No Bullsh* Affiliate Marketing

Good Idea: Help people with your knowledge and an open mind and hopefully that person will give back in return.

Bad Idea: Start a ridiculous service - good post and discussion on nicky’s blog.

Good Idea: Find a niche that does well on a network and do some heavy research on how it’s being promoted, that’s the key to profits.

Bad Idea: Instant message people asking “what niches do you do?” or “what niches are profitable?”.

Good Idea: Blog if you have unique ideas and value to add to the industry and post only when you do.

Bad Idea: Don’t blog if you haven’t been in the industry for more than 3 years, please. It’s just an ego inflater and you will get torn up by the real experienced people who can pick out your bullshit.

Cool!

Rockin 40 Readers

First of all, I seriously just like to thank everybody for following this blog even though I rarely post nowadays. Things have gotten pretty busy, days have gotten longer (but shorter time wise), free time isn’t so easy to come by any more. I know I’m not always able to respond to everybody’s comments, but I do appreciate any feedback and input you guys have!

Now, the celebration today is for 40 readers that follow this blog. You’re thinking in sarcasm: “wow 40 readers, you rock”.

You don’t have to have thousands of readers to have a good blog. You just want the handful of people that matter, your industry buddies and/or the people that know what the hell is going on and obviously know that you’re authentic. These 40 are way more difficult to come by than 500 random people that found your blog on the internet through one of your bait posts.

Some Popular Questions

Many people question why I never post on my blog about affiliate marketing strategies or just internet marketing in general.

There’s really only one reason why, it’s not worth it. I mean it’s not worth it to give an awesome strategy to the public because 99% of them wouldn’t know what to do with it, don’t know who the hell you are and are  probably just looking for “how to become rich overnight” posts.

I’d much rather you find me at a conference, introduce yourself and then ask me things in person.

I’d also much rather see my tips, advice and strategies that I give to people have a direct influence toward their success. I’m not sure about you guys but I’d be way more happier to see people I know make thousands off of my idea, than some random reader making hundreds (no offense to the random readers). I’m just more personal like that.

High level discussions, advanced strategies etc.

This kind of goes with my last paragraph. If I discuss some advanced strategies publically, I would get little to no feedback from the general audience (I’m talking about real feedback). However I’d love to sit down in person with a handful of solid affiliates and toss up a topic for discussion. Instant feedback from competent people who’ve already put in the work it takes to get where they are today.

This Damn Cutthroat Industry

This is industry is such a “cut throat” industry for one reason - greed. People can never be satisfied with what they have even though a year ago they were working a dead beat full time job that they hated waking up every morning for and today they work at home, when they want, how they want and still make more money. That’s why people are so secretive about their stuff and some even lie.

I can honestly say, that I’m satisfied with what I have right now. My goal coming into this industry was to be able to pay the bills and have a little more money for the nicer things in life. As long as I can maintain this, I’m perfectly happy.

Don’t get greed mixed in with passion though. Just like myself, I know a lot of affiliates have learned to love and appreciate this industry, especially the ones that have gone through rough times and have been in the industry trying to make money for years. And it does piss me (and them) off when people take this industry for granted; lie, cheat, steal just for the money. Oh yeah and ego is never respected.

But for us, it’s simple, the money just comes with the work that we love to do.

The Future

I think 2008 has by far been the biggest “affiliate” boom. There are so many more affiliates in the industry now. It’ll only get more difficult though. After this year, it’ll cost more to break into the industry in both capital and real knowledge which seems to be harder and harder to find as the industry grows older. Especially now with 100 “super affiliate” blogs and everybody posting their checks for referrals, faking rss readers, etc. etc.

I think 2009 will be the true breaking point. Which affiliates stepped it up into the next level of affiliate marketing? Which affiliates are authentic? Which affiliates got cut? Which affiliates made the right choices? Which affiliate strategies worked? Next year, these questions and many more will be answered.

A Farewell for Now

For those who consider themselves successful, cheers. Wake up every morning with a smile on your face because you make more money than most full time careers, you work your own hours, you are your own boss and hopefully you are truly passionate about this industry.

For those who are still trying and things aren’t quite working out yet… Take a new strategy. Work smarter. I’ve reflected  upon this quote so many times since it was given to me by someone who has helped me and who I contribute a lot of my success to.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Einstein

To everyone, the best of luck and cheers to your future success.

I’m definitely diggin San Fran, so I will take pictures this time. I’ll update this post every night.

My room view from the iphone.

Ok I’m going to make a prediction here. That way if I’m right, I get bragging rights for the rest of the year and if I’m wrong then life goes on and everybody forgets about this post because it was just a prediction anyway

AzoogleAds have been asking affiliates to place a pixel on their landing page that looks like this:

img src=”http://i.azjmp.com/XABC” width=”1″ height=”1″

(funny that I wasn’t asked to place one).

Note that this has happened to multiple sources of mine. Their reasoning, from this source is this:

(7:00:45 PM) source: they want to increase their comscore rank and if i place the pixel on my high traffic sites, it’ll appear as tho azoogle is getting the hits and therefore increase their rank.
(7:00:55 PM) source: i asked them why they care if their rank increases and they beat around the bush
(7:01:00 PM) BlueBobbo: LMFAO.
(7:01:03 PM) source: haha
(7:01:06 PM) BlueBobbo: OMG
(7:01:10 PM) BlueBobbo: I want to blog the fuck out of this
(7:01:22 PM) source: other strange thing is… (and u probably know the answer to it cuz ur a coder)….
(7:01:44 PM) source: if they REALLY just wanted to increase comscore ranking, they’d give everyone the same pixel….
(7:01:50 PM) source: at least each affiliate the same pixel…
(7:01:57 PM) BlueBobbo: WOW.
(7:02:03 PM) BlueBobbo: That’s freaken bullshit

Now lets take a quick trip back in the timeline of Azoogle Ads:

1. Azoogle boots nearly a couple dozen employees.
2. Cutting referral commissions.
3. Rebranding to Epic Advertising.
4. Asking affilaites to place pixels.

Hidden agenda possibly? Now the predictions.

1. This one is my prediction: I believe that they are making a last ditch effort to try to collect data before being bought out.
2. Another source prediction: They’re trying to measure their outreach so they know how much to sellout for.
3. Another source prediction: They might be taking data and using it for their search marketing company “Bazaar”.
   1. My addition to the 3rd: With the capital and resources they can basically just roll kids no problem.

So come on now. All this shit sounds like investors behind it. If all of this means absolutely nothing… This industry is officially boooooooooooorrring.

Data is the bricks for the castle. You can’t build your empire without it. No data, no marketing.

It’s not like decades ago where you can slap up a TV ad blindly and get thousands of sales the next day. That doesn’t work any more. Nor is it like years back when Adwords was new and didn’t care what you bid on and had no real quality score.

Today it’s difficult. Quality data is hard as hell to come by. You have to be smarter, faster, more savvy and more intuitive than your competitors and ignorance is failure. You aren’t likely to succeed otherwise.

Now back to the real topic about data.

As internet marketers, we buy hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of data daily, so that in itself should already show how much data is worth. We gather every piece of information that we can about it: referrer, search engine, keyword, time, date, IP address, geo location, costs, impressions, click through rate. Yet another display of how valuable data is.

So my question is… Why the fuck, would you share it with anyone without a price?

I don’t care if the President wanted to place his pixel on my landing page, I’d say “fuck off.”

This industry is new and it’s flowing with ridiculous amounts of cash. You know what happens when there’s a lot of money to be made? All trust and integrity is left at grandma’s house.

Let me ask you this, would you place my pixel on your landing page?

Then why the fuck would you place a pixel you’re affiliate manager asks you to place? They ask because you have a choice. One of your choices is saying “get the fuck out of here”.

Note: This post was written in good faith and wasn’t meant to offend anyone.

How I see it, the term “super affiliate” is obsolete. Anybody who names themselves one is probably some idiot who’s trying to make money on a blog or ebook.

You are what the industry deems you are. I’m talking about the real industry:

• The real affiliates who truly make money and are truly skilled and who are smart enough to not blog about it or get cocky.
• The networks.
• The advertisers.

The term has been so brutally raped it’s literally meaningless now.

So, if someone says they’re a super affiliate, ask them “What the FUCK is a super affiliate?”, make sure you give them the *look at this douchebag* facial expression.

Were taken by random photographers.

See, the thing with me and cameras is that I fail. I bought a Canon Powershot for Christmas (not an affiliate link), hoping to take pictures at ASW Vegas, but failed to take any.

I didn’t even take it with me to SES, the few pictures I get are the ones I take on my IPHONE - luls.

So here’s a picture taken by a WhatsPoppin.net photographer of me and Danny (AM at Copeac) at a club called Guest House… I look so totally useless:

And one of me and Jeff (AM at Copeac), at the same club by Victory2Multimedia.com, this time I look ok, and Jeff is PHASED. Ok now that I think about it, I still look useless in this one. Give me a break, it was the last night in town and the night before I got wrecked like I did in Vegas:

Next stop is Ad Tech San Francisco… Maybe I’ll actually take pictures there because I’m flying in 3 days early since the boys have some plans.

So, HarryG was sharing some of his math homework.

(”hmm, if I turn it upside down it might help me solve this dumb x and y axis ridonculousness”) 

Hi, Super Affiliate Geometry 101.

Affiliate Summit was just a blast because of the following wicked cool people:

1. K-Rad is the bomb diggity, period.
2. Maximus and Riggs are just plain wicked cool guys - “internets monies”
3. All the truly remarkable people at Intermark/Copeac and the guys that know how to throw sick parties at CX Digital/Incentaclick!
4. Tobyn Sowden and Casey Bolton, very chill and solid affiliates.
5. Ken Chen, you rock, I owe you lap dances (not from me obviously… Unless you want me to…)
6. Larby and Wes and the boys at Tracking202 who are some tight kids, and apparently pimps (Larby mostly, who has pictures on Facebook and name tag the girls as “Hot Girl 3″ and “Hot Girl 4″ - lmfao).
7. Smaxor who is one of the most insightful people I’ve ever talked to.
8. Richard Tarjeft - you’ll have to teach me some hot email strats soon
9. Derrick and Dylan, very cool and down to earth guys.
10. Jason for taking care of me that one WILD ass night when I was a train wreck.
11. Aymen and Gabby who are tight shit!
12. Paul Bourque the Uber Affiliate, met him for the first time but have known forover a year!

And anyone and everyone that I met!

From my 20 years of living, and especially this week at Affiliate Summit Vegas, this is one of the biggest concepts of life I’ve learned and keep true to myself.

Being genuine comes at a price of exposing an honest heart and true mind to, in most cases, strangers. When you open up to the right people, they will do the same. Whether it’s an exchange of knowledge, a smile or just some humor. This is just how human interaction works.

Those that need to be forced to open up or don’t do the same in return probably aren’t the people you want to be associating with.

The interesting thing about humans is that it is difficult for most of us to see through the fog. But the irony is that it’s the few who are able to, that matter the most.

I have a lot to post about regarding Affiliate Summit Vegas, hope I have some time.