Many Body Theory

Many affiliate marketers are not web designs or web developers so many times they either rely on pre-built theme and will just swap out their ringtone offer for a dating offer.

WordPress blogs are really starting to be pushed out as the new landing page. They are easy to setup because most $5/month hosts will offer basic PHP an MySql access and if you don’t have that WordPress will host your blog for you. With all of the themes and plugins, you are sure to find the right look and feel for your landing page depending on the offer. There are tons of skins from business themes to gourmet food layouts. Many times WordPress themes are also pre-SEO’d where they implement the proper use of HTML tags and are easy to load by search engine spiders.

Outside of the ease of use for affiliates, WordPress blogs are just that — blogs. Many times affiliates have review sites where they will rank multiple offers based off of the payout and conversion rate. With a blog you can write entries based off of your various offers and even allow comments to be turned on. Every day or two affiliates can write a fake comment that reinforces the original blog statement. When a user reads the  comments a sense of trust is gained because the users will believe that others also enjoyed the various benefits of the offers that the affiliate is currently reviewing.

With Google AdWords cracking down more and more with landing page quality score and more affiliates wanting to run more offers at once, I feel WordPress blogs are going to explode when it comes to landing pages. Thoughts?

Today I spoke (again) with Commission Junction about why they are over two weeks late for paying out a small four-figure amount.

Commission Junction (the worst affiliate network on the planet) claims that my bank’s routing number which I have used countless times for other affiliate networks, jobs, paypal is not valid. By that logic, the checks that I write to my land lord should also bounce because every one of my checks have the same routing number printed on them. They promise that they will pay me… in three weeks. Are you kidding me?

Since this fiasco I have stopped all advertising with Commission Junction and now just waiting to get paid so I can stop logging into cj.com and wonder if the world’s worst affiliate network will get off their butts and write a simple check. It’s getitng to a point where I am wondering if they are ever going to pay me or whether I should take legal action against the network.

If you are using Commission Junction (or looking into using the world’s worst affiliate network) — stop and use a network that is much more reliable such as Hydra.

Link: Hydra Network - an affiliate network that will pay you

According to CJ.com affiliates are supposed to be paid around the 20th. The 20th was MLK day so its expected that a direct deposit should be made on the 21st.

Today is the 22nd.

I was told by CJ.com that I should wait until after the 26th before I start worrying about whether they forgot to pay me for the month. Are you kidding me?

Hydra Network is amazing. They post online an actual date for when an affiliate should expect their paycheck and pay you on time. How hard is that?

If you’re looking into starting affiliate marketing, or if you’re already an affiliate and not a member of Hydra Network, I highly suggest you join it. The payouts are amazing and affiliates get paid on time (perfect if you don’t have a lot of cash and you’d like to see a fast return — but of course, who doesn’t?).

Link: Hydra Network

Today was the first time I dropped by the San Francisco affiliate marketing meetup (Meetup 202) hosted by the team at Tracking202 for Affiliate Tracking Software.

This was a great chance to meet local affiliates and see the trends in the pay-per-click and social media space. I walked away with some ideas on new tools to develop that will be useful for affiliate marketers (which will be made available for free) and some interesting verticals that are currently being tackled.

There was a decent amount of information being flown around. I was able to teach some affiliates several tricks and insider tips as well as learn some insider tips from others. If you are currently an affiliate or looking into affiliate marketing you should be attending this meetup.

The next meetup will be the first Saturday of February at 401 Bush Street.