I hate them. Rebills already have a stigma in our industry, but they still abound. But there’s another way the end user gets the short end of the stick, and that’s 10 day trial periods that start ticking the day you pay for the shipping, not when it arrives!

Sometimes the merchant waits a few days (or more) to mail out the sample or trial product so that by the time the consumer gets it, there’s no real way the product can be given a spin before it’s time to cancel.

And don’t get me started on unethical affiliates either. One such affiliate’s tactics, no doubt, got to my mother. This one–two punch made my mother cry! Being an affiliate myself from time to time, I try to be ethical and upfront about things. Last year I promoted many acai products. However, I put the pertinent “fine print” in the content.

You know, “14 day trial starts the day you order,” and “On the final page, uncheck the ‘sign me up to the magazine’,” and “This is the customer service number in case you do want to cancel.” I made these available next to the TRY NOW button, in regular sized, easy to read font.

Let me tell you the story on how one such
 merchant broke my momma’s heart.

First, a little history. My mom lends her hand-me-down laptop to anyone, including young teens and tweens. Apparently some adware was installed that allowed them to play games on the computer. I had Avast installed but it didn’t catch these 5 different adware programs.

So, my mom banks with Capital One Bank online. One day a few weeks ago, after finishing a banking session, she found a pop-under that stated: THANKS FOR VISITING CAPITALONE.COM PLEASE ANSWER THESE 5 QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR BANKING EXPERIENCE.

They had five seemingly benign questions and then the call-to-action button read “Click Here For Free Gift.”

I have taught her well on these free trial offers before, or so I thought. But here, Mom was thinking that it was a CapitalOne sanctioned survey; and they do no wrong. What she didn’t know was that someone was targeting that URL with a fake survey which leads to a teeth whitening offer. No where on the (new, regulated?) offer page does it say FREE, it only states TRIAL.

No where on the merchant’s landing page does it state
the trial PERIOD is only 10 days

At the very bottom there are three tiny links: Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Contact The phone number at the time, leads to a recording stating that the “… call center is being upgraded, please call back on Tuesday…” The terms and conditions (T & C) keeps saying you “must” cancel before the 10 days is up, and transit time doesn’t matter. However, it doesn’t state HOW to cancel. The customer service phone number is not on the T & C page, it is on the other page, the contact us page!

My mom, Janie, 61 years old, has in the past, received free product samples unsolicited. (Sometimes it’s a small bar of soap, a one-time-use shampoo, or a plastic letter opener) She was thinking this was a completely [risk–] free sample and not a trial with a mean billy-goat-gruff in tow. Boy was she dead wrong!

She ordered this trial [for me] late on a Friday afternoon, and the package didn’t go out until Monday I presume; because it did not arrive until Thursday, a full seven days later. By this time, there were only three days left in the trial period. But this wasn’t a known issue. By the time she was able to give it to me, it was the immediate Sunday after next (10 days after it arrived).

As soon as I saw the product I knew immediately and instinctively what it was, and what it symbolized. I tried to calmly ask her when had she ordered it, and being 61, she forgot. I said with a strict and stern voice “You must call them and cancel this thing right now.” I must have scared her.

She replied “Cancel? Cancel what?” as I started to shake my head in disbelief. We got on the “horn” and called that number on the package. Nobody picked up, save that bogus “upgrading the call center” message. I surfed to the domain name listed on the package and found the T & C link. I read it all, and find out that the trial IS ONLY TEN FREAKING DAYS! WTF?

Not only this, but the full cost of the product ($99.87) was already pending in her online banking. When I showed this to her, she started crying in disbelief, and in despair. She is very low income, and this hundred dollars could have put more food on the table, rather than pay for a trial product that may or may not work. I really calmed myself down and her as well. I dare NOT utter the words “I told you about these things before mom.”

Upon further inspection, the terms and conditions stated that, aside from charging the full price on the 11th day, that on the 14th day, a one-month supply would be billed and shipped at full price, too. We were already cruising for a bruising! Of course, I let her know that there were 2 more like charges on their way, too. Now she was livid, but at herself.

I knew what must be done. We must close the flood gates; we must cancel the debit card mastercard that she used for the shipping and handling fee. There was no way I was going to let another C note get stolen from my elderly mom!

So early Monday morning, we were waiting around for the lobby to open up. We went in, canceled the card, ordered a new one, and I blew the whistle on just how the heck this could happen.

I knew there was a snowball’s chance in hell we would get that money back, but at least CapitalOne could send out an alert stating they do not condone, endorse, or sanction these surveys. My own investigation (thanks to Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware application) let me know that hotbar.com was the particular toolbar that an unethical affiliate used to target CAPITALONE.COM and helped the merchant steal money from my mother’s table.

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I am trying to become a Thesis designer, and was going to create some mock ups, and accidentally messed with THIS blog, which shares the domain name, slightly with the test domain. I couldn’t get this blog back to normal, not to the way I had it. However, since I haven’t posted here for over a month, I don’t think there is a problem.

Once I get good at designing with Thesis, I plan to revamp my blog anyways. This is just a kick in the butt to get me to my goal faster.

A new website launched last month providing free PLR membership to its users. For those of us not 100% sure on what PLR actually is or does, here is a quick run down. PLR stands for Private Label Rights, which enables you to use valuable content written by someone and sell it on as your own. This content can be anything, including ebooks, articles, video, audio, software and resources. You can sell these products under your own name, and obviously make a lot of good money out of it! (You can also give them away if you like)

If you are not exactly new to PLR membership sites and other similar websites, you will have seen plenty of them around. However, the reason many people are choosing this new website – Money2K – over the many others, is due to its very valuable, non duplicated content. A lot of other PLR membership sites will let you sign up for around $30 or so, and offer you all of this ‘brilliant information’ and content, when in actual fact, it is filled with: duplicate content, bad spelling and grammar (good spelling and grammar are crucial things on an ebook) and badly-written articles. These resources are no good to anyone. If you tried to sell this stuff straight up to your list of clients, or create a list, you would fail miserably, and those customers of yours who did buy the product most likely won’t be coming back for anything else that you have to sell!

Maybe you are skeptical about Money2K.com as you have been burned by a similar site in the past. Possibly even on more than one occasion. We all need that little bit of proof and reassurance that our money will be well-spent with a site like this, as many don’t offer any testimonials or guarantees at all. Don’t be too skeptical of Marcel’s Money2K site, as he is offering these things as well as something even more valuable. FREE PLR MEMBERSHIP!

Marcel Vinson, otherwise known as Mr. PLR, is offering free PLR membership for a limited time to give people a chance to start out, and then (because he is so confident this will work wonders for you) he will, in return, receive some great testimonials to share with any prospective clients in the future. If you need to see a testimonial anyway, just to be sure, just click the link at the bottom of the site and you will have all the proof you need right there!

You get so much in with the package from Marcel at Money2K it really is astonishing. You have 24/7 access to a library filled with hundreds of products at your fingertips. Things like internet marketing scripts, software and articles, graphics, templates and banners! All of this content is updated on a monthly basis, so you are always sure to be getting great value for your money. If that wasn’t enough to get you chomping at the bit for access to all of this juicy information, Marcel even offers an upgrade option for your package. You are under no obligation to take this out of course, however if this is what you wanted to do, simply use the “contact us” page on the site and he will do this for you the very same day if you wish!

Go and see what Money2K can do for you. If you are ready to take that step and become successful online!

Pay per view advertising (PPV) is interesting, in part, because you’re presenting offers to a unique audience type. The people who’ll be viewing your ads have all agreed to download the PPV company’s Adware. While you can’t read too much into this fact, it does have an impact on the way one should approach the practice.

What do you know about the audience for your pay-per-view ads? Obviously, you have some idea about them based upon the search queries they’ll be making or the URLs they’ll be visiting. You know something else, too. They agreed to download the software that shows them your advertisements in exchange for some inducement.

Think about what that means about this particular audience, compared to other audiences you may approach with different advertising strategies.

You know that these people are willing to download items from third parties. That indicates that they’re either incredibly tech savvy and comfortable in their computer security and protections or, as is more often the case, they’re just not that concerned about third party materials. Either they don’t realize the potential for risk or they don’t care. In either case, you know that you’re putting an offer in front of people who will click a “download now” link.

If you know a little about the PPV network with whom you’re doing business, you’ll also know what kind of inducement probably led them to become a part of the PPV user base. You’ll know what they wanted badly enough to accept the software. Some PPV companies “recruit” by offering free game access to its members. The fact that someone is willing to download third party ad-serving software in exchange for a free video game should tell you something about his or her interests and habits.

When you think about facts like these, it’s not surprising to discover that PPV advertisers tend to have the best luck with CPA offers that require the completion of quick, small forms in order to secure payment and list-building offers that provide users with free information in exchange for their email address and permission to contact them with future mailings.

It’s also not surprising to learn that offers with a sales page for a product don’t tend to do as well. It wouldn’t be fair to characterize PPV audiences as collections of tire-kickers, but they definitely trend away from being immediate buyers.

Before you start building PPV campaigns based on these assessments, it’s important to recognize their limits. You can’t assume that the kind of observations we just made are universally true. That’s because there are exceptions to every rule. There are older potential customers who’ll be happy to pull out their credit cards in response to a good offer who also have an interest in video games. You can’t assume that all members of a PPV company’s user base built on game freebies are kids (that don’t own credit cards). Additionally, it’s important to remember that most computers are used by a number of household members. A teenager may have installed the adware, but others may then see the ads!

It’s important to understand the general composition of PPV audiences. That information can help you create winning campaigns. However, it’s also important to recognize that those generalizations aren’t wholly accurate in all situations and that there is room for profitable campaigns that don’t “fit” the larger model.

Have you ever wondered why some marketing tactics just don’t seem to work for your business? You sit and watch a competitor’s website grow and business soar and you’re just not quite sure how they do it. After all, aren’t all marketing tactics pretty much the same? The answer is a resounding “NO”!

Marketing tactics that work are not about rocket science. They are often very simple concepts but many online marketers fail to recognize them for the value they can bring to a business. Focusing on a business that brings high conversion rates and plenty of sales is a marketer’s dream. But it will only materialize when marketing tactics are successfully deployed. First of all, people want to find a solution to a problem. That’s why they’re searching for a particular product or benefit to begin with. So what do you have to offer?

Headlines say it all

Don’t wait to tell them what’s in it for them. Tell them right away with your headline. Headlines can be one of the most effective marketing tactics you have to offer. The headline should always include valuable benefits for the customer. With recent studies indicating that users decide whether or not to stay or leave a site within 7 seconds or less; well-written headlines are critical.
Using a headline to grab attention is one of the simplest, yet most effective marketing tactics available. People have a chance to quickly understand why they need to read further than the headline. Instead of clicking away from your site, they’ll be clicking through your information to find out more.

Always follow-up a headline with some other compelling fact or value-added benefit of the product or service. Keep website visitors moving through your content by including one bit of important information after another in every sentence. Don’t use teasers that make them feel they have to keep searching for what’s important but be up-front and direct about the product’s value and benefits with each sentence.

Market the benefits and value

The headline is the best place to start marketing the benefits of the product. It’s also the best way to attract search engines that are seeking websites based on keywords used by online users. When the headline includes the words that potential customers are most likely to search for, the search engines will reward you by bringing more visitors to your website.
Facts, statistics, and data that substantiate your claims of value are also important ways to increase the effectiveness of headlines. “48% reduction in costs with X product….” can be a real attention grabber. Don’t hesitate to use data to support your benefit claims.

Advanced marketing tactics

Headlines are just the beginning with marketing tactics. There are many more advanced marketing tactics that can make a substantial difference in conversion rates and sales. Knowing and integrating advanced marketing tactics into the overall marketing plan for your website and business can make a huge difference in your profits.
Evaluate your current marketing tactics and make necessary adjustments by utilizing advanced tactics to support and grow your business. Time spent preparing effective marketing goals and strategies, supported with effective tactics, is time that will result in higher profits and a thriving business.

And always remember – success starts with your headline!

Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, yet all have the same meaning. Affiliate marketing is a huge business piece on the Internet. It is a cooperative effort between merchants and an affiliate’s website. For many years now, affiliate marketing has proved to be a cost-efficient, measurable method of delivering long-tern results. It has become famous for Internet sites who are trying to make some extra or additional income for their site. Every day, people get interested to affiliate marketing and want to make money out of it. But in many cases, these new affiliates do not fully understand the affiliate world and make costly mistakes. In other words, affiliate marketing has often been misunderstood.

One of the common misconceptions that are being associated about affiliate marketing is “selling”, though selling is an important activity of affiliate marketing and the central function of a business operation. Another is that affiliate marketing is commonly linked with “advertising”. While the importance of advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the fact of the matter is, advertising like selling, is merely a part of the many functions of marketing.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is compensated for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. The said compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit. The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant’s viewpoint is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are composed of two functional bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is any web site owner that wants or desires to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the merchant are many. First, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. If it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by researching interested affiliate websites to ensure that they are a good fit for that particular website. Finding a fit for their merchandise would be the key to more generated income. The merchant has access to markets and customers without him spending valuable time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the site user. It might produce interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants’ website. It is also the merchant who decides how much he is willing to pay for each sale that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate.

The affiliate or the affiliate marketer also sees a lot of benefits. The affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. But this is not an easy task to accomplish. The affiliate needs to have a better understanding with the merchant what the commission will be, expected payment method and time involved in the contract. The affiliate has also the responsibility to stand for the merchandise their user based would be most interested in. For example, if the site has a user base of mainly stay-at-home mothers, then on-line job openings such as surveys would be a good match for them. This group would also appreciate direct links to children’s products and informational sites. Merchandisers often provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They often offer sales promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a great situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. If they would work together, they can be an advantage to both. Plus the fact that it seems to make sense, it is easy and inexpensive way to start, and you can be up and running within a few days. But there is one thing to consider, it is how to get traffic and make your offer different than all others.

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways for anyone with an established website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing, or AM for short, is an agreement between the merchant (store) and the affiliate (site owner). The affiliate links to the merchant’s website through a banner or inline with a post. They can make a recommendation, or write a review, too.

In exchange, the merchant pays a commission (% of the sale) to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. This is known as Pay-Per-Sale, or PPS. (from the affiliate view, it is referred to as cost per sale, CPS) Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate generates a commission.

Sometimes there is a middle-man called an Affiliate Network. They bridge the gap, bringing merchants and affiliates together. One such network is ShareASale. (CPS only) Affiliate Networks also bear the burden of making sure all parties are being ethical, and also act as an escrow agent when it comes to payouts. Affiliates like this because it is the network that pays them for qualified sales, whether the merchant has paid the network or not. This rarely happens because the network is on the ball. They make sure a merchant pays up-front for a minimum number of sales, every month. In turn, the merchants have easy access to affiliates, and not have to invest in affiliate software, or worse, maintain it.

Then there is another way to make money as an affiliate. And that’s getting paid per action, or CPA. Most actions are the visitor entering personal information like name, email, or zip code. This is referred to as Pay-Per-Lead on the merchant side.

Paying for leads is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the referred visitor fills out an short form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed rate. One network that has CPA offers is Market Leverage.

The more information the form requires, the more the lead is worth, and as such, the more money is offered to the affiliate marketer. The reverse is also true. Zip-code submits pay less than a dollar, email submits pay 1 to 2 dollars, name-email-zip pays 3 to 5 dollars, etc. Per Lead.

CPA is the easiest way to earn money as an affiliate, but is also the fastest way to get denied further payment. You can’t be sending junk leads, as you will be siphoned off in a hurry!

The 7 Deadly Sins of LP Design

Hello, friends. If you are running paid ads, then you are probably creating jump pages, or landing pages (LP). But how effective are they? What do they offer to the user experience? Now-a-days everyone is getting on the “user experience” bandwagon; and I can see their point. 

It started with Google, but Facebook and Myspace advertising is quickly on big G‘s heels. They want to make sure their members|customers are not left with a bad taste in their mouths by allowing shady advertisers to steal from them. However you want to paint it, your potential customer’s experience in your sales funnel matters.

Your landing page is either making you money, or losing you money, plain and simple.

But how do you know? I’m sure you’ve heard about A|B split testing, and the cliché: Always Be Testing. But do you know if you even have a good footing to base your tweaks on?

I recently watched over an hour of a Webinar, talking about landing page design. In fact, the title of the webinar was: The 7 Deadly Sins of LP Design – and how to redeem them.

Here is the webinar in a nutshell…

1. Unclear Call-To-Action (CTA)
2. Too Many Choices
3. Asking For Too Much Info
4. Too Much Text
5. Not Keeping Your Promises
6. Visual Distractions
7. Lack of Creativity & Lack of Trust

I took plenty of notes, and screen-shots and have compiled them into a free report. All you have to do is subscribe to my newsletter. It’s a free download.

My newsletter will consist of internet marketing tips, and interesting developments in the IM sphere. This is my first newsletter, so I would love any feedback in the weeks and months to come.

~PM~

This is what I buy

It’s hard to believe that ten years ago I didn’t even like brewed tea. I’ve come a long way, and am glad that I broke down and acquired the taste for iced “leaf juice“.

Fast forward to last year. I bought a sun tea jar and some Lipton Specially Blended iced tea brew. I tried to make it my own with different ingredients and cooking times, but it was almost always a good idea to just follow the directions on the box.

Failures included adding lemon juice (or lime) during or after brewing, adding the sugar before brewing, how many tea bags to use per cups of water… etc. But I knew I had a winning recipe when it wouldn’t last the whole day! Nobody wanted to help me make the tea because it was so time consuming, but boy did they liked drinking every last drop.

I had enough. It was taking too long to brew this nectar of the gods. So on a dark and cloudy day, when sun-brewing was out of the question, I had an epiphany. Everyone gave me strange looks as I scampered about the kitchen, preparing for my eureka moment.

Now that you know the history, it’s time for the special trick recipe!

Ingredients & Tools:

• Coffee Maker – with enough room for 11 cups of water
• Three (3) Lipton family sized tea bags
• Two (2) cups of sugar
• Twenty (20) cups of water

Directions:

Put 10 cups of cold water into a (22+ cup) jar. Put 10½ cups water into your coffee brewer. (the extra half cup is lost to evaporation from the steam) Place the 3 tea bags into the brewing container, usually designed for coffee grinds & filter. Do not stack them, but rather arrange them to occupy the full scope of the base. Turn on your brewer and wait for the 10 cups of water to drip out.

Meanwhile, dissolve 2 cups of sugar into the 10 cups of cold water. I like my tea sweet, so cut back to 1½ cups of sugar if you wish.

When the tea finishes brewing turn off your coffee maker and slowly & carefully pour the extremely hot tea (160ºF) into the 10c of cold water. You can substitute ice if you wish, but make sure you got 22 cups of liquid when you’re done pouring the tea into the big jar.

This yields 22 cups of tea. (20c water + 2c sugar) Chill for 2 hours or serve it over ice, or combo, and enjoy!

I have been told by friends and family that it tastes just like “restaurant-X” and “fast-food-Y” tea, where they go out of their way to get their tea fix.

PS: This recipe cannot be doubled or halved properly. To double, just do it twice and use a large container that holds 44 cups at least.

[podcast]/podcasts/AMUD001.mp3[/podcast]
41 Minutes Download the MP3 (50 23MB)

James Seligman and I talk about what we liked and didn’t like about affiliate summit west 2010, and a couple other things. This is the first time we hit record during a skype call, and we start off a little sheepish but soon relax to our normal candor.

Let us know if you would like to hear more from the both of us, and we can hit the record button again. We talk like this all the time, just not on the record.