As you might have read in one of my previous posts, I helped organize a meetup for Oklahoma affiliates.  I would first like to thank Revenue Ads, Ndustry Clix and NDemand for sponsoring a great weekend.  I won’t lie, I was a little butthurt because the Meetup202 guys wouldn’t endorse it because I wouldn’t hold it regularly every 4-6 weeks.

Day 1

You couldn’t ask for better weather on my trip to Revenue Ads‘ office in Oklahoma City.  I got there and got to meetup with Dylan Stout, my affiliate manager, Brandon, Edgar and Matt.  They had catered in Rib Crib for lunch and had all the pop and more importantly alcohol I could get my hands on.  And the most important thing was they had a television ready to rock so I could watch all the freaking March Madness games that were on.  I stayed glued to this tv while everybody showed up and got ready for lunch.  Sorry to everybody I didn’t chat with a bunch.  March Madness is serious business!  Lunch went well and I got to bullshit with a number of guys from around Oklahoma, including one that came up from the Dallas area.

After lunch Murray Newlands gave a pretty informative and broad overview about to get started in mailing.  He also let the attendees know how to setup campaigns and optimize.  If I was into mailing, it would’ve been a lot better for me.  I do believe it was a good overview into another aspect of affiliate marketing that most people aren’t involved in.

Next, my brother from another mother, Ian Fernando gave a great presentation on a few niche ideas on how to market an offer to different crowds using different traffic sources.  You can check out his presentation on Scribd.  If you’re stuck in a rut right now, he has a great couple of ideas you can check out.

Then, Revenue Ads, Ndustry Clix and NDemand all rented us a party bus so we could roll in style to go eat at Boulevard Steakhouse in Edmond.  The food there was nothing short of amazing!  Best steak I’ve had in a minute.  Finally we to Red Pin to get in on some bowling action.  It looked like everybody had a great time.  I say looked like because I was off in the corner glued to the television watching the final March Madness games of the day.  After bowling I called it a night and crashed at the Skirvin Hilton in OKC.  The King Suite is niiiice!  The Lakers blamed a lost to the OKC Thunder on the ghosts of the Skirvin, but I didn’t see any.

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Day 2

Oh man, day 2.  This day started with me looking outside to a bunch of snow, which was a bummer.  But Mike Pacheco from Ndustry Clix cam and picked up me and Ian Fernando at the Skirvin and Kevin and James from XY7.  The plan was to go watch the 2nd round of the March Madness games at the Ford Center in a suite that Ndustry Clix got for us.  So we had to bullshit for a couple of hours between eating and 3:10pm, when they finally opened the doors to allow us in.  Doing this wasn’t an easy task because it was freezing and snowing outside.  We finally were able to get in and start drinking.  You have to be ready to get your drink on during this time.  The NCAA doesn’t allow for alcoholic beverages to be served or consumed while the game is being played.  The cops would literally come around and give you a 3-minute warning on your drinking time.  So before the games, during halftime and between games you better be ready to chug!

Check the empty cups!  Ian even had a sick freestyle.  I’m trying to score this video for all my readers.  I think he might be slated for a guest appearance with the Paper Clique!

The first game made the entire trip for me.  Kansas was upset by Northern Iowa and was the upset of the tournament, so far.  Kansas State held on to beat BYU by 10 or so.  I’ve included a handful of pictures I took from the games below.

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After the games Mike from Ndustry Clix took us to Crab-town.  Ian Fernando, Kevin, James and I murdered some seafood there.  They litterally throw a huge bucket of shrimp, crabs, potatoes, onions and who knows what else on the table and we devoured it like animals.

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Conclusion

I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend from Revenue Ads, Ndustry Clix and NDemand.  Plus, I was able to do some great networking and even picked up a handful of tips that I have already been implementing into my campaigns.

Here’s a great summary video by Ian Fernando.

P.S. – Sorry guys for the lack of pictures.  Kevin from XY7 and Ian Fernando both have a lot more pictures than I do.  I even stole some of theirs.  Thanks guys!

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