Gotta give a shoutout to all the Affiliate Networks that sent me a gift this holiday season.

Convert2Media sent me a nice little box of goodies.  It included chocolates, crackers, smoked salmon and more.  I wasn’t expecting anything from these guys as I’m not a super affiliate and this a helluva network.  Anytime I’ve got questions I always hit up my AM over there, Mike.  He’s always letting me know of new offers that they’re getting that I might do well with. I’ve included pictures of the assortment below.

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Profit Kings Media also sent me a nice little Dockers wallet.  Yousif is the man. Just re-read my previous posts about them, Free MacBook Air from Profit Kings Media and Another $1,000 from Profit Kings Media.  I can’t say enough about PKM. There are pictures of the wallet below.

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So, again thanks C2M and PKM for the Christmas gifts.  They’re much appreciated!

In regards to my previous post, I feel I need to make a follow-up post.  I obviously made a post before thinking.

I received a phone call from Azoogle wanting to make sure we’re on good terms.  I mean I’m pushing some traffic their way, but I’m not a 6-figure affiliate by no means.  The phone call was mainly to make sure I wasn’t have any problems with my affiliate manager and I’m not.  I was just a little upset at the time and should’ve never made that post.

However, I won’t delete it.  I feel that if mistakes are made, that person should own up to it and say I’m sorry.

So to the network owners, my AM and the fellow I just got off the phone with, I wanted to give an official apology to say I’m sorry and that previous post was made out of haste.  There are no hard feelings towards you guys, I will continue pushing traffic your way.

P.S. For those wondering, I’m leaving names out of this for a reason.  I never wanted to call anybody out.

My affiliate manager at Azoogle really pisses me off.  I contact them saying hey, I’m pushing volume with a certain offer with another network.   Can you beat their payout?  I only asked this because I had ran a decent amount of traffic their way with this same offer a couple months ago.

Her reply was show me your creatives, tell me how you’re promoting it, etc…  I politely tell her to fuck off.  I know this advertiser has their own in-house marketing team and that’s the last thing I want to do is show them my creatives.  As you can guess I didn’t get my payout bump.

A week passes and a few thousand dollars later she emails me saying the advertiser wants to know the exact details of my campaign so I give her something a little similar but not even close to what I’m running because they want to make sure I’m promoting it legitimately.  I felt like I had to do this considering its my best offer right now so I did what I did. Of course her replies were very prompt here.

Then an hour passes and I remember our past conversation where she asked for my campaign details in order for me to be given a substantial payout bump.  So I remind her about getting that payout bump now that I’ve revealed my campaign details.  Haven’t heard from that bitch since.

I fucking hate Azoogle.  But if them bitches pay me, I’ll push traffic their way.  Talk about a cut-fucking-throat industry.

One thing that really disturbs me is when people come to you for advice about a subject you have demonstrated knowledge about and completely ignore it.

Let’s take the most recent occurence for example.  A friend comes to me and says my computer crashed what can I do.  How can I fix it, how much will it cost, etc…  My first question is do you want to save the data on your harddrive or not.  Of course they do.  I suggest they buy a $50 Western Digital harddrive and let me borrow their computer for an evening or weekend and I’ll fix it free of charge.

Couple days later they call me asking what is the difference between a netbook and a notebook.  I explain. And we talk about talk about the pro’s and con’s of both and what they will be using this computer for, blah blah…  They finish the conversation by stating that, “I don’t know, I’ll just give it to ____’s husband.  He can fix it for me.

Um, didn’t I just offer to fix it for free?  You either want your data (which will cost $50 for your new harddrive, but you’ll have an extra one when the computer is running again) or you don’t and I can fix that in an evening no problem.

Man that pisses me off.

/rant

I would like to make a post to all thank all the veterans in the country that have given their life, a limb and/or their time so that I can have the freedom that I have today.

My stepfather is a Vietnam Veteran and he makes it an absolute point to walk up to every person he notices wearing a Vietnam hat, Korean War hat or whatever it may be and thank them for their service.  He hated being drafted and sometimes doesn’t even mention that he served, he just wants to tip his hat and say thank you every chance he gets.  I wish I could be half the man that he his sometimes.

So once again, thank you to all the past and current Veterans.  I cannot thank you enough for the opportunities that you’ve given me.  One of my favorite quotes ever is, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.  If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.”

After watching the TV202 interview Wes did with Ryan Pamplin from Ryactive it dawned on me that reading WickedFire is killing my productivity.  I have to stop it.

I find that anytime I become bored or just want to find something to do I head over to WickedFire and check out the new posts.  This is holding me back.  I need to start doing more and reading less.

I’ve been busy buying domains and starting too many damn projects lately.

I’ve started two different PPC campaigns which aren’t fun to do research for and setup.  This will include researching and buying a domain name, researching keywords and setting up the landing page.  Hopefully they will pay off.  I’m trying out a tried and true product that some people are banking off right now.  The next campaign is for an exclusive offer that has the highest EPC I’ve ever heard of.  Plus, it doesn’t look like there’s much competition and I’m hoping it’s gold.

I’ve been slacking off on updating this blog lately.

I’ve been trying to upload some videos to my YouTube and Myspace accounts to generate some traffic to a ringtone site.

I’ve been trying to get one of my video sites working properly and some traffic generated towards it.

I’ve been busy trying to maintain and tweak my Facebook and Myspace ad campaigns.

Plus on top of it all I have an 8-5 desk job every day.  For those wondering, yes, I’ve been doing a lot of my affiliate marketing work during my down time at work.  See my previous post about how I manage my time.

I’m reading forums daily and some people’s blogs to see what’s going on in the world of other affiliate marketers who I consider successful and worth keeping up with.

Not to mention I do have a social life!

Like Wes Mahler says, you only need to focus on one or two projects at a time.

Time to get back to work, peace.

When I first started affiliate marketing I figured I would buy one generic domain and setup multiple subdomains.  I figured this was the most cost effective way.  I was right, it was cost effective.  But that’s about it.

If you ever wanted to build up a mini site and sell it, get a domain.  For what it’s worth, I use GoDaddy for my domains.

In the past two weeks I’ve doubled the amount of domains.  Theyre like virtual properties, literally.  Don’t waste your time buying anything but .com’s.  You could get lucky and find the right domain and it be worth hundreds or even thousands in a year’s time.

I made a post over at WickedFire asking what everybody’s expectations of their Affiliate Manager is. I’ve copied my exact post below and I’ve also linked to it here.

What are your expectations from your affiliate manager?

Mine are simple.

1. Timely responses. I HATE waiting a few hours for a response, let alone 24 hours. Anything over 4 hours is unacceptable in my opinion. And I hate waiting for anything longer than 2 hours when it comes to this business.
2. Network/AM as a whole. I want to hear any changes from them concerning the campaigns I’m creating leads for, such as payout changes, rules/requirement changes, etc… BEFORE they happen. A few hours notice would be sufficient so I can make changes accordingly.

I don’t feel that’s too much to ask.

What are your expectations?

I know many network owners and affiliate managers have read this post. Chime in on the post or in my comments if you would like your thoughts to be read.

A lot of you may be asking how I manage my time considering I’m currently 25 years old, work full time

and obviously have somewhat of a social life.

Monday thru Thursday:
I have my daily grind to take care of. I wake up by 7am and I’m at work by 8am. I work til 5pm with a 1 hour lunch. I usually don’t take a lunch and try to get in some research and possibly compose a draft for a blog. By the time I get off I like to have put in about 1.5 hours of research and/or work by the time I get off. I’m home by 6pm and usually eat dinner by 7. This gives me about 2 hours to work between 7 – 10pm. I like to watch House and Criminal Minds on Monday and Wednesday so that takes up some of my time. With that said, I’m in bed and trying to sleep between 10 – 11pm so I can get my 8 hours of sleep. I need my beauty sleep.

Friday:
I have my daily grind to take care of. I wake up by 7am and I’m at work by 8am. I work til 5pm with a 1 hour lunch. I usually don’t take a lunch and try to get in some research and possibly compose a draft for a blog. By the time I get off I like to have put in about 1.5 hours of research and/or work by the time I get off. If I decide to go out tonight I won’t get in any extra work during the evening. If I do get to work, I usually put in 3 hours of work sometime between 7 and 11pm. I like to keep my evenings free, plus I like to watch Numbers on Friday night if I don’t go out.

Saturday:
I take it pretty easy as well. I usually put in 4 – 6 hours of research and work today. I’ll wake up around 9am and do work from from 10am – 4pm. I play soccer on Saturday evenings and like to go out with my friends so I try to leave my evenings free to do whatever I please. Saturdays I usually crash out after partying or after my soccer game. The games are pretty late and I don’t leave the bar til last call so I pass out anywhere from 12am – 3am.

Sunday:
I take it pretty easy, I put in another 4 – 6 hours of research and work today. I wake up around 9am. I usually put in my work from from 10am – 4pm. I leave the evenings free to do whatever I feel like doing. I usually crash between 10 – 11pm.

So I calculate that I put in a minimum of 19 hours and a maximum of 33 hours weekly. Let’s just say I work an average of about 25 hours weekly.

Oh and it helps being caught up at work so you can do work on your IM projects during your down time!