CPA News you can Use – Maxbounty, Ringtones and more

2 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 27, 2006 in Affiliate Information  

At CPA Affiliates we try to provide up-to-date information and news you can use. This week has had a few interesting happenings in the world of CPA networks and Promotions.

The first big announcement came from Maxbounty (One of my Top 5 CPA Networks). They will be providing payments Net 15 instead of net 30. Maxbounty will also allow 35 countries to be paid via EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). This was great news for those of us already an affiliate with Maxbounty, but this has also prompted many to signup. Official notice below:

“First, our payment terms are changing from monthly net30 to monthly net15. This means that earnings that you make in one calendar month will now be processed on the 15th of the following month. For example, earnings made during September 2006 will be processed on October 15th, 2006. As a result of this change, you will receive two payments from us in October 2006. On October 1st, we will process earnings made during August 2006, under our old net30 payment terms. On October 15th, we will process earnings made during September 2006, under our new net15 payment terms.

Second, we now support electronic payments to over 35 countries. Affiliates residing in these countries can request to get their affiliate commissions paid directly to their bank accounts instead of receiving cheques. A list of supported countries can be found here http://www.maxbounty.com/help.cfm?id=5. If you’d like to switch to electronic payments, and your country is supported, please send an e-mail with your request to support–@–maxbounty.com.

Finally, you will have the ability to increase your minimum payment amount in increments of $25. This change is being made for those affiliates who have banks that charge them high fees for cashing cheques.”

The second big announcement was that internet revenue was up in first half of 2006. The revenue increasing wasn’t that big of a surprise to those of us in the market but the amount of increase was! Taken from Reuters:

“U.S. Internet advertising revenue rose 37 percent in the first six months of the year, hitting a record of nearly $8 billion”

The third big announcement isn’t a good one I am afraid. It was the noticeable drop in Ringtone payouts by all CPA networks. Maxbounty, Azoogle, CPA Empire, and Hydra Media all had drops in ringtone payouts for Dada and Fly cell. While Thumb play and Mobile sidewalk can be found at higher payouts than Dada or Fly cell, but my experience is that these are much harder to convert. One the flip side my numbers for ringtones are on the rise which is very frustrating when the payouts are dropping.

As always if you have a question or want to leave some feedback just leave a comment below and we will do our best to answer back. You never know maybe we will turn your question into an article.

Easy Money Promoting CPA Offers

No One Has Commented Yet - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 25, 2006 in Affiliate Tips  

I get asked all the time is it really that easy to promote CPA offers? I always respond YES! The hard part is making the offers convert. Unlike Google’s Adsense, CPA offers require a little more effort in my opinion. Not only does the person have to click on the offer they must provide some sort of information or buy a product. So how do you make your CPA offers convert?

1. K.I.S.S – Keep it simple stupid. Many people try to make it complicated and put several steps between the person and the final signup for the offer. The easier you make it for them to input their info the more likely they are to signup. Some offers even allow you to pre-fill information. This comes in very handy if you already have the persons email or information gathered from a newsletter signup or forum registration.
2. Target Target Target – Make sure you target the right audience. Many people assume because they have traffic or buy traffic via a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) that the offers will magically convert (wake up it’s not that easy 98% of the time, 2% of the time you get lucky). I have helped many people tweak their site or PPC campaign to help it convert. The number one thing I change is either they keywords they are targeting in PPC campaign, or the CPA offer they are promoting on the website. There has been many times people were getting cheap teen traffic and trying to convert loan leads or debt leads, it’s not going to work as they are teens. Now you change that offer to Ringtones or Free Ipod’s and the cash register starts ringing.
3. Be Creative! Remember there are 100’s if not 1,000’s of other affiliates out there promoting the same offer you are. Make your offer stand out or catch their eye. I have noticed a few tricks in PPC campaigns. Example – for the diet product Hoodia to get peoples attention and to click on their ad they will put Don’t Buy Hoodia! Find out why Hoodia might not work. Then you click on their ad read up about how certain percent of hoodia isn’t pure etc.. And of course they recommend the best “pure” hoodia sellers and it works, people signup or buy it! 
4. Learn from your competition. Check out other sites that are promoting the same offers you are. See how they are doing. Maybe it will spark a new idea or way to promote the offer. Pay attention where they place banners or text as location can have a major difference in converts. But most importantly don’t be afraid to try promoting the offer via text as 80% of the time text will convert better than banners.

Have a question about CPA offers, Networks or promotion? Leave a comment and we will do our best to answer you questions.

What to do when You are Not Getting Paid by an Affiliate Network

2 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 21, 2006 in Affiliate Tips  

It’s happened to all online marketers at some point in their careers. You find an excellent merchant with a top notch product and a campaign that converts like wildfire. You happily advertise them for months, but soon their payments start to slow down and eventually stop altogether. You’re not getting paid, and no one is replying to your emails. Sadly, getting ripped off by an unscrupulous merchant is almost a coming of age for affiliates.I worked as a debt collector during my college years before Internet marketing became a career, so I have seen and dealt with this problem more than once. There are good and bad ways of handling non-payment issues. Whether or not you get paid depends heavily on the actions you take. Success is never guaranteed, but here are some suggested DOs and DON’Ts to help lean the odds in your favor…

- DO attempt to establish a communication with the merchant and find out if the problem is cash flow, or something else. Not all payment delays result from lack of revenue. Perhaps the company is being sold and the bills are temporarily in limbo. Some companies only pay out when they receive a proper invoice and never received yours. Maybe they have the wrong payment info for you and your check went to an old address. Your first step is to send polite queries through email and phone calls.

- DO register a complaint with the local Better Business Bureau in their city if your attempts at an amicable resolution fail. If you have proof of your claim, the BBB will try to make an initial contact on your behalf to see what’s up. If the merchant ignores the BBB, or still refuses to pay, the BBB won’t pursue it any farther, but just their attempt at contact with the merchant is often enough to get you paid. The Better Business Bureau can also tell you how many complaints this company has received, and what percentage of complaints became resolved (which is a good indicator of your likelihood of getting paid). If you don’t get paid, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing your complaint is registered and will be seen by others who check on this company.

- DO register an online complaint with the FTC if the merchant is a publicly traded company or you suspect outright fraud. Their website provides forms to lodge such complaints. If enough complaints come in, the merchant’s standing as a public company could become in jeopardy, and/or if it’s outright fraud (and you get lucky) an investigation could ensue. The FTC should also be able to tell you the number of complaints against a merchant, and how many have been resolved.

- DO offer to settle. If the merchant isn’t calling you back or replying to your emails, it’s not a good sign and it’s likely won’t see a penny. They are however no doubt reading your emails, so try sending a different kind of payment request. If it’s been over a month or two and nothing works, offer to settle the debts on a smaller amount… some of your earnings are better than none of your earnings.

- DON’T blow your stack. No matter how tempted you are, don’t send an angry email. I’ve learned the hard way that venting might feel good, but won’t get you paid. Ask instead if they are having financial problems and require more time to pay. If you come across as understanding, there’s a better likelihood they’ll open communications with you.

- DON’T threaten legal action unless you really intend on suing them. Delinquent merchants will see your threat simply as a desperate attempt to get paid, and will only serve to put them on the defensive as to why they can’t/won’t pay you. Litigation is certainly an option, but not an easy one. Can you actually prove you generated these sales to a judge who might not know much about e-commerce? You might win your court case, but know that doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’ll get paid. You then need to attach the judgment won in court to some asset. Do you know where these assets are located? Litigation should be your absolute last resort. If it’s getting to the point where you want to sue, try putting the delinquent merchant in a third party collection agency instead. The better ones won’t charge you any up front fees, and only earn them if the claim gets paid out.

- DON’T wait too long before you push for payment. This is of paramount importance. There’s no reason why someone needs a week to call you back, or a month to make a partial payment on the amount owed to you. Push for some sort of immediate payment to show good faith on their behalf. If you leave a message and they don’t get back to you within 24 hours, you’re not getting that call back, so follow up many times per day. There’s a good reason for speedy resolution of debts. The older the debt, the less likely you’ll see any of your earnings. This goes for any collection attempts you make yourself, or through a collection agency, so start asking about missing payments as soon as you recognize the problem. Also know that collection agencies typically keep 25-50% of what they collect, with the higher percentage kept from older claims. I personally recommend waiting no longer than 2 months without any contact from the merchant before you place them in collection, perhaps 90 days if they are at least actively making promises to pay which aren’t kept.

One final piece of advice, don’t work with just one merchant. Work with a handful of merchants/networks and spread out your earnings. It’s much safer that way.

BY: JP Sauve has been marketing online since 1997, and started his own advertising network MaxBounty.com in 2004.
Maxbounty.com

Adsense or CPA offers? Which will make your website More $$$$$$?

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 18, 2006 in Affiliate Tips  

I get asked this question all the time by people:

 

Should I use Adsense or CPA offers to monetize my websites?

 

My response varies but there are some general rules you can follow to help determine which will be more profitable.

 

  1. What geographical traffic does your site receive? If most of your traffic 70% or better is from the United States then CPA’s could be an option. The reason I always ask this is I hear people get thousands of unique visitors daily but yet can’t get a CPA offer to convert. I come to find out only 10% of the website traffic US. The reason they don’t convert is 90% of CPA offers I am aware of are US only! So keep that in mind.
  2. Are there CPA offers available that would appeal to your website visitors? Many people say they don’t know until they join a network. All Networks I have joined (See My Top 5 CPA Networks) are willing to provide a list of offers up front. This way you don’t have to signup to find out no offers will work on your site.
    1. Unsure if the offers would appeal? Check out sites similar to yours or your niche see if they are running any CPA offers. If they are try to figure out from their ads which CPA network it is (most don’t masks their links, although more and more people are starting to). Or you can do a search on Google for the offer and work from the source.
  3. Do you have quality traffic? This Question is much tougher to answer. The reason I ask it as many friends and marketers have tried running some CPA offers, only to be asked by the network to stop running the offers. Why would they do that? Well it uses the same principle Adsense uses except instead of paying less they ask you to stop running the offer. Basically the information/lead your site has been providing to the network is poorly converting or not converting at all for them. Example. Mortgage lead offer – you send them 100 leads but in the end none of those leads get a loan or even a prospect of a loan. This could cause the company to talk with the CPA network to either improve quality or they will stop advertising through them. Then the CPA network figures out who has been sending the “poor quality” leads then either tells them not to run it or asks them to improve leads.
  4. I have majority of US traffic, there are offers that would appeal and my traffic is quality, but I can’t get CPA offers to convert. Well you have one of two problems. Either your site really isn’t a fit for CPA offers or you are promoting the CPA offer in the wrong manner.
    1. Example – a Site that is making 1 to 3 dollars a click from Google’s Adsense may not benefit or be able to improve earnings with CPA offers.
    2. Example- Site is promoting CPA offer by using banners only. This is one of the BIGGEST CPA promotion mistakes. Many people put up a banner and expect it to convert. Sometimes it does but in my experience and many others TEXT works the best. Maybe trying doing a review of the offer or help get your visitors attention and give them a reason to check it out and signup (many offers allow incentives).
  5. I make good money with Google Adsense, I don’t need to run CPA offers. I would be willing to say 9 times out of 10 people can increase there website profits by running CPA offers, not in place of adsense but in addition to. I personally have taken one of my websites from making $1,200 a month to making $4,000 a month just by adding CPA offers. The best past is my adsense profit has even increased slightly since adding the CPA offers.
  6. If you don’t ever try it, you won’t ever know. Many people know that website techniques and placement are trial and error. The same thing goes for CPA offer promotion. Even if you are making good money with adsense there is always room to make more. Why not signup for one of our Top 5 CPA Networks and start earning more as the networks we recommend have proven support, high payouts and most importantly one time payments!

Do you have an idea or question concerning CPA Networks or promotion? Leave us a comment with your Idea or question and we will do our best to try and answer it.

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