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Affiliate enquiry and no answer
davidoff
Posts: 62
Joined: 28 Jan 11
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19 Feb 11 9:02 pm

Affiliate enquiry and no answer

It's strange. I do my research, and I find suitable products I could promote on my targeted webpages. I contact the sellers and write that I'd like to promote their products and earn a commission on successful sales leads.

......... But either the sellers don't respond at all!

... Or, they respond with some unspecific and elusive bla bla that wastes my time even more!

Even that home-run "Kingdom of Pets" empire is wasting my time. And no sight of specific pages, everything leads to that one stupid video that I can't bear for half a minute! For weeks they can't even get a simple content page of their products across! If I don't know what's in a product, why should I choose it over another on a targeted page? Similarly, I won't expect any of my visitors to buy a black box!

Three weeks have passed and I am not getting anywhere. I wonder how the successful affiliate marketers make things seem so easy at the POS. I feel stopped in my tracks at every corner and even on the straight line.

But one thing is clear: The "You can set a site up on a weekend. - It may take a bit longer if you're entirely new" and "Rewriting the 20 articles should take an afternoon" - all nonsense! As if anyone ever believed that anyway. Takes away credibility though.

Yes, spun crap can be produced in an afternoon. But not high quality. And Mark rightfully stresses the importance of high quality.

Every example site I've seen yet literally BOASTS of great content, sophisticated technical features, images, sign-ups etc. etc. - I doubt very much that those sites have been created even in a MONTH by ONE person.

With my current progress, I would have my first jetpack site's content up and running in about half a year, it seems. - And then it comes to rewriting the newsletters, the ebook, ... - Will this ever end?

Yes, if I could delegate everything and just give orders to SEVERAL people. Oh, I knew what I'd want in order to have successful sites! There are some great examples out there!


And how are you getting on with your own affiliate endeavours, fellow reader of this post? ;-)
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brittmalka
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Joined: 14 Feb 11
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19 Feb 11 9:41 pm

 Most of the product owners, I've approached, have answered and given me a review copy. A few didn't answer, and I just continued to the next on my list. One in the weight loss business answered with a link to their pre-written reviews. Obviously, I chose not to promote their product.

What I did was:

- I always put something like this in the subject line: "review copy for author"
- Then I boast about responsive list, being a published writer, etc. etc.
- I give them the name and URL to my review domain so they can see that I mean business.
- I always say how grateful I would be to receive a review copy.

And it works in around 80% of the time.

Good luck with your endeavours.
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PremiumMember
jmpruitt
Posts: 3918
Joined: 19 Jun 09
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20 Feb 11 12:33 am

 Everyone will work at different paces I guess. I can usually rewrite 2-3 of these articles in about an hour, so 20 in an afternoon is possible, about 1 day to actually set up the site.

You don't have to rewrite the ebooks or the newsletters, although it can make you stand out from the other people in the niche.

It also depends on how you approach the affilate managers. I get about 8/10 products that I request a review copy for. But, before I ever request a review, I have a site up with at least 10 good articles, and I have at least 1 page already promoting their product.
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joshuas
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20 Feb 11 12:52 am

 I have had some success requesting review copies and most instances I did as BrittMalka did. Basically I let them know I was a serious promoter and backed it up with proof using either my website or detailing some of the methods I would be using to promote.

Usually you can guess whether you are going to get a good response based on the amount of affiliate tools they provide though. Most affiliate pages would contain at least things like banners, swipe copy, articles, etc but if I don't even see that then I don't bother contacting them. Also, sometimes they mention to contact them if you have additional needs which I take as a good indicator.

You are right though Davidoff that the sales page is extremely important. If it doesn't give you a good impression and can't communicate it's content well to potential buyers then you should skip it for a better product. Your customers deserve better. :) Besides, you would be wasting a lot of time getting eyeballs on a page that probably will convert poorly from the sound of it.

I also agree that the time period cited to finish certain marketing tasks can be sometimes be greatly exaggerated. :) It sounds like you are doing a lot of rewriting for your jetpack though. Is that really necessary? I didn't rewrite all the articles at one go at first because I wanted to test out my site's traffic first to see if there was any need to so I started with only 3 and spun it accordingly for link building. I also only loaded up about a month of newsletters first and came back to it periodically while building traffic to my site.

My advice is to start with the base articles for your site (3-5 articles) and get your site running first. It helps to build up some confidence and also allows the search engines to index your site while you work on your ebook and newsletter. Like James said, it also helps to be able to show you have a site with good content up when you request a review copy.

Keep it up!
Joshua
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davidoff
Posts: 62
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20 Feb 11 2:23 pm

 Thanks all.

I didn't mention I want a review copy. I don't want one. I am a product owner myself and I don't like to be asked for review copies BECAUSE if someone wants to promote a product seriously, he can only assess it and recommend it when he's comparable to other buyers(!). - My point of view only.

Instead I said above, I asked the vendors to tell me their affiliate commissions - nothing else. Note that I contacted vendors that have great products on their sites but write nothing about affiliate opportunities. Example: caninetrainingsystems.com.

Still, shouldn't they be happy to have people wanting to promote their products? I can't believe that they don't even respond. - Or worse, one guy was so extraordinarily rude in his response that I will never promote his products now: Leerburg.

To me old-fashioned guy, it's no surprise that normal people hate internet marketing/affiliate sites because so often they seem to be run by ruthless folks without any business understanding and ethical conduct.

James,
I can usually rewrite 2-3 of these articles in about an hour, so 20 in an afternoon is possible, about 1 day to actually set up the site.

No, it's not possible, do the math. Even IF you can rewrite an article in 20 to 30 minutes, no afternoon has 10 hours! Also I am not "re-writing" (spinning) the articles, I write new articles.

Also, "to set up the site in 1 day" depends on what "set up" means. A basic site I set up in under an hour. But that's not a site that I would make public to the search engines.

Joshua, yes, FIRST getting good content on the site to start ranking it, is best. ebook and newsletter can come later.

However, in my experience it is NOT good to start quickly with 5 "bad" articles and successively improve the content on the site: Google first ranks your site based on what it finds. After a few weeks of "Google dance" your site's ranking is almost set in stone. Even if you improve your content dramatically, you will see that it takes ages to have Google improve your site's ranking.

After having set up about 100 sites in the past, I realized that it seems to be best to not even make your site public in wordpress until you have your main content up and final. Only then I will make the site visible and use xml sitemap to get Google visiting it.

This way, my sites usually rank on page 1 or two within a few days and, if all other factors fit, they stay there. If they don't, the site falls constantly until it is where it belongs - maybe only #170 or so.

Anyway, my key point is that these affiliate/jetpack sites seem to take a year for me - while only a day or a weekend for others! :-(
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gdikakabong
Posts: 7
Joined: 15 Nov 10
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20 Feb 11 2:59 pm

 well no offense here, but I don't quite get it

If you have created 100s of sites in the past before, then you would have known that you would need to rewrite the articles or even create some of them from scratch(due to different keywords and unique angles) in AJP and that is mentioned very clearly on the sales page itself. As for the newsletters and ebooks themselves, you can also use it as it is and of course it is also encouraged to rewrite them, and again this is reflected in the sales page itself

So, I'm wondering why are you complaining about this?
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joshuas
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20 Feb 11 3:46 pm
I didn't mention I want a review copy. I don't want one. I am a product owner myself and I don't like to be asked for review copies BECAUSE if someone wants to promote a product seriously, he can only assess it and recommend it when he's comparable to other buyers(!). - My point of view only.


Sorry! My fault for not reading your original post properly. I can certainly understand that point of view.

Joshua, yes, FIRST getting good content on the site to start ranking it, is best. ebook and newsletter can come later.


Oh yes, sorry I didn't clarify that. I rewrite my articles too to ensure quality. I meant rather than rewriting the entire 20 articles in one go, I usually start with the first 3-5 and leave the rest for later so it's not so overwhelming. But doing it all in one sitting does have it's advantages too.

After a few weeks of "Google dance" your site's ranking is almost set in stone. Even if you improve your content dramatically, you will see that it takes ages to have Google improve your site's ranking.


I'm not sure I agree on this point. I think the reason why it takes a long time for your ranking to improve is more due to the fact that it might take a while before the Google robot crawls your page again to reevaluate your content and not so much that bad content has a long lasting impact on your site. Having said that, you can speed up the process by doing some SEO like getting backlinks on sites that are frequently crawled by search engine robots, etc.

I do agree though that its ideal to just have your base articles ready before you set up your site.

Joshua
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bethannstewart
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21 Feb 11 8:12 pm

 I am sorry that you receive such a poor response in your request from those producing the products you wish to promote. A friend and I each purchased the affilioblueprint and affiliojetpacks to work on this together. I have had rather good response from sellers for product review with the website up already promoting their product, but my friend is rather particular about the products she promotes and has contacted individuals not currently associated with any sort of affilate marketing promotion. She emails first, then telephones the proper individual and traditionally starts off the conversation with a huge complement. For example, "I saw your product online through blah blah blah and was really excited at the product. I have a website that deals with, for example, dog barking training issues where I also promote some products and would love to include yours. Have you thought about affiliate marketing? Would you consider making a special arrangement?" Not everyone will reply to your requests, which of course seems strange if they wish to make a sale. But, best not to ask about potential money until they respond. You can inform them of what other stop dog barking dog training offers are currently available through various means. Best of luck to you.
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bethannstewart
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21 Feb 11 8:17 pm

 Sorry, I forgot to mention, I love the article spin tool. Those articles that are generated from it are definitely not 'crap'. I am finishing up my masters degree and write a great deal. It is easier for me to crank out 6 articles of original content, than use the spin tool. However, when you spin the articles, you have 50 variations and you have to write each sentence three different ways, so they are like your own if you think about each sentence, which is perfect if you have a newsletter. Spin the articles, email to your group and send.

Once you get used to building the site, which it sounds like you are, you know that you can put up 10 articles already written, pictures taken from your library, the aweber newsletter sign up, the affiliate links and go in a day. It is the SEO that takes some time. Good luck.
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davidoff
Posts: 62
Joined: 28 Jan 11
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22 Feb 11 2:42 pm
gdikakabong wrote:well no offense here, but I don't quite get it

...
So, I'm wondering why are you complaining about this?


Sorry, no one was complaining, and certainly not about rewriting articles. I fear I misdirected this thread myself by responding in detail to Joshua's post... I have no problem with re-writing, site-ranking, etc. All works well. - This thread is about "Affiliate enquiry and no answer" ;-)

I do agree with all of you that it's problem a mistake that I aim to promote some products where the product owner hasn't considered "affiliate marketing" yet. :-(

Example: The caninetraining people sent one answer email, saying "Thank you for your interest in the best of the best dog products you can find online! Unfortunately we don't have an affiliate program yet. But please feel free to promote our products anyway."

Tsss. :-)

While Leerburg falls in the category of "no ethics", caninetraining fall in the category of "no business understanding". Of all I contacted, I only encountered one of the two categories. No one replied "Oh great, thank you, we'll give you x% sales commission". ;-)

(This is how I reply to enquiries)

Btw, wishing you all great success, fellow combatants! :-)
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davidoff
Posts: 62
Joined: 28 Jan 11
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24 Feb 11 9:15 pm

 Maybe staff reads this at some point and can help out.

Take Mark's Kingdom of Pets Empire: For more than THREE WEEKS I've been WAITING for their response. In vain.

Once a "Debbie" replied, but then she disappeared somehow, and my enquiry remains unanswered.

In the Jetpack on dogs it says:
--------------------------------------
Note: This product allows you to link to specific landing pages for specific breeds of dogs and for specific dog problems, make sure you use the hoplink generator provided to affiliates here as you'll notice higher conversion rates by linking directly to the most relevant sales page.

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... type=nohop

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1a
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... aggression

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1b
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... pe=barking

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1c
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... pe=chewing

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1d
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... pe=whining

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1e
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... pe=digging

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1f
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... pe=jumping

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1g
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... ionanxiety

Redirect to set up:
http://www.yoursite.com/go/dog1h
Affiliate Link:
http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobedien ... e=growling

-------
No, it doesn't work. EVERY link ends up at the SAME stupid video that no one can bear for half a minute I bet. No sight of "specific landing pages".

And "Debbie" still hasn't sent the content page of the product I enquired about.

This all wastes SO MUCH of my time! There's no way of setting up a jetpack site "on a weekend". - Not even within half a year, this way. I find this so frustrating...
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PremiumMember
jmpruitt
Posts: 3918
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24 Feb 11 9:25 pm

 They have been in havoc for several months. Kingdom of Pets is another one of Mark's companies, and they are Based in NZ.
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Do you want to use your online content to Educate others, inspire them to action, and run a profitable business for yourself and your family? I can help you get started
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvDlGM242pI2D5TUOCWd7A
 

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