In the neverending quest for traffic, I bumped into a great list of traffic sources compiled by Edward from http://3things.be which I promptly proceeded to rip, massage, sort and post. Probably the best part of the list are Edward’s one-line comments on each source. Check out the ultimate list of traffic sources.
Check out Edward’s blog – I got a good laugh from his Twitter badge:
This video from a TED Talk by Laurie Santos is genius – it talks about one of the linchpins of high-pressure sales: Loss Aversion.
In a nutshell – “People’s intuitions about how much risk to take varies depending on where they started with.”
I really found it interesting to learn that loss aversion is relative to the starting point of the game. The game being the point at which you have to start deciding.
Yes, we all know people want to minimize loss, and we do know people want to minimize loss in disproportion (much more) to how much they want to achieve gains. What this presentation added was two things:
This is exactly what happens to, among tons of cases Laurie mentions, homeowners whose homes have depreciated below the purchase value: They are most likely to take the no-loss gamble and hold on to the shack instead of the known loss and cut their losses short.
Can you use this knowledge in your daily marketing? Well, how much more explicit can this get?
Interesting thought: Do you make these same mistakes when running your Internet Marketing campaigns? Do you take unwarranted risks in attempts to prevent a loss?
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Two lessons on “tooling”:
I do put my brain within the definition of #2 above – I try to take good care of it, sharpening it if you will, and avoiding needless “damage”…
Anyway, Back to Office 2010. I use PowerPoint, Word and Excel on a daily basis – big time. I have a neural link to these tools – I think and magic just happens.
Yesterday I decided to buy the upgrade from Office 2007 to Office 2010.
After a day of use I can honestly say there is no fucking difference between 2007 and 2010. What a way to wallpaper Wily E. Gates’ mansion. Can you imagine any other place where you can continue to sell a shitload of the same crap you were selling three years ago, slap a new sticker on it and pass it for new?
Uhhh.. Hello, FTC, Champion of the poor, witless and innocent, where are you when we really need you? Chasing bloggers again? Flushing your colon with berry juice? Seriously?
Repeat PPV pop-ups from the same IP address seem to correlate (at least at a glance) with a drop in conversions and a dip in ROI. In other words: As days roll by I find myself spending on repeat pop-ups to people that didn’t bite the first time around, and they haven’t been chugging any of Morpheus’ blue pills either, so I’m wasting my money. Take a look at these two graphs – The first one is the Repeat clicks – The definition of repeat here is “coming from the same IP during the last 24hs” – which is leaving out repeat IPs hitting 25 hours later or two days later. I’m betting after running for any significant length of time this adds up fast. The second graph is the ROI for the same period.
I tried to avoid repeats by tweaking the settings on the ad network – which seems to work for a time, and more or less randomly for me.
So here’s a thought… Stick a cookie in their machine as they pass by and read it back when they’re coming in to create a sequence of landers/ads/offers that you can take the person through. Instead of trying to pull a one-hit-wonder, how about presenting them with escalating offers? Or how about switching to another niche?
Interesting idea. It isn’t full-on retargeting – its still an interesting idea that could lengthen the life of a campaign.
Great idea but Executing this must be difficult?
Joseph… Clearly, I’m not a genius here. Later in the afternoon it hit me that I’ve actually seen this before – I just didn’t pay attention since I thought it was just a fancy way to split-test.
Doing this is dead-easy from the technical point of view. Just search for “cookie landing page rotator”. Barman from PPC.BZ posted a really nice one over at PPVPlaybook (membership required, not an affiliate link).
Barman’s script can not only walk through a sequence of landers, it can also walk through a sequence of multiple sets of landers. Sounds confusing – essentially if you configure it right, it allows you to split test your sequence of landers; So if you have three for the first step, four for the second step, and two for the third step it will walk through the steps and randomly chose a lander from that set/step. That way it does both things at once – advances a sequence and split-tests it.
The wizardry comes in building/choosing the right landers to put in sequence.
Found a nifty little app called StatsRemote that can keep track of dozens of advertising as well as affiliate network accounts. By what I read this tool is pretty popular in the Adult webmaster industry.
The functionality is limited to overall stats, the price is around $30 a month. In a nutshell, it gives you a birds-eye view of your money going in and out (AKA: Cashflow) plus a projection for the entire month month/year and some stats. It doesn’t do SubIDs and I don’t think it can help optimize much – but its sure nice to see how big a hole I’m putting on my budget. It has an INCREDIBLE list of supported platforms – and they do work – If nothing, that list is worth a look simply because it acts as a directory of working shit by type – For example if you are looking at getting more traffic then their pruned list is pretty good, just as well if you suddenly fancy a bit of gambling.
The billion-dollar creativity spark happens in the first 30 seconds of this video – Specifically from 0:12 to 0:28. This is Wieden+Kennedy’s agency recap of the Old Spice campaign.
Really brilliant from many angles – They reverse-engineered the behaviors that were not working for them and targeted their weak areas. Think about this for Affiliate marketing – Who decides what, why and how before proceeding with a transaction?
Shout-out to ShockMarketer where I saw the ad and then AdverBlog where I saw the recap.
If you’re heading towards the corporate ranks, grab this Douchebag Dictionary and memorize it. You’ll be a corporate douchebag in no time at all!
Every area of life has its own lingo… The cube farm is no exception.
Here’s an excerpt:
I want to make sure we cover everything we need to in this meeting, but I have a hard stop at two p.m.
Due to rightsizing, we’ll be eliminating 50% of the department. We still have the same deliverable targets.
There’s a marketing team skull session tomorrow on the fallout from having Mel Gibson as the celebrity spokesperson for the new product line.
Here’s a ten-step guide to developing a killer social media strategy for your company.
We are actualizing synergy amongst team members directly related to the project.
If you are really headed to cubefarm, here’s a video sneak peek at life behind the suit: Endless conference calls.
Call me dumb, but I just realized I can increase my bid by $0.0001 and outbid 30% of competitors on higher traffic URLs. Take a look at this screenshot…
I was really trying to figure out a way to “mark” some URLs when I noticed I could do this…
It does seem to push down the other advertisers in the queue – I am bidding on some URLs from two different campaigns and the $0.0001 increase keeps that campaign’s “rank”, but pushes the others one rank lower.
Does this drive more traffic? Sooner? I’m not really sure. I noticed that even though you may be ranked 10th on a URL, you’ll still get traffic from it. When does LeadImpact show the ads for a lower bid, when frequency cap is reached? That way the person doesn’t see the same pop-up over and over? What is a bit confusing is that pop-ups don’t happen *that* often – So who is managing to trigger the tenth pop-up within 24 hours on a particular URL? Might it make sense to not even bid on a keyword where you rank so low?
Questions, questions, questions…
With so many distractions in life, it is very hard to stay focused on what you are trying to accomplish and a whole lot easier to just coast through life.
Here’s my litte strategy…
Every single time I do something I ask myself “How does this help me…<insert goal here>” .. Use your brain here, you’re not a machine – You likely have multiple goals, and often conflicting ones: Make $1K a day, Spend Quality time with family, Connect with friends, stay healthy. You know what category everything you do might fall on – When you catch yourself doing something that either doesn’t fall into any of the major categories of what you’re trying to do, chances are you don’t need to be doing it…
The hardest part is when you’re doing something that might fall into one of the activities you need to do for your goals… You might be reading a blog, like this one… Then ask yourself “How does this help me reach $1K a day?” be honest and if the answer is “It doesn’t”, you just close the browser, put the iPad away and just go do something that does help you.
That’s my little secret to actively balance family, work, and social life instead of just letting the pieces fall where they may.
Disclaimer: Before anyone thinks I’m the King of CPA, don’t be mistaken – I’m nobody and still trying to walk. But I can smell short-sighted fools a mile away.
Why are you promoting a Zip Submit? Why are you promoting that eBook? Why are you promoting X?
The dumb answer: “To make money”
The smart answer: “To figure out how to make money”
If you’re not actively figuring out how the next link in the chain is making money off of your actions, and intend to take over the next link as soon as you understand your current part and the next link’s part, then you’re wasting your time and should be looking elsewhere for something you can expand vertically – not just horizontally.
Ever take the time to see what the hell happens after you buy a snuggie via an affiliate marketer online? How about taking the time to follow an e-mail submit and see what happens and what offers are behind it? Work out the math?
You don’t even have to dream up a fake names or addresses anymore.: Try the Fake Generator.
Of course you’re not about to create an Auto Insurance company, but take a peek. Is it really Geico? You’d be surprised at the incredible number of intermediaries. Imagine instead of taking your commission for the silly submit, adding the $$$ for all brokers in the middle. Couldn’t you later offer your own Submit offers to the networks?
Maybe this is obvious.. I haven’t seen people comment on this anywhere, really…
I’ve spotted several instances of offers on networks that payout for example $120 for a Business Opportunity (might cost the consumer $500 over several months, or it might be an aggregate or lifetime-value calculation), then someone builds a fake blog landing page and puts it up as an offer that pays out $50 per person that signs up to the $120 Business Opportunity offer I just mentioned. Looking at the blog or the offer individually doesn’t give you a clue what’s going on, until you realize these are indeed not the same business – these are different companies and different people both with offers on the market, one encapsulating the other and while not really skimming off the top, adding some value – after all, the buy rate from the flog is probably higher than sending cold traffic straight to the offer.
Or you’ll see lead generation in the insurance industry, with a payout of $15. Then there is a Zip submit with a payout of $2, which when activated leads to a page that shows the visitor three insurance offers from other affiliate networks – those same offers you can get for $15.
Do you see the value chain?
Its not about driving the traffic straight to the ultimate destination. You could, but it won’t work. Its really about building the entire road that takes your customer/lead there, and keeping all the money along the way.
You have to learn how to walk before you can run… You have to learn how to market the stuff at the bottom before you can move higher in the chain…. By the same token, you’re not going to learn how to walk by picking your nose, and you’re not going to move higher in the chain by promoting things you can’t replace the next link with yourself.
This is something to think about next time you’re picking offers to promote.
It was a dark and stormy night… I couldn’t sleep.. It was 2:00 AM.. The house was quiet. I went downstairs and fired up the Xbox 360. My favorite game, Fable 2, had lost its luster… Then I saw it… Limbo…Available for Download.
Limbo is an amazingly creepy, gruesome and fun platform puzzle game. I’ve played it to the end – only 5-6 hours – but I made sure I only played it at night. The atmosphere of the game is simply amazing, the sounds draw you in, and the gruesomeness of some of the parts… Well… Makes it interesting – It did take me a while to get comfortable (and not have my heart jump) with the little boy getting decapitated, impaled, crushed, electrocuted and eviscerated so frequently.
This is really a very unique game – and the atmosphere of shadows, shades, and despair it creates is amazing. Check it out.
IGN did a nice video review of Limbo
A few screenshots:
This part is one of the most fun... The letters of the HOTEL sign start falling as you climb on them, shooting sparks everywhere
Itsy-bitsy-spider climbed up the water spout... Itsy-bitsy spider ate the little boy... Down came the rain and washed the boy out...
That's gotta be the river Styx
Is he the lost son of Indiana Jones?
Last week I joined the Super Affiliate Twins’ Internet University.
I have to say I’m impressed. Very positively impressed.
Ryan and crew are all over the forums giving good solid advice and literally shepherding folks along.
When they say that they teach all this about internet marketing, they aren’t joking – All the modules are up and you can get access to it for a one-day $5 trial or just go for the monthly membership.
The best part is that they’re small... That probably won’t last very long. The second best part is that it shows that Ryan and the crew are interested in seeing folks succeed. Its not common to see an abundance mentality at work in such a competitive landscape.
Abundance Mentality: Stephen Covey coined the term abundance mentality or abundance mindset, a business concept in which a person believes there are enough resources and success to share with others. It is commonly contrasted with the scarcity mindset, which is founded on the idea that, given a finite amount of resources, a person must hoard their belongings and protect them from others. Individuals with an abundance mentality are able to celebrate the success of others rather than be threatened by it.
A number of books appearing in business press since then have discussed the idea. The abundance mentality is believed to arrive from having a high self worth and security, and leads to the sharing of profits, recognition and responsibility.
I felt the University paid for itself in just watching one of the videos they’ve put out. I watched the PPV video about five times. It comes with survey-style landers, normal landers, reference of PPV networks. There are NO affiliate links on the stuff linked to. Really everything you need and the instructions on video – I mean, if I can’t figure it out with that, I should probably stick to flipping burgers. Someone put a lot of thought into this.
They are now starting a contest on PPV marketing (yup, there’s still time to join the contest) – The contest is designed to teach the ropes of PPV marketing by starting out with a simple Zip/eMail submit Direct-linking campaign, learning to set it up and optimize it to get it profitable. Ryan is posting step-by-step videos on doing everything, and folks are sharing their campaigns. To keep it competitive the only thing we’re not disclosing is the target URLs.
What’s the Prize? … Does it matter? I would do the same if it was a lollipop or a Ferrari – The true prize is the EXPERIENCE, the Knowledge and who knows, maybe a friend or two – the rest is anecdotal.
I do feel pretty lucky to be a part of the contest as it unfolds – It is *exactly* what I want to learn and done in a great way – Plus Ryan and folks answer questions in a very straightforward manner, holding nothing back and really guiding folks.
Really great work on the part of Ryan and team, and I have to thank Mike for egging me to join up.
Haha I am going to laugh when we are all geared up for the contest and then next week we are all asking for discounts on the membership since we blew all our cash on campaigns!
My recent post Fully Revealed Campaign – Making Money on DirectCPV
Dang, man… Are you sure that’s the way its supposed to work? I’m going to get my burger-flipping spatula ready, and go apologize back at the drive-thru.
o_O nice Gratuitous Eye Candy section!
I say, if you can’t give them great stuff to keep them coming back, throw in some tits and ass and see what happens. Just like at tradeshows!
Slave Rat and 
Joseph are discussing. 
Justin Dupre 9:29 am on August 31, 2010 Permalink |
Edward’s blog sure has many great sources from traffic. Great stuff!