer lots of training and good support. There is an active forum for members.

I am not a fan of multi-level marketing

One thing I don’t like about SFI is that it is a multi-level marketing (also known as mlm or networking marketing) company. I am not a fan of mlm, even though I’ve had good results with SFI.

Why?

Because, I’m tired of sponsoring people into the company who then do nothing, including replying to a simple email welcoming them to the company.

On the other hand, I’m happy to meet new people who have joined in my downline and I’m always happy to answer questions and offer advice based on my experience. That’s more than I can say for my sponsor, who has never replied to any emails I’ve sent him.

In theory, multi-level marketing makes a lot of sense. The opportunity to leverage income and efforts by enlisting others into your marketing team is very attractive. Some people seem to do well with this, but, in actual practice, most do not.

You can learn more by downloading Ann Sieg’s free ebook: The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing.

What I like about SFI

What I like about SFI is the ability to earn commissions for selling their products and services at retail. I think their line of non-toxic, natural cleaners are the best I’ve used and I’m happy to have alternatives to the chemical-soup cleaners available elsewhere.

I enjoy getting that email that tells me I’ve made a sale. SFI is generous in their commissions, and I’m happy to get my monthly commission check.

I also like the fact that Gery Carson, president of SFI, is always working to find new ways for us to earn money by promoting an array of products and services. He’s a very innovative person and regularly responds to questions on the company forum.

What I don’t like about SFI

Unfortunately, the list of things I dislike about SFI is growing faster and longer than the list of things I do like.

For example, I really like the non-toxic, natural cleaners, as I mentioned above. What I don’t like is that there is no way to market them right now, and it’s been several months since I was able to do so.

Well, that’s not exactly true, but the explanation is rather confusing.

I can still offer you the opportunity to buy the non-toxic all natural cleaner by linking to the old Veriuni store. I still have links to this store on a number of my sites.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

However, new affiliates don’t learn about this, because the training - as far as I can tell - no longer informs them about the Veriuni store.

There used to be a simple gateway page that affiliates could direct you to if you wanted to purchase the natural cleaners, but it no longer is available.

Here’s an example of a simple gateway page that links to the Veriuni Liquid Nutrition product and another one that links to the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

Why is this important?

The great majority of new affiliates joining SFI have no experience in marketing online. Therefore, it makes it much easier to promote something if they can send visitors to well-written, easy-to-understand gateway pages and make some sales as a result.

The whole point in joining SFI is to make more money than you spend. Right?

We’re here to earn a profit.

Now, I want to emphasize that you can remain an affiliate of SFI as long as you want and never spend a dime. A lot of people don’t understand that. As a free affiliate, you can still earn a very nice commission for any sales you make, and these commissions are several times as much as you would earn if you sold something through your Amazon.com store, for instance.

As a free affiliate at SFI, if you sell any consumer goods to someone who is not an SFI affiliate and doesn’t live at the same address as an SFI affiliate, you’ll earn 30% of the commission volume (CV). Let’s use the All-Purpose Cleaner as an example…

All-Purpose Cleaner costs $9.85 per quart with a CV of $2.21.

A free affiliate would earn 30% of this $2.21 for each sale, which amounts to $0.66. Now, I know that’s not a lot of income, but it grows as you sell more product.

An Executive Affiliate (EA) would earn 60% of the CV, or $1.32. To become an EA, you either need to sell retail products that add up to 10 SVP or more. (I won’t go into SVP at this time.) The other way is to purchase products with 10 SVP or more every month.

A Team Leader would earn 80% of the CV, or $1.77 per sale.

It’s not much earning less than a dollar or two, but this amount can grow rapidly as you do a better job of making retail sales.

As with every other sales and marketing job where you’re working on commission, the more you sell the more you earn.

The main point I’m trying to make is that SFI isn’t making it easy for us to sell things. While many gateway pages remain, some of the products I want to sell no longer have an easy way to link to a sales page, especially if I don’t know how to link to the Veriuni store.

A marketing organization lives and dies based on selling things. We earn our commissions based on how much we sell every month.

Let me give you another example.

I am a happy member of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs and SFI offers a good gateway page for recommending it to you and others. Even if I weren’t an SFI affiliate, I would continue my IAHBE membership because I get more from it most months than I pay to be a member.

Now, let’s look at IAHBE from the perspective of an SFI affiliate…

As a free member, I would earn 30% of the Commission Volume (CV) of $19.00, which equals $5.70.

An EA earns 60% of the CV, or $11.40.

A TL earns 80% of the CV, or $15.20.

These amounts are for selling an IAHBE membership to someone who is not an SFI affiliate. The amounts you earn if someone in your downline joins IAHBE are less than these numbers.

Now, what gets interesting is that these are not one-time commissions. They are recurring commissions that you’ll earn every month that someone remains a member.

So, as a Bronze Team Leader, I’ll earn $15.20 every month that someone who is not an SFI affiliate remains a member, if they originally joined from one of my links.

It doesn’t take many of these to start earning some decent commissions.

At least, in theory.

In practice, I haven’t sold any IAHBE memberships to someone who is not an SFI affiliate. Several of the people in my downline have joined IAHBE and I earn some from that, as well as advancing in the leadership ranks, but it’s not as much as I would earn if I were selling these memberships to non-affiliates.

I think IAHBE is a good deal, but apparently the hundreds of people who have followed my links to the gateway page don’t agree.

SFI has been inconsistent

Lately, SFI has been advancing and retreating in about equal amounts.

Nice Offers discount coupon program suspended

A few months ago, SFI suspended the NiceOffers program and I had been working on promoting that with some diligence. I had created three blogs and almost 50 Squidoo lenses to help promote the NiceOffers program and the merchants who were offering discount coupons through the service.

I was syndicating my blog feeds on a variety of websites and I probably haven’t found and deleted all of them, even after a few months.

OK. I recognize that everything we try doesn’t succeed. So, suspending something that wasn’t working as expected makes good business sense, even though it impacted my efforts negatively.

Still, to do so suddenly after making it one of the primary marketing efforts of SFI came as a jar and I was very disappointed as a result.

Closing the Merchant Service program

This morning, I found this on the SFI forum:

Effective 8/28/08, the Merchant Services program has been discontinued due to continuing issues with the third-party company on which the program was based and over which we have no control. We apologize for any inconvenience the termination of this program may cause.

I have been watching this program for some time, and while it was very attractive, I was aware that there were problems with it, so I wasn’t actively promoting it, even though the commissions could have been very lucrative.

Now, I’m sure that a lot of affiliates are very disappointed about this.

It takes money, effort, and time to market something, especially when there are so many competitors. After spending months trying to build this part of your business, you have to be disheartened to hear that your efforts have been wasted.

The worst part of this is that we, the affiliates, are taking the risk in advertising and promoting these other companies. It costs money and time to promote through affiliate marketing, and we only realize an income when we make sales. If the merchants, both SFI and the third-party company they mention, fail in their part of closing the sale, then we are very negatively impacted.

New products that I don’t plan to promote

Recently, SFI introduced IAB Benefits which apparently offers health, dental, medical, and other services.

Even after reading all I could find about it, several times, I still don’t understand this company and what it offers. I’m a fairly bright person, but I’m still confused.

Before SFI affiliates began promoting it, when I searched for “IAB Benefits” on Google, I found more complaints than good reports about it. Are the complaints valid? I don’t know, but I don’t like promoting anything when complaints are so visible.

IAB may be a very good company that offers great products, but if I don’t understand it, I’m not going to promote it - no matter how lucrative the compensation plan may be.

I don’t want to mislead someone who is looking for medical insurance and who may sign up for IAB Benefits by mistake. Some of us just don’t have any money to waste, and from what I was able to learn, IAB Benefits doesn’t do what I would expect if I wanted medical insurance.

The SFIMG website logs me out while I am working on it

I was just reminded how much I dislike it when I’m researching something on the SFIMG.com website and it logs me out. I just had five pages open on the site and now I get a session expired message on each of them. When I log back in, does it take me to the page I was on? No. Now, I have to waste the next few minutes navigating back to where I was.

Sigh…

The not-quite-ready ecommerce store

We’ve been hearing since early spring that SFI will be introducing a new ecommerce store that will make it easy for us to earn higher commissions. A few months ago, I was excited about this, but I’m starting to lose interest.

Will this store do everything that is projected?

I hope so, but with a schedule that keeps slipping, I’m inclined to believe that it is more difficult to create than was originally projected or that there are problems with the programming and implementation.

I don’t know either way, but my gut is telling me to be careful about this one.

Here’s the latest update, posted by Gery Carson on August 29, 2008:

More new store features revealed:

For our many affiliates anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the new SFI store (and for brand new affiliates who may not have heard about the coming new store), here’s an update of some of the exciting features everyone will be enjoying soon:

• ONE store for everything. The new store will service both SFI affiliates and retail customers alike. Everything from nutritional products to Internet services to SFI promotional materials.

• Thousands (soon tens of thousands) of new products in dozens of new categories, plus closeouts, collectables and hard-to-find items available nowhere else.

• Earn instant SVP on EVERY product in the store…including all SFI promotional materials like X-Cards, postcards, business cards, etc.

• Exclusive, money-saving daily deals (”Deal Of The Day”).

• Special weekly/monthly sales with special discount prices.

• New products added daily.

• You can promote the store as a whole, or any individual product in the store, or any department, or any selection of products of your choosing.

• No longer do high shipping costs need to get in the way of becoming EA or making sales internationally. This is because the new SFI store will be utilizing new partner companies who will be shipping to you directly from outlets around the world. Additionally, through the store’s Private Seller program, you can locate sellers and products located in your same country—even the same city!

• Because of how it’s being built, virtually anything can be added and sold in the store. Goods, services, downloadable software and media, you name it! The sky’s the limit!

• The new SFI store also allows you to sell YOUR stuff. Through the new store’s Private Seller program you can quickly, easily, and cheaply convert stuff you no longer want or need…into stuff you do! List your stuff at the new store, and sell for cash….or for any product in the store. You can even earn EA status each month selling unwanted items around your house! Use the new SFI store as your online garage sale to clean out your closets, attics and garages! List and sell dozens or even hundreds of miscellaneous items easily.

• Hot, new marketing program will allow you to easily generate lifetime retail customers by the hundreds! And earning EA status though retail sales will have never been simpler or easier!

• Standing Orders, on thousands of products, will be available both to affiliates AND retail customers. When an affiliate or customer places an order containing any Standing Order-Eligible product, they’ll automatically be alerted how to set up a Standing Order for that item in seconds.

• More payment options.

• Product shipment tracking.

• Express Checkout feature allows you to make purchases in seconds.

• Wishlists

• Store multiple shipping addresses and multiple payment methods –which can be instantly accessed via pulldown menus during checkout.

• Seamless integration with VeryVIP. If you are a VeryVIP subscriber, you’ll have powerful additional tools to promote the new store and generate customers.

• One-click sitewide currency conversions for 17 major world currencies.

These are just SOME of the amazing features the new SFI store will come with. And there are many, many, many more. Not only that, the new store is also going to usher in some powerful new enhancements to the overall SFI program including substantial simplification, bigger bonuses, and more incentives to become and remain an EA.

Stay tuned for further details!

Several people posted some replies to the announcement, and Gery responded with the following post this morning, August 30, 2008:

Good morning,

I’d like to address some of the comments in this thread:

1. My apologies if you’ve perceived our launch date estimates published to date to have been “evasive.” This was certainly not our intent. These are the facts: Since beginning this project several months ago, the scope has grown enormously. What started as “just a new e-commerce store” has become something that will be seamlessly integrated directly or indirectly into every aspect of SFI. And what’s key here is that doing so closes a number of “holes” in the overall SFI program.

That is to say that we expect this project to have potentially explosive positive impacts on registrations, opt-in rates, shipping costs, EA upgrades, and much more. All those things you’ve been wanting to see out of SFI…we believe are now within our reach…thanks to this project.

Of course, making all this goodness happen has added some time to the project. And, yes, we definitely want to have everything significantly tested before we launch so that the growth explosion we anticipate can begin immediately upon the launch. We sincerely appreciate everyone’s patience; when we launch I am 1000% certain you will agree that it was worth the wait.

2. So when WILL the new store launch? There is still MUCH to do and it’s impossible to foresee every potential “speedbump” that could come up between now and the launch date as it’s not only our editors, designers and programmers involved, but also other software companies, banks, payment processors, shipping companies, etc. Therefore, it would not be wise for me to give out an exact date. There are just simply too many things that COULD cause us to miss the date. My hope is that we can unveil everything on November 1st, but that is only an estimate and could change. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do at this time.

3. At least one person in this thread has envisioned a “sky is falling” scenario based on some recent SFI events. What I will say to this is that there are many pieces to the puzzle of what we are putting together. What may look like negatives now aren’t necessarily so, but rather moves and pieces of the bigger puzzle that will be come clear to you after the launch.

Also, for the record, companywide, SFI continues to steadily grow. We have now seen nearly two years of continual monthly growth. Total EAs have nearly doubled in the last two years and we are up, up, up in virtually every key category. So you can imagine why I can hardly sleep at night thinking about what we’re going to see in these numbers later this year after the new store has arrived!!

So, have faith, the future for SFI affiliates is brighter than it’s ever been.

Thanks, everyone! I hope I’ve helped with your concerns.

Gery Carson
SFI President & Founder

Benefit of the doubt

I’ve been reading what Gery Carson has to say for the last five years and I’ve never known him to mislead his affiliates. I’ve watched him introduce innovative products, marketing methods, and compensation plans to adapt to a changing world.

So, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt in regards to the new ecommerce store.

I certainly don’t have any secret information or behind-the-scenes insight into all that is being done to make this a reality.

Part of me want to just throw my hands up and quit.

This has been a very rough month for me personally and I’m not feeling very enthusiastic about anything at the moment, so I’m not going to make any big decisions until I’m feeling better.

I recognize the part of me that wants to quit, and I tend not to pay very much attention to him. He’s a whiner and can always find the gray cloud behind every silver lining. He’s a manifestation of all the naysayers and doubters I’ve encountered who tell me things won’t work and who think I’m crazy for even trying.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of people who quit just before they would have succeeded.

Napoleon Hill, in his best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich, tells a story about R. U. Darby, who quit three feet from finding his fortune. He quit mining for gold when the vein ran out and he sold everything to the junk man, who hired a mining engineer to study the mine. He predicted that the vein had shifted just three feet because of a fault. The new owner ordered his employees to dig to where the engineer predicted the vein would be, and that’s where they found the gold. The junk man continued to mine gold from that vein for years and earned millions of dollars because he sought expert advice before quitting.

Russell Conwell, the founder of Temple University, tells the story in his Acres of Diamonds lecture, “about a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went off in futile search for them; the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property.”

While that tells the basics of the lecture, I urge you to click the link and read the entire Acres of Diamonds lecture for yourself.

Sometimes we’d do much better by doing a little more digging, learning a bit more, and digging in our own back yard before quitting and moving on to something new.

I’ll wait and see

As I have said before, I earn a commission from SFI every month and it’s usually profitable for me to promote SFI, so I don’t want to cut off an income stream unless it becomes necessary.

But, I don’t want to just keep on going indefinitely as I wait for a higher income from SFI, as I should be receiving after 5 years of effort.

Most months, I spend about the same time, effort, and money promoting Gery Carson’s SFI Marketing Group as I do Ken Evoy’s Site Build It!

I earn higher commissions and true, recurring, residual income from promoting Site Build It! and I’m seeing a nice upwards trend in my income from them. On top of that, I’m a happy SBI customer and, a couple of days ago, I renewed my subscription for my SBI-powered Act On Your Dream! site. I never once questioned my decision to renew that subscription and I did it about six weeks before it was due.

So, it’s interesting to compare my relatively-flat income from SFI to my growing income from SBI.

I’m going to give SFI almost one more year. If the new store is released and performs as Gery hopes, and if my commissions from SFI grow faster than they have in the past, I’ll remain an affiliate and continue promoting the company and its products.

On my birthday, July 1, 2009, I’m going to decide one way or the other. I’ll continue to do my part, but SFI is going to have to improve substantially for me to continue promoting it.

I only have a limited amount of time, effort, and money and I intend to refocus on the very best affiliate programs. I hope SFI makes the cut.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback about SFI Marketing Group.

Act on your dream!

JD

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

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2.8

This month, Aweber celebrates the 10th anniversary of providing quality autoresponder services to their clients, one of whom is me.

Happy Anniversary, Aweber!

If you don’t already know, Aweber is the industry leader in providing mailing list maintenance and delivery services.

They started out offering autoresponder services, and now they offer that and much more, including helping you manage your newsletters and email syndication of your blog posts.

I use Aweber to handle several mailing lists, with more coming soon, and the subscription form in the top-right column of this page allows you to subscribe to the posts I publish on this blog so you’ll receive them right in your email inbox.

Aweber provides unlimited autoresponders with unlimited messages and you can broadcast to the lists, too, should you want.

Aweber works closely with the largest ISPs to insure that your double-opt-in email messages are delivered and enjoys the highest delivery rates in the industry.

If you want to follow-up with your prospects and customers, I recommend Aweber to you. It’s the service I use.

Here’s to your continued success, Aweber.

Act on your dream!

JD

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3.0

• Do you earn money - regularly - from an affiliate program?
• Would you recommend it to your closest friends and family?
• Is it fair?

I regularly earn good commission checks from several top affiliate programs and I want to tell you about them.

I created a new page on this blog, Top Affiliate Programs, and I’ll be telling you about the dozen or so affiliate programs I value highly and enjoy promoting.

Now, before you go look at them, you have to remember my niche is earning money while working at home with your own affiliate marketing business.

So, if you’re looking for tools and services to help you in your affiliate marketing, I may have something of value to recommend to you.

Perhaps your niche is something totally different. In that case, my recommendations may not be very helpful.

Affiliate marketing is a wide niche with thousands of merchants and service providers.

But, let’s give this a try, anyway.

What is your top affiliate program?

Please feel free to comment on this post and tell us about your marketing niche, the merchant or service you promote, and why.

Feel free to link back to your own website or blog, but don’t post any affiliate links. Any comments that contain affiliate links will be deleted. Promote your business offerings on your own site, not mine.

But, again, feel free to link back to your site or blog to a page that has more about your top ranked affiliate program.

I think that’s fair. Do you?

Without a doubt, my top affiliate program is SiteSell’s 5 Pillar Affiliates and the primary service is Site Build It!

You can learn more about it on my Top Affiliate Programs page on this site.

So, what’s your opinion?

What’s your top affiliate program. Please limit your comments to one program.

Act on your dream!

JD

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2.5

Ray White announced earlier today that he has made major changes to the Private Success Team sign up page, including new graphics and a simpler design.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

Starting today, new Private Success Team members will only need to sign up for two programs rather than the three that were previously required.

SFI Marketing Group remains our main affiliate program and Soaring4Traffic is the traffic exchange that will be promoted to meet our traffic needs.

Ray just announced a new email series that will provide all Private Success Team members with a better understanding of what our goals are and the process we take to build everyone’s downline in both programs.

If you wish to start building your list and promote the Private Success Team system, the email series will be available for you to copy and modify. It is highly recommended that you sign up for this email series to better understand the direction we are taking.

You are invited to sign up to my customized version of the Private Success Team message series.

You may sign up here:

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

This new email series is a total of eight messages spread over a period of about two weeks. Each member will be allowed and encouraged to copy the original messages and to create a customized series for you to promote the Private Success Team.

This is a great way to promote and build your list at the same time.

Ray added that we are in the process of adding more splash pages to our system in the near future.

This new email series will be encouraging new members to join us in the forum for questions, comments, or concerns. We sincerely hope that you will join us so we can work together to help each other build our teams and grow our businesses.

Please drop by the forum at your earliest convenience. If you are not already a member of the forum, come and join us right away.

Ray has been hinting that activity in the forum can be rewarding as he has plans to reward those who participate.

We hope you join us in the Private Success Team and start promoting it right away. Let’s get back to business and work together to build this team.

By the way, don’t forget to login to your Soaring4Traffic members area, click the Downline Builder link in the left column, and be sure to enter your referral username for the Private Success Team.

We will be sending more members to the downline builder, so don’t miss out on getting a referral.

Similarly, the traffic exchange downline builder in Soaring4Traffic will be promoted for our new Private Success Team members to join other traffic exchanges. Make sure you have your referral IDs entered.

I’ve created a brand new lens on Squidoo.com to help promote the Private Success Team and hope you’ll visit and share your opinions and feedback.

Come join our Private Success Team and we look forward to seeing you in the forum.

Act on your dream!

JD

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2.5

I just created a new 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens on Squidoo to work with this blog.

By cross-promoting between this blog and that lens, more people will eventually find their way to read what I have to say about affiliate marketing in the 21st century. I’m syndicating the RSS feed from this blog on that lens.

I’ve been running my affiliate marketing business for several years and I’ve watched the nature of the business change. Now, there is much more competition, more things to divert your attention and drain your bank account, and, also, more quality affiliate marketing opportunities for you.

There are also a lot of “me, too” products that don’t add anything worthwhile to what’s already available. One of the struggles is to provide quality information and insight that’s not available everywhere on the net.

The area I choose to target, which is very highly competitive, includes tools and resources to help affiliate marketers promote their products and services online. It’s a hard niche in which to compete, but my interests lie mainly in building a home business and helping others to do the same.

I’m sure you can make more money, more easily, by concentrating your affiliate marketing efforts in other less-competitive niches. In fact, I know that’s true, but I’ve not been able to find a niche that interests me nearly as much as this one.

So, I’ll write about things I learn about affiliate marketing and pass them along to help you.

I’ll also be pointing to other high-quality affiliate marketers and they’ll help you, too.

You won’t find me promoting the latest “flash-in the pan” product just so I can reach into your pocket and take money out of your wallet. That’s just not my style. I know I’ll earn less by not being a ruthless promoter of all things, but I think I’ll live better with myself by only promoting products and services that I know are worth buying.

I’ve tested hundreds and only promote a few.

So, I welcome your comments here on this blog and on my new 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens. Go to the lens and vote in the polls and have your say in the duel. I hope you’ll take the time to rank the lens and leave your comments. You’ll need to be a logged-in Squidoo member to participate on the lens.

It’s a brand new lens and I’ll be updating it considerably over the next few weeks.

Also, I’ve been testing several dozen blogs and I’ll be closing most of them. This blog will become one of my top two blogs and may eventually become my primary blog.

Currently, my primary blog is John Dilbeck and Friends and is powered by Manilla from Userland Software, which was the best platform I could find when I started it. However, over time, WordPress has overtaken it and offers more features and easier customization, so I’ll be evaluating if I should move my primary emphasis to this blog.

I updated this blog to WordPress 2.6 earlier today and like what I see.

I also added a new plug-in called Tweet My Blog which should post an update to Twitter whenever I post a new article to the blog. This post will be the first test of the plug-in and I’m not ready to promote or recommend it at this time, but it looks promising.

That’s one of the things I can’t easily do with my older blog.

(You are invited to follow me on Twitter.)

So, this may be a time of transition and consolidation for me as I close other blogs and websites and concentrate more on what works the best to build my marketing business.

Maybe some of what I learn will help you build your business, too.

Although I’m a social liberal, I’m a fiscal conservative and I hate wasting my money. You probably hate wasting your money, too.

The object of affiliate marketing is to earn money, and the goal is to earn more than you spend - preferably considerably more.

The art is to evaluate and recommend appropriate products and services to the right group of people.

Now that my multi-year testing and experimentation phase is coming to an end, I look forward to working just as hard, but focusing my efforts more on high-quality products that produce reliable revenue rather than testing everything that comes down the pipeline.

I welcome your comments and questions, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll do what I can to help you find it.

Act on your dream!

JD

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2.5

Several months ago, I created a blog called Random Neurons Firing at WordPress.com in order to test the latest version of their blogging software without having to keep updating the software all the time.

As you may know, I earn my living from affiliate marketing and that’s my main interest these days, so I started writing about the subject at Random Neurons Firing.

A few days ago, I logged into the dashboard to write a new post and there was a message that WordPress was concerned about the contents of my blog. So, I used the contact form to learn what concerned them.

When one of their people contacted me, he told me that I was violating their terms of service by blogging about affiliate marketing.

I wasn’t aware that commercial postings weren’t allowed on blogs hosted by WordPress.com, but that’s the case.

So, I exported all the postings and deleted all that were commercial in nature.

In the future, I’ll be posting about non-commercial topics on that blog.

I had registered 21stCenturyAffiliateMarketing.com some time back, but had never done anything with it, so yesterday, I set up a new blog called 21st Century Affiliate Marketing on this domain and imported the postings from Random Neurons Firing into it.

In the future, I’ll be posting news and views about affiliate marketing on this blog.

Of course, this means more work and I’m not sure if it will really be worth it.

The only way to find out is to try it and see.

The main reason I’ll continue writing to this blog in addition to John Dilbeck And Friends is to see if more people will comment because you won’t have to register here, and you do have to register there.

Any thoughts?

Act on your dream!

JD

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2.5