Affiliate Summit East Miami 2007 Day 1

Written by Pablo Palatnik on July 10, 2007

For everyone who came here from another state or country to the Affiliate Summit Conference here in Downtown, Miami must be in love with my city. UNLESS, you’re not really into 95 degree blazing hot and humid Miami summer heat.

Due to prior commitments I couldn’t stay for the whole day but this conference is GREAT. It’s my first Affiliate Summit, and if you’re in the affiliate marketing space, you really need to make your way to one of these. There is no better and more effective way than making contacts and meeting the people behind these companies. It’s a conference you actually come out of really gaining great contacts in the biz.

I thought maybe the dates of Ad:Tech and Affiliate Summit were to close together but they are COMPLETLEY different. Affiliate Summit had many faces I recognized and a great opportunity to network. e-Mail networking will never replace the Face-to-Face interaction.

The one session I was able to attend was about monetizing your page which I will get into in a later post this week for you bloggers or webmasters that have a site that has traffic but can’t monetize on!

If you’re attending the summit and see me walking around aimlessly as I usually do…stop by and say hello. A shoutout to Shawn Collins for the pass…he put the affiliate summit together and is doing a great job. Check out his blog: Affiliate Tip Blog

Two Affiliate Marketing Mistakes Made By Beginners

Written by Pablo Palatnik on July 6, 2007

I’ll make this quick and sweet. You can read as many blogs as you want, purchase as many programs as you would like about making money with affiliate marketing but the field is a whole other ball game.

Now if you’re planning on starting affiliate marketing doing PPC and have never done so…good luck. It’s going to be a bumpy ride but chances are from running a bunch of campaigns, something will give. Affiliate Marketing is like almost everything else, it’s a numbers game.

I ran a campaign for something everyone kept saying wouldn’t work and is dead and BAM. Great results…I never really tried it because I thought the market was too saturated for it, but you never know unless you try.

1- Don’t always listen to what you read or hear. Try anything and everything.
2- NEVER GIVE UP. It’s a numbers game. Have to keep going until you find the offer that sticks.

What do others have to say?

Fraser from Azoogle Ads: oh man there’s tons…
1) using the azjmp.com link as their display URL.
2)Bidding on ‘Free’ in ringtones.
3)bidding on trademarked terms.
4)having a tiny KW list, like 5 KW’s.
5)not knowing why they haven’t made any money and got 20 clicks
6)Running the offer that has the highest CPA

Gary from PrimaryAds: Beginning affiliates have an unrealistic view what it takes to make money in affilaite marketing. Their eyes are bigger than there bellies and they come into it with unrealistic expectations and in turn that affects how they actually go about what they are trying to accomplish. Affilaites need a solid foundation of the basics especially when it comes to search marketing. They need to first learn and then when it is time….. execute.

Is Google The Affiliates Worst Nightmare?

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 19, 2007

It wasn’t too long ago (in internet marketing years I guess it is) that affiliates, at least a lot more than there are today, had great success just advertising in Google. The process was way more simple than it is today…that is until the almighty quality score came to play into the GOOG.

Even though the rest of the players followed into making their own algorithm changes in paid search quality score, Google is making an art of cutting affiliates out of the picture. I’m not saying affiliate marketing is dead in Google, but if you are just starting out, you’d better know exactly how to comply with Google’s quality score criteria if you want to have a reasonable bid price on keywords. Even than, as of last weeks quality score change and implementation by Google left many in the dark not knowing why some of their best compliant and converting keywords became inactive or their bid price was raised to $5 or $10 minimums.

Aaron Wall from SEOBook believes it’s Google favoring big brands and states, “As soon as enough brand advertisers find your space you are no longer needed.” Wall continues…”Thanks for sharing the keyword data needed to tell the brands what to bid on, and best of luck getting traffic from somewhere else.”

I’ll Be At Affiliate Summit East…Will You?

Written by Pablo Palatnik on June 4, 2007

David Adams from CPA-Affiliates.com held a contest to answer one or all of 3 questions about affiliate tips. I entered a response and won a free pass to Affiliate Summit East held right here in my hometown of Miami, Florida July 8-10, 2007.

-Provide an Affiliate Marketing tip, Explain how & why it works?
-Provide a way to scale your business online, Explain how & why it works?
-Why I deserve a free ASE pass?

My Answer:
Provide an Affiliate Marketing tip, Explain how & why it works?

Jumping right into Affiliate Marketing is definitely harder than what most think. Pick an offer, create a PPC campaign, and you’re on your way to making thousands of dollars. If that was the case, I think most of us would be rich by now.

Here are three quick tips that helped me launch successful campaigns from the get-go:

1) READ BLOGS. As good as it is to attend expo’s, etc..knowledge is power..and these days, most knowledge is in member blogs. Blogs such as this one, Shoemoney.com, WickedFire.com, etc. can not only give you tips on strategies but also spark ideas in your mind to get you going. Even blogs that aren’t directly related to Affiliate Marketing are super helpful in knowing areas outside the affiliate area to get you broader ideas as to what you can do to take it one step further than the thousands of people that jump in every year and try their luck…most fail. Time and patience is key.

2) CHOOSE CAMPAIGNS YOU KNOW ABOUT. This one is super important if you’re just starting out. I remember people telling me run this offer on home loans or something I really didn’t know too much about. I never had much luck with any of that until I started running offers I actually had interest in and knew about. It’s more motivating, you can write better ad copy, and you’re more knowledgeable to better think outside the box in related area to push your offer.

3) STICK TO WHAT IS WORKING. I should have taken this advice myself from the start. It’s common to see something work and move on to the next thing. It’s not so easy to make one campaign really work and convert…so if you have that going for you..KEEP AT IT. Don’t jump around from offer to offer which is what most do. If it works, keep going…you never know how long it will last.