Scaling is a very important part of affiliate marketing.  It’s the skill that allows you to take a campaign making 10-15 dollars a day up to 50-100 dollars a day or even more!  It’s the technique that allows you to increase your profits by getting more traffic, split testing things to allow for higher conversions, which increases profits, or whatever else that may allow you to get more traffic or increase your profits.

Most people, however, when referring to scaling are talking about getting more traffic to your affiliate sites.  So this article is about that…traffic!

Once you take a campaign and fine tune it and it’s making money the first thing you’ll get told by 99% of gurus would be to increase the traffic you are receiving.  How so?

Well, let’s say that you are running a campaign in Yahoo, they may tell you to run the campaign in Bing or Google, or maybe they’ll tell you to start using facebook ads, or start looking at 3rd tier ppc sites like ask.com or 7search, etc.

Maybe you’ll get told you should start PPV or run the content network if you are only using the search side of it…or whatever!!!

Now I’m not saying any of that is wrong or that you shouldn’t get traffic from other sources…however, I feel that way too often people realize or are told that they need more traffic and very quickly they decide to start messing with other traffic sources…often times way too early!

Let’s just get right in to it!

You should not move on to other traffic sources until you have exhausted the maximum potential of your current traffic sources.

You see, the problem I see when consulting affiliates is they start an offer, in our example let’s say online dating…  They start running a campaign for online dating in Google Adwords on the Search Network.  After fine tuning the campaign, split testing, etc…they start making a profit.

Let’s say in this example that they start making about 10 dollars a day profit.  They are proud of themselves, yet even more importantly they want to make more money!!!  So they decide to open up their campaign and starting running it on the content network as well…

One small problem…The more sources you start using to bring in traffic to your sites the more separate campaigns (even if it’s really the same as each have to be optimized for each source of traffic) you have to manage which takes more time and eventually what happens if you spread yourself too thin!

If you are making 10 dollars a day from the search network side of Google Adwords, there is no reason that you can’t continue to optimize that campaign and increase the amount your making substantially more.

Before you move on to other traffic sources, even if it’s as simple as running the content network alongside the search network, you need to make sure you are first making the most amount you can from the traffic source you have already got working.

See, the problem is this…too many affiliates get something that is working for them, yet they then want to spend time on working on other traffic sources that they may not be able to get work…Why wouldn’t you increase and milk the source you already have working first?

So while it’s important to use other traffic sources in order to increase your profits, it’s more important to first increase the amount of traffic you are getting from your one source first, in the case of this example, from the Google Adwords search network side.

Your thoughts on this?  What do you think?

PS: Don’t forget that you can join the Click Consultants Paid Affiliate Forums (which normally costs $29.99/month) for free for a limited time!!!

Popularity: 2% [?]

UPDATE: You do not have to send me an email or PM any longer, now every 10 minutes accounts will automatically be upgraded to a free account and you’ll have full access to the forums.  This will all happen automatically it just may take a few minutes for it to process.  If after one hour you still don’t’ have access to the forums, please send me an email using the contact form.  Thanks!

Hey guys!  I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted.  It has been an extremely hectic year so far, that however is a post for another time.  Here are some quick things going on and then for the big news of this post…

First off, I’m back!  I’m going to start posting again on a regular basis, the first couple posts back will mostly be about stuff going on in my life, ideas I have for the direction of Click Consultants, etc.  So if you’re looking for affiliate marketing posts, it may take a few before I start getting back into them.

Also, I know there are still a ton of you that have emailed me asking about One on One consultations and I never responded.  I’m sorry for that, but at this time, I’m still not really taking on any one on one consultations, at least not with anyone new.  I have done a few here and there, but because of time issues I’ve kinda stopped.  The reason it’s still listed at the top is because I do still plan on doing them, just kinda taking a break from them.  If you really really really want to do some one on one with me, shoot me an email and tell me why you think I should spend some time with you and I’ll be glad to consider it, just don’t be upset if I can’t get to you right now.  Lot’s going on!

The Big News!!!

Okay, so for the big news…..The biggest thing I’m working on right now is to completely redo the Click Consultants paid forums.  If you don’t know what the forums are, they are private forums about affiliate marketing that I started as a way to help more people.  I’m redoing videos, articles, screen casts, etc…as I type this…

It will probably take me another full month or two to complete everything before Click Consultants Paid Affiliate Forums 2.0 comes out…I know long name…it will still simply be called the CC Forums   Anyways, one of the things I allowed to happen is basically let the forums die.  I’m not ashamed to admit it…well I am ashamed that I did, but you get what I mean…

So in order to boost posting on the forums again, I’m giving away free memberships for life!!!  Yep, you heard right, you can sign up for the CC forums completely free.

There are a couple conditions though…You must be posting, I’m not saying you have to post like crazy, but if you’re just looking for a free membership to read and take in but not share, then when the time comes that I start charging again I’ll delete your account if you haven’t been posting.  I’m giving these accounts away for free, but only if you return the favor by helping discussion get going again on the board.

As of right now, there isn’t a lot of new posting going on, most of the old videos have been deleted since I’m creating all new ones, however, there is still a ton of awesome free information that will help you get going in affiliate marketing.

So how many free spots am I offering and for how long is this offer available?  Well to be completely honest, I have absolutely no idea!  I guess it depends on how big the response is and how many people start signing up.  I’m definitely willing to at least give away 100 free memberships.  I’m expecting the spots to fill up extremely quick, so if you’re interested, I’d recommend signing up asap and shooting me an email.  You can use the contact form by visiting this page or you can send me a PM once you sign up on the forums.

Why do you need to send me an email?

The reason you need to send me an email is because when you sign up, you won’t actually have access to any of the forums unless you pay for a subscription.  However, since it’s free, simply send me an email with your username and I’ll grant you full access!

REMEMBER!!!

You must have a name signed up and activated (meaning you confirmed your email address) before the system will automatically move your account to the free members usergroup.

PS…

If you’d like to help more with the forums the best thing you could do is send a tweet, post a message on facebook, myspace, etc. or create a blog post letting others know they can join the forums for free and continue to receive the subscription for free for life instead of paying $29.99/month!

Popularity: 2% [?]

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: 9% [?]

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: 8% [?]

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: 10% [?]