Tag: affiliate marketing

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Are ISPs Stealing Your Affiliate Commissions?

According to lawsuit filed today by law firm Reese Richman LLP, there is evidence that several ISPs have been engaging in questionable and possibly illegal behavior (according to them) by hijacking search queries.  Using a technology by Paxfire, supposedly DNS redirects from searches on Bing, Yahoo and Google would lead consumers directly to the page of certain brand and credit the ISP’s affiliate account with any possible commissions. [pullquote]Using a technology by Paxfire, supposedly DNS redirects from searches on Bing, Yahoo and Google would lead consumers directly to the page of certain brand and credit the ISP’s affiliate account with any possible commissions.[/pullquote]

According to research done by two researchers at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkely, California, all together some 10 (or more) ISPs were involved with using this technology to hijack customer’s searches and mainly send to Commission Junction accounts for Dell, Bloomingdales and Safeway. If these claims are true, this would also have overwritten valid cookies from other affiliates using this method.

The Paxfire technology was originally made to create search pages for ISPs users for DNS and non-domain errors, but nothing on their website talks about using it to hijack commissions. One thing that should be noted is that the researchers claim that the “believe” Paxfire was involved in doing this, but do not as of this moment have specific proof that Paxfire is behind this scheme or that the ISPs actually were benefiting from this. The lawsuit naming them will obviously help find out if they are involved.

UPDATE: According to Commission Junction they have banned PAXFIRE from their system effective IMMEDIATELY

List of ISPs that are reported to be involved:

Cavalier
Cincinnati Bell
Cogent
Frontier
Hughes
IBBS
Insight Broadband
Megapath
Paetec
RCN
Wide Open West
XO Communication

What are your thoughts on this?

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Sam Sim Isn’t a Guppy Anymore

Of all the recent posts I have done – I am frankly not sure where to start with this one 🙂 . From his nipple turning antics to constantly picking on his employees or eating more and working less at his office. I am honestly not sure how they get anything done business-wise with all this but he seems to be doing something right. In a recent trip to Seattle, Sam was gracious enough to pick up myself, my wife and my brother to show us his office and introduce us to his team and show us the inner workings of the aquarium aka offices of Guppy Media.

Sam was born and raised in Honolulu and LA and resides in Seattle, WA.  Currently marred to Christine, has a daughter Jessica and son Justin.  On his spare time, he plays on a club soccer team, practice kendo, plays guitar, Xbox live (at night) and heavily involved a volunteer board member at my church.  Also, active with volunteering for world missions at his local church and of course spending time with family.  His favorite sports teams include UW Huskies, Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Seahawks, LA Dodgers, Boston and Vancouver Canucks.   Graduated from University of Washington in 1995.  Favorite foods are:  Pho, Bibimbap, Sushi and Red Mango and Bubble Tea.

Sam, tell us briefly about yourself and how you got started in this industry.
My career in affiliate marketing got started when I changed my career as a stockbroker for Smith Barney and started business development with Zango / 180Solutions (current day Pinball Network).  I knew I wanted to be on more on the ‘tech” side of the industry, as I saw that many of my clients were making much more money than I was J And particularly in the late early 2000’s with the initial dot com bust, it was a perfect transition for me, with no prior experience in tech, to start in a biz dev role at Zango, driving installs and distribution.  I had always been a top performer and receiving sales and production awards as a stockbroker and fortunately, this naturally carried me over to the interactive ad world.  My spheres of influence, contacts and relationships started in the interactive advertising and affiliate marketing world from here on out.  I owe Zango quite a bit in terms of my initial training and fundamental understandings of interactive media buying.

Do you think being an Asian in this industry has hindered or helped you achieve the level of success you currently have or anticipated?
Honestly, I feel that actually one of the positive characteristics of our industry is that is so diverse and progressive to begin with.  I believe that these two characteristics actually define our industry as a whole, as well as many other adjectives which come to mind such as “hip”, “glamorous”, “trendy”,”youthful”, “energetic”, etc.  I do feel that it is actually because of this culture of diversity, that I feel, personally, I was able to actually flourish more, in the sense of reaching my true potential from a career perspective.  So, to answer this question, I would have to say that given the environment and the surroundings which I live and breathe everyday within our industry, I would actually have to say the celebration of diversity has actually help to foster and proliferate my career.  This is actually one of the key traits about our industry (affiliate, performance marketing) which I actually admire most – cherish and encourage your diversities, uniqueness, and creativity.

What are the top 3 factors that you feel contribute to your success?
1. First and foremost is to always keep your “creativity” cap on.  In my honest opinion, creativity and novel and unique ways of marketing will allow our industry to thrive and flourish.   Innovation is the key to not only survival of a company but also ongoing success as well

2. We are in a service and relationship industry – we should never lose sight of this.  With our industry, being as competitive as it is, the only real way to stand apart from the crowd is to always place an emphasis on best possible client service, to the absolute best of your ability.  Much like the golden rule states, treat others as you would like to be treated.  This hold so true in our service and relationship oriented industry.

3. This is also somewhat related to point #1, but just like Jack in the Box say’s, we must think “outside the bun”.  Our industry, at times I believe, just tends to stick to standardized norms and processes at times and if everyone then begins to follow the same process, this could then lead to what I call “idea saturation”.  We must encourage ourselves to go against this grain and think of and develop new and innovative ways of conducting business, from an operational, marketing and relational perspective.

How important is it to you to communicate with your readers? Is there a particular message you are wanting to convey?
If there is one word of encouragement that I could communicate to my fellow peers and industry colleagues, can all be summed up in one word – “value”.  I encourage everyone, particularly as a daily reminder to myself, to always provide value in all that you do.  Value in the sense that we must give our clients a reason to work with us.

Talk to us specifically about your experience and frustrations in dealing with people in the industry.
It’s really a pet peeve when I go out of my way to do favors for fellow industry colleagues and I often stick my neck out on the line for them.  In many cases, they in turn do not return the favor; much less appreciate what I have done for them.   I do feel at times that albeit we are in an “online” world, we should always remind ourselves that we are all human beings ultimately behind the keyboard and we should all treat each other with mutual respect and courtesy, as is the natural laws of humankind and the universe.  I do believe that we shy away from the tendency to think that we are not email aliases and Skype ID’s behind our PC’s…and that if we were doing business face to face, would things be done differently?

You are well known in the industry, who has been your motivation or inspiration, in other words, who is your driving force?
First of all, I give all the credit and all blessings to God in Heaven.  Through Him all blessings flow.  Secondly, my family is my number one motivational force.  Finally, in terms of inspiration, I actually believe and admire myself.  It may sound pompous, but when I look back at my previous trials and failures and how I was able to maintain a positive attitude and continue to survive and succeed each time; it is a constant reminder and inspiration to me.

What do you think is the impact of the “new” media on today’s generation? Are they leveraging it effectively and more importantly – are they leveraging it for the betterment of our industry?
New media is the reason we are progressing as a society and is one of the few economic sectors still experiencing rapid growth and progress from the financials markets sense.   It is because of this innovation, that new jobs are created daily and I truly believe will continue to be the driving force behind the salvation and comeback of our current domestic economic situation.  Reciprocally, I would hope that with the onset and growth of “new media” that this does not preclude us from continuing to be in touch with our human side as well as the value of real interpersonal relationships and the human touch.
Being a minority myself, there are constant stereotypes that I have to overcome, have you ever experienced this?
Growing up in the south (brief time in elementary) I did experience this, but primarily living on the west coast for the good majority of my life, I have not really experienced it.

What are some effective tools and products that help you keep your life organized?
Google Docs is the only tool you need!!  I also highly recommend Basecamp for CRM as well Assembla for ticket and task management.

If you had a money tree in your back yard and could purchase anything for your business tomorrow, what would it be?
Definitely.  I always wanted to have my own 59’ lifesize “Gundam” robot – http://sneakermaniac.com/59-foot-tall-gundam-to-be-displayed-in-tokyo-park/

Any words of wisdom for my readers looking to get into this space?
Be real and genuine.  Remember you are dealing with humans and not AIM ID’s.  Always remember the golden rule and the basic laws of the Universe and you’ll be fine.  Lastly, always believe in your “inner superstar” – you just need to find the right outlet to release it and let it shine.

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Ricky Ahuja is the CEO of Affiliate Venture Group

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Five Effective Copywriting Tactics for Affiliate Marketing

There’s a well-known “guru” of marketing (ie, wants to take your money and give you BS) out there who gives a course costing over $5,000. In that course he has “expert” copywriters come and speak about copywriting. One person shared with me their notes and it was identical to this article by one of the most famous copywriters out there. Save yourself $5,000 and read this great article. – Pace

What’s the secret to effective affiliate marketing? It all boils down to engagement.

If you have a page with an affiliate offer that ranks well for searchers in buying mode, that’s pretty high engagement. You need a trusted, authoritative site to pull that off, which means strong content and plenty of links.

But don’t forget that the very same content creates engagement with regular readers first. If you’re building authority sites that attract subscribers, you get more than one shot at affiliate revenue. You profit first with your direct readers who trust you, and then continue to generate revenue over time thanks to strategically-placed cross-links and search traffic.

The lowest form of affiliate marketing engagement comes from simply sticking affiliate banner ads on your site. I’m not saying you won’t make any money from those ads, but it’s certainly not the most effective way to capitalize on the relationship with your audience. And banner ads don’t rank in search engines, right?

So let’s take a look a five copy tactics that can bring you immediate and long-term revenue from affiliate programs:

1. Endorsements

A personal endorsement is the strongest way to pre-sell an affiliate offer, assuming your audience values your opinion. Effective endorsements are sincere and enthusiastic based on real experience with the product or service. That’s not to say that people don’t pitch things just for the money, but that can be a dangerous game that erodes your trust and authority if the product or service is poor.

As with any effective copy, endorsements focus on benefits more than features. You might find that picking out the most compelling benefits is easier in a personal endorsement, because you’ve experienced those benefits first hand. Share how a recommended product or service has changed your life for the better, and you’re naturally talking benefits.

2. Reviews

A review differs from an endorsement in tone and structure, but by the end of the piece, you end up with an endorsement nonetheless. Let’s face it… writing up a negative review might be a great way to vent, but it’s not the smartest revenue strategy when it comes to affiliate marketing.

So, as with endorsements, it’s smart to review products and services you actually use and benefit from. From a copy perspective, you add credibility by pointing out how the product or service isn’t perfect (let’s face it, there are very few perfect offerings), and then go on to explain why the imperfection doesn’t negatively impact your perception and enjoyment of the product or service.

3. Tutorials

Years ago, the easiest way to do really well with content-based affiliate marketing was to release a free ebook loaded up with affiliate links and watch it go viral. That strategy can still work, but generally the content must be much stronger, and the affiliate pitches more subtle. Another long-time strategy is the email mini-course, in which you deliver tutorial-style content by autoresponder that ultimately promotes one or more relevant offers.

These days, producing video tutorials that show how to use a product or service are extremely effective at pre-selling affiliate offers. Remember, teaching and selling are closely related, so “how to” content that naturally gets a prospect more comfortable with a purchase is smart. Plus, you can use broader tutorial content as an “ethical bribe” to get people to subscribe to your blog or a targeted sub-list, which allows for multiple relevant offers to be made over time.

4. Bonuses

Using a bonus or special deal approach is a great way to uniquely sweeten an affiliate offer. You essentially promise to add in an additional item if people buy through your link, or you work out a promotional deal with the merchant that only you can deliver. You then work the extra value into your endorsement, review, or announcement with a great headline and benefit-oriented copy.

You’ll see this strategy used quite a bit in competitive pay-per-click situations, and also during big product launches where lots of people are promoting at once. But it’s a really strong strategy anytime, because it demonstrates that you’re focusing on adding value and delivering great deals to your audience.

5. Articles

Can you promote affiliate offers with your regular content? In other words, can you create content that has independent value and also makes you money, no matter where it’s syndicated or scraped?

You can, but it’s tricky. Let me give you an example with an article I wrote last year called How to Create Ebooks That Sell.

In this article I managed to:

  • Create a compelling keyword-rich title
  • Deliver independent value
  • Attract links
  • Generate positive comments
  • Endorse a product while disclosing the affiliate link
  • Make a healthy 4-figure profit immediately
  • Rank for my targeted keyword phrases
  • Collect continued monthly commissions
  • Receive reader emails thanking me for the recommendation

When I spoke at PubCon late last year, I dissected this post and explained everything I did and why. But I think if you simply take a look at it in light of what we’re exploring in this series, you’ll figure it out.

What about Disclosure?

Disclosure of affiliate links has been a hot topic lately. From a pragmatic standpoint, being transparent with your audience can solidify your relationship with them, and that’s really what this is all about. But there are also ethical and legal issues to consider, none of which are cut and dry.

Sponsored by WebTrafficMachines
Learn how to generate SEO based traffic using this proven technique

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About the Author:
Brian Clark is the co-founder of Teaching Sells.

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How to Create Magnetic Copy to Maximize Your Content Appeal

Getting people to take actions from your content requires a deep connection with your audience.

We all know the need to implement the right tactics to capture the emotion that leads to those desirable actions. Provide valuable content, use ethical SEO (search engine optimization) tactics, give away free eBooks, free webinars, whitepapers, special reports, you name it.

But if you really want to elevate your conversion rate, you need to understand the art and science of content marketing.

You need to figure out what motivates your audience to click here and sign up there.

Why people give their emails away to complete strangers, follow every call-to-action and come back for more.


Let’s look at the 3 keys of creating powerful content to help you increase your product appeal.

Grab and Keep Attention

How do you read newspaper? How about magazines? Do you every sentence of every word from start to finish cover to cover?

If you do, that’s great, but for rest of us we scan.

In today’s drive-by attention grabbing culture, people do judge a book by its cover.

That’s why magnetic copy must have magnetic headlines that get people curious. It should always be organize around benefits, the “what’s in it for me” must jump out at your prospective customers.

This is why content marketing mimics the format of news with powerful headlines, sub-headlines and bullets. Simply put, human beings are wired to tune out advertising because that’s the natural of our brain to detect deceptions.

People have less resistance with news style formatted content than advertising that looks like, well, advertising!

So start getting into the mindset that you need to write effective copy in order to grab and keep attention.

Focus your coy on the results that your customer will get instead of what your product does or the fancy technology behind it. Research your customer’s behaviors, attitudes and demographics.

People only really care about themselves so keep your copy simple to the point and write in a way as if it’s you and one other person that are in conversation.

Your content can break through the noise if it’s interesting and exciting.

Demonstrate Social Proof

Ever since we’re little we associate ourselves with certain type of identifiers. Whether it’s the cloths we wear, the car we drive, the food we eat, the music we listen to, we’re obsessed with being part of a group.

This is human nature and the foundation of our society.

When people first land on your website or visits your social media profile they are looking for validation. The idea of social proof is all about perceived value of your influence and authority.

Who you are, what you do and why should people trust you?

You simply can NOT ignore the fact that people will form opinions in their own mind that reflects the perceived status of your stuff. You literally have less than 10 seconds to make an impression and that’s your instant reputation.

If you want your visitors to stay you must show them you’ve got the goods.

You can do this by leveraging testimonials and user-generated content (UGC) such as reviews or questions and answers (Q&A). Then follow up with some high value stuff that resonates with them right away.

Another method is to show the number of subscribers, comments, retweets or followers you have. The bottom line is that social proof is all about positioning.

Get Them To Take Action

So now you’ve demonstrated your expertise across multiple communities. The next step is to get your audience to take action.

Getting people to take action on the internet is all direct response marketing strategy with effective copywriting techniques. This means integrating measurable call-to-action that gets your visitors to do what it is that you want them to do.

It can be as direct as asking people to buy your product, contact you, input their personal information, share your content or leave a comment.

The trick here is that you must provide enough real value to earn the trust of your prospective customer so you can start building a relationship with them.

People are more likely to do what you ask if you’re open, honest and transparent.

Speak like a friend and stay relevant is the key to motivate people to take action.

The take away: Magnetic copy is about appeal and getting attention not about you or what you know. It’s about becoming your customer and getting people genuinely interested so they will want to know more, see more and take actions that you anticipated by design.

Your customers don’t want your product, service or sign up for anything. What they want is the solution to their problems.

Sure you can create content that appears to do that but ultimately magnetic content helps connecting the dots in all your information to drive out miscommunication.

Real effective content actually does help people and get them the result they want.

How about you? Are you creating content that sticks? Share your top tip for creating effective content in the comments.

Sponsored by Revenue Street.

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My ideas are for motivated individuals to do extraordinary things. I write through personal experience, including lessons learned from failures and successes. I believe the road to success is paved with incremental actions from knowledge. And knowledge without actions is just potential power.

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Hydra rises from the ashes and Greg Bayer tells us how.

If you weren’t really paying attention the last 18 months, you probably didn’t hear about all the drama surrounding Hydra Media. If you did follow the soap opera drama, the company basically went belly-up after two of the founders left, founded another company and a war between all parties involved started. Hydra, despite being one of the big names in the industry, looked as if it was going to be a footnote in our industry. Then along came Adknowledge, the Missouri performance marketing company to rescue them. We wanted to know what was happening with the product, so we asked Greg Bayer, general manager of Adknowledge’s Affiliate Division what was going on, what to expect of Hydra and if we can trust them again.

What can you tell us that will make people feel comfortable with working with Hydra again as an affiliate network?

Adknowledge acquired Hydra in June 2010 for several key reasons. The acquisition allowed Adknowledge to move into the CPA space to complement its affiliate CPC offering. This includes an arsenal of new affiliates in Email as well as other distribution types like search, display, co-reg, etc. expanding our base of affiliates. Since the acquisition we’ve worked hard to make sure that our affiliate managers are properly cross-trained on both networks, and affiliates can access both CPC and CPA offers. Affiliates are paid by Adknowledge for both CPA and CPC revenue, and gain the benefit of the CPA network being closely integrated within one of the largest privately held ad networks. We’ve also been able to retain, and add to the great roster of affiliate marketers behind the Hydra product.

What does Hydra provide to affiliates that no other affiliate network provides?

– Top quality offers across hundreds of advertisers, including branded offers such as AT&T and Sears plus top direct response advertisers.

– Leveraging Adknowledge’s large advertiser base to bring forward even more attractive and top performing ads.

– Tested and vetted offers from across different areas of Adknowledge to ensure high success rates and competitive pricing.

– Best trained affiliate management team who can work with the affiliate to determine the best yield whether CPC or CPA.

What does Hydra provide to advertisers that no other affiliate network provides?

– Top quality e-mail affiliates plus broad distribution across search, display, social media, co-reg, etc.

– World class compliance team to screen and monitor affiliate activity creating a strong balance between high but controlled distribution.

– In-house full creative department ready to meet any needs the client may have.

– Top producing sales team that works closely with the advertisers to tailor campaigns that meet or exceed their expected ROI.

What is Hydra currently doing to prevent affiliate fraud? How are you keeping out the bad affiliates?
Adknowledge has a rigorous affiliate vetting procedure which analyzes more than a dozen data sources in deciding who should be admitted to the network, in addition to conducting personal interviews with applicants. We also have a large database of historical information on applicants as well as active and de-activated affiliates that allows us, in many cases, to identify the “bad affiliates” even when they try to pose as someone else, so that we are able to proactively screen out and protect the network against would-be fraudulent affiliates.

What major changes do you see with the performance marketing industry in 2011?

– Outlook for new categories Diversification into other categories, in particular those appealing to the Boomers/Senior sectors

– Further consolidation as some of the smaller networks combine together

– CPC and CPA blending together more. Revenue share networks like CJ, LinkShare, Google will continue to appeal to a very specific segment of affiliates.

If there was a solution that you could invent for performance marketers, what would it be?
The perfect e-mail deliverability tool which only sends top quality clicks. Advertisers would keep raising their bids and everyone would see the pool float higher!

Your parent company, Adknowledge is very much involved in incentivized marketing, what steps are being taken to ensure that incentivized marketing remains legit, and the traffic quality is good?
Audiences are shifting their time from traditional media sources like television to online games. The shift is rapid and dramatic and SuperRewards provides advertisers a way to reach this engaged audience. Advertisers receive a highly transparent offering in which they pay on a per action basis. There are a combination of internal systems (fraud control, throttling, machine fingerprinting) and external consulting (ensuring secure checkout processes, lead scrubbing) we provide to increase lead quality. Additionally, social games with virtual currency do not have cash out mechanisms; this single item has a huge impact on improving lead quality.

If you could move your office to anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Well, we just moved offices in December to combine the former Hydra team with the existing Adknowledge team in Westwood, LA and that’s about as good of a spot as any! Most of the rest of the affiliate team also recently moved into a new office space in NYC’s SOHO, also a great place to be. Then of course there’s our headquarters in KC where you can’t beat the BBQ and the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium. Although it would be great to have everyone in one place, travelling to these three spots are a nice change of scenery!

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Why Playboy is Becoming Irrelevant & How Performance Marketing Can Change It As a Brand.

Despite being one of the top men’s brands in the world, Playboy is suddenly more irrelevant than ever.  While commentators have been correct in the last ten years that it was a diminishing brand, 2010 was the year that started to put a nail in the coffin of the once mighty empire of Hugh Heffner. Men in all 50 States used to know the Playmates by name, now most of them aren’t even aware that they still exist. The reasons are simple: Playboy has failed to change its image in the last 10 years and most likely doesn’t have anywhere enough time to fix it.

First of all, some statistics about Playboy that are extremely interesting. Since 2009, Playboy has kept a very consistent  reach, according to Alexa. This is even with a growing population of internet users, who in theory should be more interested in Playboy. However, the second chart says it all. Despite having constantly the same reach of users, they aren’t as interested in the property as they once used to be. The traffic rank has seen a serious drop in visits from their audience – especially in the most important time of the year, right before Christmas. Anyone who knows the season knows that a drop in traffic during this time is a death knell.

Why is this happening to Playboy? It’s simple:

1) Playboy still thinks like a print magazine with pictorials. Let’s be honest in the age of internet porn, no one really cares about seeing a few select girls naked, when a large part of the college co-ed population is naked somewhere on a website. Chart below shows you the reach of PornHub vs. Playboy. It’s like comparing my blog to Google.

2) Girls don’t give a crap about being in Playboy. Very few gals care about being in the magazine and the pay is pretty worthless. Being a Playmate now draws about as much attention as being a member of the Pittsburg Pirates.

3) Hugh still runs the show. Let’s be really honest here, Hugh isn’t exactly a spring chicken and his choice of girls is a bit outdated. Most of them are now selected for their ability to clean dentures and spoon feed Hugh.  I’m friends with a few of them, and while some are quite attractive, many of them are a bit on the “chunky” side. Note the photo of Ashley Hobbes and her double-chin photo.

That is what it comes down to, Hugh hasn’t adjusted for the time. He is still stuck in the 1950’s where Size 10 girls were considered thin, and bleach blonde girls were the hottest things out there.  Times have changed significantly and people like Alessandra Ambrosio now, who would rather be in Victoria’s Secret not Playboy.

However, maybe it’s not too late. As I mentioned, there are some thing that perhaps Playboy can learn to grow its base and learn from our industry.

1) Grow your newsletter base. Before you try to sell me for a $7.00 membership, you need to get me interested. Build a newsletter base with exclusive content only to the newsletter, and use a program like Pop-Up Domination to get those email addresses. Use CPA marketing to get as many people subscribed to that newsletter and provide actual content. I promise you’ll make more money in the long term with advertisers and sponsors than selling cheap memberships to see your gal’s tits.

2) Have a real product. You are still trying to get people to subscribe to your magazine or join your website. That has already been a proven failure. Playboy can be a resource, a service for men that goes beyond photos. If you curious how that might be done, go to IGN.com and take a quick look at why they are 10 times your size. With content that is relevant to modern men, from gaming to sexy girls, you could actually gain an audience that buys products online. With that, you can start affiliate and CPA programs to leverage that audience. Imagine being able to sell tickets to the playboy mansion online to everyone, with an affiliate program attached to it. Imagine having an affiliate program selling men’s shaving products with the playboy logo. The possibilities, once you have an interested audience are endless — plus you can get affiliates to sell these products and drive more traffic to Playboy.com

3) Get Rid of Hugh. Ok, I know I am beating a dead..umm.. horse here, but enough is enough. Yeah, I can only wish that when I am 90 years old I can have a bunch of half-naked girl around me. Still, he doesn’t exactly represent the modern man anymore, and worse than that he is starting to look and act like Grampa Munster. Image is everything and no one wants to think of Depends Diapers when they are looking at Bunnies. Playboy needs a change from the top down in order to become relevant — and to do that, it needs to look into the industry that knows how to produce results immediately: Performance Based Marketing

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Groupon is Affiliate Marketing’s Biggest Success

Rumors are everywhere about the possible purchase of Groupon, the well known group coupon and discount site that was founded less than two years ago. Despite this, some people are saying that If you are to believe the rumors, Google is going to buy Groupon for upwards of 5 Billion, making it one of the biggest success stories of 2010. Analyst are talking about how great this buy out would be, how this is a needed part of the Google infrastructure in its battle against Facebook. However, what those analysist don’t know and what Groupon and probably Google is hiding from them is how Groupon became so successful, so fast, so quickly: Through Cost-Per-Acquisition Affiliate Marketing.

Yes, Groupon owes a great deal of its success to Peformance Based marketing, where they have paid affiliate and CPA networks to promote their product over the internet. For those in our industry, we all known this method: pay for every new person who subscribers to your newsletter. It’s a true and tried way, and can generate enormous success for anyone who wants to grow their business fast. If you spend only $1 per new subscriber through performance based marketing, you could have a company with over 30 Million new subscribers/users for as little as $30M. In the fast paced interactive media industry, any company that suddenly has 30M users from nowhere gets attention, and can have value way over the $30M that was just spent.

They want to hide this, because although much of the market knows that Peformance Based Marketing is one of the quickest ways to get new users, a lot of the media from the NY Times to the Wall Street Journal is ignorant of this method and doesn’t understand that almost any company, with cash can generate enormous value and interest really fast. If Groupon can generate that interest that fast, it means that all of the other Coupon sites that are popping up can easily take a significant part of the market share, very fast. Take a look at companies like Living Social which were launched at about the same time as Groupon – they have taken a very aggressive CPA marketing strategy and traffic charts on Alexa show that on some days they are almost catching up with Groupon. With this realization, this means that Google’s purchase could be worthless in a a year when another company takes it over using the same techniques.

I’m not sure how much money Groupon has spent on CPA Performance Based marketing, but a friend told me confidentially that he has inside information that it was upwards of $150M since the start of the year. He told me that Groupon was being considered a monumental failure until late 2009 when they started to acquire new subscribers via CPA Advertising. A look at Alexas traffic chart for Groupon confirms that they had very little traffic until basically 2010, when they suddenly skyrocketed out of nowhere.

It is my opinion that Groupon is one of Performance Based Advertising’s biggest success stories.

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How to Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

There are many reasons, but here are three reasons I would start market affiliate programs:

1. you don’t need to create your own products,

2. you don’t have to deal with customer service very often, and

3. you can create a business on just about any topic you want, including a hobbies.

Affiliate programs generate billions of dollars every year in revenue. For your success visit www.ppc-profit-marketer.com there is plenty of room for growth, and so anyone can make money. If you’re looking for an easy way to start a business online, affiliate programs are your answer.

When starting an affiliate business, there are three things you need to do to get started:

1. what will your topic be?

The first thing you need to do is write down several topics you’re interested in. This can be anything. Don’t limit yourself in this stage of your business. You’re just getting started, so right now is the time to let your imagination run free. For more help go to www.greatpromotionsite.com .Once you’ve chosen several topics, you want to do keyword research. Look for what’s called “Long Tail Keywords”. These are usually keyword phrases that have three or more keywords. Some of these you will be able to use. Others you will need to discard.

Then compare the amount of searches to the amount of results you find in the search engines. If a keyword phrase is really competitive, you may want to discard it.

What’s important here is that you remember there must be an audience for whatever you choose to market. Also, since you’re starting an affiliate business, you’re not limited to the number of topics you can promote. It’s a good idea to find three to five topics you are interested in and then diversify.

2. Will you build a website?

Although some would tell you that building a website is absolutely crucial to your affiliate marketing success, it really isn’t. There are plenty of marketers who send traffic directly to the merchant using pay per click, or some other marketing technique that doesn’t require a website.

The purpose of your website is what’s critical here. You can build a site as simple as a one page lead capture page to capture email addresses. Give your visitors a free report or some other bonus for joining your list.

3. How will you promote your new business?

How you promote your affiliate website depends on several factors. Do you like to write? Does the technique you have chosen require a lot of time? Do you have some spare cash you can use to promote your new business? By visit on www.affiliate-windfall-secrets.com if you do, then you can combine your marketing with simple websites and earn your first commissions in days. For more information logon to www.master-affiliates-marketer.com .Internet marketing techniques to consider are: search engine optimization, forums, article writing, pay per click, and free classifieds. These work well with affiliate marketing. Choose one and try it for awhile. When you feel comfortable, choose another and add it to your marketing plan.

Before starting an affiliate business, you should consider these factors. After all, if you’re looking for an easy way to start a business online, and you want to start earning quickly, affiliate marketing is the way to do it.

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