Affiliate Marketing

Being in the position I am in I get to see a lot of affiliate websites when they apply into our programs. I see a lot of bad affiliate sites but what pisses me off is when I see people getting scammed. I can usually tell when these “Make money online” events happen the minute they are over.

The latest variation of scammers have infomercials on late at night where they will not only give you 1 website they will give you 3 if you call right away. Well I can tell you that these programs can give you a million sites for free but none of them will ever make you the money the infomercials promise you. Multiply anything by 0 and you still get 0. Doesn't sound like sending them $27 for a DVD course is a good idea.

There are a few guys (Ben and Dave) that really get on my nerves because they are hurting good honest people. These guys hold actual seminars where they bring in a few people that are plants and they sit next to the new people and tell them things like “Yes we make good money”. While they are up in front of the room being all sincere and showing how to make money online with stuff that doesn't work but sounds good.

They promise that for $27 a month they will give you the blogging software that made them millions and gets ranked on Google better than the rest. The first problem here is they register the web site for you so you don't really own it. They string you along for about 6 months promising that you will make money soon. All that time you are paying web hosting fees to a company they recommend. Hmm I wonder if they get a cut of that.

By the time the average person realizes it is a scam they made like $150. They move on to the next guy and don't care if you ever made money, which of course you haven't. Oh and don't try asking for a refund.

They also seem to change their name every six months. Always in a variation of the same name, just to start over again. After about 6 months people start going online in mass and post about how their system is a fraud. Most of the time while they are running these “Get rich quick” schemes they actually have the top 10 spots for the searches with their name + scam this way it looks legit. There will be videos from others that took the class and in the video they say it is not a scam. There is no way that after you watch the 3rd or 4th video you think it is a scam. It just sounds so good. After 6 months they can no longer rank in the top 10 in the search engines due to all the people complaining and they switch their business name. Sixfigurekit – Sixfigureprogram – Now its called BenandDavesprogram and I will not link to it. They just switched it last month and I don't want to help them with a backlink.

Anytime you think this is a good thing just check with the Better Business Bureau. Just looking at the amount of complaints you can see you shouldn't waste your money.

While their website looks very professional and has a video of them sounding sincere and they show a lot of things like “As seen on Fox news” and some other bullshit that makes them look credible. It is all a bunch of bullshit. Their “As seen on” was because they ran an infomercial at 3am. They were never featured as “news” if they were don't you think they would have videos of that on their website.

On their site they show a picture of them being interviewed by “An International company”  at an affiliate event. They don't even mention the name of the company that interviewed them. Sad just sad! I also saw the company interviewing people at this event. It was set up in a hallway outside the event and guess what they also wanted to interview me but I turned them down. They were just grabbing people as they walked by for interviews.

Oh and the blogging software they give you has been recognized by Google and the new site is usually penalized for it. As soon as Google sees Sixfigureprogram in the css it knows that the site isn't nothing but a thin affiliate site. So even if you did the work they say odds are you won't make a dime. At least not through the search engines. The name in the blogging software changes every 6 months also.

As I was doing research for this scam I accidentally found a page that features their whole program without having to log in. What I found was they recommend what programs to run and odds are they are all second tier so if you do accidentally sell something they get a profit. I read their PDF and it has old information and is as basic as you can get. I wouldn't even waste paper to print it out.

The nice people that fall for this usually get an email from me after I decline them out of the program they applied to. I explain to them what is actually happening and every single one of them sends me back an email saying they guys are so sincere! Yes they are sincere, they have probably both had classes on body movement also. What cracks me up is the guys claim to make millions on the internet but every video you see of them they are wearing the same clothes.

UPDATE April 2nd 2014

FTC has settled the case against these guys. Read about it here.

 

This question comes from David who answered me on a G+ post when I was asking for topics.

If you find yourself getting declined from a lot of affiliate programs that you apply for there must be a reason. I am wondering if the site you are applying with is put together poorly or is it one of the many other things that I generally decline applications for. You may be getting a lot of automatic declines because a lot of affiliate programs only want USA publishers.

It could be that you are applying and you have a coupon site listed in your bunch of sites in your profile. Some merchants don't want to work with coupon sites and having one listed will get you declined. The affiliate manager may have no choice in the matter. Some merchants don't offer coupons and they feel that it weakens their brand being on coupon sites.

To get approved into affiliate programs more often I would only put one or two sites in your profile when you are applying. There is no reason to have 35 half done sites in there. You may think it looks good but after I go in and see the 5th site that is not close to done and hasn't been updated in 2 years odds are you will be declined.

If there is an area in the application like Shareasale has make sure you add something into that box. One or two sentences about what site you will use and how you get traffic is hugely helpful. Just having something in the application gets you on the affiliate managers radar quicker.

I can tell you when I log in to approve affiliates in the affiliate programs if they used the additional information box to put in some information they go to the top of the list. It shows that you are serious  and probably can't wait to put up links and make some money. This puts you ahead of your competition I am amazed that everyone doesn't do this. It is always good to have a leg up on the competition.

Affiliate managers go through hundreds of sites a day and most are either not a fit for the program or have other issues.

Some things that will get you declined:

• Banner farm
• Old non updated website
• Copied content
• Wrong Whois information
• Private registration
• Click to reveal coupon site
• Not having a website
• Using blogspot or Squidoo pages
• Saying your website is Google.com (I love that one)

If all else fails shoot the affiliate manager a quick email and tell him you should be approved and ask why you were declined. I bet you will end up getting into the program. If the affiliate manager doesn't respond then it is a program that you don't want to be in in the first place. Go find the competition and promote them.

If you are serious about affiliate marketing as a business you should have a handful of affiliate managers that you get to know and you work on their programs. Applying to programs hoping you get in will be a thing of the past.

Finding affiliate programs are not that hard, but finding good ones can take a good amount of time. (Good fit for a clock picture)

This is especially true if you are really deep into a niche. Back in the day when I was making new websites there would be a few places I would go to find affiliate programs.

Keep in mind that I am very picky about what programs I would join. I choose to work with honest affiliate managers first and build sites around their programs. I come from a CPS background so if you are looking for CPA programs this list isn't for you.

I have a folder on my browser called “Affiliate Program Managers” In this folder is the clients pages for all the affiliate managers that I trust.

Some Trusted Affiliate Managers:

• GTO Management – Karen and Joel
• ebove & Beyond – Jennifer Myers Ward
• Snow Consulting – Roger Snow
• Affiliate Manager.com – Mike Nunez
• Andy Rodriguez Consulting – Andy Rodriguez
• Growthspurtmedia.com – Liz Gazer

I would also be on their email newsletter list so I am aware of any new programs they may start managing. You can get a good jump on your competition by knowing what programs they are running asap. Of course after you get in friendly with the affiliate managers odds are you have them on Skype so you can learn about new programs quickly.

I would also have the Shareasale Merchants bookmarked as well as the new programs on Shareasale. The reason for this would be to see if any merchants were leaving another network and coming to Shareasale. You can also put these into an rss reader and have it alert you when it updates.

Finding Affiliate Programs Through Search

Of course you can use Google to find affiliate programs. Odds are you can put the product that you are thinking about selling and add the word “Affiliate program” and you will get some ideas. As you go along you can just search the product and click on a few results in the search engines and see what programs the future competition is using to sell their products. This of course doesn't mean that the people they are using is a good affiliate program. You have to do your due diligence there.

You can also look to Affiliate forums to find affiliate programs. I would go to the Affiliate Summit forum and see who is active there and has a forum (Disclaimer I am active there). You can get a good feel from the merchants over there when it comes to who you want to work with.