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I got tons of email in my inbox for the past couple of days about Zero Frictional Marketing. There are at least 5 marketers trying to promote the item to me and offered irresistible bonuses. I pondered if it is just another hyped up info product or does it really offer some good real value for $77. I decided to purchase it and give it a go. There are some pretty good info in there but mostly for newbies or total noobs who don’t know a thing about CPA, FTP or getting domain names. But to my surprise, I also seen them teaching people making …ahem…. flogs. Yes, FLOGS. As we all know that this fad of fake blogs is dying and FTC is going hard, so I really wonder what’s going into their minds when they released a product that is teaching methods that are not fully compliant to the FTC regulations. All I could say is that this product is worth it’s price in certain topics but steer clear of the shady zone. However, most of the info shown in the course can be easily obtained over the internet forums for free.

There’s alot of surprise freebies after the purchase but also there’s also alot of up selling and those free stuff belongs to Saj’s JV partners and to get the freebies, I got to opt-in and almost all their mails to get the freebies ended up in my spam box!

Naturally, I asked for a refund.

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So if you are reading this post, I suppose some of you might already got your adwords account closed. So what’s the next route from here? You could start another Adwords account with totally new information, credit card etc etc. and even want to register new domains for your site, should old domains be blacklisted. A lot of hassle and for those who got banned by eBay and trying to get back, you will know what I mean here.

In my opinion, since there are new rules and guidelines for affiliate marketing advertising in Adwords, I prefer to go by the old road, that is SEO. Good content with value for every niche, good optimization, free traffic! Yes, i know it does take time and such but in fact we should always leverage paid advertising and organic traffic in balance for maximum efficiency. Not only this method brings in more traffic, it also improves our ROI since spending on advertising is cut-down. This is a good time to do it and since most of the competition are now lost for not having SEO skill and it’s payback time! Take full use of this opportunity and put your SEO skills to the max while leaving lazy PPC advertisers biting the dust and getting more slaps! I wonder what happens to those copy and paste profit systems like PPC Bully and such?? Interesting to know if there’s some feedback from users…

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I mentioned in one of my post that FTC is cracking hard on flogs and this time round, Google and Yahoo have taken strict measures as well. This is probably not the latest news but worth mentioning it again in case any newbies might fall into this trap again. A lot of Adwords accounts are closed for good for this reason. That means it’s never EVER going to get re-instated again. This is some serious banning.

Items that you should try to stay away for the moment to keep your Adwords account safe, is those recurring billing products, like those Acai free trials and other health related products. The “Google Kits” is a BIG “no-no”. Looks like Google is taking serious measures to protect their reputation and punishing those profiting from its trademark. Anything that has got Google’s trademark in the products are no longer acceptable. Promotion of products using Google’s brand trust tends to mislead the consumers and Google is not going to be involved in the scam game for sure.

So, before you decided to promote an item, check the terms and conditions properly and make sure it complies with Google Adwords guidelines before getting the Google Slap or worse,  an Adwords account closed for good. You’re in their playground so play by their rules. No way to go around that!

Here is a brief video explaining Google Slap for newbies

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It’s an usual day and about to head off for lunch when the phone rang. I answered and to my surprise, Jim Lillig, President of Offeratti.com just called me. Offeratti.com is a relatively new network in the CPA industry but the people running the network has got full of experience in the internet marketing arena. As for Jim Lillig, he does both brick-and-mortar businesses but also created a few other high traffic internet businesses. He has got so much energy and passion when we chatted and the call lasted over an hour! Quick and a pretty straight-forward guy, he explained the strict criteria that publishers have to meet but at the same time, very keen on helping honest new comers. Offeratti has got a zero-tolerance policy against fraud and that makes me feel comfortable that this is not another network flying under the radar. What’s most important to me in my opinion is the personal touch of giving affiliates a call. Jim has taken the good old flavor of traditional businesses to the internet. Nothing beats a call. The internet has changed the social bonding of businesses today as we sit behind the screen and typing “to and fro” emails. Jim doesn’t believe in that and neither do I.

The call was about 1 pm Thailand time and that’s about 1 am for Jim! Does this guy ever sleeps? Despite the late hours over at his end, he still shows so much enthusiasm and dedication towards his affiliate business. Getting a call from him is really a new breath of fresh air in the marketing world for me. Who gets a call these days, from the President personally and chatted for an hour?

One simple call and yet it has such a great impact for both the affiliates and the network. Not only does he try to help new affiliates, he also provides tools, tips and that moral boost that all of us need from time to time.

All I can say is Offeratti.com is definitely different from other networks. A true “win-win” network and working hard for all new affiliates to bring you the best offers.This is one network you wouldn’t want to miss out on.

Jim Lillig is a big name in the internet marketing world. Read more about Jim’s accomplishment over at his blog.

Here’s Jim speaking at Affiliate Bootcamp (2006)

Rating : Out-Of-This World!!

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I got an email from Gauher Chaudry today. Gauher Chaudry is the guy who brought you PPC Formula 2.0 course. In his email, he was talking about Amish Shah and a link to Amish’s site. I opted-in and get some really good tricks for landing pages. It really worth taking a look and trying it out since it FREE.

I went on to download the tips and I was surprised that such a simple trick and it never crossed my mind before. Worth taking a look and if you want to improve your QS on the landing pages for your campaigns.  Simple, effective and no strings attached for this great trick.

Amish is currently one of the top CPA earners and free tips from this guy is not to be taken lightly.

Ratings : Further than 5 Stars

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So, what are my strategies of getting traffic in my CPA campaigns? It can be article marketing or bum-marketing but it takes time before traffic comes in and it could mean a real offer could end by the time the traffic starts rolling in. Of course, you could go by PPC route but as a starter, it could be disastrous as well as it not cheap to buy traffic from PPC. So are there any alternatives to PPC? Yes, it CPV or PPV. “Cost-per-view” or “Pay-per-view” are getting popular these days and you can get a reasonable amount of traffic and pay way cheaper than PPC. The usage of PPV is way much easier than PPC. No more worries on Quality Score and also no hectic keyword research required. It is relatively easy to use and you could setup your campaigns really quick too. So, to make it easy, here’s another video again. Some may not like the idea of such advertising cos it is similar to ad-ware but it’s up for you to decided to consider if it is worthwhile to take a shot at CPV/PPV.

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Yesterday, I posted about my application to Clickbooth and said something about waiting on AIM and getting no replies? Guess what, Devin Archer and Clickbooth put me on the “ignore” feature in AIM and that’s why I was waiting for

hours! There was also no reply in the email and no one was picking up calls.

Upon suspicion, I applied for a new AIM userid and guess what? They replied to me right away without knowing who I am since I got a new userid. I was pissed and ask Devin on why application was denied and if he could review it. He simply said : “Re-apply in 6 months“. THAT’S IT??? All those waiting and all I get is this simple answer that they had trouble telling me by sending a simple mail or even on AIM? This is not right. If Clickbooth handles new applicants that way, I wonder how they treat their affiliates if there are problems?

Naturally, I got fed-up and ran a search “Clickbooth sucks” in Google and the results were stunning. Looks like I’m not the only guy who got pissed off. Devin Archer has got no social skills at all and this douche bag is the Clickbooth Approval Department. Try googling it and see what people in Digital Forum and Wickedfire.com are saying about Clickbooth. Looks like this company has got some serious problems to sort out. People don’t just rant for no reason. Although there are no apparent evidence, there are some posts in Digital Forum saying that Clickbooth have not paid some publishers. Yikes! I’m in no position to comment on that but as far as how it handles the customer service, it SUCKS!

Rating : A crate of rotten tomatoes!

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Clickbooth is another great network to be in. My CPA friends have been singing praises for it  and encouraged me to bring my PPC and other expertise in their CPA network. But guess what happens again? I got rejected without a good reason. Again, I tried calling but no one was picking up the phone and I also AIM at Devin Archer and sitting here for hours waiting for a reply and my back is killing me. Having spent all day planning on landing pages and campaign selection, keywords planning, adspends budgeting… etc etc.

Here’s what I got from Clickbooth,

“I regret to inform you that we have denied your publisher application to
participate in the ClickBooth Network.
We typically deny applications because we do not feel your site
complements our offers. According to our program Terms & Conditions, we
reserve the right to deny participation for any reason. If you believe you
have been wrongfully denied participation, you are encouraged to write
back with your explanation.”

So, I went to AIM Devin and tried to explain my marketing techniques but no replies. Anyways, the  networks need to know that we do not use 1 site for running campaigns. If it is an interesting offer, we must create another site or marketing campaign, be it PPC to CPA,article marketing, email marketing, blog marketing, social sites marketing… etc etc, just to cater to that niche. Reference to this site doesn’t seem to complement the network’s offer is natural. It is only an affiliate marketing blog! Or must I slap all sorts of Acai Berry ads plus a few teeth whitening promos and wrap it up with another AdultFriendFinder banner to get approved???

Anyways, waiting for their replies and I have called, emailed and AIM as well. Let see how many stars or tomatoes they are getting from me. Will keep you guys updated!

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Today is an exciting day for me. Woke up and found that I got approved by Maxbounty, PepperJam and Hydranetwork. It’s really easy that all these networks use AIM and can be contacted easily. I submitted in the applications and added their AIM handlers. They responded quick and friendly, asked a few questions and if you answered it with satisfactory results, they approve you right away! Instead of waiting, giving them a call or sending them a message does speed things up a lot.

So, I decided to give Market Leverage another call today and to my dismay, they don’t answer calls (leave you on the voicemail) and they don’t answer my  mails.

Folks over at Maxbounty and Hydra are extremely helpful and keen to get you started. I’m very pleased the way they handle their job and looking after the affiliates. Image is everything, isn’t it?

LATEST UPDATE : Dina over at MarketLeverage left a post explaining the situation. Now, thats much better isn’t it? Thank you Dina!

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