February 21, 2010 By

I Hate First-Cookie Affiliate Programs

I’ve blogged about my Aweber commission check and some of the strategies I used to generate it, but I forgot to mention that it works on a “first affiliate cookie” basis.

That simply means that the first affiliate to get a click on his link will embed the cookie to the potential customer’s computer, and get commissions for an eventual sale. If the same person later clicks on your affiliate link and signs up, you get nothing because you were not the first affiliate.

I hate this concept, and here’s why:

  • It encourages and rewards non-personal mass marketers (and spammers)
  • It’s totally unfair to the guy who put in serious effort to “get the sale”

Imagine if you’re a real estate agent for a while. You find the potential buyer, show him around the house, convince him that it’s the dream home he’s been looking for. He decides to buy it – though your efforts – but the actual commission goes to the guy who put in a spam flyer about that house into the buyer’s mailbox.

 The argument is simple: The guy who “closed” the sale should get the reward. Not the guys who blasted his affiliate link to every corner of the Internet.

Even if you write a great review about the product (Aweber for example), continuously recommend it on your site etc, you’re not getting all the commissions that you should. Some of your visitors clicked on an Aweber affiliate link somewhere else before out of curiosity, but they were not interested. It was you who showed them why they should get an Aweber account, you sold it to them.

imageFor example: On my Aweber review page I offer a bonus to whoever signs up from my affiliate link on that site. Almost 40% of the people who email me to claim the bonus swear that they clicked on my link and signed up – yet it doesn’t show in my affiliate earnings.

I have to ask them to contact Aweber and manually adjust the commission back to me, which most are willing to do. Without this sort of manual intervention, 40% of sales from that page, based on my effort and content, goes to someone else. Someone who “got the click first” but never actually “sold” the product.

The lesson: Check if the product you’re promoting works on a first-cookie or “last-cookie” basis. If it works on a first-cookie-gets-the-sale basis, you need to offer a bonus so that people who bought from your affiliate link will get back to you, and you can manually reverse the commissions into your account. It’s a little bit more effort, but it pays.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing Tagged With: , ,
January 21, 2010 By

Recurring Income From The Aweber Affiliate Program

Aweber1209

I got my biggest check ever from Aweber, for $1,158.71. The truth – it’s my one year total earnings :)

My affiliate commissions were so low, that I decided to set a higher payout limit because I didn’t want to receive checks for amounts lower than $500.

I didn’t really promote Aweber aggressively until mid-2009 as you can see from the earnings below.

image

Promoting services like Aweber is a lot more difficult that promoting a typical ClickBank “make money” e-book, for a few reasons:

  1. Cash-stricken newbies drunk on the idea of instant riches don’t need (or want) Aweber
  2. Anything that requires indefinite recurring payments is usually harder to sell
  3. You make between $5.70 to $44+ in commissions for the first month, so advertising for Aweber can be tricky and unprofitable

However, the BIG advantage of promoting recurring products like Aweber is that when you have a satisfied buyer, you can literally earn from that one referral for years. I can’t remember if I clicked on someone’s affiliate link when I signed up for Aweber, but hey I’ve been using them for more than two years now.

If you’re thinking or promoting recurring products like Aweber etc, here’s my advice:

  1. Don’t promote them up-front – build your own list or sell your own product instead
  2. Don’t expect much in the beginning, commissions can be really small in the early stages
  3. Promote only the winners – although I sent the same amount of traffic to GetResponse, their affiliate program just isn’t working as well, so I dumped them

So what did I do to increase my Aweber commissions since July 2009?

It’s easy – I created a product called RSS To Email and sold it with Master Resell Rights. The product itself explains how to use Aweber to build a big subscriber list from your blog, instead of services like FeedBurner etc.

It worked really well. I made money upfront (more than $6k), resellers made money, and Aweber made money. Win-win-win :)

You can also get Private Label Rights to that product from PLR WordPress Videos and take it to the next level.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing Tagged With: , ,
January 10, 2010 By

Email Marketing Is Still My Number One Marketing Tool in 2010

Since my Twitter account got suspended, I came to realize that social media marketing is just not my cup of tea. I’m just not genetically designed to chat and talk about everything under the sun.

I’m not alone – even Seth Godin says it’s not for him.

But that does not mean that I don’t communicate with my subscribers and customers. If you’re on my list, then you’ll know that the easiest way to reach me (or my support team) is by clicking on “Reply”.

Let me share something interesting with you:

email marketing

The stats above are taken from my link tracking campaign for Host Commando. As you can see, the conversion rates I get from email marketing are way higher than from my blogs, affiliates.

You cannot get that type of conversion from Twitter or most other social media sites. Sure, you can get a lot of traffic, but the conversions usually suck.

Even by putting the link in email signatures, I got a conversion of 6.67%. And that took me like 1 minute.

Of course, the data may be a little premature, but it’s still a big difference from the affiliate results.

I’ve been telling people for years that they need to create their own email list, and build a relationship with their subscribers first. Twitter, FaceBook or whatever else you use, should only be driving traffic to a page where you can build your subscriber list.

I use Aweber, and I highly recommend that you do too. Or, you can check out the top autoresponders comparison and choose the one that fits your purpose. I also wrote an article that directly compares Aweber Vs GetResponse.

Either way, build a list now. Twitter may be gone tomorrow, but a list is forever :)

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: , ,
May 26, 2009 By

Aweber $1 Trial and Aweber Coupon Code

aweber trial

Aweber Coupon - Watch The Video

Aweber is perhaps one of the most important marketing tools you can have.

It allows you to build a huge list, and communicate with that list like no other software I’ve come across. There’s just one problem – How do you know if it’s right for YOU?

In this video I show you how to get Aweber at just $1.00 for the first month.

Once the video has finished playing you’ll be taken to the Aweber site where you can get your own $1 trial using the Aweber coupon code. During your trial month you can access all the features and then decide if you want to keep it or not. I’m sure you’ll be impressed by how easy it is to use.

On a side note.. If you want to get private label rights to videos like this, plus much more, create your membership account at PLR WordPress Videos. All members will get the complete Aweber / email marketing videos by end of this month, and they can use it to create their own high value products :)

Click here to watch the video

Some other useful information on using Aweber:

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
January 10, 2009 By

Do You Really Use Twitter?

twitter

How many of you actually log in to Twitter and use it, and how many use it indirectly like I do?

I still don’t really understand Twitter. Perhaps there are people out there dying to tell the world every single thing they do an a day-to-day basis, but hey not me. I basically use it as another way to make sure my email messages and writing get read by my target audience.

I syndicate my latest blog posts, and also the latest emails from Aweber, to my Twitter account. In fact I have found over 23 WordPress plugins for Twitter than can help you use the service in smart ways, and still generate traffic to your main sites and blogs.

I have never sent or created a message in Twitter alone. This is how I do it, and you may want to consider doing the same if you’re still reluctant to get started with Twitter.

If you’re looking for a better Twitter marketing solution do check out Viral Twitter Profits.

Filed Under: Social Networking Tagged With: , , ,
October 24, 2008 By

Aweber Integrates Twitter Into Their Service

twitter If you have an Aweber account you would know this by now – you can now send updates on your latest broadcast to your Twitter account.

According to the Aweber blog:

Today, we’re happy to announce that you can now use your Twitter and AWeber accounts together to expand the reach of your email newsletters.

For now, you can only use one Twitter account for all your broadcasts, but there are hints on improving this service is it turns out to be a hit with Internet marketers and bloggers alike.

Filed Under: Email Marketing, Social Networking Tagged With: ,
August 20, 2008 By

Email Marketing In Malaysia

Does email marketing even work in Malaysia, when your target group is 90-100% Malaysians? This article highlights my findings and experience on email marketing in Malaysia, and how it compares to a more international market. Let’s go through the details one by one.

How I Get My Data

Firstly, it’s important to note that when I started out in 2005 my first successful product was targeted to the Malaysian market, resulting in a list that was safe to say, 100% Malaysian. From this list I eventually branched out to a more international market and now I estimate that my email list is only 25% Malaysian although the only was I can track this is by the IP addresses captured by Aweber, my email marketing service. Not fully reliable, but it’s the only tool I have to segregate my list, any not all Internet marketers seem to be able to do this.

I also have several Malaysia-only email list including the one I am trying to build here at InternetMillionaires.com.my. However I cannot say for sure that they are all Malaysians as even subscribers from other countries can be included as long as they find this site, and enter their details using the optin form.

The Data I Analyzed

My Aweber account is fully capable of producing advanced reports on my mailing list data, but the only data I was concerned about was the double-optin rate and the open-rate. When someone enters an email address they are sent a verification email with a confirmation link. If they clicked on that link, it means they performed a double opt-in. This process is crucial to ensure that you build a quality list instead and stops people from abusing your service.

I compared these 2 figures, between my Malaysia-only list and my overall international list from BlogProfit, for the same 30-day period.

Diagram 1: Malaysia-only Email Marketing Subscriber Stats

email-marketing-malaysia

Diagram 2: International Subscribers Email Marketing Stats

email-marketing-malaysia2

As you can read:

GREEN indicates total number of subscribed (and verified), BLUE indicates total number unsubscribed, and YELLOW indicates total number of subscribed but unverified.

As you can see, a vast majority of Malaysians who subscribe did not click on the confirmation email sent by Aweber.As a result, they are never really added into my system. Compare this with the international list (who may also contain Malaysians) and you’ll see the yellow bar is much, much shorter.

In fact, more than 50% of Malaysians who entered their email and name on this site did not confirm using the double optin email.

So although I am getting about 40-60 people opting-in, I get less than half those people finally, since Aweber does not add them to my list if they do not confirm. As a matter of fact I prefer not to add people to my list who did not double confirm, as I hate spamming.

But why does this happen? I attribute the situation to the following 4 factors:

  1. Low Email Literacy – I suspect most of them do not know that they have to look out for a confirmation email. By the time they get to their mail box again it may already be full with other stuff.
  2. Low Email Usage – Some Malaysians surf the web only during office hours. I know when I worked in TM that a lot of my colleagues surf the web instead of doing work, but at home and especially on weekends they are not on their computers.
  3. Email Blocking – Some email address are work emails, not personal emails.
  4. Service Providers – Many Malaysians use unknown email service providers, which I suspect either routes my emails straight to the spam folder and makes it difficult for people to find it. Even common service providers like TM Net mail and Jaring web mail is crap in my opinion. Please use Gmail.
  5. Privacy Concerns – Privacy rights is a new phenomenon in Malaysia. I just need to look at how many times my Maxis mobile provider is spamming me and my friends to understand why a lot of Malaysians have irrational fears about divulging their personal information. I see a lot of them using fake names and email address to get access to content.

Do Malaysians Get Your Email Messages?

Another concern of mine is the open rate for email messages that I send out. For this however, I see no significant difference in the percentage of my emails that get opened. However, I did notice that the response time for Malaysians is much slower that for the overall international list. It takes a longer time for Malaysians to read their emails, probably also due to the factors above.

Improving Your Email Marketing Campaigns

I think with a few changes you can easily improve the performance of your email marketing campaigns:

  • Provide Opt-in Instructions – Give better instructions to people on the sign-up page, what to do after putting in their names and email addresses, as well as where to look for the confirmation email they will receive.
  • Prevent Bad Emails – Send the download / offer to the email instead of on a web page. That way they won’t be putting in fake emails.
  • Be Choosy – Clearly indicated that you will not accept emails from certain providers that handle email very badly (MSN for example) as well as work / corporate emails

Overall, if you’re planning on doing email marketing in the long term, you need a good system like GetResponse or Aweber to handle your email management, because these services constantly monitor which ISPs are blocking emails aggressively, and try to cater to their requirements. In some cases, representatives from these companies are also involved in discussions with email providers to improve their deliverability rate.

If you need a better understanding on how email marketing works, read my older blog post here:

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Malaysia Tagged With: , ,
August 5, 2008 By

Aweber Defines Email Marketing

aweber-stats

I love my Aweber account. Ever since I switched over to Aweber from 1ShoppingCart and GetResponse autoresponders, I’ve seen the service improve both in terms of usability (a lot of AJAX-based features), deliverability and most importantly in terms of reporting.

It gives me total control of my mailing list and allows me to do things my friends on GetResponse seem to have a hard time doing; stuff like sending out emails based on country (or even city), RSS broadcasting features, integration with FeedBurner and split-testing emails.

From the screenshot above you can see how just 4 different statistics can give you a complete picture of my mailing list health:

  • Bounces – How many emails didn’t reach the subscriber’s inbox, probably due to fake email addresses, space limitations, or other reasons.
  • Complaints – How many people report the email as SPAM. I hate those guys.
  • Opens – How many people who received your email, actually opens them
  • Clicks – How many people clicked on links in your email message (I found using HTML works best for this)

In fact the only thing I regret about Aweber is that I didn’t use it earlier. When I made the switch I had about 500+ subscribers in GetResponse and 8,000+ in 1ShoppingCart. I estimate that only 25% of these made it into my Aweber account when I imported their names. The rest will probably never be recovered.

As per standard procedure, Aweber will send a opt-in confirmation email to everyone you add using the “import” feature. GetResponse and 1ShoppingCart, as well as any other reputable email marketing service, have similar terms as they seek to avoid their service being abused by spammers.

This is why I always tell every one I coach to get the best autoresponder service when getting started, and stick to it. If you try to cut costs, you end up losing out in the long run when you switch services. If you cannot afford Aweber, then at least use GetResponse.

A good email marketing management service is perhaps THE most important investment you can make to ensure success in your home based Internet business, so don’t shoot yourself in the foot by succumbing to the illusion of false economics.

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: , ,
July 16, 2008 By

Aweber Introduces FeedBurner-Like Chicklet

aweber-chicklet

If you have an Aweber account to handle your email marketing, you’ll be glad to know that Aweber now has their own “Chicklet” to show off the amount of subscribers you have. Very similar in appearance to the FeedBurner chicklet we’re all used to seeing, plus you can customize the colors too.

Filed Under: Email Marketing Tagged With: , ,
August 15, 2007 By

My First Aweber Affiliate Program Commission Check

aweber-check1.jpg

I got my first Aweber affiliate commission check in the mail today, for $21.54. This brings to my attention a very important message for all affiliate marketers out there – not all affiliate products are created equal!

Some products are always more difficult to sell than others.

My Aweber checks says it all. $21.54 is not bad considering it’s an additional stream of residual income, but considering it’s a tool that most people reading this blog will eventually need, it’s quite lame. I expected to make more sales for the Aweber affiliate program considering that it’s an excellent product, but as I said not all affiliate programs are created equal.

My conversion for the Aweber affiliate program is less than 0.8%. Most of my other products (even some affiliate products) convert at more than 3%.

I started promoting Aweber early 2006 when I switched to them and was extremely satisfied with their service. Here’s a few reasons I can think of to explain my low Aweber commissions:

  • Most of my blog readers already have it
  • Most of my blog readers are using a similar competitive product
  • Most of my blog readers are reluctant to invest in it

From my experience, is extremely difficult to promote these products on the front-end as an affiliate:

  • Recurring Memberships – Recurring payment programs are always more difficult to sell than one-time payment products. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it is!
  • Backend / Support Systems – Things like an autoresponder, shopping cart system, support system etc are more difficult to sell because people have switching costs and they may already be using a similar program.
  • Business Opportunity / MLM – People tend to be more skeptical about MLM opportunities. Plus, each sign-up you make for an MLM program pays much less because of the commissions that need to be paid to your upline.
  • $7 Products – It’s not difficult to sell unless you’re using paid advertising, because the income may exceed the expenditure. Seven dollars is not a whole lot of margin to play around with. The exception is if it’s YOUR product, and the One Time Offer converts well. (Do the maths: at $7 you can only afford 70 clicks @ 10 cents per click before your campaign become unprofitable)

Products like the one I mention above should not be promoted front-end, but they do make a great affiliate products for back-end profits. In other words, don’t do an Adwords campaign or other paid advertising on them. Instead, built your list or blog, or sell your own product and then promote them to your existing customers.

A repeat blog visitor costs you nothing. An email sent to your list is free.

It’s a smarter affiliate marketing strategy!

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing Tagged With: ,