CPA Network

“Hey, what exactly do you do at work? Because right now, I don’t get it.”

Someone said that to me the other day, someone I consider to be pretty intelligent. Once I realized this person was asking me this question AFTER I attempted to explain what I do, I decided I should put it “in print”. If this post still leaves you wondering what it is an Affiliate Manager does, don’t tell my boss cause he might start to wonder if I actually know.

So I figure the best place to start is at the beginning.

Before I was ever given this position I was told to read up on something called a “CPA Network”, and of course my initial assumption was that this company dealth with finance (which I know little about, but was willing to learn if I had to). So of course my research library was populated by those great people over at Google, and when I received my information on what a CPA Network was, I was completely taken by surprise. Now, I have a degree from a good school in which I learned about all kinds of different levels of marketing, business, finance, law, and many other subjects. I’d like to know why it is that I wasn’t informed about the vast world there is in Internet Marketing, one of those topics would be CPA Marketing (Networks in particular).

So here’s my 2 month evaluation/ explanation of CPA (Cost Per Action) Networks. There is a huge internet world out there that is encompassed by a large amount of people that either send emails, blog, or any other variation of things that we all do online, but they make money from it. These people are referred to, from here on out, as Affiliates. A CPA Network has two sides to it. There is the Advertiser side, where people who have a product to sell come to “us” and say “Hey, I have this product and would like to advertise it through your Affiliates”. So they give us items which, in the business (I’ve always wanted to say that), are known as Creatives. These creatives take the form of a linking banner (as soon on many websites you’ve been to I’m sure), Emails, text ads, HTML (which I have the pleasure of working with having no background knowledge, and it is a foreign language). So once the advertisers give us their creatives, we put them into our back end system.

Now the other side of the Network idea. The Affiliates come in through a different “door” than the Advertisers. These Affiliates come in and talk to ME. They apply to our network, I contact them making sure they are a real person and they aren’t going to cause any fraud to enter our network. After we have made sure they are a good fit for our network and they are approved, I then make sure I keep in close contact with them to make sure they have everything they need from our Network to make as much money as possible. They get paid every time they sell something for the advertiser, and get paid well I might ad. I can now see how people make a lot of money online, cause I’ve literally seen it happen.

So in a nutshell a CPA network is the bridge between the people who want to sell something, and the people who want to make money selling it for them. It’s an idea that gets overlooked easily, but performs well regardless. In a CPA there are people who put campaigns together for the Advertisers, and there are people who assist the Affiliates with anything they need. Turns out, i’m two people where I work because I do both of those things on a daily basis. That comment isn’t meant to be taken as a complaint, I enjoy being busy and involved with what’s going on.

So hopefully that explained the basics of what Affiliate Management is, VERY short description seeing as it took me 2 months to get where I’m at and still don’t know 1/10th of what I will by next month. So if you have anymore questions as to what I do, or how to make some money online, or just can’t honestly make sense of what’s been rambled on this page, feel free to comment on it.

Direct/ Internet Marketing…anomaly?

Working in the vast field of Internet Marketing got me thinking about odd statistics that make sense, but PROVE failure. We can all agree that on an average you are considered a D student/ unsuccessful if you are only correct 60% of the time. That being true does anyone else find it odd that in Direct Marketing you can be a success with a 1% conversion, or capture? I mean…you failed 99 out of 100 times but that campaign will be considered a success. If you found a way to get to 3-4% percent it’s considered an anomaly. I’m not sure if I’m confused by this or just more intrigued. I’ve never been one to set myself up for failure, but working in Direct Marketing, and Internet Marketing (which throws the same success rate at an Email campaign) I see this on a daily basis and it’s just very interesting that people get excited about something that could be considered a failure. I understand that marketing and in the business world, percentages are looked at differently. I’m just wondering who was the one that said, “In class, 90% is true success, but in marketing…well 4% is amazing”. I’d like to meet that guy.

I also find it interesting when I hear people mention the 80/20 rule. My understanding of this is that people assume that 20% of their clients/ employees generate 80% of their business and vise versa. I guess the 80% of your clients/ staff HAVE to be around to motivate the 20% that actually do stuff, otherwise why are they around? I see the connection, if you fire that 80% then you won’t fit into the widely accepted 80/20 rule making you an anomaly. Here’s your exception…Say you have a company of 2 people? Ok…I’m digging there but I just don’t understand the 80/20 totally, and maybe it’s because I’ve always worked hard and I’ve seen the 80%’ers in my companies and can’t stand seeing them get paid the same for not doing anything. As a side note, I suggest that if you look at yourself and make sure you aren’t one of the 80% generating only 20% of the revenue because in these times…you might be out of a job.

Yet another interesting numbers tie in…If I told you I could do something well one out of every three times I tried, you’d probably say I was bad at what I was doing because that’s a 33% success rate. Now what if I told you I was a baseball player? This is when I’d laugh at your opinion while I polished my plaque hanging in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Since Ted Williams not one single baseball player has had success 4/10 times they see the plate. We’ve been close, Chipper Jones the most recent when he won the batting title at a .370 clip…this makes him the best failure of last years baseball season. What is going on?

I think all this does is prove that we definitely employ the opinions of the majority. Which, in turn would make us a Democratic society…but still odd. People say numbers don’t lie, but when we are able to change what the numbers mean, doesn’t that mean that we are making the numbers lie? “You have just entered the Twilight Zone”. Sorry, just thought about those words and I lost focus for a second. But back to topic…I’d like to see what you think about these statistical anomalies? Why is it ok to accept a 1% conversion as alright in direct marketing but really nothing else, is it because someone said “the best we’ll do is get 4 out of every 100 people to take action with this, EVER.”, because I think that if what you are doing is targeted and is actual value you can reach higher percentages. If you are selling something to someone that you KNOW can ease their pain and increase their pleasure, why is 1-4% ok?

That’s all…just thought I’d air that out as some food for thought while you celebrate your Cinco De Mayo…and do yourself a favor and stay away from that swine flu stuff…I’ve heard nasty things.

Landing Pages-Conversion/Sales

Recently I read the book Landing Page Optimization by Tim Ash, great read if you are interested in creating a website that converts, but it got me thinking a bit deeper into my own ideas and examples for landing pages. For most people reading this article, you probably know what you want your website to do, and work non-stop to find new ways to get your visitors to convert (or take one specific action). Conversions can happen in so many different forms it’d be hard for me to even attempt to explain how they differ in the actions you should take on your Landing Page, or mission critical pages. I would; however, like to voice my opinion on some things that could help make your landing page a bit more user friendly (remember, this advice is worth what you pay for it, but in all reasonable ways I believe it makes sense).

When designing your landing page there are a few issues to keep in mind from “jump street”. Issues like; what the end action you want this user to take is, what information you want them to retain when they leave, should you be seeing multiple purchases from this person, would you rather them buy multiple low cost items or one high price item, how can you use this users information to create more revenue in the long term, just to name a few. I think one of the most important things to remember is that if a viewer doesn’t feel comfortable they will not be likely to purchase from you. To remedy the comfort issue you COULD create individual landing pages that will gain their trust based on marketing form (ie. women would feel more comfortable with certain language and images then men would). However when you drill down and need to get your main sites landing page I think it’s ok to assume you are marketing to everyone (within your targeted realm of the internet). So if you are marketing to every person who is in the “market” for your information/ product you might assume that certain issues affect everyone, such as: the economy, the weather, etc.

If looking at how the economy can effect peoples decision making it’s an open and closed case. Right now most of the people out there are going through rough times, either lost their job or are walking on egg shells not to. Comforting them into feeling as though you aren’t going to break their wallet, and that you understand their pains will make them feel like they aren’t the only ones and creating that sense of belonging is very essential to performance. My main message in this section is remind most of you of something you already know, to stress the issue of belonging. If you visited a website and felt out of place, you would be MUCH more likely to leave that webpage and go back to your google search (most likely where they came from) and go to the next advetiser in hopes that this website will see purchasing the way you see it.

My example of weather just fits into the psychology of people. We all realize that marketing isn’t easy and that there are thousands of different forms of media and designs you can use to create comfortable atmosphere for your clients. However, one thing that I’ve seen getting overlooked is seasonal changes. During certain times of the year people are looking for different items. For example, you might want to take that nice jacket off the featured items list come June (if you are marketing to the majority of the US population at least). We can even take that as far as saying that the emails you run, banners your create, and keywords you bid on SHOULD be different judging on the time of year.

In a nutshell I believe that when creating a landing page there needs to be a decent amount of time and effort spent on making the visitor feel like they belong, and when promoting your website try to update based on as many factors as you can as time changes (holidays, weather, economic issues, popular fads, etc.). I think just by using those forms of insight you might be able to add some success to your daily routine because I feel like those two issues sometimes get lost in advertisers trying to sell too much. In times like we are seeing now we have to be very aware of social issues and adapt to the end users, don’t make them adapt to you. Most of these points can be found in different vernacular in the pages of the book I mentioned above, this was simply my blabbing about some things I’ve noticed along side of that information.

Social Media; I’m in…

Absolutely Incredible! That’s the only way I can really describe what is taking place in Social Media right now. There are a couple of companies that have been absolute GIANTS in the industry for quite some time now (Google, AOL, MSN, Yahoo: the trend seems to be search engines), and each of these companies are doing there best right now at either: A. Acquiring social media platforms; B. Creating Social Media platforms; or C. Attempting to recreate the existing user interface to feel more like social media. I can’t say that I disagree with their ideas, after Facebook decided it was going to capture 1/10th of the entire internet population it seemed as though you have to meet that demand for easy access to OTHER PEOPLE.

Recently I have been reading a lot about how sites like facebook and twitter plan on adjusting their business plans to create an easier UI, or just become more entry level friendly. In facebook’s attempt at doing so they basically copied Twitter (can’t blame them, twitter is taking off like the Florida fires of ‘98 and has no business model, oh well). No need to worry though, where there is one copycat, there is another. Just today I read an article on AOL has plans on implementing an idea it’s been designing that will be very similar to that of facebook. AOL just recently purchases a social media outlet and is already attempting to “test” it currently. It basically is just a way that will connect AOL users to OTHER AOL users like a facebook newsfeed.

With all of this social media buzz going around I just wonder how long it’ll be until someone designs a WELL done one stop application to serve all of those needs. Something that won’t take up me Start Menu toolbar (ie having AIM open, facebook, linkedin, twitter, etc). Why doesn’t someone come up with an idea for a system that will put all of those things in one toolbar that can sit on the right of my monitor. I understand there are buddy list consolidators but nothing that will stop me from having open windows for facebook and twitter. Oh well…it’ll happen and I’ll be in line.

Social Media…what a concept. Soon enough I will be using those resources to make money also…I’ve seen it done. We should start teaching social media marketing in schools (college). The online game gets left out of TOO many college level education these days. In a hurt economy the internet is something that can still strive and still needs employees to serve, so let’s teach our youth THOSE skills. Just a thought…

Facebook Advertising made easy…

…Have you made money with FACEBOOK yet?

We here at the Offeratti are ready to help you. If you think about it, Facebook is organically an Internet Marketers dream world; it is composed of 175 million ACTIVE users (“If Facebook can continue at this pace, the company should easily surpass 300 million users before the end of the year, which is approximately 20% of the total Internet population,” says an employee of Facebook) that are just begging to buy product, and allows us to target extremely specific criteria. If you are looking for a wide audience, a way to get in touch with people in other countries (Facebook is composed of 70% foreign country users), or a way to take advantage of an incredibly simple CPC campaign, Facebook now has your answer.

There are so many different ways to take advantage of this system and we are working at perfecting the road to that goal as we speak. We want you to be able to take advantage of every heavy hitting idea that is out there, and this is for sure your opportunity. It’s a proven fact that people have already made MILLIONS using Facebook ad’s, don’t miss your opportunity to make your millions.  Let us help you make money using this program.

Learn more about this!

As you can see here, with just 5 different keywords we were able to market a product to over 507 thousand people. Imagine if you used keywords like “money”, “work”, or “employment” during a slumping economy. That is one of the reasons Biz Op is as hot as it is right now, because people need extra money and they are willing to make small investments to potentially earn big dollars. Let’s Take Advantage of This Tool!!

 

We can walk you through how, with our Monetized, Optimized, New Offer Keeping (Monk) tested campaigns, you can combine The Offeratti Network and Facebook to generate the type of income you deserve.

It’s as easy as giving us a call. We’ve always said we wanted to hear from you, well now that we have this to share, you definitely have a reason to call. This is not a gimmick, and it is NOT something every network will be offering you. We want to develop our relationship with you, and all we need to get that rolling is the first phone call. So we will be waiting by our phones in hopes that you call asking us how YOU can benefit from Facebook the way that SO many other people already have. 

Student loans…

I would like someone to help me figure this out…

I am in a fortunate situation, I am not one of the thousands of people who have a college degree and cannot find stable work. That being said I am still not happy about the fact that my generation is finding ourselves in one of the worst situations yet. Yes, the economy as a whole is not as bad as it’s been in the past. For the most part there probably aren’t too many recent college grads that are living on the street, or waiting in the soup line to be able to eat. However, I would like to express that when America was going through the Great Depression the college grad rate was MUCH lower. So now we are being told that in order to get a good job, you must have a degree. In order to get a degree we are having to put ourselves in MASSIVE debt (not just tuition, but credit cards to be able to buy groceries while going to class full time, because there just are not enough jobs in college towns to employ everyone who needs the help). 

Am I saying not to get a degree? Absolutely not! I learned SO much in college and feel like I spent some of the best years of my life getting my education; however, it’s a known fact that up to 80% of college students leave their school with debt up to $15,000. 

So basically, what it all boils down to is this: We have to go to college to get a “good job”. So we do, we go to school and take on a sizeable amount of debt. When we graduate we have a degree and no experience. When the economy is tanking the way it is employers are looking for experience (if looking at all) and not a degree. So now we are in debt, and find it almost impossible to find work. Six months later, we are having to pay back these loans. 

Oh don’t worry, if you can’t afford to pay your loans back, they will let you put them in forbearance. For those who aren’t clear on what that means, it’s basically making it so you won’t have to make any payments for a short period of time.Good news right? Not necessarily because the loands do still acrew interest so when you DO start paying them back (once you’ve gotten your job, IF that happens) you will owe more. 

Another issue I have with the education system is that if you go to a “good school” you get more financial assistance in the form of grants and scholarships (you don’t have to pay these back, convenient). So if you go to a more expensive school you can leave with less debt than someone who goes to an average state school. So not only do you leave with a “better” degree that will earn you more money than had you gone to a state school, but you can leave with less debt. 

I think what bothers me most about that is that America doesn’t think you are responsible enough to smoke or drink while in high school, but they are basing the path for the rest of your life on high school. What I mean by that is if you work hard in high school, learning the basics, you will get into a “good” college and hense have a better developed path for getting a good job. I’m not trying to underplay those who graduate from schools that are hard to get into, you’ve earned it. I can respect that you did what it took when it counted. I just don’t see how we place so much emphasis on a period of our life that we aren’t old enough to make our own decisions (so society says). 

So is it just me, or is there a flaw in this system?

Please feel free to comment on this rant of mine, I’ve just come across several articles that talk about this pool of educated post grads who can’t find good work and it is greatly upsetting that we’ve gotten to this point. 

Alright…I’m pretty sure that’s a rambled version of my thoughts on THIS topic. I’d love to hear some feedback if you’ve got any. 

All said and done…I’d like to thank those selfish stock brokers on wall street that helped us get where we are…It’s not easy ruining thousands of lives while also destroying yours…good work.

Power of numbers

I’m not sure that I know, or anyone knows for that matter, what President Barrack Obama will actually accomplish in office. Don’t get me wrong, I like our most recently elected President and I think he was the most qualified for the position. What strikes me the most about what he’s ALREADY accomplished is that he was able to take a country that was in the middle of it’s worst plummet since the great depression, and made us think that “Yes we can!”. At first you look at the message he was portraying and you might think that it was just a tag line, or gimmick to get people to vote for him. I find it mesmerizing how he was able to take that 3 word sentence and actually derive validity from it….Let me explain…

Working in the Internet Marketing world I spend 8-10 hours a day online. During the course of my work I have gained benefit from Social Media sites like Twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc. (I saw etc. because I haven’t gotten to xing, myspace, or countless others). While perusing through these social media networks I have been quite intrigued by Twitter, and for several reasons. Yes, I do like the fact that I can update all of my 64 followers as to when my company loads in new campaigns, has a good weekend for numbers, or even just accomplishes something in house that makes us feel good. However, what I am most intrigued about is the fact that I have noticed SO MANY of the people I follow are posting very positive messages. Once I started to notice these quotes about never giving up, never failing, never say die, I then opened my ears and eyes to the fact that there are a lot of positive messages floating around in multiple different media ends.

I was inspired to write about this positive vibe I am getting because I feel like it was my turn to connect my link to the chain when this morning I was skipping through a couple radio stations and all of the morning talk shows were I could find were talking about positive goals for the future. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I have been reading the wrong peoples information, or listening to the wrong radio stations, receiving the wrong newsletters, or even talking to the wrong people; on the other hand, MAYBE this actually is a small step for the American people in a direction of joining together and helping each other create a better environment. I don’t want anyone to think I am ignoring the negative side of this economic tsunami, because I am definitely not ignoring it. I, like many others, have lived through it and have been knocked down by it. I just think that with President Obama’s mass appeal and his media spread that maybe he is actually spreading a little bit of hope through the grapevine that is our towns, cities, and neighborhoods. For wahtever reason is actually making people believe that we can get out of this alive, and that we can actually come out of this horrible recession we are in sometime before we all have passed our legacy on to our children. 

I guess the point of this post is to pass on what positive vibe I can. I didn’t want to bore EVERYONE that might stumble across this with all the different ways that I have been approached with this ora of “Yes we can”…I do think it’s important to explain, in short, the time table of these events which led me to thinking I needed to say SOMETHING. 

I started noticing a multitude of positive messages on social media ends, read a book I was introduced to by a business professor (who said “if you only read one book for the rest of your life, read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill”, so obviously I read it) and in this book it talked about creating your own “luck” and about a week after having read the book I received a phone call that made me believe Napoleon Hill was correct, I spoke with someone who has dedicated their last several months to being a missionairy and have heard how tough it is in other countries and that person remains very positive, and I have heard endless radio broadcasts about giving positive energy. All of these things have happened since the beginning of the new year and today it culmentated into these words you just wasted your time reading. 

So please, if you take nothing more from this message, take this….I really do think that luck is something you can create. I also believe that as a majority we did not cause this horrible economic crisis. I think we all need to have faith in the fact that President Obama can help us back to our “glory days”. So basically I am trying to help lengthen this movement of hope because I believe in it. So take away the desire to continue this hope/ faith idea and vocalize it however you know how….And eventually…through the power of numbers we might actually be able to create something positive (kinda like in Elf when the people started to believe in Santa Clause again, his sled was able to fly again)…

The Evolution of Biz Opp

So I would like to preface the rest of my bloggin career by mentioning that this…yes this is going to be my first actual Blog. Having merely tampered with blogs in the past I won’t be promising expert advice; however, I’ll offer fresh ideas. I’m brand new to several aspects of what I will be discussing so just remember when you are reading that this is a novice writer being driven by an apprentice skillset. Whew, having got that off my chest I feel like I can get started….

So the title of this post may mislead a few people into thinking that I know the developement behind what is now an extremely hot topic, that being Business Opportunity products. I have not the first clue who the first person to generate that idea was or how it got to be as large of a market as it is today; however, the title does serve to be relavant in some fashion. I recently started working for a CPA Network called “The OfferAtti Network”, in which I will be managing accounts and handling certain day to day functions; a major part of what we do is handle advertisers and there are a large amount of Business Opportunity products that are already being implemented into our system as we speak. The title of this post references several things, and hopefully in a matter of time (assuming you read more than one of my posts) you’ll have an understanding as to the reference i’m making. 

Seeing as how I know very little about the product lines that are out there now, but my position requires me to learn as much about each product as can be learned, I do not have any special insight into it. I was actually a skeptic of these same principles early in life; that was before I was able to sit in a room with some of the most influencial internet marketing minds of “my time”. I have learned that these products actually can work, and they aren’t just a scam or a horrifying way for people to make money. I do find it interesting that it seems as though once you dedicate yourself to becoming a “work from home millionaire” not only are you making money taking advice from someone who has already made their money, but in order to do so you are continuing to give them money. I’ve been lucky enough to be introduced to several “self made millionaires”. Guys who have taken information from somewhere (all-be-it a software program, how to guide, or advice from another professional) and applied it extremely well and now live in huge houses on waterfront properties, several cars, and the ability to not worry about the thing that weighs on most humans……Money. After meeting these people I gained an interest into finding out what these ideas/ products are and how they applied them so perfectly that they made millions in just a couple months. So if you have ever wondered the same thing, hopefully soon enough I’ll have a strong understanding of how it’s “done”.

I’m finding out a lot of very interesting facts about the internet and the way the web works, stuff that honestly does wear your brain out to the point where it’s hard to move your eyes. I now spend most of my days staring into the distance because the information I’m obtaining has numbed my brain to the point where I can’t ATTEMPT to understand what i’m hearing if I perform any other action requiring the use of my brain at the same time. Yeah…I know. It sounds a bit dramatic, but you try squeezing 40+ years of experience and invention into 40 hours and let me know how it felt not to be able to function well enough to move your eyes. 

I leave this context with nothing more than side-notes. Throughout the course of my blogs I hope that I can enlighten someone, create an idea in someones mind, or change the way someone thinks about ANYTHING. I’m not much of a convincing writer, nor do I usually have a specific topic I can stick to…However, if you look deep enough into the text that will be covering this site in later days, I’m sure that there will be something in there you can use in some way during your day.