Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category

Hi everyone! I got bombarded with emails about Affiliate Cash Sniper (the new product by Michael Rasmussen) The freaking sales page is a video from hell – with no forward button, no apparent BUY button (wow that sucks for affiliates) – and the video drones on and on – there’s no time on it but I swear it must be 30 mins to an hour, no joke. Don’t have any razors nearby.

Note to marketers: PLEASE don’t do this to customers. At least put some text copy for those of us who prefer reading and don’t NOT let us fast forward.

I sat through it – but only because I love selling through Amazon and my goal is to up that income this year. So let me save you some headache. IF you’re an Amazon affiliate (or even Wal-Mart etc), this is a software tool that does some cool things. Let me review some things for you and then if you decide it’s good for you, save yourself the headache of watching his video and order it the way I tell you at the end of this blog post.

The sales video is all the usual boasting about what a great affiliate he is (7 figures), about how someone bent his ear and talked him into this software idea. Blah Blah Blah. He goes into the usual “how much people are spending on Amazon and don’t you want that piece of the pie” spiel. Heard it. Just give me the buy button, dude! I want to see what the thing DOES.

Finally, he goes into a snippet of the interactive process of the Amazon buyers. Basically, it’s awesome because you bring in the traffic to your site with content and let’s say you’re reviewing something not QUITE perfect for them – the software lets them use an interactive “choice” tool so they can choose the perfect product by price, color, brand, etc., and then when they click through, if they buy, you get credit for the sale.

Let me just say I hate the name of this thing. I’m so tired of “sniper” products. Snipers are military people – not products. But still, I’ll get the thing because I want what it does. Of course the video also goes on about the “revolution” and “affiliate marketing 3.0″ you’re on the cusp of, etc. He really goes on way too long. But I want it.

The product says I get my sniper software with the interactive tool and a second software for sniper ads – it’ll tell me where to put my ads. Third, I’ll get the bestseller sniper to find the hottest niches for me.

Toward the end of the video, a buy button suddenly appears below his list sign up. I’d just get the product first – if he winds up being good THEN go get on the list.

So I followed the instructions that I listed at the bottom of this blog post to order and got $10 off. Then after I processed my order, I was taken to another video page (ACK! No!).

It’s an Upsell thing for $97. No thanks. I never buy upsells until I see if the product owner has proven themselves with the original product first. So you have to either buy or scroll down to the tiny text link that lets you download your Affiliate Cash Snipers product.

Jesus it takes me to ANOTHER video page upsell – this time for $197! Scroll down AGAIN to the bottom and choose no thanks. OH NO! ANOTHER upsell page with a self starting video – Nooooooo! I’m in a horror movie! This time for a $1 trial for a week then $67 monthly thing. UGH! This is frustrating but I want the damn product!

Scroll down AGAIN and choose the text link. FINALLY I’m taken to a “Complete this order” page. Ahhhh. It tells me it’s a subscription. Is it? I don’t recall seeing any monthly statement text. Then it takes me to a confusing login members area. When I try registering, it says I already registered. It was almost like another odd sales page or something. Okay NOW I’m getting pissed. I try logging in and it says I don’t have the right password. Okay geez no wonder – it’s in my email. After completion, it ought to send me to a “Check your email for account login details” page.

When I log in, it takes me to a video under 3 minutes. by the way, I don’t know Michael. I’m not one of his JV partners. I WILL promote it as an affiliate when I like something. The video is just about being an affiliate for it. And upgrade opportunities, of course.

Affiliate Cash Snipers Area

I head straight here once I see the video isn’t a genuine welcome video but a promotional one. It has a 12 page PDF tutorial and says a video tutorial is coming soon. Click the Affiliate Cash Snipers software link and it opens another tab. That’s where you have to set up your settings. I entered my Amazon Associated ID and updated and then clicked My Snipers.

Choose your site that you want to promote from (for me Amazon). Click on the category name  for me, it will be sports and outdoor then paintball and airsoft and then when I click airsoft, I choose guns and rifles. I want to choose Rifles, so it won’t let me click the category name anymore, so I click on the right where it says Select Category.

Then you design it and get the code for it. There are two different wizard styles. You point and click to choose an image they provide to you. I want to choose special links that it offers because that lets the customers view top rated, bestsellers, etc. I changed the header text. I would turn off the logo for Affiliate Cash Snipers on this. No need for it.

When you’re done, click Get Code and paste it into the HTML area wherever you want it to go. Now one thing – I have a 3 column layout (same as on this blog) so it was too big. I had to edit the code to be 400 width. So some of the items look a little scrunched but I’ll see how it works.

You can see it here at the bottom of the blog post:

Air Rifle Example for Affiliate Cash Snipers

Hmm okay when I go through the link on that site, and go to Amazon – I don’t see my Amazon Associates ID anywhere in the URL like I do when I use my own link. So how do I know if I’m getting credit for it? I double checked and I DID enter my Amazon Associates ID into the system. I don’t trust things where I can’t see my ID.

UPDATE: I just went through and it updated – my Amazon Associates ID IS showing up now!

I won’t be using the Ad Sniper. It’s for AdWords and I don’t pay for traffic. I thought it was for all sites where I could rank well promoting my items including article directories, for example.

I move on to Bestseller Sniper. Okay so this stinks. I choose the category toys. Well um, in 2 pages of results, Amazon.com isn’t listed anywhere. I really don’t need this for Amazon because it’s already built in ON Amazon. Not sure if other sites offer this, but as far as Amazon goes, this software is useless for this task.

Final opinion on Affiliate Cash Snipers:

So if the original software – the sniper one – works and does somehow give you credit, then I’m all for it and say it’s worth the $37-47 pricetag. Why? I like the interactive nature for the customers. But how will I know? Hmm I know!

I’m going to make a sniper and have someone go buy something through it and see if I get credit for it. I don’t take anyone’s word for it – so I’ll update this and let y’all know.

FIXED: The tool is using my ID now so maybe there was a quick lag or something.

The other 2 softwares are useless for me. IF you use paid ads, you might like the second one. And maybe if you’re using other sites than Amazon you might like the 3rd one.

To order without torturing yourself through Michael’s video and to save money:

Step 1: Click on this link and go to the website (it’ll open in a new window) but as soon as it starts autoplaying, click the middle of the video and it will pause: Affiliate Cash Sniper

Step 2: Click the X button to close the page and then choose “Stay on this page” – it then takes you to another  sign up page. Click the X button AGAIN and you’ll choose “stay on this page” and it will take you to a $10 off discount page, letting you buy it for $37.

Let me know YOUR experience with it!
Tiff

UPDATE: I found 5 people – thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m working on the finishing touches of my Introduction to Internet Marketing course and I need 3 newbies – you either don’t know a thing or barely know anything about IM, and 2 failures – you’ve been trying but making nothing for a long time.  Ah, and you must be the go getter type – someone who’s in it to win it here, not a whiner or quitter. Ah, and I ALSO need you to have guts. Guts enough to be honest with me. I don’t appreciate smoke being blown up my butt – I want people who can tell me the truth – good, bad and whatever else you feel.

Why do I need you?

Well, I want to send you portions of my course to read and give me feedback on. When the videos are ready, I want to send you those to get your feedback on. In other words, I like REAL people to test out my wisdom (or lack thereof) and tell me their true thoughts. Was something missing? Did this resonate with you? Did you get offended?

How it will work.

I will be sending you each portion in increments. I don’t want you having the entire thing in one swoop. So as you read, send me your thoughts, and I send you the next section. You will NOT be able to share this information with anyone!

You’re my guinea pig, in other words.

What the course is.

Like I said, it’s an introduction to Internet marketing – so it starts from literally, square one. That’s why I want newbies. Now with you 2 failures, the reason I want YOU is because what’s happened is that you jumped in as a newbie, had no good direction, and have just wandered through this thick forest totally lost. I want to guide you back to the basics and start all over.

It will teach you from the beginning – how to find answers, who to trust, how to analyze what you should be doing, etc. The VIDEOs will be more step by step in action.

Who I’m not looking for.

Shiny new object seekers. If you already know you do this and haven’t stopped yourself, knowing it’s wrong, then don’t volunteer here. I want people who didn’t realize this was what they might have been doing and now want to put an end to it.

People already seeing success but wanting more. This volunteer opportunity is for people NOT making money yet.

What I’ll do with your feedback.

Two things. First, I’ll use your feedback to make this the best course it can be.  Second, I’ll want you to provide a final testimony about the course when I finally launch it.

If you want to sign up, I’ll be picking people I feel are right for it – tell me if you’re a newbie or a failure and a little about the situation and you can do that via my Contact form at the top of this blog.

I’ll keep a tally of who I’ve found (no names just like this: 2 newbies, 1 failure) so that you’ll know what I’m still looking for.

Tiff

Hi everyone Nah I’m not ranting – well, not really. Just annoyed that some marketers email out titles about PLR being dead in some sweeping statement and panicking all the people who then quit using PLR because one guy said so. LOL!

Others wisely email me all scared wanting to know if it’s true. I got a swarm of them today after someone named James emailed his list.

So I read the email. What he’s talking about is true – the Kindle slap. But his statement near the end where he wrote: “PLR is D-E-A-D.” was just stupid.

Amazon DID start going through their system and trying to remove duplicate products, like PLR – which is smart. Think of it from a buyer’s perspective you have an unhappy marriage. So you download “How to have a happy marriage” on your Kindle for $2.99. A day later you download “10 tips on a happy marriage” but WHOA – it’s the SAME content as the other book!

Nobody wants that! So I’m glad Kindle is allowing one copy on the system.

But let’s move on to the “PLR is Dead” statement. No it’s not. Geez. PLR is thriving more now than it ever has and here’s why:

1. Everyone knows unique content is VERY important right now. So what do you do if you can’t write your way out of a paper bag? Oh, and you don’t have the budget for a good ghostwriter? You get some PLR and rework it. It’s a smart way to quickly get some good content out. A LOT of my customers use my PLR as a springboard. You can buy a $1 article and reword the sentences so easily. Then you’re unique.

2. PLR is used for a ton more than Kindle! You can sell it on your own domain as an info product download. You can use it on blogs, in email autoresponders, article directories, viral reports, convert it to video, etc etc etc.

We WANT Kindle to be a thriving network, right? Be glad that it’s not going to be viewed by customers as a spam fest – that’s in OUR favor. Because we can create unique content to sell on Kindle and do very well. But you can still buy a PLR eBook, rewrite it and upload it there.

There are tons of levels of PLR usage – “as is” for people who want to stick it in an email autoresponder system, for example, “a little tweaking,” for people who want to use it on their blog, for example, and “total rewrite” for those who need someone else to do all the research and organization of thought, so all they have to do is rework the content and run with it.

PLR is far from dead. It’s booming – and so is ghostwriting. What’s dead is scraping and stealing. Those ideas are getting slammed left and right – and rightly so.

tiff

Hi everyone! I’m going to let y’all know a little bit about JV Zoo from an affiliate and vendor perspective. I think it’s good we have more options than ClickBank and PayDotCom – so I signed up to see what the buzz was all about. My MAIN goal was to be able to link a WSO with an affiliate program (I already do this with JRox Jam but not for regular products).

My mentor Craig mentioned 3 ways I could link a WSO with an affiliate program:

1. WarriorPlus, which I won’t use because of all the PayPal shut down horror stories I’ve heard about. Not sure if it’s because of that but I’m a no risk kinda girl.

2. Jrox Jam, which I own but it’s built on PLR Mini Mart and I don’t want to add a product in there and have people promoting an affiliate link that makes it appear like a PLR product when it isn’t.

3. JVZoo, which I’d heard about but never had a need to investigate – until now! And I’m going to be an affiliate AND a seller here (and it’s free to sign up here)

Here’s what I instantly like about JVZoo when I logged in:

• Affiliates have LIFETIME cookies.
• Affiliates get paid INSTANTLY via PayPal just like I do.
• It integrates with my Aweber system.
• I can finally do a dimesale WSO if I want to – which I’m not sure if I’ll want to.
• I can easily have a split funnel with a JV partner.
• Has built in graphics like buy buttons for your WSOs.
• They have this neat sounding sales page generator they host w/FB comments in it.
• It has a built in blacklist system! Woot! I can deny people mwuahahaha. And here’s what is SO cool about this option – it has 3 tiers. The first is when I want to block someone for whatever reason. Second, I can access a blacklist network to see who’s a serial refunder. It’s based on your PayPal email address. And the third is the JVZoo blacklist, which they create to block serial refunders, etc. Awesome.

The only dislike I have about it is that it’s not connected to DLG but they do offer secure delivery for up to 128 MB – otherwise you have to use a download page. Now what I dislike about this is that if I do a video/PDF combo course, chances are it’ll run bigger than that (I don’t know much about size stuff).

I need to find a way around the download page because that’s for the birds. That’s like a marketing 101 fail using a simple download page.

So anyway, that’s what I’ll be toying with now for some upcoming launches. I like it because I often have potential JV partners who don’t want to promote as long as a WSO is going on – but this way, they can – and their own customers can get the discount, too.

If you’ve had experience with JV Zoo, let me know what it was – from an affiliate or vendor standpoint.

Tiff