The Picture Doesn't Do These Nachos Justice

When we ordered the nachos, the waitress said they were out of cheese (it was fairly close to closing time), but if we would wait they would send an employee to a supermarket and by some cheese just for us.  This was the first time I’ve been to a restaurant that was out of an item and was willing to go buy some more ingredients just for me.

We decided to wait for the nachos and they sent someone to get the cheese from a near by store.  I’m sure it wasn’t the most profitable thing for them to do, but it was impressive.  On a side note, they brought the nachos out on an extra large pizza tray and they were amazing.  The 4 of us couldn’t even eat through half of them.

This was my first time at the cafe and they provided such an amazing experience for me that I’ll definitely be back and let my friends know to try it out.

Treat Your Customers Right

It doesn’t matter if you are an online or offline business, do whatever you can to make a good impression on your customers.  Do what your competitors won’t just to make your customers happy.

Yeah, it might not be the most profitable thing to do, but they will be back if you treat them right.  You will also have them spreading news about you to their friends.

What was the best customer experience you have received?

Yep, you heard that right, I’m not going to Affiliate Summit East in New York this year.  If you are unfamiliar with Affiliate Summit, it is THE affiliate conference, and it saddens me that I’m not going.

Why Am I Not Going?

Well there are a few reasons, but the main reason is my daughter.  She is only 3 months and I don’t really want to leave her that long (that is a lot of work for my wife).

Another reason is the costs don’t seem worth it to me this year.  Don’t get me wrong, the costs of the conference isn’t a big deal, in fact I had a press pass so it was free if I had gone.  Travel costs would probably be around $2000 to New York and I have to weigh the benefits.  I’m not looking for any new affiliate networks, so I would probably spend most of my time hanging out with friends and my current affiliate managers.  Is that really worth it right now from a business stance?  Probably not, although it would be fun.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it as it is probably the best conference you’ll go to.  I will definitely be going to Vegas in 2011.  Hope everyone has a great time, and if you’re on the fence about going, I suggest you go (especially if you live on the east coast).

Have fun and let me know how it goes.

I was deciding to start up a blog about craft beers and home brewing when I came across a site for sell that has been around since 2007 and already has some great content. I decided to buy it and just got it transfered over to me this week. There is still a lot of work to be done on it, but grab a beer and come check it out, bookmark it, and add it to your RSS feed.

Come visit Blog About Beer.

Thanks Jonathan.

Read the interview here.

It seems that a lot of affiliates like to keep things secret, so they have little interaction with their affiliate managers.  However, good communication with your affiliate managers (generally ones that you have built a relationship with and can trust) can do huge things for increasing your business.

I wanted to write this post as sort of a guide for newer affiliates of how they can get the most out of their relationship with their affiliate managers.  To find out right from the source, I asked multiple affiliate managers, OPM’s, and networks to give me 1 or 2 good questions that they think is beneficial for affiliates to ask them or that they wish you would ask them to improve the affiliates business.  The response I got was great.  There is a ton of valuable information here.

Here is what they said.

1. Demographics of products – Who are the shoppers and buyers for your products? We post ours here for example and it really helps when writing content, doing landing pages (i.e. showing a 40-something versus a twenty-something playing guitar), and especially targeting on sites like Facebook. Affiliates MUST ask for that information.
2. Tell me the keywords that don’t work. Anyone can get a keyword list. Tell me the ones that don’t work and what negative keywords to use. Click here for an example.
3. Ask for general advice. Give the AM an idea of what you are planning and let them hold your hand a bit. Good AMs can give a lot of advice on things you might not have even thought to ask about such as number of reviews, listing product features, deep linking, etc.
4. Ask for testimonials from customers. I wrote an entire article about this somewhere…wish I had it now haha. Testimonials are nearly priceless advertisements and, like the three items above, can make the difference between gaining a customer’s trust (and therefore their business) and having them immediately click the back button to go back to the search results. The easiest way to get testimonials of course is to use merchant testimonials when you refer the customer to the merchant’s site. Ask your affiliate manager if you can use these on your pages.
5. Ask them to review your site when done. IF nothing else, it is an extra pair of eyes. I cannot tell you how many times I find a typo or find that the site looks funky in the new version of this or that browser. Good AMs will usually have at least one or two good suggestions where you can improve, sometimes ten or twenty.
6. Ask for any content, videos or graphics that are not public.
7. The last one is kind of unique. If the merchant has a customer-focused newsletter or email list, ask if you can use the content from it on your own list. I have drawn up special agreements with affiliates that allows them to repackage the emails and send them to their list. Some guys are making 5-10 sales a month just off these emails.

Ask the AM for things like this. Ask them for anything you can think of that might help and ask the open-ended questions. You never know what you might learn.

Above all, do not be afraid to ask them anything.

Matt McWilliams, Legacy Learning Systems

Don’t just ask “give me your best offer”…ill show you a list of our top offers in terms of revenue if that’s what you want. Get more specific….ask for the best offer for a certain niche or maybe a traffic source. Ask if the manager knows how others are doing it or if they have any tips. What kind of volume do you need to get a pay increase? Things like that can help an affiliate manager work with you. If there’s more than 1 LP, ask if there’s a page that’s performing the best.

Timothy Antoian, Azoogle Ads

What is the target demo for this offer?

This will allow the affiliate to better target their ad placements and help them fully utilize their budget. For example the target demo for offer “RED” is 70% / 30% male and the average age of consumer is 25-40 that would be valuable information to use when buying ad space on social media networks

Should I use a 3^rd party tracking software (Tracking202, Google Conversion Tracking, etc)?

One of the biggest hurdles I see new affiliates run into is the inability to optimize their campaigns.  For example a search affiliate will start with a list of 200 keywords but doesn’t have the correct tracking in place and is unable to tell which keywords convert. As a result they continue to spend money on keywords that click but don’t necessarily convert

Peter Varga Jr., Clickbooth

1. Which campaigns are performing well on your network?
2. Which traffic sources are converting well in a particular niche (the niche you are focusing on)?
3. What trends are you seeing in a particular niche or in the industry in general?
4. Also, you could ask for helpful information or links to read up on the industry to give you some insight on the various promotion methods out there. The best thing to do as a beginning is to sit down and read and educate yourself on the industry and the promotion types. Affiliate Marketing isn’t a get rich quick scheme. There is definitely money to be made, but if you don’t know what you are doing, you can spend money and it goes no where.

Scott Mclaren, Neverblue

First thing I always look for is to see if the program is actively managed.. (not really a question, but a good starting point)

If so.. then you can ask stuff like:

How long as the affiliate program been active? Is there steady growth? Is there a type of site that seems to convert best w/ your product? Coupon/Review/Blog/Shop Comparison/etc? Do you allow PPC and/or direct linking from paid ads?

Jason Rubacky, ShareASale

1. Do you provide custom (size, color, etc) creatives?
2. Do you have some kind of tutorial on what we can do to best promote your program?
3. Do you offer lists of keywords we could use for SEO and PPC?
4. What are your bestsellers? Are they contingent on seasons?
5. Do you provide any content help?

Geno Prussakov, AM Navigator (OPM)

1. What campaigns are doing good (clicks Vs. leads, not EPC)
2. What is the scrub rate for XXXXX campaign?

Janell Kowalski, Amped Media

1. What specific ads are working best for your affiliates?
2. What marketing techniques do you guys recommend?
3. What is the target audience for your product or service?

Wade Tonkin, GTO Management

What other questions do you find valuable to ask your affiliate managers?

UPDATE: Also check out this response to this post from Jamie Birch of JEB Commerce.  He adds a few great points that could be added to these questions.

All you have to do is stick a 3.25″ pad on your butt and your farts will turn into a gentle odorless breeze. And for just $11.95, why not? Hmmmmmm, how about the fact that this is just plain ridiculous. Why not just use a cork?

They do however have a great commercial, so enjoy.

I’m not huge on eBooks and eCourses in the online money making world, as the majority of gurus out there are just trying to make money off of you by selling you crap. Recently my good friend Ian Fernando launched a Facebook advertising training program that is really a great product for learning the ropes quickly. Ian has a ton of experience with affiliate marketing on Facebook, and doesn’t hold anything back.

I know what you’re thinking, come on Logan, your just trying to sell Ian’s product and make a few bucks with some affiliate commission. This product however I believe in so much I didn’t even bother to sign up as an affiliate to push it. I am just direct linking over to Ians site and am not making a dime off it, just helping a friend promote a really good product.

If you want to learn how to advertise on Facebook the right way, check out Infinite FB.

She was born weighing in at 6lbs 7oz and was 19.5 inches long.  Being a first time parent I am amazed at how fast I can fall in love with her.  She is absolutely perfect and I just adore my little girl.  I’ve heard from a few people they wanted to see some pictures, so here are a few.

By the way, she was less than a week old and made an appearance in 2 affiliate marketing podcasts. Check them out:

• Both Sides Of The Tracks
• Legacy Learning Systems episode 6

Two of my friends, Eric Nagel and Jason Rubacky, started a weekly podcast back in January that is actually really good called Both Sides of the Track.  Well, generally you got to fast forward about 15 minutes to get to the good content, but once there, it is golden.  Eric is an affiliate/programming genius, and Jason has been an affiliate manager and now works over at ShareASale, so you hear topics from both sides of the spectrum.

So far they have had some great guests on the show such as Ian Fernando, Nickcakes, and Joe Sousa.  If you’re not into the podcast scene, this may be the show for you.  No, this is not a paid endoresement, I just really like these guys and want to get them some extra exposure.

Check them out weekly here.

First of all, check out this infomercial and you will wonder how you ever worked without it.  On second thought, how come the lady in the commercial isn’t typing while on the chair if it is so great for work?  The Hawaii chair definitely deserves a “what were they thinking?”  Watch the models using it, they are trying to smile but look incredibly uncomfortable.

For only $300 it may be worth it.  Well, if they include a years worth of chiropractor visits with it.  Interested in learning more, check out there site for even more “great” products.