I’ve come to realize that I’ve put quite a bit of content on this website that is helpful in the sense that it talks about the poper mindset or expectations, yet there is nothing that flat out says “this will make you money”.

So, here it is. Read this post, do what it says, and you will make money. It’s that simple.

Step One: Finding an offer.

The first thing that you need is an account at an affiliate network. There are many to choose from, though I prefer to use Copeac (for a variety of reasons- see this post). You’re looking for a very specific type of offer- what’s known as an “e-mail submit” or a “zip submit”.

These types of offers are unique for two reasons:

1. They have low payouts. Their payout is almost always less than $2.
2. They require almost zero effort from the user. All the user has to do is enter their e-mail address of zip code. This type of simple entry means that your conversions will be higher (as it requires no effort at all from the user).

When I am looking for zip/e-mail submits, I just look for the one that’s paying the most. The offer itself is irrelevant to me, as the conversions are going to be high so long as the landing page is decent.

TIP: Right now, iPhone offers are converting like mad. My advice would be to use one of those.

Step Two: Make a diggable website.

If you don’t have a Digg account, make one. Sign up, and then post a story. Try and post a story that is funny or insanely interesting, as you want to draw in as much traffic as possible. I made a page about funny cat pictures, and over a four day period in drew in 5,000 hits (not bad, huh?).

Once the site (or page) is made, make sure to place your affiliate ads on good positions on the website. Use graphical creatives to catch the attention. If possible, use a targeted offer based on your Digg story (it will increase conversions).

Step Three: Start Digging

Submit your Digg story and make sure that it links to your website. Then, get a group of your friends to “digg” your story, making it more popular. As it becomes more popular, more people will see your funny page. If it is actually funny, viral marketing may spread as well (how many e-mails do you receive a day with funny stuff in it?).

This all translates into traffic, and traffic means more traffic for your affiliate ads. Since Digg traffic is free (it only costs time), any amount of money that you make will be profit.

Profit Potential

How much money could you make doing this? My first few Digg’s landed me four of five days, and each page was making $80+ a day. Though the longevity of this method is uncertain, the results are there for now.

After a few e-mails from people who are looking for a step by step tutorial on how to make money I’ve decided to talk about one of the methods that I recommend to newbies that does well and doesn’t cost much to start up. 

What You’ll Need:

• An account at a reputable CPA network.  I recommend ourfreestuff.net since I’m an affiliate manager with them, but really any CPA network will do so long as they are reliable and reputable.  Also, make sure that you can contact your affiliate manager easily.
• Web hosting.  Get a top-level domain name that can be used for nearly anything.  I like to use “media” or “marketing” names (www.salvomedia.com, for example) as a subdomain can be added and not look fishy in the eyes of the users (ie- freewii.salvomedia.com). 
• Basic HTML and knowlege.  If you don’t know any HTML at all check out www.htmlgoodies.com and read up untl youi’re comfortable with it.
• A Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing account.  You’re going to be running some PPC ads, so get an account and desposit $50 or so into it.

The Method:

First, this method does not have longevity each time you do it.   In other words, once you start doing it you’ll have to continue to do it in order to maintain your income.  That being said, it only really takesd about an hour to get set up.  I’ve been able to milk around $1,500 to $2,000 a pop out of this method over the course of a couple of weeks each time I impliment it, but your results may vary.

1. Read the newspaper, watch the news, and generally stay up to date with current events.  Look for big stuff (remember Micheal Vick and his dogfighting ring?) that lots of people will be searching for online.  This is going to be your meal ticket.
2. Once you have something juicy (ie- Paris Hilton getting into another car accident), make a quick survey page.  The purpose of this survey page is to direct to an affiliate offer.  Your survey page should basically say something like “Is Paris Hilton a Bad Driver?  Vote for your chance to win INSERT OFFER HERE“.  Both answers (yes and no) will redirect your simple and easy affiliate offer.  Mobile, e-mail, and zip-submits are all good for this.
3. Set up your keywords.  Make sure that they are all related to current events and that your CPC’s are about 5% of the offer payout.
4. Test, test, test!  If you find that after 200 clicks you haven’t had a conversion you know that something is up.  Test your tracking and make sure it’s working properly!

That’s it, it’s THAT easy!

Income Potential:

You could easily make $500 a day doing this, but keep in mind that search volume will trail off drastically as the news gets old.  For some quick cash, this method can’t be beat!

Misc.:

Obviously, use a top-level domain that is somewhat relevant to the news.  Test your tracking, make sure that your keywords are targeted, and generally use a bit of common sense here.

Ahh yes, e-mail marketing. If there is one marketing method that new affiliates are probably afraid of, I would say that e-mail marketing is second only to PPC (hey, PPC even scares me sometimes). With all of the laws and regulatory legislation that is now in place regarding “spam”, an e-mail marketer needs to be careful about who they send mail to and when they send it- there’s nothing worse than receiving a phone call from someone in the government letting you know that you’re being shut down for violation of CAN-SPAM laws.
Read the rest of this entry »

This may come as a shock to you, but affiliates who employ spam tactics often find themselves on the receiving end of the ban hammer. It’s not as if they are being discriminated against, or that the affiliate network itself is shady, but rather the leads and sales that they generate are poor quality, and the merchants who work with the affiliate networks have to deal with the consequences.
Read the rest of this entry »

I would not be the first person to rant and rave about the AdWords quality score. The “feature”, which was designed to penalize landing pages that offered no real content or value to the user, has sent many users pricing skyward as their cost per click (CPC) takes a rather large hit. Many advertisers have even jumped ship, citing that the implementation of Quality Score (QS) in AdWords has made Google’s PPC delivery system ineffective and expensive.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really getting irritated with the general attitude of e-mail marketers lately. E-mail marketing is a wonderful and effective way to promote products, but that doesn’t mean that you need to blast your mailing list every single day. I have some marketers that hit me up more than once a day, and it’s nothing short of infuriating!

The people at the other end of the e-mail addresses are still people, and it’s unlikely that they appreciate the multiple e-mails they receive every week about the same product launch or “hot deal”. What most e-mail marketers forget is that these people are going to respond based on logic, emotion, and common sense. Appeal to those three elements and you have yourself an excellent e-mail marketing campaign.
Read the rest of this entry »