Rohail Rizvi

There’s something to be said in this day and age about networks that can give you one-on-one attention. It’s rare to see that now even at smaller networks and it’s something that separates all the run-of-the-mill networks from the best.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think it’s important for networks to see and help their affiliates grow. In effect, each affiliate is an asset and if you’re not taking care of your assets you’re letting your business die.

Profit Kings Media, run by 19 year old Yousif Yalda, is one of my favorite networks and has never failed to address my concerns whenever need be. Honestly, I think there’s been maybe ONE time when I haven’t been able to reach Yousif directly on AIM. This kid never sleeps! Even though I don’t do as much volume as I wish I did on PKM, Yousif is quick to give me a gut check when I need it and is never shy about being brutally honest when I need to do to see success. He’s always helped me out with ad copy ideas and traffic sources, which is important when you’re trying to get off the ground. What’s most valuable is that he’s almost always there to help out. Add to that PKM pays weekly via direct deposit and you can’t go wrong with PKM.

I hope he doesn’t mind me posting his info, but if you’re interested in signing up hit up Yousif directly on AIM at PKMYousif and if you want to learn more about the owner check out his interview with Jonathon Volk here.

Check out ProfitKingsMedia here.

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When we join an affiliate network what are we all looking for? We know the basics, but what about things that we haven’t yet seen networks do. I asked myself this and here are some of the things that I think networks need to do in order to succeed as this industry grows:

1. Transparency of quality – We’ve heard this one over and over, but it doesn’t seem like many networks have made network-wide transparency much thought. One of the most common things affiliates complain about (rightly or wrongly) is about getting scrubbed on an offer. One way to combat this might be to let affiliates know what the pre-determined scrub rates are based on the quality of leads being generated. That or an incentive based system where better quality leads get higher payouts than average.

2. A non-compete promise – Now that affiliate networks and ad networks are competing against affiliates and running offers independently, there’s an even greater need for trust between affiliates and networks. It’s obvious that the affiliate has to create value here somehow, but there’s something networks can get out of this predicament as well. All ethical arguments aside, money is money and there are some networks who are going to steal what affiliates are running. I can’t think of a definite way to stop this other than making sure affiliates provide more value. Perhaps, however, networks can require affiliates to produce a certain quantity of leads through a certain traffic source in order to maintain the non-compete. This keeps click costs lower among affiliates and still guarantees networks a piece of the pie without the elbow grease. Further, it motivates and makes it easier for affiliates to scale.

3. Availability – Let’s lower the number of affiliates to affiliate manager ratios. These days it seems as though even the smaller networks are having a hard time assisting all their affiliates. Either that or hire more affiliate managers. It makes no sense to have a thousand affiliates and five managers when a majority of those affiliates aren’t experiencing any growth. I would much rather have 20-30 affiliates in my network all well-managed and growing than hundreds who are just floating clueless in the water. Seriously, networks are waayyy losing their potential to grow in revenue and quality by trying to grow too fast without the proper support. Sure those tweets with tips are helpful sometimes, but if you’re brand new it does take a little more than that. I’m not saying networks should be holding affiliates hands all the time. But they might want to at least initially if they want to see them learn and grow into independent affiliates.

What are some things you would like to see in your version of the “perfect affiliate network”?

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Hey everybody.

So I’m finally a graduate as of a month ago. Since then I’ve been pretty much enjoying my freedom and more recently cracking down on myself to focus. It’s make it or break it time for me in affiliate marketing. I really have to take a hard look at what I’m doing right, wrong, and whether this is what I should be doing right now.

Time goes fast and I’m already 22. I’m not working for an investment bank nor a start up like I had imagined just three or four years ago. I’m still working hard at being an affiliate and haven’t ever stuck to anything for as long as I have AM. I love the challenge and I love the potential to make a huge amount of money. There are downsides of course like the nightly grind and frustration from having so many campaigns fail after some short term success. I’ve been learning every step of the way though.

The reason why it’s make it or break it now is because if I don’t get a job now and instead wait even one or two years before trying to get one, the odds are unlikely for me to be able to get one at that point. Employers are obviously going to be asking what I’ve been doing in the meantime and if I haven’t done anything impressive in the mean time by chances are pretty much shot (who knows what they think about AM). But in any case, my whole heart is in AM. It’s just hard now getting back into it after an entire semester. It’s like starting from scratch. Things are completely different in the industry and truth be told it just doesn’t feel like the same place it was before. Sure people are still making money here and there, but it’s been pretty quiet on the stage other than the inevitable guru guides that come out from time to time.

Facebook which is where pretty much 100% of my AM has taken place has changed it’s rules almost 180 degrees and especially for affiliates (yet Facebook loves affiliates, right? ) I haven’t had that much trying trying to gets ads approved, but more so it’s the fact that even with CTRs of 0.20% and above click costs don’t come down enough to even be profitable enough with 60-70 cent epcs. I keep asking myself if I’m doing something wrong, but I’m running my highest ctr ads with the highest converting ads. Of course there’s still money to be made on Facebook, but for the amount of time I’ve been putting into it lately and for the lack of longevity, it really hasn’t been worth it. I’ve never figured out how to make Facebook profitable on broad demos, but I’m trying that now – we’ll see if it’s possible. I’m tired of running short term small scale campaigns – it’s too much of a headache for too little of a profit. I need change. I’ve been here way too long to not be hitting big league campaigns now.

Ruck from Convert2Media  recently published a post where he talked about the need to focus on one offer when starting out. That’s partially been my problem as I’ve been very ADD in the past with offers and probably still am. It’s like why waste time waiting for ads to get approved when you can find new ones — but that doesn’t always work out so well. I do need focus and I have been focusing primarily on one offer this month. However, it seems I’ve run it too long already as its being scrubbed from $1.00 EPCs initially to now 60 cents. I guess focusing on one offer doesn’t always work out and unfortunately there are no good offers out there right now to replace this one – I’ve tested them all (if anybody has hot dating offers hit me up!)

I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s books Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant years ago. And in it I remember he told us to focus on building assets and more specifically a system for those assets to self-sustain. I highly doubt that’s what 90% of affiliate marketers are doing and I know I haven’t been doing that. I used to consider campaigns assets, but what kind of asset only lasts a month or two? I know some guys are with sustainable offers like CPS and maybe even some CPAs along with guys building lists which is a definitely a great way to build an asset. But that’s definitely something I see lacking in my own operations that I need to fix. What’s the point of being on the computer 16 hours a day if what you’re building isn’t going to last and you’re not getting to spend time away from your campaigns because you always have to be watching your stats? That’s no business. I need to start seeing that and change my strategy.

So some things I need to consider:

• Risk not getting a job in the future by staying full time AM now with student loans to pay off
• Focus on one offer at a time in a niche that offers several alternatives
• Build a list or some other form of an asset
• Start to scale out into broader audiences if I want to reap greater rewards

What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? Do you guys see yourselves running a sustainable business? Or are you like me and you’re always chasing the next hot offer?

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And where am I? Here -> ?

No. I’m here:

AKA Rainy & not to mention boring Jersey.

But I guess that’s the price we have to pay sometimes as marketers right? Even though I would have loved to go somewhere as its my last spring break as a college student ever. But my friends are too broke, so it didn’t happen.

I guess I finally have more time for affiliate marketing, something I was vying for all of last week when exams were going on. Funny how we no longer want something once we have it.

On that front, I’ve been doing decently well, but I’ve got to get myself off of short term campaigns. For the past few months I’ve been killing it with email submits having easy days of making $1,000 in a day, but they die down SO fast. They’ve allowed for a decent learning experience however. People say they make a killing off of them on PPV, but I’d imagine they last even shorter considering the amount of volume you can get via PPV.

So where am I focusing now? I’m trying to take my last shot at rebills and see if I can ever manage to squeeze something, anything out of the one thing everybody seems to be making a killing off of. We’ll see how that goes. I’m also focusing more on CPL offers and still on Facebook ads even though I’m getting entirely too sick of it. The truth is, it’s the easiest platform to run on especially when you have fb ads manager.

I guess I should take this lack of a spring break opportunity to focus on making my first $5k day happen.  I’ve just been feeling real mellow lately and things have been all over the place. I’ll be done with school in just a few months, but after having come back from Turkey I haven’t really been able to connect with a close group of people. It’s been kinda lonely, but more than that I don’t really know where I fit in. Truth be told only place I feel like I’m around people who get me are ASW and ASE, although that’s not the only reason I attend those events.  The gf is off partyin in Miami, and I should be somewhere too. I need to take a solo vacation or something after school is done. Thinking about going to one of Tony Robbin’s live events in Fiji. What’s worse is after school I’ll probably be living at home doing full-time AM. Guess it’s less lonely than living in an apartment by myself with no one else around.

I don’t know what this is. Consider it a pouring out of the heart or something to that effect.  I’ll post up more about affiliate marketing in the near future and hopefully get to the point where I can write about stuff that’ll actually be helpful to someone. We’ll see when that happens.

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Some of you might know that I’ve been in Istanbul for a few months now studying abroad. I have one more semester left to graduate after this current one and since I REALLY want to be done with school, I figured going to a foreign country for a few months would be a nice way to pass the time and experience new things.

As a city, Istanbul is pretty awesome. There are so many things you can do here and I still haven’t even gotten to all the places I wanted to see in this city after 3 months. Part of that has to do with studying for exams and visiting other parts of the country of course. Turkey itself is a beautiful country and I recently took a vacation down to the south coast of Turkey, which I spent at a nice five-star resort modeled after a Russian palace. It was quite cool. Following that I took a quick four day trip to Dubai and got to explore the desert along with everything else that Dubai has to offer. I have to say that partying directly across the al Burj was pretty awesome. Dubai gets a bad rep, but in my opinion it’s still a fun city with a lot to offer, I guess no matter how much debt it’s in.

Now I’m back in Istanbul with a short amount of time left here. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to ASW, which REALLY sucks because I’ll be missing out on Vegas and seeing all my aff buddies.  Guess I’ll have to wait til ASE.

As far as affiliate marketing goes, I’ve been getting time here and there and launch campaigns and last month in fact was my best month yet surprisingly considering the limited amount of time I’ve spent on it. November 6th 2009 was my first $1,000 profit day and I had a few more high numbered days following that. But eventually I started getting scrubbed and had to pull the plug. No worries, plenty more opportunities to come.

When I come back, I’ll be buying my first car so until then I need to hustle hustle hustle so I can get that 370Z or 135i.  However, I will be in Europe for most of January so we’ll see how much time I can get between traveling and studying for final exams. It is nice though to get somewhat of a break from all nighters and I have to say working less has actually made me more successful. So take that for what you’d like, but make sure you at least take a vacation once in a while!

Talk soon.

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Ugly and bulky enV to sleek iPhone

Finally got around to getting an iPhone. As you can see, I was running with a quite ugly looking phone from LG on Verizon called the enV. It was great for texting as it opened up into a full QWERTY keyboard, but seriously felt like carrying around a brick.

I was kind of concerned about being able to text on a touch screen, but I played around with it on the train ride back from New York after I bought it off some corporate guy down by Broadway (shady phone sales off of Craigslist FTW), and I was really surprised by how accurate it is while texting. Seriously, I thought I was gonna have to hit backspace multiple times, but the only errors made were when I accidently slipped and aimed at the wrong letter.

Now the phone is the 3G version, but it’s only six months old and I got a case with it. The reason I got it really was because I just cannot stand worrying about stats and absolutely must get Stats202 on this thing asap (just got it- this thing is awesome! Stats202 FTW)

The reason I got the 3G is because I can unlock it and take it with me when I go abroad. I’d rather not take a brand new 3GS when I’m overseas. When I get back, I’ll probably sell it and opt for an AT&T contract with a 3GS.

Seriously, even though most people probably have on already and I’m probably the last affiliate marketer to get my hands on one, get one! I don’t care much for all the apps and whatnot, but the luxury of seeing your stats by pulling your phone out of your pocket cannot be overstated.

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Here’s a little Taoism in affiliate markeitng for you. I’ve been reading this book called Silent Power by Stuart Wilde. In it, one of the quotes in the book really caught by eye and made me take a step back in how I’ve been running my affiliate marketing game.

“Striving is leaning emotionally into a goal, a target- yearning for it, feeling pressured by your lack of it- tearing around like a chicken , with its head cut off, trying to get it. That’s striving.

Working is moving relentlessly toward your target, one step at a time, in an organized and disciplined way.”

The book notes that there are three reasons why we struggle and why struggling is not the same as effort. Struggle is not an honorable thing. And the two reasons for it are

1) The goal you are trying to reach isn’t coming fast enough.

2) Your actions are incorrect (wrong strategy).

3) Frustration from having placed a goal into a particular time frame, only to find that life has denied you.

Realizing the fact that I’ve been suffering many of the same symptoms, I need to set a rather medium term goal and have a well-defined method. I’ve been testing way too many offers and I continue to do so in the hopes that one of them might take off. I was consistently making $200-250 a day until this week and it is really depressing to see it all go back to square one again.

So my medium term goal is to make $500 a day consistenly by the end of December 2009.

Further, I’m now gonna take a very clearly defined approach as to which offers I work on and when I test new offers. I think the following will work best for me:

• Focus on ONE offer at a time (if offer is offered in multiple countries, then just one country at a time.)

• Only move onto another country/offer once that particular one is consistently making $100 a day profit.

• Work for a maximum of four hours a day (yeah right like I’m gonna be able to do this one, but I’ll try.)

If anyone has any other tips on how to scale a profitable campaign or perhaps their own specific method on when/how to approach testing new offers, feel free to post them in the comments .

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These are just some of the top apps that I use that keep me on top of the ball whether in terms of productivity or finances.

1. Google Tasks FTW – So many companies have tried to innovate and revolutionize the “to do” list, and of all the downloads and apps I’ve ever tried to replace the sticky note, nothing has come as close as Google Tasks. This little feature is neatly tucked away at the bottom of my GMail screen and the reason it works is because I’m forced to look at it if I want to check my email…which is pretty much all the time. There’s no escaping the to do list with Google Tasks.

2. Mint.com – If you haven’t checked out Mint.com, do it today! This thing kicks ass and beats just about any financial app out there. Forget plugging away at your calculator, figuring out your budget, and how much you spent. All you have to do is upload all your accounts/loans/assets/debit and credit cards and this site automatically tells you what your budget should be and if you’re staying on top of it. It tracks your net worth on a daily basis and makes all sorts of bar graphs and pie charts that make u feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Check it out – Mint.com.

3. RescueTime – Here’s one application that I haven’t used as much as the rest, but I probably should. RescueTime runs in the background of your computer and keeps track of which websites/applications you spend the most time on. This way – if you’re spending too much time on say Facebook or AIM, Rescue Time let’s you know by email and even sends you daily/weekly updates on where you’ve been spending your time. Get RescueTime if you’re at all concerned about productivity.

Do you use any of the following? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Finally some progress! And along to go with it – finally a brand new theme and upgrade! Hope you guys like it.

Right before ASE 09, my AM progress really started to pick up. I’d been in the “dead zone” or “dip” for about six months. Nothing I tried was working and I threw a whole lot of crap at the wall just to see if something would stick.

Fortunately, things are going okay now and only going to get better. I’m now chipping away at my $10,000 worth of PPC debt from failed attempts and stupid mistakes. In fact, I’ve already paid off one of my credit cards just by using what little credit I had left on it (less than $100) by continually re-investing it into profitable campaigns.

Here’s a recap of spend and revenues for Aug. 2009 so far:

Revenue: $4620.23

Spend: $3104.54

Profit: $1515.69

Add SEO/ old clickbank articles: $395

So around $$1900 for the month. Much better than scraping for nickels and dimes in my room to buy a meal from the dollar menu a few months ago (seriously, it was that bad).

Keep in mind this spend involved a lot of testing during the beginning of the month so most of it resulted in a loss. But I will post another one of these probably two weeks into September. I expect it to be a lot better. This is the first time I’ve ever really posted revenue/spend numbers and it’s kind of gut wrenching to put it out in the open, but I think it’s going to help me bring in bigger numbers in the future because there’s no way I’m satisfied with just that. Grateful yes, satisfied no.

I’m really starting to focus on what I’m good at now. Just because everyone is pushing rebills, doesn’t mean you should too. There are a whole lot of offers out there that can potentially make you money and it’s all about just finding that somewhat hidden offer that not a lot of people are going after and killing it.

This marks a new turning point in my AM journey. I went from easily making $100+ days when I started to losing a lot of money and now back doing bigger numbers than I started off with. It’s so weird now – I was in the garage and saw my old burnt out laptop sitting there with sticky notes on it with a big $250 a day written on it. It feels good to reach your goals, but it also makes you want to work harder. I definitely am aiming to see consistent $500 a day profit days by the end of September (hopefully by next week) and most certainly $1000 by December 31st, 2009.

If there’s going to be a rags-to-riches affiliate story in 2009, it’s going to be me .

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Okay so this post is definitely long over due, but what can I say – I learned so much at ASE 09 NYC that I’ve just been cranking out campaigns non-stop and making more money.

First off – this particular Affiliate Summit (my 2nd summit) was made particular awesome due to two reasons.

1) Ian Fernando inviting me to his private dinner.

2) Adam and the EliteProfits.com team sponsoring part of the dinner and balling out at Club Touch.

I have to say that it was indeed quite an opportunity to take part in Ian’s dinner. If you ever get the chance to go, you’d be dumb not to. It was at a very unique and upscale restaurant only a few blocks away from the conference hotel. There were about 20 or so people in attendance including the sponsors and everyone got to share and learn from each other in a great setting. Really gotta give it up to Ian for letting me come through.

Now another thing that made the dinner so great was the fact that Adam from EliteProfits handed everyone in attendance a vintage 2000 bottle of Dom Perignon! I can definitely say without a doubt that everyone was very very happy with their gift. EliteProfits didn’t stop there though. After running into Adam at the exhibition hall, he invited me to come hang out with his crew at Club Touch in VIP. I thought for sure since I was going there anyway later on and he and his crew were super cool at the dinner.
Biz Markee was due to perform there although he made a quick one song appearance…lame. Nonetheless, that didn’t ruin the party for anyone who was hanging out with EliteProfits. Our table definitely had the grey goose flowing all night courtesy of EliteProfits. I think we had the best spot in the club too. It was definitely a good time getting to talk to Adam about AM as well as meet and talk with the rest of his crew.

Later on in the night we got to chilling in the upper level and I got to meet a lot of affiliates I had only read or heard about like Dennis Yu as well as chill out with Ian and Ad Hustler. This is pretty much the point of the story where the rest is forgotten or withheld haha.

I have to say though that it definitely wouldn’t have been as good of a weekend without EliteProfits throwing it down. Up until recently, they had been a completely private network. These guys have been in the industry since the heyday and definitely know how to look out for their affiliates and most of all they actually know what they are talking about. When I talked to Adam I knew he knew his stuff and that he had done it and continues to make stuff happen in affiliate marketing for himself as well as his affiliates.

I highly suggest you check out EliteProfits today and get in touch with Adam. This is one network you do not want to miss out on.

After you’ve done that, check out this slideshow from the party: Slideshow

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