It’s amazing to me that after writing about Split Testing so many different times on this blog, that I still receive email’s daily asking me the best methods for split testing, different ways of split testing, which options work best, etc.

If you’ve ever spoken to me via social media sites or via Instant Messaging for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m not the type of person to say one method is better than the other.  Unfortunately in this business, certain methods work for some people, while completely different methods work for others.  There is no clear cut solution or any clear cut path to follow in order to succeed in affiliate marketing.

However, I received an email about two weeks ago with a very specific question about split testing.  I responded to the person with the same advice I’m about to talk about in this blog post.  The email asked…

I know split testing is important, in fact, from what I understand it may be the single most important aspect I can do in affiliate marketing to influence the scaling process of my campaigns.  However, I’ve seen several methods for split testing and I was wondering which method worked best.  Some sites I’ve read say that you should split test two versions of whatever your testing at the same time, while others suggest split testing one type one day and then another the next day.  Which method do you feel would have the greatest impact on my split testing efforts?

Now, when I started split testing, I always used the A/B method of split testing which means that you split test two variations at the exact same time giving both equal exposure.  In fact, it’s not something I have even really thought about thus my reason for never writing a blog post about it before now.  However, after thinking about it, I felt that it was worthy of a blog post because I do believe there is a very clear cut way of doing it that will yield the best results!

The other, most common, method you see affiliates use is the AB split testing method.  The only difference between the two is that with the A/B method you are split testing both things at the same exact time giving them both equal exposure.  With the AB method you are split testing them at different times, or days.  For example, you may split test a landing page on Monday, document the results, and then put up a new landing page on Tuesday, compare the results and pick the best one.

The downside with the AB split testing model is that unfortunately data can be very different on different days and even on the same day but morning vs. evening.  Some campaigns do really well during the evenings, but horrible during the mornings, if you are running one page in the morning and one in the evening, your better landing page may actually be the one that you are running in the mornings but because conversions suck for your niche in the mornings, it looks like your landing page doesn’t do well at all.

However, if you are using the A/B method you know that both items you are split testing are getting the same exact data.  They are sharing visitors equally and both are being displayed both in the morning, afternoon, and evening.  This insures that you aren’t receiving data that is skewed because of changes in the visitors you receive throughout the day.

Now, as I said in the opening paragraphs of this blog post, not every method works best for everyone.  There is one other method that I’ve found works decent and that is the ABAB method.

This works just like the AB method, but there is one major difference.  You split test landing page one on Monday, then landing page two on Tuesday, however, you then continue on giving each one more time.  So you’d split test landing page one on Wednesday for the second time, and then split test landing page two on Thursday for a second time.

Personally I still don’t believe this is the best method and when compared with the A/B split testing method, I’m not sure why you’d choose it, however, there are some that believe that the ABAB method is the best choice.  In fact, it is a common way of split testing in other fields like Pyschology.  These fields use the ABAB method for most experiments.

Ultimately the choice is yours, however, I’d highly recommend going with the A/B method or at the very least the ABAB method.  Using the AB method is in my opinion simply being lazy and it will impact your business in a very negative way!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Hey Guys, I’ve been receiving a ton of emails lately asking me why I haven’t posted at all during the month of November.  Also, I’ve received a ton of emails this month asking if I was going to do any consultation specials like I’ve been doing.  So this post is to answer both of those questions.

I’ve been around, no where in particular…  I’ve been doing a ton of thinking this month about my online businesses and some other things going on in my life.  Internet Marketing is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I have no plans whatsoever of ever quitting this business…  I absolutely love it!

I also have no plans whatsoever of quitting blogging here on Click Consultants.  I truly enjoy helping others make it in this industry.  However, there are a couple routes that I may take that may change how I do this.  Some will require a ton of change to the way this blog works.

Also, if you really miss me that much I’ve really been trying to use social media more, so look in the sidebar and friend me if you want to stay in touch more!

Anyways, so no matter what direction I decide to take my business this upcoming year, it will most likely affect this blog in a huge way…  I believe it will be for the best and will allow me to help even more people enter this fantastic industry!

I have a post I wrote about A/B split testing that I plan on releasing either tomorrow or the next day, but as soon as I get that post out of the way, I promise that I will write a post about some of the decisions I’ve been thinking about and hopefully I can get some feedback from my loyal readers!

Moving On… Consultation Rates for December

When I first made my consultation services public, I started offering monthly packages, however, if you remember in the very beginning, I said that I would only offer these special discounted packages if I had the time and open spots.  You see, consultations is not my business… it’s brings me in maybe $2000 dollars a month.  I don’t do it to make money, instead I’ve always done it to try to help people.

Anyways, I’ve been pretty busy these last two months, again because I have a lot of big plans for the 1st of the year and I’m trying to decide which path to take and get the work done to get there…

Because I’ve been so busy with personal projects, I had no intentions of offering any special discounted packages for the month of November or December…HOWEVER, because I’ve had so many emails bugging me, I’ve decided to free a small section of time.  5 hours total.  This is the best I could do for both months with my projects and the holidays…

Anyways, so I apologize to everyone that was wanting to get some consultations done during the month of November and December and thought that I was offering these packages every month.  I’m not!  I simply can’t get more hours during the day…I keep praying for more time in each day, but God doesn’t seem to be listening to me

Good News!

Now for the good news, normally I charge $200 dollars per hour for consultations if you view my consultation page…  Every month that I’ve offered special discounted packages, I’ve charged $100 dollars an hour.

However, because I have such limited space and I feel bad that so many people are wanting to get consultations yet I’ve been unable to offer them, AND because it’s coming up to Christmas and I’m feeling generous, I’m offering these five hours at a rate of only $50 per hour.

This is the lowest I’ve ever offered my consultation services!  There is a catch though….

As you guys know, these special packages are not sold as a per hour type package.  Which means I can only offer this deal to two people…

For the month of November and December I’m offering only two packages.  Both packages are as follows.

2 and a 1/2 hours for $125 dollars.

Again, I have two of those packages available, which would be a total of 5 hours.  Normally I allow people to buy as many as they want, meaning that normally someone could purchase the full 5 hours if they want, however, not this time.  Anyone interested is only allowed to purchase one of the packages in order to allow more than one person to get the benefit of the monthly package.

Okay, this post is getting long, time to wrap it up…

One more thing I’d like to mention.  Depending on the route I decide to take with this blog and my online businesses, I will most likely not be offering any special consultation packages during the month of January as well, so if you are interested, I’d suggest contacting me as soon as possible about picking up one of the two packages listed above!

As always, it’s first come first serve… So if you’re wanting to purchase a package, use the contact form to let me know ASAP!

PS: I’ll get the post up talking about the upcoming changes as soon as possible.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The following is a paid review and is completely of my own opinion. If you’re interested in having me review your site or product, please view my advertising page.

A lot of the reviews I get are with companies that I don’t actually work with.  Not that this is a bad thing as I’ve mentioned before, I really enjoy testing out new networks, but it is nice when I get a review request from a company that I’ve either done stuff with in the past and had good experiences or I’m currently working with.  Tatto Media is one of those affiliate networks that I have!

I’ve worked with Tatto Media on a couple different occasions and was thrilled to write up a review about their network.  They have a lot of great offers and features and you definitely should check them out if you’ve never used them.  Well, enough promotion, it’s time to get into the review since that’s what they paid me to do!

Features

The first thing I’d like to mention is the software they use to run their network.  They really went out of their way to make sure the system was built for affiliates.  They run their own tracking software that was built from the ground up, meaning that you don’t have to worry about them using a software like Direct Track that is known for shaving leads, and you can ensure that it’s accurate!

Another great thing about their system is that it was built to be a self-serve platform.  What this means is that instead of having to contact your manager for little small things like placing pixels, you can do all this stuff yourself right from inside your account!  This is an excellent feature that allows you to quickly get your campaigns up and going without constantly waiting on your affiliate manager to do something as simple as placing a pixel.

Also, recently Tatto Media completely redid their reporting and statistics pages which from personal experience I can tell you has made them faster and more efficient!  This is another thing I like about Tatto Media, they are constantly working on improving their systems and are constantly applying new updates to their network.  Some other things I’ve notice them change recently…

• Added a new report called Conversion Tracking Report – This report provides specific lead/sale information, including sub id, tracking info, transaction id, ip address, and payout, allowing you to quickly run sub id reports. While “info” in current tracking links will continue to work, it has been replaced with “aff_sub”.
• Updated Tracking Links – They’ve updated their tracking links making them easier to understand and have added a Source Name  which allows you to specify a name and easily analyze performance in reports that you run.
• Added Tiny URLs – This is something that seems so simple, yet you don’t see many networks doing it.  This allows you to change your long affiliate URLs to something shorter, thus stopping visitors to your sites from seeing long ugly URLs that your own grandma wouldn’t trust!
• Browser Targeting – This allows you to send visitors that may come from a browser that the offer your using isn’t for.  For example, maybe someone pulls up your affiliate site using their iPhone… Now you can send them to an offer that is tailored specifically for an iPhone user which will increase your conversions.

As I said, they are constantly adding new features and working on improving their affiliate system from the feedback they are constantly receiving from their affiliates which is something that I think makes Tatto Media really stand out!

Getting Paid

Tatto Media has several ways to get your money including Checks, Paypal, or Wires.  This allows you to get your money the quickest way possible in order to keep your affiliate campaigns going. There is nothing worse then running out of money when you have a campaign that is successful!  Which leads me to the next thing…

Tatto Media offers net30 payments meaning you get paid once a month, they also offer bi-weekly payments as soon as you build a bit of a relationship with them.  If you’re doing over $5000 dollars a week, they’ll gladly increase that to paying you weekly!

Refer a Friend

Tatto Media also offers a Refer a Friend section to their site and when you log into their publisher system, they put the link right on the publisher snapshot page.  This allows you to grab it quickly and start making money by referring friends to their network.

While I think it’s great that they offer a way to make money by referring affiliates to their network, I will say that I believe their payout is a little low compared with other networks.  They pay 1% of what the affiliate earns that you refer.  Most networks are now offering at least 2% with a couple offering even more than that!  Still, it’s nice that they offer it as once you start using Tatto you’ll definitely want to let your friends know about them and you might as well make some money while doing it!

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that I’ve used Tatto Media a couple times in the past and still use them once in a while now and they are definitely a great network.  The affiliate managers are good, they know what their talking about and it’s a network that really seems to not only help the big affiliates, but also work with building up new affiliates so that they become huge publishers for their network as well.

I would absolutely 100% recommend that you check out Tatto Media.  It never hurts to be signed up with many affiliate networks in this business as you never know which one will have the best offer when you enter a new niche!

Popularity: 9% [?]

The following is a paid review and is completely of my own opinion. If you’re interested in having me review your site or product, please view my advertising page.

I was contacted by White Fire Media  a couple weeks ago and they requested me to write a review of their network.  One thing I love about this business is working with new people and looking at new networks when they pop up so naturally I accepted!

One of the greatest things about checking out new affiliate networks is when you find one that really stands out and does a great job, has great staff, and offer some awesome payouts on their offers!

When you first sign up for White Fire Affiliate Network and log in you’re presented with the a standard looking user dashboard.  It’s actually quite a simple interface which I like.  It doesn’t add a ton of fluff and is pretty easy to navigate.  At the top there are five links, Home,  My Account, Request Offers, My Offers, and Reporting.  In the sidebars there is Featured Offers, New Offers, News, and your affiliate manager contact details.  That’s pretty much it!

One of the weird things though was that whenever I clicked on any of the Featured Offers or New Offers links, I got taken to a page that said “No Offers Found”.  Definitely something they need to get fixed asap!

Again, the interface is pretty simple and straight forward.  It doesn’t seem to have a ton of bells and whistles but I actually think it’s quite nice that a network isn’t focusing on eye candy and instead on their network.

In order to add offers to the My Offers section, you actually have to first go to the Request Offers section.  If you click on Request Offers you’ll be presented with a page like the one above.  It will have the offer names, the average rating, what countries you can promote the offer in, the payout, etc.  Again, pretty simple and self-explanatory which is nice.

Additional Details

I actually had an extremely hard time finding any details about how they pay and when.  This is definitely something that they need to address.  They need to make a page, either include it on their publisher section of their site, or create a frequently asked questions section which lists this and other important information.  It definitely will prohibit affiliate from signing up if they don’t’ understand when and how they will be payed.

Also, they need to include information about whether or not they do wires, if they cost anything, if there is a certain amount the affiliate must make before they’ll get paid, etc.

Payment details is probably the single most important thing that a network needs to have in an easy to find spot on their site!

Another nice feature is that they pay 4% for life on all referrals to their network.  Since I was paid for this review, I didn’t include my referral link in any of the links to their site, but you should definitely take advantage of it!

Bottom Line

Overall, White Fire seems like they have a quick, simple interface with some great offers!

They definitely need to supply some more information for their publisher’s in an easy spot like a FAQ.

The owners really seem to know their stuff when it comes to affiliate marketing and have always been quick to respond to me when I had a question or concern.

They are still in their infant stage, and sometimes this may be the best time to jump on with a network as you’ll get a ton of one on one support from the guys that really know their stuff!

I’d definitely recommend checking them out, and if you have any problems contact Jeff and tell him I sent ya!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Wow, so I was gonna post this early to let everyone know it was my birthday, but I ended up going to the hospital today.  Anyways, so today I turned a quarter of a century.  The big 25!

So why should you care?  Well honestly, you probably don’t!  But I do, and I want all my peeps to wish me a happy birthday!  Wahaha!

So, leave me a comment saying Happy Birthday!  I’d appreciate it!

Popularity: 10% [?]