Can you make money off something that pays out at $1.50?

Email Submits for Noobs?

Yes Entrips here has done email submits. I was talking to a friend about it and we are bug procrastinators when it comes to PPC and Affilate Marketing (who isn’t? wait.. super affiliates are barely lazy lol) So I set up a few and I found that it was making a very small amount of money a day. Maybe around $2 profit. I keep testing different email offers. Most of these were only paying between $1.05- $2.00. Sometimes I would lose money sometimes I would gain. Until I found this one niche that gave me inspiration that PPC works.

True Story :

It was a nice summer afternoon and I just set up my NEW email offer. I didn’t bother setting up tracking because first of all it was only an email offer and secondly, I was being lazy. If I lost $20 move on right? So I got all my keywords and direct linked the offer. I was paying .10-.18 cents. I actually started it at $0.15. So I assume that i get a nice ratio. maybe 1:6 would b nice right because its only an email submit. After that I left my house for a few hours and just ate dinner with some friends. I got home and checked my stats. I always check how much I spent on traffic. I see that I spent $20 within 4-5hours! I was pissed off because I knew in the back of my head that I just lost $20 because I don’t think you can make money that fast off email submits.

BOY..was I wrong. I went in my campaigns and saw that I was at $30!! Which meant I had $10 PROFIT!!. The next day I kept it going and going for a week until it started to DIE down. By the time I had my tracking installed PROPERLY (it was screwed up some how) the campaign was DEAD. But hey.. I ran away with some good money! This just shows that sometimes volume and traffic is KEY!.

The niche was successful because I was at the right time with the right keywords. It was a seasonal thing so time was PERFECT. Everyone was searching for it! Anyways by the end of the week I was getting SCRUBBED. I knew it because I ran the same keywords / test and lost around $30 with NO CONVERSIONS!

As you can see I peaked pretty high for about 2-4days. (june 4-11) Then you can see a sudden drop. That drop was not because it was on my side. I’m pretty sure it dropped because I was getting scrubbed.

So what is there to be learned here?

Email Submits really work

Email Submits can/will scrub you

Landing Page is optional

Some Paid traffic will deny the campaign set up

Look for competition in the email submit. (if there is a lot don’t DO IT!)

ALWAYS PUT TRACKING IN THE BEGINNING OF EVERY CAMPAIGN AND MAKE SURE IT WORKS!!

Refreshing every 10mins = increase in income

Random Story in this week : I got a few people into affiliate marketing because I told them I was making money online. Of course its hard to make someone a believer so I go on my phone and showed them how much I made. I think it was around $105 at the time. We had a little BBQ in their house. After it was over and we were munching on food, I washed my hands. I told them I’m going to login and check my stats. They saw that it was around $115 now LOL. So yeah.. i mean making money online is possible and pretty cool when you start to refresh your stats and it goes up

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They are the best thing in the world and sometimes the Worst thing in the world. So you decided to create a landing page. Good job! It is another step into success. But now you are thinking how do I make one? We are going to take ringtones for an example. So looking at different ringtone offers you decided you wanted to do fancyringtones123.com (whatever!).

First of all think about how you can promote it. I’m not talking about keywords but how to create the landing page. Look around in google or yahoo and see how others have made it. Just take 2-3 landing pages and look at the “best” part of each one. Maybe on landing page #1 you like how they made the logo. Then on landing page #2 you like how they done the clickable links. Then on landing page #3 you like how they mixed the colors with the affiliate offer. Put all three together and you got a basic landing page for that niche. But I Repeat. DO NOT COPY IT. There has been so many people who copy everything word for word and image per image. DO NOT do that. Just modify a few things like text and color and the position of the images. Be Creative!.

Adobe Photoshop How to create a landing page

Open Photoshop > File New 800 x 600 ( this is my standard size)

Now you have opened a blank image document. Now add images and offers. What I mean is, if you are doing ringtones and they offer ATT + Nextel. Put a ATT + Nextel logo.

Now if you do not know how to do color changes and applying images then go on google and search on what you need. I will go over on how to make a landing page in detail in later posts. The goal in the landing page is to lure the traffic to make a conversion or have them buy the product.

Remember that you will go through lots of landing pages because you need to TEST TEST TEST for conversion and CTR on the landing page. The best landing page you make is your money maker

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1) Research. Basically just browse for possible keywords the offer might have. Say for example you want to do Scholarships. Well it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what types of keywords this might have. So I would go on yahoo/ google/ msn and type in. “free scholarships” “easy scholarships”, “college scholarships”, “scholarship grants”, “sign up for scholarship”. Etc.

2) Payout. Most of the time this is how I do it. I look at payout and offer and see if it is worth doing. Simple payouts like email submits or zip submits pay less but it has a high conversion rate vs. blockbuster sign ups. The lower the payout the easier to promote. This isn’t always the case but depends on the situation and offer. Sign up with different affiliate networks and compare which pays better. Always get the one that pays better. Or if you want, you can even ask your affiliate manager for a raise. Offers that are over $20 in my opinion is hard unless you have lots of money to burn and test.

3) Competition. Earlier I said research for keywords and search it. Most likely one offer with a bunch of ads are doing well. Ringtones is a gold mine.. or should I say WAS a goldmine. Search for anything and you get so much ads from affiliates like us. That means people are researching and giving you leads like crazy. But remember competition is a good and bad thing. For starters, competition gives you the impression that the offer is being searched and money is being made. But the bad thing is when there is too much like ringtones, we are all slapping each other in the face because we are bidding against each other. So ringtones.net is laughing at us because we are barley profiting and they are at 100% profit.

4) Testing.  So you got the campaign and you are ready to test it out. I do most of the time is direct link for a day or 2 and see if I get leads/ searches. If I get a lead I know that I have to get tracking ASAP. If I get no searches then there is more work to be done. People have said to always use tracking in the beginning. I agree on this but for me in order to fire up my campaign I direct link and hopefully hit a lead.

5) Track keywords. Important. Very Important. So its up and running and you are breaking even. VERY good job if you hit the breaking even mark. Install some sort of tracking and figure out which keywords are converting. Pause the ones that are NOT converting and also add some more keywords. Just ADD, ADD ,ADD.

6) Landing page / Not to landing page. This is the most confusing part. I have seen people just direct link the offer with tracking and bam! it works. If the advertisers, landing page really needs a make over then go ahead and make one. Just BS your way in and make sure you get a nice CTR. What if the offer has 2 pages to it? I’m talking about having an offer that has a “click here” then traffic clicks and makes a lead by filling out the following page. In my opinion I wouldn’t make a landing page for this because traffic will have to click 3x to get to the offer.

Those are just some advice I can give for someone starting out. There is many more things to learn but that is as basic as it gets.

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1) Get a Job - Since making money online is more tweaked for younger generation who grew up playing SNES or atari everyone is probably under 30. Probably has no degree and trying to get one in college so they can buy that fancy whip they want sitting on the dealership floor. I know I’m one of them. I’m turning 21, I don’t work as of right now (except for ppc) and I’m trying to finish college. GET A JOB DAMNIT. If you have one and you are still broke, save money and stop spending on g/f, car, computer, clothing, drinks, etc. Save up $500 and that should last you a LONGGG way. I normally suggest $200 but $500 might get you up there faster. Work an extra day at your POS job. Your manager might even be happy you are working extra. Or get another job..seriously. Saving $50 off a paycheck will not kill you unless you are spending waayy too much.

2) Sell on ebay/ craiglist. I personally have done this. It beats working retail. I bought a product in bulk that I knew would sell on craiglist. So I went out and sold and made $100 easy. But be very careful. I sold nintendo wiis on ebay and made $1,000 in the month of December 2007. EASY!

GOOD TIP FOR CRAIGLIST

Look at cellphones or any electronic product that people post. If there is about 2-3 posting then it probably sells. Buy off the person and bargain and lower it for $10 off hes selling for. Chances depending on what it is, he will sell it. Lets take a laptop example. Sony Laptop $300 OBO. Email they guy asking for $290 RIGHT NOW AND I WILL PICK IT UP. Hes probably going to say “fine”. Now you bought a sony laptop for $290. Resell on craglist for $320. BOOM. Profit @ $30. Does it work? YES IT DOES 100% unless its something that people wouldn’t buy. Don’t do ipods and popular phones because everyone will have the same price.

3) Sell Aluminum Cans- Here is a story that actually happened. I had a friend working at those recycling center. He said he saw this nice BENZ pull up with a bunch of cans and his buddy had a truck full of cans. My friend smiled and asked the man, “nice car, i want one of those”. The man looked at him and gave him a smile and said “well..saving money is one thing and these cans I have paid for it”. I don’t know if the man was lying but moral of the story is no matter how small it sells it makes a living.

4) Collect any money - I know this sounds really stupid but look around your room and look for coins. Another true story believe it or not I really don’t care. Back in HS (3years ago) I collected quarters. Put it in a piggy bank and save. College came and I cashed it in. $1,000+. If you have a quarter, bid on a keyword and if it converts you make double if not 5x.

5) FREE YAHOO , MSN, ADWORDS coupons. There is a ton online. I used $200 on yahoo. Hey..it was free!. That is enough to start you off.

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First of all there is YOU. Someone who is living their life pay check to pay check, earning 50k a year, working retail, has kids, college student, nurse, fireman, police, high school drop out. WHATVER!

Now there is the advertisement company. They are the ones where you make your money. Basically they want to promote their product. Sell Ringtones, Rent DVDs, credit debit, dating, housing, freebies, WHATVER!

Now there is the affiliate program. They gather the advertisements for you to promote. Again I still don’t know 100% how this works but just stick with it. They put all the advertisement company’s into one place so its easy for you instead of signing up to 100s of offers.

Now there is the Internet. You will use a Paid Search or SEOing. Paid search is when you pay for bids of keywords to make you money. No keywords NO MONEY. SEOing is being #1 where your offers are and you don’t pay a penny and you are at 100% profit. SEOing is good but not as easy as adding keywords.

Finally there is the consumer. Their job is to sign up for your offer and give you money. Done? Alright here is an easy illustration.

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I suddenly realized that it was an affiliate link. I went to the link and it was just a sign up. Of course I didn’t sign up because I can make myself money instead. According to blockbuster

“Earn a $33 commission for every valid subscription”

Not bad right? Just put it in every pizza box and someone will sign up and you earn $33 bucks. Very smart idea..very smart indeed

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So if you are not lazy unlike thousands of people out there, I can teach you a thing or two on how to create one.

A Landing page is basically the same set up on how you would show people what you are offering. For this post I won’t go over what the contents are but I will go over in detail how to at least set one up. There are so many ways and this is the way I have mastered.

Things You Need

1) Adobe Photoshop w/ image ready

2) Dreamweaver (doesn’t matter which version)

3) Ftp (I recommend Fireftp for ease of use)

4) Domain / Host

5) Your Brain

First of all you need a domain and a host. I can hook you up with a good deal. I’m suppose to make around $100 with every referal but since I help everyone a lot I’m going to use up the $100 on your guys. (Free domains + disk space with package). Domain is the name of your web site. So my domain name is obviously “entripunow.com”. Domains are important because if you are selling laptops you would NOT want “potato.com”. Maybe depending on your niche you can use “laptopsonline.com”. I just threw those examples so don’t worry about clicking or checking. Domains are cheap but make sure you don’t get all those extras. Unless you are running some major web site with tons of traffic, you don’t need most of the extras. So don’t spent more than $8 for a domain. Hosting is next. This is where the domain is going to be hosted. This is basically where all your files will be located. This will normally take a day or two for everything to be approved / hosted.

Next is the page itself. You can use adobe photoshop to make a page. Select the size you want. I normally use 800 x 600 as a landing page. Make your design and have your banners , header..etc. etc. Make CLICKABLE BUTTONS which is where people will click and see your offer page. Something like “click here” wouldn’t be a good idea. . We will take ringtones. Select Carrier : att , verizon. Make a button for att and verizon and people will click it since that is what they will be looking for.

Following me so far? Now flatten image (don’t really have to) and move to image ready on photoshop. I wish I had the time to post pics but I’m short right now. Get your Slice Tool. Slice the area where people will be clicking. So slice around the att , verizon buttons you just made. Good ? Now “save optimized as..” html / images.

Good job you made it this far. Open up dreamweaver and open the saved file. It should be a .html file. In dreamweaver you can edit your web site title under the codes. I should go in deep details with this but you will end up getting bored and click the “x” on your browser. Dreamweaver is where you can add all the codes you want and text. All set? Now save in dreamweaver. Make sure the web page is index.html. When you do this, it will tell the browser to open up that file and load everything. There has been so many times where people don’t do it and get an error. Everything is up but the browser will search the directory and we like.. uh-oh no index.html and will error.

Open up firefox and go to fireftp. This is where logins sucks. You will get many values and you will be like WTF is ftp. Well for ftp just use ftp.yourwebsite.com. Username and password is the username you given access to the web site. This step is hard for most people but you just have to go back and remember what the ftp access account you set up was. Now you should had been able to connect. Under the web site folder which is “yourwebsite.com” open it. Now drag your index.html and images in that folder. Open another window or tab in firefox and see if your web site loads. It should had loaded if not there is like 100s of things to check but usually its not a problem. As long as its index.html.

WHEW..that was a tough one. I’m going to proofread this later on because I’m so tired.

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I guess all this marketing has been in my head and I even dreamed about it. I was actually with my girlfriend in my dream and I was in line buying something. There was a customer in my dream who kept mugging me and saying how slow I was when I was paying the cashier. I didn’t care but I think the cashier did. He called up the owner, I guess hoping I would get kicked out of the store for being so slow in paying. So I told the man “O man…its a thos old white men in business suits to the rescue” Then he was like “what do you know about us?, I do the same thing you do, I’m always stuck in traffic trying to ge to work , we are the same

So I told him “No sir. we are not the same. I own an ONLINE BUSINESS.” He looked at me astonished and I walked away.  Weird dream isn’t it? It seriously happened. I guess this whole making money online thing has gotten to my head. But yeah guys I’m still here making money. If you guys need help just post me a comment. I don’t believe i left an email so this is the easiest way to give me a holla! lol

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Well the end of the month is tomorrow and its official that I have been doing affiliate marketing for about a month now. Not counting my past attempts but for this campaign. When I first started I had no clue on how and what I should do. I had a broad picture and past experience but that wasn’t enough to compensate for knowledge that was beyond me. However I had a fighting spirit that told me to jump on it now and you will succeed. I kept making mistakes on the first few days but after a while I started to have a PPC mind and I learned from the mistakes. In the beginning how did I started?

First of all I had a goal. My goal was to make money and take it. So I made a small goal for this month and aimed for $500 gross. In the first week I was at $47 gross and in my mind I was thinking “Entrips, I think you are crazy and $500 gross is pushing it” The second week went by and I was at $97 gross. I was thinking..hmm if I have to double or triple that I would have to do more work and no fear on losing money. I was willing to use up $500 from my own pocket. So we are now at week three and this is where the “boom” came upon. I jumped 192%. Amazing isn’t it? Well here comes the 4th week which is the week of may 25th. Now I know exactly what to do and I’m getting better and better each day. This is a very motivational post because if you think about it, I went from $0 to +47%, 106%, 300%+  increase in gross.  So who ever is trying to start affiliate marketing I suggest that you start now because within a month you can be where I’m at. But with my help you can probably pull this off in half the time it took me.

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It seems that my new landing page was working properly. But 2/3 of the campaign was through a directory link so I can test out a new landing page. So I have tested 2 landing pages at once. 1/3 was on my main site which proved that it was able to convert and the other was through a directory www.entripunow.com/(landingpage here) .  So 2/3 of the clicks was going to the directory and it was going to a 404 page!! Affiliate Marketers worst nightmare!. So the 1/3 was getting traffic but the majority was in my new landing page in the directory. As of right now I’m trying to fix all my links and make sure they work properly. I also found out that in that move, I also messed up my tracking. I made a new campaign and multiple ad groups so all the links are all the same and that was the cause.

I hope that made sense to everyone. I’m like half asleep right now and in a state of panic.

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