As with most industries, there’s a shady bunch in every crowd. There’s always going to be a few “groups” (companies) who tend to shave sales, claim a few sales as refunds, etc.

What can you do? Either suck it up or don’t send traffic to that company again.

The fact is – all Affiliate Marketers are Traffic Brokers. It’s YOUR traffic that YOU worked/paid for… WHY give it away for FREE? You’re losing more than time by doing so…

I’ve been working with one company for almost 2 years now… they were the reason I got started in this industry and left Web Development behind me. They treated me good, until I spoke out about a few shady practices going on. Sure, I could have kept my big mouth shut – but I wanted to warn innocent people I had worked with, and for, about the “practices” going on within their community.

Recently, I notice that my Commissions go up and down — but have NEVER come close as they did prior to me speaking up…

Sure, it could have been coincidence, but I tested to see if it was… and it was not. They were ripping me off. I found out a way to see all of my pending sales, starting a few months ago, and have noticed that I only seem to receive the SMALLEST sales… all of the highest, ironically, disappear. “Refunds”. Sure. I bet.

I’ve been in this industry for a while now, but I also grew up around Business people who have built solid businesses that still exist, even after they have passed. I spent 8 months in Vegas watching some of the biggest con-artists around… so, I catch on when it comes to these clowns.

The easiest thing to do is to switch from one merchant to the next…

Guess what? 9 times out of 10 – you will notice sales go UP. So far, they’ve gone way up for me. Coincidence? Hardly. I was getting ripped off and wasn’t focusing on switching my traffic… or shall I say “re-routing” my traffic.

In the CPA Game, you’ll see this a lot more, I’m sure. So, you’ll see how easy it is to go from one merchant to the next. Not hard to do at all.

Don’t let others screw you out of money. Show them how easily you can screw them out of sales, the honest way… walk away and give your traffic to someone who will treat you with respect!

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »

I’m still getting emails about “what book to buy” or “what’s the best way to learn Affiliate Marketing”.

Look, I’m going to tell you one way and you’re going to hear another way from the next guy… but, here’s my opinion.

I learned 99% of my “foundation” knowledge from Wealthy Affiliate. It’s an amazing program and I seriously thank god that I found it. I really do. It’s definitely worth every penny. Especially for Bum Marketers (beginners and even advanced), thanks to programs such as Rapid Writer (new).

Books to buy? Nothing off the top of my head, to be honest. Everything you need can be read at Wealthy Affiliate… BUT, if you’re looking to save the money because you’re having financial issues – then check out all of the great blogs out there!

For one (not blowing my own horn here, just easy to find) – I have a series called “Getting Started In Affiliate Marketing” that can help you get started.

Once you get the basics down – I highly suggest checking out other blogs such as:

CashTactics.net
CDFNetworks.com
ClickConsultants.com
illeat.com
JonathanVolk.com
Shoemoney.com (general “make money”)
UberAffiliate.com
ZacJohnson.com

There’s just a small list… mostly because they’re my favorites right now. I realize I said Shoemoney was getting boring – but he seems to be getting back on track lately. Good stuff.

Affiliate Conspiracy… is it good?

Simple and to the point. It’s by Eric Rockefeller… NO. Those guys (the entire group… you’ll see if you don’t listen) are well known sh*t peddlers who repackage the same old regurgitated crap over and over with a new spin.

If it smelled like crap in the other box, it will still smell the same when you open the new one! Stay away…

There’s not much to learn from ebooks, to be honest, when it comes to this business. When it comes down to more technical stuff, vtc.com has some great video tutorials for HTML, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, etc…don’t waste time on ebooks.

Lynda.com has great video tuts on designing websites, graphics, etc. check out the University monthly membership program, not the DVD’s… you’ll save a ton of money.

Everything else can be learned for free by blogs or by GOOD, trustworthy membership programs like Wealthy Affiliate, if you’re a newbie. It’s worth every penny.

Once you get going, you’ll figure things out from there and you’ll hopefully get a better understanding of how pathetic the IM niche is and who to trust, who not to trust., etc.

Hope this helps!

Posted by Clint Lenard | 3 Comments »

Sorry to those who couldn’t access my site. Apparently my Host decided to change the name of the localhost on me without letting me know.

Thanks to Nick over at illeat.com for alerting me of the situation!

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

Firefox 3 has been out for about a week now and I’ve had the chance to play around with it over the past few days… I love it. The interface is “fresh”, the Artificial Intelligence thing they got going on is definitely helpful.

I think I remember a function similar to the “search in location bar” in AOL’s old browser? Either way, it’s VERY helpful and I’ve found a TON of sites that I’ve forgotten about over the past year!

I noticed Gmail is MUCH faster, especially when searching for emails.

Now, this is NOT the final release… it’s Release Candidate 1. So, with all RC’s — it may have a few bugs or other issues…but, let’s face it, it’s not IE – so you’re probably going to be fine =)~

Download Firefox RC 1 here

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »

By now, you’ve hopefully heard of prosper202. If not, go download it now!

I’ve used quite a few products, including Xtreme Conversions, but I think this will become the best product out there for Affiliate Marketers — or ANY PPC Marketer who doesn’t want to spend a ton of money developing their own in-house keyword tracking script.

Prosper202 is free… no strings attached. One downfall for those who might enjoy diving into code is that the code IS Obfuscated (Zend Guard) (encoded). But, don’t let that stop you from using this program! It’s pretty awesome, and it’s still a baby!

It’s odd… I’ve never seen something that looks and feels so professional, that doesn’t cost a penny, since Joomla. Honestly. It makes you feel like you’re downloading an expensive program, but for free.

There’s been a few bugs and there’s still a few features that aren’t included, yet, but I believe that most major requests will be fulfilled pretty quickly. Wes Mahler and crew seem to be very professional, very responsible people.

My biggest request is a Developers License!

Having a background in PHP, I’d love to be able to try to add-on to the program if and when I find something that’s missing.

Keyword Tracking programs are usually VERY expensive. Xtreme Conversions is actually a pretty damn good and quite cheap (compared to other programs costing MUCH more, which provide less functionality) program, but I’m not sure how often it gets updated?

So far, it seems as if Prosper202 is already on the same level, yet it has a much more “at home”, professional feel to it.

I’m still playing with this script, but so far – I love it for many different reasons.

Download Prosper202 for free — or try their Hosted Version at Tracking202!

UPDATE: I just had someone ask me about the difference between TRACKING202 and PROSPER202…

Tracking202 is a hosted PPC Affiliate Tracking system (they host it, you simply sign up to their system and don’t have to worry about paying for hosting, installing the script, etc).

Prosper202 is the same system as Tracking202, but YOU host it on your own server, install it, update it, etc. (simple to do, but you either have to do it all yourself or pay someone to do it).

Posted by Clint Lenard | 2 Comments »

I found out about this program a few days ago and I find it to be a very good product, yet it makes me feel very uneasy.

The code is obfuscated and it leaves me wondering how “safe” it really is. I didn’t want to use Tracking202.com because of the same issues (trust), and I’m wondering if it’s going to be a problem to use THIS version.

It would be very easy to send information from one server to another, including Keywords that are converting, along with any other valuable piece of information you might be storing.

I’m not calling Wes Mahler a thief, but I’m curious as to WHY the code is obfuscated. I’m also curious if I’m the first person to blog about this… the fact is – Affiliates who have success with certain campaigns tend to work A LOT of hours on those campaigns, yet it would only take a few hours to quickly copy the same campaign (actually, MUCH less if you already have another script to automate the biggest tasks) if you were to be given that information via “hidden code”.

Has anyone tried to decode this script just to check it out? I’m curious.

Again, I’m not saying Wes Mahler IS doing this (although, it would be VERY easy to do so) – but I don’t see why all of the files are using obfuscated code…

Posted by Clint Lenard | 5 Comments »

I’ve been MIA over the past few weeks, as you can see. But, I’ve been around.

I have been really busy with different stuff, so I haven’t really felt like writing anything on the blog lately.

You’ll be seeing more posts from me next week, but not much over the next few days… just wanted to let people know that I am still alive and breathing!

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »