Justin Dupre » affiliate marketer

Happy Father’s Day

Justin Dupre — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:52:56 +0000

Just a quick reminder to all you other affiliate marketer’s! Don’t forget to tell your dad how much you appreciate him being around and helping you out your whole life! And if you are already a dad, then Happy Father’s Day to you.

My dad taught me the basics of business and to never settle at being “good enough”, so for that, Dad, Thank you! Love you and miss you and the whole family back home!

Affiliate Marketing Offers That Don’t Convert on PPV

Justin Dupre — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:12:35 +0000

Most any offer is marketable through PPV. There is a certain line, though, where an offer becomes more difficult than the rest. I just wanted to cover some of those lines and share with you guys how you can spot an easier affiliate offer from the rest.

Amount of Info on the 1st Page

How much info is there on the first page? Does it presell the offer well? Now assuming you are direct linking, sending people straight to a 10 form page with very little explanation to what service they are signing up for wouldn’t really work. When I’m looking to direct link (which honestly, I don’t do much of anymore), I don’t want more than a few forms to fill out on the first page. I prefer more if it is actually a multiple page submit, where the first page is just an information page with a big sign up here button.

Offer Page Size

Here is another important one for you direct linkers. The offer might be a super easy converter. Fill out 1 – 2 forms and get your commission, right? Sure, if it fits on the pop up. Most PPV networks pop at 750 x 550 pixels, but many offers are much wider than that. If the conversion button or forms are off the side or below that 750 x 550 pixel pop-up, that easy commission just got a little harder as the user has to actively scroll to see it. This is another reason why landing pages seem to be the way to go now.

Free vs. CC Submit

There is still a lot of money to be made in CPS/Rebill products with PPV. It isn’t impossible to sell, but it is much harder, and you will have to use a landing page. In my private forums, you can find one such example I used for rebill offers (and no, it wasn’t a flog/fartical/fake testimonial). I have also made some CPS offers work on PPV, too, however, the payouts are lower and much harder to work with. You need to spend a lot of money testing landing pages and targets before you start seeing results. For the affiliate marketer on a budget, you may want to steer clear.

So do you see any type of offers or offer page styles that work better than the other? Talk about it in the comments, or join the forums for further conversation!

What’s Going on Around Town

Justin Dupre — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:36:35 +0000

I know I posted up some frightening pictures of what was going on just outside my door last week. Luckily, it seems to have passed. Thais are already forgetting about it, and are heavily annoyed by the curfew that has been set in for the past week. Thankfully that ends tonight, and tomorrow we’ll see a mass of crowds headed out to spend their much missed time with their beloved night clubs… there’s an 11 out of 10 chance I’ll be there, too!

I’ve been busy setting up the 3rd and final part of the PPV case study I’ve been working on. (Read Part 1 and Part 2) That should be ready to post in about 48 hours once I have collected all the data I need to make a solid conclusion on my hypothesis. I know I’m not giving you my landing pages, or the exact targets, or even the niche on the post because that is just one way to completely ruin the offer and traffic source (hurr-durr). The goal of the case study is to let you learn, so you can go off and try the same tactics on whatever offers your heart may desire.

For those of you busy collecting images for Facebook and PoF ads, seriously, knock it off! You need to be doing something more creative than that. That’s why I still offer the Facebook/PoF Ad Image Collection Service in my Affiliate Marketing Store. My team and I take care of the image collection process for you. All you need to do is write a couple ad copies, set up your targeting and you’ll be ready to launch a new campaign in minutes, rather than several hours after having to collect all the images yourself. I hate to sound arrogant, but I think its a great service for those who know how to run a campaign that don’t want to be bothered with spending hours finding unique images. For more info, click here.

Today is Friday, so you should know well by now that it is Freebie Friday. For those of you still confused by the idea of an affiliate marketer giving out something useful (no shitty ebooks with rehashed info from me!), basically, every Friday I’ll give out something to help you out in your affiliate marketing trials. Last Friday, I sent out an exit pop script which can really help your conversion rates. This week, I’ll be sending out a very general PPV sized landing page that you can edit, use, and abuse for pretty much any niche. It should be spiffy. Just make sure you subscribe to my mailing list (the subscription form can be found on the right column) and you’ll get a new freebie every weekend!

Not much is up with me otherwise. I ended up getting myself addicted to Eve Online, which is possibly the most boring MMORPG in the world, but it’s got an interesting player driven economy and a big business/entreprenuer side to it that really intrigues me. I didn’t watch Lost and instead rather read the spoiler for the series finale. I’ve also been training in my new employee at the office. Say hi to Kevin, by the way. He’ll start handling support questions and what not from my affiliate store, soon. Anyways, I’m out. Have a kickass weekend and look out for the Freebie Friday download in your email later today!

Is Affiliate Marketing Stressful?

Justin Dupre — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:31:16 +0000

Is affiliate marketing any more stressful than building a regular, physical business? Let me help you get this straight for you – affiliate marketing IS a physical business… you’ve got your storefront (your landing pages), stock and inventory (offers), a supplier (affiliate network), and employees (designers, copy writers, programmers, etc). Put simply, it is as stressful as any other business you can be in.

I was there while my father was building his restaurant up. It was hard… stressful – very much so. He’d come home and talk to me about budgeting and how he couldn’t take a paycheck just to pay employees on time (testing your affiliate offers, you usually break even or go bust). We’d go over how expensive some items were getting to produce (click costs, any one?) and we might have to bump the cost of our sandwiches (it was a Roly Poly franchise place). We never got the place profitable over about 2 – 3 years, so we had to let it go (offer died out, traffic too saturated, competion moved in, etc).

There are no easy, stress-less ways to make money. I know millionaires that get stressed when they lose a couple thousand testing a campaign. What differentiates a good marketer from a great affiliate marketer is ones ability to see through their stress, find a solution, and turn things around. Whether it be stock investment, real estate, brick-and-mortar shops, or affiliate marketer, we all deal with a ton of stress on a nearly daily basis.

Want to Profit? Try Innovating for a Change

Justin Dupre — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:19:23 +0000

Don't be one of these... also, don't let your cat sit on a scanner.

It’s never been more difficult to be an affiliate marketer. Thousands are pouring into the space, hoping for a piece of a pie where the slices are already cut too thin. Affiliates are getting booted off of Google Adwords and Facebook. Advertisers are running out of money or can’t continue their continuity practices with merchant accounts being shut down. And networks are trying to make cut-backs getting rid of low performing managers, referral programs and bonuses given out to their best affiliates.

But I think what is really making the affiliate poorer than he really should be is the sheer amount of copy-cats trying to enter performance marketing. People are ripping Facebook ads left and right. I constantly get emailed and asked if I have a PPV spy (and the answer is “No”). And some are straight up giving you their campaigns. While there is nothing wrong with any of these tools or showing someone how they built a profitable campaign, there is a problem with everyone going straight out, ripping their exact techniques – same ads, same pictures, same targeting – and attempting to make a carbon copy affiliate campaign.

While I was doing my last few consulting sessions, a lot of the people say they read about a campaign someone else did or copied some ads like they saw on the ad board. As they’re probably someone inexperienced with affiliate marketing, I can’t say I blame them. It’s tough to make an original campaign when you aren’t in the right mindset. It’s easier to copy. Actually, sometimes I’m not sure if they’re taking the easy way out, or the lazy way out.

I try to talk to others about affiliate marketing, attempting to make you change the way you approach selecting and creating an ad campaign. Sure, you can run an ad you saw up on the ad board, but wouldn’t you like to make it better? Don’t you think there are already 10 others running that same ad targeting the same demographics?
That’s a lot of people all bidding for the same users view for the exact same thing. Your target demo will get bored, and you’ll get frustrated and come asking me why it isn’t profiting for you but you see everyone else doing it.

Take a step back, rethink how you can use the same techniques or same offer, but in a unique way. “Are there anyways I can still hit the same group of people but with unique targeting? Are there any specific keywords I can use to increase my CTR? I can target niche URLs, but targeting URLs where my customers might also visit could help. Why don’t I try targeting by workplace or college the user went to. Yeah… that might work!”

Copying ads you see creates competition (more so a challenge for yourself). It makes you a very simple marketer, which means you won’t be able to innovate when shit hits the fan and all your offers dump you. It increases click costs decreasing your change to profit. It increases CTR making it even more difficult to profit again. I’ll tell you once and I’ll tell you over and over again. Innovate, innovate, and god dammit! INNOVATE! Take advice with and campaign examples as a learning experience, and see how you can better top them rather than see how fast you can right out copy them.

Taking Your Business to the Next Step: Thinking Long Term

Justin Dupre — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:57:31 +0000

Affiliate marketing can turn you into a $6 an hour full-time employee to a multimillionaire in a very short amount of time. I’ve never heard of an industry where a complete individual can go from broke to seven-figures or more in less than a year. It’s incredibly lucrative in the now. That’s the problem – Most affiliate marketers aren’t thinking about 1 to 2 to even 10 years from now.

I think it’s really time for any affiliate marketer, especially the ones that banked hard during the acai and biz-op continuity craze, to start thinking about how they can make their short term affiliate income into something more sustainable. The day and age of gorilla affiliate marketing tactics, I think, is coming to an end within the next year or two, and affiliates are going to have to become more creative to actually start generating leads and sales.

Let’s not forget all the competition that is creeping in on us. Many companies that have used affiliate marketers before, are slowly starting to see they can hire people in the industry to do these jobs internally. Well at least someone there found a long term solution (job, security, benefits, etc). Although most don’t want to have an employer, this is a route I think we’ll find a few people take.

In actuality, you can modify your marketing methods within a few days to go from short term to long term business practices. I’m attempting to convert over in a few ways myself.

First, I’m trying to build assets. Using Aweber on my landing pages and blogs, I can easily build a large list of emails. With an email address, I can constantly send out information, links to items I’m selling, affiliate offers, etc, literally to no end. As long as I provide a useful service and some benefit to those that sign up to the mailing, and I don’t spam them with emails multiple times per day, I can build a pretty sustainable business.

An example I’ll give you is the newsletter on my blog. In exchange for your email, I give you 750+ Facebook sized images you can use for your ads. I also send out coupon codes for my marketplace, and its an extra way to reach out and connect with those that read my blog. I can also send out reviews for products I’ve used, be paid to send out relevant emails featuring other businesses products and services, and generate sales and affiliate commissions through that. And to say the least, it has gone over really well. While it took me a few months to get the list to the size it is now, it consistently generates about a 10 – 15% CTR on any links inside the emails (I mean, I have a list of 800 people… 200 – 300 will open it and about 100-130 will click-through: 25% Open-rate -> 50% CTR after opening).

You can combine email list building with all of your current landing pages and marketing tactics. PPV, Facebook, Google, SEO, Media Buys, whatever! You can start building your asset list, email out your offers in the 1st – 2nd email, and keep hitting them again and again.

Other ways I see affiliates going: starting up their own affiliate network. Many are building their own products. Some are moving from this industry to another with their short-term affiliate profits (Forex, investing, real-estate, physical businesses, etc). In all honesty, I’ll ask this. Do you really want to still be an affiliate marketer in 5 years? In 10? When you get married and have children? I don’t mind it being another form of revenue for me, but I don’t want to be stuck stretching my creativity and budget for it the rest of my life. I’ll always keep it there to net me a few extra figures per month, but eventually it will have to move over for something more sustainable.

One thing I’m looking to move in to is consulting. Most of you may have gotten the email I sent out a couple days, but for those of you who haven’t feel free to check out my consulting page. I’ve always really like teaching people and helping them get over what they were struggling with. Making money, maximizing revenue and ROI are a couple of those problems that affiliate marketers struggle with. I’ve been there and done that, and know how hard it can be to deal with as a new affiliate. Some people may see it as selling out, some people may see it as an escape, however I see it as something I really enjoy. I’ve been a student-teacher, a writing-aid, and did one PPV mastermind session with PPVPlaybook and I loved doing it. Using my knowledge and helping someone succeed – whether that means helping them write an extraordinary final’s essay or generating a higher CTR on Facebook – is very fulfilling. And isn’t that what life, as well as long-term business, should be about? Love what you do.

While I don’t think you should, in anyway, slow down your hustle to generate any money now, you should start thinking about how you can start taking your now money and turning it into tomorrow money. We all know how volatile the affiliate industry is – offers blow up, advertisers and networks go bankrupt, traffic sources dry out (or kick you off), and FTC pulls a lawsuit up against you for illegal business practices. Will you be prepared to face the music if the affiliate industry just implodes on itself?

What’s your long-term business plan?

Nickycakes Announces LPLockdown

Justin Dupre — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:32:03 +0000

[Edit: This has generated a shitstorm at Wickedfire, and its generating a lot of bad attention. I am faced with deleting this post, or keeping it up and being associated to the product. Most of the negative attention has been faced towards one of the producers of the product, and not the actual product. The product isn't perfect, and there never will be a way to block all of those who want to steal your landing pages. This tool can help stop those less clever and understanding of our industry from taking landing pages/editing their html. It does as is advertised, and if you don't think its worth the price or if it is too shady, just refrain from purchasing the service.

As a side note, besides beta-testing this product, I was not directly involved in building it other than giving genuine feedback. More specifically, I was not directly involved in collecting IP addresses for the product in any way.]

When Nickycakes came to Thailand, he told me about a tool he was developing for affiliates. He was nice enough to let me in the beta-test stage and try it out. That product is now available as LPLockdown.

The things Nick has included in this is ridiculous for any affiliate marketer. Block those pesky LP jackers, steal back traffic they’ve taken from you, get downtime reports sent straight to your phone, scramble your landing page codes, and it is done all simply with a few bits and pieces of JavaScript code here and there. It’s an amazing set of tools that I’m really glad I got to test out. I don’t think I could describe it any better than Nick did on his blog so you can read about it here, or here is a (long) excerpt taken from his blog (cuz I’m lazyyy).

The Cloaker

The concept behind the cloaker is fairly straightforward. LPLockdown has cleverly collected a list of over 150,000 ip addresses of internet marketers from various sources. You can use this list to show these people a different page than your own instead of your landing page. For example, some landing page thief is on google looking for a page to steal, clicks your ad, and is sent to your landing page. If you have LPLockdown enabled, he is sent somewhere else instead. Maybe an Amazon.com page for a related product. Thinking this is the page you advertising, he will likely move on to the next ad and steal someone elses page instead of yours. In addition to just internet marketing IP addresses, there are many other things to cloak against, including geographic locations.

The Monitor(s)

There are actually two features in LPLockdown that actively monitor your landing pages. The first is an uptime monitor. If you do PPC, you NEED an uptime monitor. Nickycakes doesn’t even care if you use his service for this. If you don’t have one, you NEED to get one. If your hosting craps out on you while you’re at lunch, and you don’t notice for a few hours, you can lose a LOT of money. Well, with the uptime monitor, you’ll have a SMS text message sent to your phone the minute your hosting dies letting you shut down your traffic before things get out of hand. This is an essential tool for any internet marketer to have, period.

The second monitor is a theft monitor. Using hidden code on your landing page, LPLockdown will notify you the minute someone manages to steal your page and move it to their own hosting. Normally, this wouldn’t really be a big deal, since, in the past, there was next to nothing you could do if someone stole your page except get pissed about it and move on, but this brings us to the third major feature of LPLockdown which Nickycakes likes to refer to as “Creative Loss Prevention”.

Creative Loss Prevention

Ok, so lets say someone manages to steal your page. They upload it to their hosting, and you immediately get a text message telling you something’s up. You then log into LPLockdown (you can do this with your iphone, blackberry, whatever) and with a few clicks, LPLockdown can instruct the stolen landing page to send all the thief’s traffic back to your own page. Or, you could wait until they grab a $10,000 a day media buy before springing the trap. You can also do fun things like rewrite all the links on his page, turning them into your own affiliate links. This isn’t stuff that requires any technical knowledge on your part, mind you; all of this is done via simple drop-down menus.

Game over.

Extras!

There are a few extra fun features thrown in for good measure, such as an HTML code obfuscator, which simply encodes your webpage, making it nearly impossible for anyone to edit it if they steal it. New features and improvements will be added regularly.

So you want to get in on this? Well, you should… if you are profiting from a new campaign that you don’t want others to steal, this is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Unfortunately, Nickycakes decided to keep everyone out of it, and only allow those that have been invited in to the program. Lucky for you guys, I have 10 invites. If you are 100% positive you are going to buy in to this (It is only $49.72 per month), contact me and I’ll send you an invite. Only those that are 100% confident they will purchase need to contact me.

Otherwise, you can click here to join the waiting list while spots and get on in a first-come first-serve basis.

I’ve played with the tools and I’ve found them to be amazing throughout the Beta-stages of development. Now that it has been launched 100%, I’m looking forward to toying with it more as Nick has informed me that the tools have been vastly improved. I’d suggest you get the scoop on this before all the invites are gone.

Facebook Ad Manager Version 8 Is Released

Justin Dupre — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:22:57 +0000

Another update from 4HourAffiliate has been released for their Facebook Ad Manager.

This is the 8th release of Facebook Ads Manager (v1.8). Like always, there’s some bug fixes as well as some new features.

New features:

Resume ads
Ads saved to xml files
Enter college info
Target nearby cities

Fixed some keyword issues as well as those having problems saving files. This new version will be much more solid in both respects.

This is on top of the countless other features already included in the Firefox plugin that I call essential to any affiliate marketer wanting to be successful on the Facebook ads platform. You can read my review and more about the plug-in here.

For those that have already ordered the FB Ads Manager, you should have recieved an email with the download link in it. When you purchase it, you will gain access to free updates for the life of the Ad Manager. It costs $200, but I’ve used it and think that it has helped me create over 80% of any profit I made on Facebook Ads.

RIP Michael and Farrah

Justin Dupre — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:49:22 +0000

Michael Jackson Dies

Of course, by now you should know that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett have both passed away. While I wasn’t a huge fan of either, I know that they influenced many lives and will be missed dearly by millions of people.

Affiliate marketers are already starting to see that this means money to them though.

@DennisYu had this to say – “You know you’re an affiliate marketer when the first thing you think of when hearing Michael Jackson died is- sell Michael Jackson Ringtones”

Want Even More Interaction?

Justin Dupre — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:04:42 +0000

I knew I had to get around to this someday. Lately, I’ve been getting so many emails asking the same darn questions, that I’ve gotten a little fed up with it. In order to solve that problem, I’ve finally installed forums. You can find them here.

It should be great if I can get some of you guys on there actively posting, asking questions, putting up news, and just getting a little conversation going. There are forums for general discussion about anything, as well as forums to buy and sell your services. Think of it as an outlet to super target some affiliate marketers in need of landing pages or articles written up.

Also, I’ve added a coaching section. This isn’t complete yet, however, I hope to have this ready in a month or two. Basically, it will be a one-time low price to get access to custom tools developed by me and my partners, landing pages, even complete case studies (keywords, LP downloads, statistics, reports, etc)! It should be a pretty great section for the noob affiliate marketer and even those with some skills already. For the price, it should be worth the value.

Anyways, be sure you check out the forums and help fill it up a little!