Money Schemes - Learn How To Make Money Online

It really pisses me off when I’m all excited about finding a new advertising partner, I go to implement some offers and……………their website keeps hanging. That’s 4 hours now without being able to do anything. It’s like paddling through shit.

Zanox have a few offers that I think will suite one of my websites really well, it’s just a shame that at this rate I’m never going to get them live. Guess it doesn’t bode well when they can’t even make their own website available.

Inspired into taking some more risks with promoting affiliate offers through the paid advertising networks I’ve now got a few offers running. Ever since creating my NeverBlueAds account I’ve not really done much with it but I’ve found a couple of offers that I think I can profit from so I’m going for it.

One of the Ad networks I’m giving a go is FaceBook. I never had much joy with them the last time I tried this but I’m game for a laugh. Came across something that could really help a few people out during my research, I’ve found a way of getting $250 in free FaceBook advertising! That’s a decent chunk to do some serious experimentation. When you read the affiliate gurus they always go on about experimentation, and I know from experience as much as anybody that it can be a very scary thing to do when you only seem to be wasting your own cash. The free $250 you can get for FaceBook really free’s you up to experiment at leasure.

Your Free FaceBook Advertiser Codes
These 3 will each get you a $50 credit:-

T5V6-1JKV-TNH9-2MRH
2JXY-WTFK-72Y0-VJ6Y
R1X5-0NH7-5FXW-5YEC

In order to get the final code all you need to do is add the Visa Business Network application (do a search for it from within your FaceBook account). Once completed they’ll e-mail you a voucher code for a $100 advertising credit.

All codes can be applied from the Billing/Funding Sources area of the FaceBook advertisers control panel. Even cooler is that these codes aren’t just for new advertisers, even if you’ve been using FaceBook to advertise on for a while these codes will still work.

Hope everybody enjoys them and let me know how you get on with your ad campaigns? If you do find them useful would you please consider stumbling this post so that others might find it? Good karma and all that.

ps Forgot to mention, I’ve been looking for a promo code for Microsoft Ad Center but haven’t been able to find any active codes. If anybody knows of any voucher codes that still work can you let me know? Cheers.

All this Top Affiliate Challenge stuff have got my juices flowing about maybe doing some CPA affiliate marketing again. You may remember that the last time I attempted this I bummed out quite badly, losing a good chunk of Pay-Per-Click change to the likes of Adwords and FaceBook. Well time is a great healer isn’t it so I feel it’s about time I wasted used some more of my money to try and get a decent CPA offer going.

The one thing that stood out during the TAC was how Jonathan Van Clute managed to be able to match his boasts of cheap targeted traffic to earnings. Got to admit I was sceptical at first, but just seeing the affect his knowledge sharing had on the other contestants earnings was a real eye opener. I think this has to be the key to CPA marketing, to get enough eye balls in front of your offer for as little as possible. Unless you are lucky (Vegas proved I’m not), PPC with Adwords whilst giving you targeted traffic very rarely gives you cheap targeted traffic. So the big question is, where does Jonathan Van Clute get his traffic from? There did appear to be a lot of hints during the program, talk of pop-under, pop-over traffic sources that are targeted. A little bit of research also shows that he’s certainly no huge fan of PPC and much prefers to use pay-per-impression traffic. But where from? Where do you find targeted sources of cheap PPM traffic? I’ve tried several sources in the past but it almost always turns out to be junk traffic from somebody who has either been paid to click or is a bot. What I need is cheap keyword targeted traffic that you can buy per impression.

If anybody has any clues I’d like to know? I reckon that from what I’ve done in the past I see pretty decent conversion rates from the traffic I get, I’ve just very rarely found any ways of buying in that traffic cheap enough to make a profit on it (other than getting lucky with the odd PPC Adwords campaign). So if anybody knows where Jonathan Van Clute is buying his traffic from and would like to share please feel free to drop me a line, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement

I like WidgetBucks, they send me money every month (well all accept when there was that little mix-up with my Tax-ID info). It’s probably fair to say though that I loved them a little more when they first started out and were paying PPC for traffic from all over the world. Unfortunatly for me and a number of other publishers they soon switched to PPC for only North American traffic and left us to only earn PPM (pay per thousand impressions) from traffic from anywhere else. The payment rate for PPM traffic was really bad and I know this hit a lot of publsihers hard in the wallet. I guess it was a decision that was understandable, if most of their advertisers were US based and weren’t getting any ROI from foreign traffic then it’s a bit hard to ask them to pay for it!

The great news is that after what I assume to be refinements to their systems WidgetBucks are going to start paying PPC for traffic from other countries again. This week traffic from the UK will start to pay PPC with traffic from Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Belgium all to follow soon. Whilst it may not be perfect it will surely help to put a few more pennies in the pot.

I’ve just been catching up on some episodes of the Top Affiliate Challenge that I missed whilst I was away. My big moan before I went was that the numbers that these top affiliates were showing were disappointing, or more accurately utter crap. I haven’t finished watching the last episode of the TAC yet but even from what I’ve see so far it looks like things did pick up quickly. My best earnings day ever was $3500 and in affiliate marketing a little under $1000 so it was great to see my own affiliate figures being smashed by these guys (although to be fair I don’t know how much they spent or what their profit was). Jonathan in particular with figures of $6000+ in 2 days really proved himself to as to what is possible. As far as tips go perhaps one of the biggest things I learnt was that so many of these guys rely on cheap pop-under traffic. I’ve dabbled with this in the past but usually dismissed it as rubbish traffic that would never convert, obviously it does (although I’m sure you need the right source of pop-under traffic). As far as some of the other guys went some were very disappointing, maybe it was just the short time frame, but maybe they just got lucky once or twice in the past and don’t really know what they’re doing? In the later shows there is enough educational stuff from the buys that do know what they’re doing to make it well worth watching.

I’m not a TV producer so I wouldn’t feel right saying too much about the actual quality of what was produced, all I’d say is that I found it very watchable. I’d also like to spare a word for Monica who seems to have been widely slated for her role in the show, I thought she did great. She openly admits to not knowing about the affiliate scene before starting the show but to dive into the whole thing as well as she did in such a public manor and in such a short space of time takes some balls. I’m sure they could have got an affiliate marketer to host it but lets face it how many top affiliates do you know that are as hot as Monica?

So there you have it, personally I’d be more than happy to see it come back for another series.

I can’t believe how much trouble America is in…but more on that later. Anyhoo Vegas, what a place.

Only been back a day so I’m still suffering a bit from the 8 hour time difference, not to mention going from 106 degree+ heat to the magnificent 67 we get for our British summer! Absolutely loved Vegas, everything was bigger and better, the people are nicer and the level of customer service was out of this world. I’m not sure if that’s the same across the whole of the US but all I can say is that I loved it. In all our time there not once did we experience any bad customer service, just on my way to work this morning I’ve had a grumpy bus driver and a shop assistant who served me whilst texting her friend. America has definitely got that very right! We stayed at the Bellagio which was perhaps a little bit too posh (I’m a country lad at heart) for me but I think by the end of the week we were fitting in well. I spent 2 days gambling hard and losing badly before I eventually decided enough was enough and left the wife to it. I knew it wasn’t my time. She did great on the video poker and came home a winner, think I’ll stick to making my money online! The amount of money some of those guys were handing over on the tables was truly scary, it really puts the levels of wealth in the world into some proportion. I’ve now seen somebody lose more than my annual income in the space of 5 minutes! Amongst the trip highlights were the helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon, being driven around in a limo (something just not affordable at home) and of course just the scale of some of the hotels. We particularly enjoyed the Venetian, although to truly recreate the ambience of Venice they’d really need to create the stink of shit! As it was our first trip to Vegas and seeing as how my wife is a vacation Ninja and wanted to see as much as possible we did a lot of walking, roughly 150 miles in 6 days. Next time I think we’d relax a bit more and maybe spend more time by the pool, enjoying the nightlife although we did catch a few shows.

Overall I’d recommend Vegas to anybody, just don’t bring your kids. The only downside to the place is the porn litter. Up and down the strip is littered with flyers for hookers/strippers and that’s makes the place not suitable for younger kids. If they could sort that out then they’d have a great place for a family holiday. I don’t think that’s what they want though, from speaking to a couple of taxi drivers and our Limo driver the overall impression is that Vegas is changing rapidly and not for the better. Whooping frat boys who don’t know how to behave either sober or drunk are wrecking it for a lot of others. That combined with the fact that so many states have legalised gambling and the extra hassles in flying have meant that Vegas and Nevada are struggling. Gambling income is down for the 6th month in a row. The general consensus is that in 3 or 4 years time Vegas will be a very different place and that makes me feel even better that we visited when we did. Sure I’d love to go back and see the City Centre development when it’s finished but not if the place has been over run with dickheads.

Sell photos on photrade | By paulb

So what was I saying about America, oh yeah, it’s screwed! Sorry guys but you have the worst TV of any country I’ve ever visited, way too many adverts. It’s not the number of ads that are the only problem but rather the type as well. Almost every advert I saw was for “how to avoid paying your debts and keep your house”. Almost every news program was about how bad the US economy is or moaning about the $4 a gallon cost of fuel (This made me laugh, back home you can multiply that number by 5). What I found so odd was all this borrow and not pay back mentality. To moan about the price of fuel whilst sitting (alone) in your 4 litre pick-up. The companies that have lent you the money that you’re some how going to avoid paying back employ people. When they don’t get their money back they have to cut back on staff or go bust, just look at the 2 biggest mortgage providers. That means more unemployment and cycle that just gets worse. If you’ve borrowed too much to buy a house you can’t afford the real solution is to either sell that house directly or have it reprocessed. Either that or earn more money. You need to find something to rent or buy that you can afford That’s just the way the world works. In the same way if you can’t afford your current gas bill the right solution is to get a smaller car, use it less or horror of horrors use public transport. Oil prices aren’t going down anytime soon so get used to it. Vegas provides a great opportunity to see some of the richest and poorest in American society.

From the high rollers gambling thousands of dollars on a single hand to the beggars trying to survive of a few dollars a day it’s all there. There will always be the mega rich and mega poor in society but where I think America (and the UK) has it wrong is how it deals with those in the middle. They take away the incentive to progress and do well. I noticed that whilst I was there Nevada are cutting back the immunisation program for kids starting school. Those people stuck in the middle now have to find extra money (it was quite a lump) to pay for their own whilst if you can just earn that little less it’s still going to be paid for you. Where’s the incentive? A booming economy is built on the back of small business, with what’s happening now and the very likely presidential result life is just going to get tougher for those that in other circumstances would be creating the wealth and jobs in America. You’re going to end up paying more taxes to bail out others because the government is going to have to step in with funding for private institutes when people find ways of avoiding their debts. It goes round and round until it eventually bottoms out. To be fair I just think that the US is further ahead in the cycle than the UK, we’re definitely heading exactly the same way. I guess the only difference is that we don’t have anywhere near as many people popping up on TV to try to sell us a service that helps us avoid our responsibilities!

Just before I go, has anybody else been watching the Top Affiliate Challenge? I’ve just been watching episode 3 and to be honest it left me disappointed….not in the program itself but in the whole affiliate marketing scene.

On that show there are 3 teams of 4 people, each led by a top internet marketer. The challenge is to make as much money as possible each day through affiliate marketing. Now I thought they’d be starting of with nothing and then building slowly day by day. I was tuning in to learn. Turns out that they have been allowed to fully utilise there existing resources as well as having special help via some of the ad networks. Keeping in mind that as well as the gurus some of the contestants claim to be some of the leading lights in affiliate marketing (or full of shit braggers maybe) I was amazed to see that so far the top 24 hour profit is only $780, the next best being $240!! WTF! Some of these guys claim to be making thousands a day on their own, in teams of 4+guru and taking advantage of their own mailing lists and other “traffic drivers” does nobody else find that appalling? With all the bragging of driving millions of visitors a day I was expecting to see several thousand dollars a day at least?

In order to get quick results all the teams seem to be relying heavily on pay-per-click through networks like FaceBook and Adwords. Some have even resorted to black mail in order to show any profit, not to mention begging for capital. Never in a million years would I claim to be an expert in this type of marketing and I would never claim it was easy. Look I’m crap at it, I admit it and that’s why I’d never even try for the show. Looks like maybe the program has found a few people out. So whilst I’ve spent many months feeling like a failure over not rolling out a series of successful PPC affiliate campaigns it turns out all along that it’s just not that easy. I know a couple of my regular readers feel the same and have also wasted time and money on this “easy peasy” make money method. So to those people out there who insist on pushing the latest hot PPC Affiliate E-Book whilst bragging about making $50,000 a day I say this, shove it up your ass! It’s either 1. Not that easy or 2. The contestants on the Top Affiliate Challenge are crap. What do you think?

That’s it, I’m off! Well maybe not quite yet but I’ll be jetting over the Atlantic on Sunday for a week of non stop drinking, gambling and getting jiggy with the wife. This is our first real time away from our daughter in 8 years. Having never been to Vegas before there are a HUGE number of things I’m looking forward to, not least of which being the chance to put my entire life savings on black! If my usual ratio of drinking to hangover sticks then I should start feeling better sometime around early September.

I’ve been reading up today and the only slightly worrying thing is the amount of tipping, jesus, with all the amount of money flying round the place you’d think that employers could afford to pay their staff? I just went to get some money changed and they’ve only given me 50′s, $50 is the right amount to tip right? We don’t really do tipping as a life style in the UK so it’s always a bit of a novelty when you travel somewhere that relies on it so heavily. Anyhoo, each to their own, I’ll be living life to the max, no expense spared, rolling it like a high one. My only hope is that I bump into one of the famous women on my “allowed” (the list of women I’m allowed to sleep with without the wife complaining) list whilst relaxing by the pool.

So if anybody is in and around Vegas next week and sees a rather dishevelled looking, very handsome young british man suffering from an intense hangover whilst being dragged around shops and attractions by an annoyed looking wife then don’t be afraid to say hello. And if anybody has any Vegas tips please feel free to share them in the comments?

Normal service will be resumed as and when my head can handle looking at a monitor again, in the meantime everybody keep it real and if you’re American then enjoy your 4th July holiday.