Amazon Affiliate Program: Holiday Promotions
Black Friday (November 23rd) is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year and Amazon has some great deals and promotional opportunities for its affiliates to earn increased revenue this holiday season.
First, there is the Black Friday Deals page, a page for holiday shoppers to which you can direct your visitors for hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST along with thousands of products on sale for a limited time. Amazon is also offering gift wrapping for $.99 per item.
Next, there’s a new Deals Widget for associates which displays Amazon’s Gold Box Deals including Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals, and Best Deals in real-time. The widget is available in sidebar and banner formats in a range of sizes.
Last but not least is Customers Vote, which begins on Thursday, November 15th and runs through Monday, November 26th. Customers vote for their favorite deal among 3 products and there are 6 rounds of voting. Winning products will be announced starting on November 22nd, and randomly selected customers will be able to purchase the item for which they voted at a great discount.
Products included are:
- 1,000 Nintendo Wii Game Systems (see prices on Customers Vote page)
- 500 Panasonic 7.5MP Digital SLR Cameras, $499 (*normally $1,149.95)
- 1,000 Razor E100 Electric Scooters for $29 (*normally $89.99)
- 200 Samsung 46” 1080p LCD HDTVs, $719 (*normally $1,899.98)
* “Normal” prices quoted are subject to change at any time.
For linking formats, visit Amazon’s affiliate program page.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Wordtracker’s November Promotion
In October, Wordtracker ran its first-ever promotion, offering a 15% discount on their service.
They’ve continued the offer for the month of November using a new promotion code:
us-annual-15
This offer code will provide you with a 15% discount on the purchase of an annual subscription to Wordtracker, and the offer expires on November 30.
Get the Wordtracker discount now, or read more about Wordtracker here.
Popularity: 7% [?]
An Unexpected Way to Get Traffic from Flickr
Our Roamsters.com travel blog receives a little bit of traffic from the pictures that I upload to Flickr.
But I discovered another way that blogger photographers can get traffic when I received the following message about the picture shown here to the left.
Your photo(s) shown below have been short-listed for inclusion in the third edition of our Schmap Vancouver Guide, to be published mid-November 2007.
While we offer no payment for publication, many photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, and link to high-resolution originals at Flickr.
If you would like your short-listed photo(s) to continue to our Vancouver Guide final selection phase, please read our ‘Terms of Submission’ and press the ‘Submit’ button, no later than our editorial submission deadline – Sunday, November 11.
I set the credit to go to Roamsters.com and accepted the invitation.
I’ve also granted another ‘permission to use photo’ request for a photo to be used in Trail Blazer Magazine which will also be credited to roamsters.com.
Who knows? All it takes is one visitor from the Vancouver Schmap Guide or Trail Blazer magazine to visit the site, make a big buck purchase and my 1-minute picture upload and responses to their requests will have been very worthwhile. 
Popularity: 8% [?]
Rename the Office Bear: Win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate
I’ve always been really bad at naming things.
When I was a kid I had 3 dogs, a cat and a couple of fish. The dogs were named Lucky, Snoopy and Rover and the cat’s name was Morris. I called my goldfish Flipper and the ugly bug-eyed black fish never even got a name.
Ugh. I obviously had no parental guidance in the ‘imaginative naming’ department and despite the fact that my skill hasn’t improved much in subsequent years, I still persist in giving everything from trucks to trinkets a name.
But my failing becomes your opportunity.
Simply come up with another name for “Happy” (a.k.a. “Howdy”), the wood sculpture bear that graces my office (shown left) and also seen in my home office video tour.
Post a name in the Comments below before Decebmer 15th, 2007 and the person that supplies the chosen name will win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.
(Note: ONE name per comment only, please… and in the event that multiple submissions are made for the winning name, the first person to post that name will win the certificate.) 
Popularity: 11% [?]
Lessons in Marketing at AdTech New York
We’ve only just returned home from Adtech New York followed by a quick weekend in Toronto to visit family.
Adtech was huge, and I found it fascinating to observe many of the different marketing tactics used to grab the attention of almost 11,000 attendees.
The first thing I heard after the elevator door closed for the first time was a loud and serious voice wanting to know whether I was concerned about click fraud. Well heck ya, so I turned my attention to watch ABCSearch’s elevator ad for the first time of many over the course of the next 3 days.
Five minutes after getting to the room Targusinfo slid a nice gold and black ‘ticket-like’ note under the door inviting me to booth #708 for a sweet treat. I thought that was a particularly slick tactic for getting attendees to take note of their booth number, considering there were more than 250 booths scattered across separate areas and several floors… although not sure how they got #708 in that case.
Once in the exhibit hall, I had to wonder how the staffers at all those booths were going to hand out all those trinkets (about 50 million pens and spongy balls) to all 11,000 attendees before the end of the convention.
I did my part and lightened their overall load when I stopped by to say hi to Evan Lovett of eAdvertising. A few folks such as Jay Berkowitz of Ten Golden Rules dropped off goodies for me and then lightened my load of books during my book signing on Wednesday afternoon.
Ed noted that he hadn’t seen ‘booth babes’ (young ladies dressed in extremely skimpy outfits) for many, many years at the technical trade shows he used to attend — and then suggested that this industry probably wasn’t quite as mature as was implied during our ‘Evolution of Affiliate Marketing‘ panel. Having tried unsuccessfully to source information from booth babes at other shows, I had to agree. But I suppose they manage to give a lot of pens to ecommerce industry pros, most of whom (like me) can no longer use a pen… not legibly anyway.
I was disappointed to see Zango’s booth in the far corner of the registration hall… or anywhere in the conference for that matter. I mean… isn’t it bizarre that a company whose model is based on stealing traffic, sales and commissions is allowed to exhibit at a reputable event? Hmmm.
The subject and Zango’s name came up again during the QnA portion of our panel and most participants found it reassuring to hear affiliate network executives such as Michael Hines (Zanox), Jivan Minhas (Advaliant) and Chris Henger (Double Click Performics) reiterate that advertisers with any such involvement are sumarily removed from their networks. I directed folks to my article in Revenue and reminded them that a good lawyer is the best weapon in the war against such bad actors.
Here’s a note I received from a subscriber who read that article…
I read your article about Zango, downloaded their software and found out one of my names was being targetted heavily by competitors. I wrote the BBB, FTC, and Zango lawyer directly and within 7 days, to my surprise and delight, they removed my url from their system. They sent an official legal note as well. Thank you for the informative article.
To sum up, it was great to finally attend an adTech and pick up some new lessons in marketing. Now I’m looking forward to meeting up and talking with many NPT readers at the smaller, more intimate PPC Classroom seminar at which I’ll be speaking next month in Vegas.
(In the picture above from left to right - Rosalind Gardner, Michael Hines, Chris Henger, Jivan Minhas and Josh Greene.)
Popularity: 6% [?]
NPT Digest: Unexpected traffic, windstorm, Adtech and more…
As if a visit to New York wasn’t exciting enough, things got even more exciting when we got back home from our trip.
But we now that the power has been restored and more importantly, the Internet connection — I was able to catch up on my blogging.
Phew!
I blogged about a slightly bizarre experience at Pearson International airport while enroute to New York, the AdTech conference, our walks about town, and what we discovered on the homefront after the recent windstorm in Penticton — you may have seen my street on the Weather Channel.
While uploading some pictures for the travel blog to Flickr, I discovered an unexpected way to get traffic from that service.
I also posted about two inspirational stories and a site makeover at Beef, Bedding and Beyond.
Lastly, I invite everyone to Rename the Office Bear (seen in my home office video tour) for a chance to w1n a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Beef, Bedding and Beyond
This month’s issue of “Secrets To Their Success” features…
Allen W, who combined his love of “old school” ranching with high-tech food science to create top-quality beef products loved by gourmet diners and doctors alike! After a major re-design of his company’s site, his search engine ranking shot up 1,000% — and he’s looking at more than $2 million in online sales this year alone!
David K, who sells hotel bedding and accessories for customers who want to bring the luxury and indulgence of travel into their own homes. With a series of profitable joint ventures on the go and a booming online presence that sees 40,000 visitors a month, 2007 is shaping up to be a million dollar year!
Charles B. is the winner of this month’s Site Review Contest. Charles has a product his customers can’t live without: military and law enforcement body armor. Unfortunately, his site traffic is hanging on for dear life, and he could use some fresh strategies to take his business to the next level. STTS shows him how to capture visitors from the search engines and transform his site into a lean, mean sales machine.
Each and every month “Secrets To Their Success” features 2 inspirational web business success stories and one website makeover from which you can learn EXACTLY how these unlikely Internet entrepreneurs do it as well as “steal” their strategies and duplicate their success!”
Popularity: 4% [?]
NPT Digest: 235 hrs worked / zero earned and more…
Because last week’s video was on an article page that didn’t permit comments, we received a lot of feedback via the Support Desk - and contrary to a couple of suggestions - um, no, I’m not really that neat. The vid is now on the blog… so, what did you think?
On Sunday morning I came across a very interesting blog post written by Caroline Middlebrook. In the post, Caroline shows in great detail her blog traffic stats, new RSS subscribers, a breakdown of how she spent her time online during the month and her final earnings for the month.
After reading through her stats and thinking “Wow! Those are awesome results for a 2-month old blog”, I was absolutely shocked to learn that after working 235 hours and getting 11,000 visitors to her site during October, only 259 folks signed up for her feed and despite all that effort, she hadn’t made a penny.
More shocking still is the fact that Caroline left her job in late September to become a full-time Internet marketer / blogger and made what I consider a scarey admission.
To read the full post and my numerous thoughts about why Caroline is in this predicament and what anyone should do to avoid it, read 235 Hours Worked - Zero Dollars Earned.
I’ve been busy posting to the blog and making site tweaks this week. Here’s a list of posts…
- Profit from the US Dollar Nosedive: Sell to Canadians!
- YouTube Video Honors: Who Woulda Thunk it?
- Dell Affiliate Program: They Love Me, They Love Me NOT - Adam Viener made a notable comment on this one.
- Humanscale Freedom: My New Office Chair - The chair you saw in my video.
- Zappos: Doing Business with Heart
Although I’ll do my best to blog and moderate comments while I’m in New York for AdTech (followed by Toronto for a long weekend), the latter might be slow and the next NPT may be a day or two late. Chances are good that we will be posting our impressions of NY to Roamsters.com however… it’s been 20 years since I been there!
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Popularity: 6% [?]
235 Hours Worked - Zero Dollars Earned
This morning I came across a reference to Caroline Middlebrook’s “Stats & Analysis for October ‘07″ blog post on Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger.net.
In the post, Caroline shows in great detail her blog traffic stats, new RSS subscribers, a breakdown of how she spent her time online during the month and her final earnings for the month.
After reading through her stats and thinking “Wow! Those are awesome results for a 2-month old blog”, I was absolutely shocked to learn that after working 235 hours and getting 11,000 visitors to her site (without PPC) during October, only 259 folks signed up for her feed and despite all that effort, she didn’t earn one red cent.
More shocking still is the fact that Caroline left her job in late September to become a full-time Internet marketer / blogger.
She says..
Money Earned $0
Let’s get one thing straight here… I did not quit my job to launch a successful blog! I quit my job so I could earn a living online! I love that the blog has done well but all it’s doing right now is stroking my ego. A great (unmonetized) blog does not pay the bills! I slipped further into debt this month as I will every month until I am bringing in enough money to cover my living expenses.
Later in the post she analyzes the areas in which her efforts were misdirected and commits to shifting gears in November.
From the perspective of someone who has been working online for almost 10 years and whose blogs and sites earn 100K+ per month, I’ve listed some suggestions below for those who are tempted to head down the same path as Caroline.
- Monetize your site! Maybe I’m blind, but despite linking out to a number of different sites, I couldn’t find Adsense or one affiliate link on Caroline’s site.
- To make money, blog about what you know. Caroline writes very well and shares detailed information along with helpful advice. She is also upfront about the fact that she is ‘blogging out loud’ as she learns how to make money online.
- Less research, more writing. When point #2 above is heeded, a blogger doesn’t need to spend nearly 50% of their time researching material in order to develop content.
- Write to sell. Much of your informational content should be written with a product in mind - i.e. to drive traffic to your product recommendations.
- Avoid time-wasting marketing techniques. I write copious amounts about using pay-per-click search engines and blogging to drive traffic to my (properly monetized) sites as opposed to expounding the virtues of social media marketing.
- Lastly, do not quit your job… just yet! Not unless you have a rich relative who will support you until your business venture is self-sustaining.
I recommend monetizing a new site with Google Adsense until you start earning a sufficient income from your product recommendations to warrant its removal.
So far, so good… so what’s the problem?
Well, as I see it, Caroline doesn’t know her audience. For example, if you had a medical problem, would you seek advice from a student who just started med school 6 weeks ago? NO!! You would go to one or more qualified doctors with experience and follow their recommendations.
Likewise, would you accept a product recommendation for an Internet marketing tool from a blogger who admits to making no money? Probably not until you confirmed its viability with more experienced online marketers whose advice you trust… and they’d earn the commission from the sale.
So, although Caroline’s visitors may read her Internet business learning journal with interest, they will probably go elsewhere to buy until she demonstrates success in her pursuit.
Ultimately, when you work to your strengths and start with a topic you know well, you make money faster.
Here’s a tip.
Before you sit down at your computer to work, pick your topic for the day and create a bullet list of the most important items you want to cover. Then, before you check your email, the latest Google Alerts or your feedreader, open up your text editor and flesh those points into an article. Only then should you open a browser to surf for more information and statistics if required… not before.
Approaching your content development in that manner will save you hours and hours (even days) of time and ultimately results in more content to monetize.
Start with the question, “What product do I want to sell today?” followed by “What problem(s) does that product solve for my readers?”. Answer the question(s) in your article and link to your endorsement.
Depending on the nature of the market and my subscribers, anywhere from 20% to 50% of my articles ultimately link to a product recommendation.
That’s because I’ve found that compared to PPC and blogging, the latter is a huge and on-going waste of time.
I suppose if I had a free weekend, I could spend it Digging my own articles or trying to make a bunch of MySpace or Facebook ‘friends’ whose primary objective is to sell me something. (I especially appreciate the ads - a.k.a. ‘comments’ - that promise to help me ‘get rich quick’ or sell me ‘legal bud’ … NOT.)
While I do make time to comment on the occassional blog post that I find interesting, intelligent and unique, I don’t consider blog commenting a marketing technique - unlike the 2362 webmasters who tried to post comments to my blog today.
To me it makes much more sense to spend an hour building a PPC campaign that targets customers with fat wallets who want to buy dating service memberships, travel gear and the other stuff I sell on my affiliate sites, than giving free advice on other webmasters’ forums (that what my blog is for) just for the sake of a few backlinks.
Furthermore, that hour invested in a PPC campaign has a long term payoff. I have campaigns and keywords that have been in place since 1999 that just keep sending my sites traffic and resulting in sales.
Wait until your sites have more than replaced your current income. Although I too invested anywhere from 50 to 80 hours per week when I started my online business, I quit my job only after my sites were netting 10K per month, which was double my gross earnings as an air traffic controller.
When you quit too soon, you run the risk of making rash business decisions based on desperation and fear rather than knowledge and confidence acquired through experience.
To summarize, although a blogger’s primary objective should be to inform and/or entertain his or her readers with quality information, the ultimate goal of any business is to make money. While hobby blogs or journals can be monetized to a certain extent, you have to gain your visitors’ trust if you want to make serious coin.
You can read Carolines full post at “Stats & Analysis for October ‘07“.
So… any thoughts? What could Caroline do differently at this point to monetize her current site? Should she invest more time blogging about blogging, or concentrate on building another site? What do you think? Lemme know!
Popularity: 16% [?]
Zappos: Doing Business with Heart
I just came across one of the best customer service stories I’ve ever read and wanted to share it with you.
In the post on her Writing - Cooking - Life blog, Zaz Lamarr tells how Zappos responded in a truly touching and heartfelt gesture to care for her, their customer, at a time when she really needed a lift.
But the story gets better still. Spreading the good word about Zappos via her blog has garnered Zaz the 13th spot for the keyword “Zappos”, 162 comments on the post as well as a whole lot of positive press for Zappos, a company with heart.
I’d bet you can’t read Zaz’ “I Heart Zappos” without getting just a little misty… or where you’ll do your shoe-shopping this Christmas!
Popularity: 6% [?]
