5 Star Affiliate Blogs

Our client and favorite affiliate network, Share Results, has a good post I wanted to share.

They offer tips for rejuvenating your affiliate program including: performing benchmarking analysis, motivating affiliates and doing a program audit.

Rejuvenate your Affiliate Program | Share Results

Has your affiliate program got you down? Do you feel like it’s in a rut? With 2013 just beginning, now is the time to jumpstart your program, and you can work to boost overall performance throughout the year!

So how do you rejuvenate your program? By starting fresh. A great way to wipe the slate clean is to assess your program’s current standing, making changes based on an evaluation. This can easily be accomplished with benchmarking.

If you want to stay on top of the ever changing world of affiliate marketing, you need to keep a watchful eye on the top affiliate blogs. The Twist Directory just put out a great list of the top 30 affiliate blogs.

Considering I have not been blogging much lately I was surprised we made the list and came out in the #13 spot. Thanks! Check the rest and be sure you are subscribed to all the RSS feeds.

The Top 30 Affiliate Marketing Blogs to Keep an Eye On in 2013

Thanks again to the Twist Directory.

2012 zipped by and 2013 is already here. It’s really true that the older you get the faster time flies. So I hope you make every minute count this year and that you reach new levels of success and prosperity in 2013.

On behalf of all the 5 Star Merchants and Affiliate Managers

Happy New Year!

Thanks for your partnership and support over the past year.
We wish you all a profitable and successful 2013.

Wanted to send along another warning to affiliates to be careful who you partner with AND be careful how you promote affiliate products. There was a big rash of FTC crackdowns a couple years ago on Acai affiliates, many of whom were using those fake news sites to pitch products. Evidently all those busts didn’t quash all the bad players and recently Clickbooth, one of the biggest affiliate networks, appears to have gotten caught in the FTC’s cross hairs.

Marketers Behind Fake News Sites Settle FTC Charges of Deceptive Advertising – FTC News Release

Affiliate Network to Pay $2 Million for Allegedly Using Deceptive Claims to Sell Acai Berry Weight-Loss Products and Colon Cleansers

According to the complaint, Sarasota, Florida-based Clickbooth has been paid by merchants since 2008 to market supposed weight-loss products to consumers, and recruited a network of affiliate marketers who deceptively advertised those products. The complaint also alleges that the defendants prepared and designed websites for Central Coast Nutraceuticals, a merchant that agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle FTC charges of deceptive advertising and unfair billing related to the sale of weight loss and colon cleanse products.

The FTC alleges that the defendants recruited affiliate marketers to advertise the merchants’ so-called weight loss products online. Clickbooth then monitored the ads that its affiliates used, suggested certain claims for the affiliates to make, and even designed some websites for the affiliates to use, according to the complaint.

It’s easy with the busy online lives we lead to take things for granted – yet by remembering to give thanks for all we have, we can attract even more abundance into our lives. So remember to take time out of all the turkey day festivities this year to give thanks for the many blessings in your life.

I’m extremely thankful for having the opportunity to run my own business and for this wonderful industry we call affiliate marketing. I’m also thankful for all my great 5 Star clients, blog readers, forum members and amazing forum administrator David (minstrel).

I sincerely wish all 5 Star readers and your families the best Thanksgiving ever!

The Attitude of Gratitude“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melodie Beattie

Affiliates have been using video for years on their sites.  They either shoot them and distribute them with tools like OneLoad from TubeMogul or they use other people’s videos who allow embedding to entertain their readers.  The problem with videos was that you never actually had a way to properly measure the reach you got, the actual sales from the video and you had no measurable clicks from the video to your site, to conversions or even sign ups for your newsletter list.  Many people would include backlinks in their descriptions, run their url across the bottom of their video or even mention their site a few times during their videos.  I thought that was a great way as well, until I discovered a new tool that has a free version called Viewbix.

Viewbix enables you to take videos from YouTube and many other major video sharing sites and pull it into their studio.  You can also upload your own hosted videos or videos that you have uploaded to sites like Amazon Web Services, Vimeo Pro, etc…  Once you have your video in the studio by doing a quick search, you click next and you are taken to a screen where you can add a customizable player to the video.

CLICK HERE to Read the Rest of this Post

Here is an in-depth study from Google about WHAT people are going to be shopping for this season along with insights about HOW they will be purchasing.

Holiday Consumer Intentions 2012 | Think with Google

“Today, people no longer see a line between online and offline shopping, and neither do smart retailers. This year online and offline shopping experiences are more seamless than ever – across pricing, functionality, promotions – making this the first “Nonline” holiday season. We partnered with Ipsos to uncover consumer shopping behaviors that advertisers can expect for holiday 2012:”

Google just updated their Webmaster Guidelines. So I went to see what has changed in the guidelines for Affiliates. I also rushed out and grabbed a copy of the old Guidelines from Google cache, so we can compare the old with the new. And below for your viewing pleasure are both!

The most noteworthy change I highlighted in bold below. In simple terms Google changed the tone from “affiliate sites are just totally bad” to a more positive tone and highlights what makes a “Good” affiliate site.

NEW Webmaster Guidelines for Affilates – 10/2/2012

Our Webmaster Guidelines advise you to create websites with original content that adds value for users. This is particularly important for sites that participate in affiliate programs. Typically, affiliate websites feature product descriptions that appear on sites across that affiliate network. As a result, sites featuring mainly content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google’s search rankings, because they do not have enough unique content that differentiates them from other sites on the web.

CLICK HERE to Read the Rest of this Post

Guest post by Amit Mehta from BoostAffiliates.com

What do I mean by ‘tipping point’?

When I started affiliate marketing back in 2005 it was NOT easy. I had to fight a hard battle to hit the tipping point, the point everything turned around and my affiliate income skyrocketed.

In this video I explain the tipping point and the the science of getting rich in affiliate marketing:

(Linda interjects – this is an AWESOME video! So true that many give up, not knowing they are right at the top of that tipping point. They don’t realize they are right at the crest, on the verge of tipping over to the success side!)

Since 2005 I’ve changed my focus to helping affiliates make the same breakthrough I made many years ago. Peter, my business partner (and also a super affiliate), and I have spend 2 years developing a cutting edge registry cleaner called PC HealthBoost. We’re offering 75% commissions + up to $5 per sale bonus.

We’re looking for a handful of motivated affiliates who want to succeed big with PC HealthBoost affiliate offer. Check out our FREE affiliate training center at BoostAffiliates.com

Once you opt in to BoostAffiliates.com, you’ll have access to cutting edge affiliate marketing training, and direct email access to Peter and I if you need help individually.

Boost Affiliates is a 5 Star Affiliate Programs client. Partner with Super Affiliates Amit Mehta and Peter Dunbar – Profit with PC HealthBoost!

Google controls so much of the Internet marketing ecosystem. Like it or not, affiliates have to play Google’s way or it’s the highway.

I recently had an affiliate program manager contact me to say they needed to cancel their 5 Star affiliate promotion campaign and close their affiliate program because their affiliates were hit so hard by Panda. So there is a trickle down affect to Google’s actions and it affects everyone, even me.

So I thought I’d share a couple recent articles that may be helpful in learning to play the game Google’s way.

GET WISE: Google’s Requirements For Affiliates Part 1
(From RevenueWire – a 5 Star Affiliate Program)

Google has so many rules and requirements for running a compliant website that even the most seasoned affiliates can get confused.

So, to help you understand what you need to do to make your website is fully compliant, we’ve identified Google’s main requirements and written a short description of each…

Ok, so that about covers it for Part 1. Stay tuned for part 2 where we’ll cover Google’s website transparency and privacy requirements.

Google Panda 3.9: What Does it Mean for Affiliates?
(From RevenueWire – a 5 Star Affiliate Program)

While Google has so far been tight-lipped about exactly what changes Panda 3.9 will bring, the fact that its tweet announcing the update included a link to its guidelines for building a high-quality website gives us a clue that the changes will target one or more of these website-quality issues.

This is the perfect reminder that every affiliate needs to follow these rules to the letter when designing an affiliate website or campaign. Please review and refresh your memory regarding the Google-endorsed best-practices these guidelines describe.

Yesterday Google released a completely new recommendation engine that redefines how both affiliates and merchants can find and take advantage of affiliate marketing opportunities. Below are a few highlights from the announcement.

Recommending the most relevant advertisers, publishers, and links

Publishers can find advertiser recommendations under the Advertisers > Recommended advertisers sub-tab. This is where they can find a list of available programs ranked based on relevancy and predicted performance. Each recommendation also shows why the recommendation was made, along with an estimate of earnings potential for that advertiser…

Advertisers can now see publisher recommendations, too. Using the recommendation engine, the Publishers > Recommended publishers sub-tab shows a list of publishers that Google algorithms recommend as a good fit based on similar categories and revenue potential…

We’ve also brought the power of recommendations to the Links tab to help publishers find and promote the most relevant ads with the highest performance potential…

Guest post by Amit Mehta from BoostAffiliates.com

Hands off SEO Strategies for Affiliates…
…and how to outsource for pennies on the dollar!

Earlier this year I spent about 2 months straight researching cutting edge SEO strategies and stumbled upon something that BIG.

In the video below I detail hands off SEO strategies that are not only extremely effective but only cost pennies on the dollar versus traditional approach to SEO (with very little effort).

For more cutting edge strategies on SEO, PPC, and affiliate marketing, visit BoostAffiliates.com and optin for our affiliate training.

If you’re interested in promoting PC HealthBoost, then we’ll be happy to coach you personally.

Boost Affiliates is a 5 Star Affiliate Program client. Read the announcement about their exciting new affiliate program here. Partner with Super Affiliates Amit Mehta and Peter Dunbar – Profit with PC HealthBoost

Guest post by Amit Mehta from BoostAffiliates.com

Through my blog at SuperAffiliateMindset.com and PPC Classroom 2.0, I made a name for myself teaching affiliates how to do Adwords PPC affiliate marketings.

Nowadays I hear from a lot of affiliates that “Adwords is dead.” If you want to do affiliate marketing you gotta do: Bing, SEO, PPV, media buys, etc. All the while I’m been quietly advertising with Google as an affiliate for the last several years without getting slapped or banned!

How did I do this?

Listen, if you follow the rules and have a complaint website you can make a FORTUNE with Adwords. If you understand what Google wants, you’ll not only be able to make your site virtually slap proof, but Google will love you.

I’ve spend the last 2 years uncovering the secrets to making your site slap proof and how to get an unfair advantage by jacking your quality score way up using little know strategies (most of which take very little effort to setup).

I reveal all of this in the training video below…

To access ALL the training videos and modules that Peter and I have put together visit BoostAffiliates.com and opt-in for our affiliate training. This training includes dozens of training videos and modules from my past courses (Super Affiliate Accelerator and PPC Classroom 2.0) plus new material that Peter and I have never revealed to anyone before.

Boost Affiliates is a 5 Star Affiliate Program client. Read the announcement about their exciting new affiliate program here. Partner with Super Affiliates Amit Mehta and Peter Dunbar – Profit with PC HealthBoost

Google Teaches Affiliate Marketing Strategies! Want to learn the best tactics and latest tips about affiliate marketing? Here is some great info direct from Google about the affiliate channel and how it can be used to drive more affiliate sales.

Some people say Google hates affiliates, but they don’t. Google just hates THIN affiliate sites. So here, direct from the horse’s mouth, are some insights about how do to affiliate marketing right. NOTE: much of this is about the Google Affiliate Network, but applies to other networks & affiliate marketing in general.

Includes some basics and also goes into higher level stuff like APIS, how network links are constructed and how tracking and cookies work.

Published on Jul 2, 2012 by GoogleDevelopers – Ali Pasha, Shaun Cox

Some of the most profitable web sites on the web use affiliate links to both drive traffic and monetize their existing traffic. This talk will walk you through how to automate most of your existing processes using the Google Affiliate Network, similar to how other larger websites do this today.

More recent insights from Google about Affiliate Marketing

Here’s What Google’s Matt Cutts Says About Affiliate Links And Nofollow

Affiliate Links On Your Site? Does It Hurt Your Google Ranking?

These 2 Super Affiliates as Your Dedicated Affiliate Managers?

Super Affiliate Amit Mehta (creator of PPC Classroom 2.0 and blogger at SuperAffiliateMindset.com) & Software Super Affiliate Peter Dunbar have teamed up to create the ultimate affiliate offer: PC HealthBoost registry cleaner.

PC HealthBoost was created by super affiliates for super affiliates.  For a limited time only, Peter and Amit are looking to work closely with a handful of committed affiliates to show them how to become a super affiliate with PC HealthBoost.

Benefits of PC HealthBoost Affiliate Program

.:. 75% payout + Up to $5 a Sale Bonus
.:. Coaching and Training from Top Super Affiliates
.:. Sky High Conversion Rates – 4-6% Download to Sale CVR
.:. Potential to Make 100s of Sales PER DAY

More Info – Join PC HealthBoost
(Link goes to Boost Affiliates, the affiliate portal, built just for you.)

Smoking Hot Conversions
We’ve beta tested PC HealthBoost for 6 months straight with an entire team of professional testers. On top of that we’ve rehauled the interface TWICE. Our goal is to create the highest converting registry cleaner software on the market.  And our 4-6% download to sale conversion rate speaks for itself.
Click here for Proof.

Extremely Generous Bonus Structure
We know how hard it is making good margins as an affiliate, which is why we have put together a crazy bonus plan. Just make over 100 net sales in a calendar month to quality. Click here for Details.

High Volume Mass Market Product
Why are we so excited about registry cleaner software? Because it has a HUGE mass market potential. As affiliates Peter and I independently made $70k-$90k a month profit with registry cleaner offers. The volume is there in a big way. Sign Up for Our Affiliate Training and get our top converting keyword list for FREE.

RevenueWire as Your Affiliate Network
You’ve probably heard of, or already use, RevenueWire.  It’s our favorite affiliate network, because it has the highest conversion rate for software products. PC HealthBoost is on RevenueWire as a private exclusive offer, you can’t even find it in the catalog.

Sign Up for PC HealthBoost Affiliate Program Now!

 FREE 1 on 1 Coaching & Affiliate Training Center

Once you sign up as an PC HealthBoost affiliate, you’ll not only get 1 on 1 coaching from Super Affiliates Amit and Peter, you’ll also get access to cutting edge affiliate training, that includes:

.:. FREE High Converting Registry Cleaner Keyword list – these keywords that we use in our own campaigns – TESTED and PROVEN to convert!

.:. Advanced Adwords Strategies we’ve NEVER revealed before.

.:. How to Avoid getting Slapped by Google.  Create a Site that Google will LOVE – almost no one knows these strategies. (Watch the ‘Site Compliance’ Videos after signing up)

.:. How to Create a High Converting Landing Page for the Registry Cleaner Market

.:. Strategies and site compliance guidelines that are specific to the PC Utility market.

.:. And Much More!

Sign Up for the PC HealthBoost Affiliate Program Today
And Get Access to all the FREE Training.

Patrick O’Keefe, the founder of the iFroggy network and forum admin expert, just released a great new tool for website and forum owners. The book, called ‘Monetizing Online Forums’ is the most in-depth source of information on generating revenue from online forums to date. The book just launched and is available for free at MonetizingOnlineForums.com.

The book O’Keefe wrote focuses on monetizing forums the right way; its not about trying to wrangle every last cent from it. The forum community makes forum monetization more sensitive to aggressive advertising or marketing campaigns to generate revenue from the site. That is precisely why O’Keefe’s book centers on the right way to become financially stable as a forum, and not on maximizing profits.

CLICK HERE to Read the Rest of this Post

Really great insights and tips about how affiliates need to change, adapt or die in the new world of Google Penguin, Panda and all the other updates. This video and the blog post below it are as much about the attitude adjustments affiliates need to make, as it is about the site structure changes that are needed. Lots of meat – well worth a watch and a read!

I have not been following the CPA space too closely lately, but I guess lots of major CPA affiliate networks have gone under including COPEAC and Adteractive and Neverblue’s parent company reportedly went bankrupt too.

And now, in the latest news, it sounds like Epic Direct, formerly known as Azoogle is going down too. I did advertising for Azoogle for a couple years and they used to be one of the largest networks. COPEAC was pretty big too.

CLICK HERE to Read the Rest of this Post

Earn For Life – Create Residual Income With The Maxalife Affiliate Program!

Maxalife is offering a unique affiliate program to the health industry… Offering daily lifetime payments, Maxalife is fast becoming the place to be for super affiliates who deserve commissions for the life of each customer.

This high converting natural health affiliate program has recently skyrocketed onto the affiliate scene. Operating in the natural health industry, Maxalife offers lifetime payments per unique customer of 23% commission and 2%+ conversion rates (exceptionally high for the industry).

And… Powerful analytics, expert affiliate manager, dedicated support, landing page examples and even ongoing affiliate training. On top of all that, Maxalife include free bonus guides to help affiliates start off on the right track to getting those lifetime customers!

Maxalife Affiliate Program Benefits:

.:. High 23% Lifetime Commission (On-going Residuals Even from Phone Sales)
.:. $50 Sign-up Bonus and 10% 2nd Tier Commissions
.:. Great Conversion Rates and Daily Payouts
.:. Hot-Selling Natural Health Products from A Reputable Merchant
.:. Exceptional Affiliate Support With Pre-selling Website Examples, Landing Page Examples – Free keyword research, Link building Guides And A Whole Lot More! (More info below)

More Info – Join Maxalife Now

High Commissions, Great Conversion Rates, Exceptional Support…
All of our natural health products pay out at 23% lifetime commission. Meaning, every customer you refer to us is your customer for life… If that customer comes back to order any product in the future, you will be credited time and time again.

Maxalife believe all affiliates should be paid for life. “We are very committed to making sure all affiliates are treated with the highest respect”

Products on our network also convert above the industry average, at 2% and higher. Maxalife go the extra mile and know the power of committed affiliates. With exceptional online shopping carts and solid lifetime commission tracking – We’ve got you covered in every way possible.

Daily Payouts!
Unheard of in the industry – You get paid daily if you reach over $75 in commissions for that day. This payment structure is new to the scene and will soon become a must-have for any health affiliate program.

Hot-Selling Products
With hyped up over priced health products landing on the market each day, Maxalife are offering truly affordable natural health products that go through vigorous quality control before they are even released.

Because of the constant exposure to chemicals in our foods and supplements, millions of people are seeking natural health supplements as part of their balanced diet.

The industry continues to boom as more and more consumers become fed up with the nasty side effects of many popular western medications, and more importantly – the lack of nutrition quality in many of today’s foods.

Reputable Merchant
Maxalife offers an advanced secure shopping experience powered by volusion – a highly sought after reputable merchant suite. “Consumers can be safe knowing they are dealing with the best in the industry when it comes to serving our customer with the best possible natural health supplements.”

We Go The Extra Mile – On Going Support
Offering unique pre-selling landing page examples, live website examples, expert affiliate management, free sales tracking and reporting dashboard, deal of the day offers, and more. We are very serious and want to help you become the best affiliate possible. After all, the more successful you are, the more successful we are!

Join Maxalife – Sign Up Now

About Maxalife LTD
Founded in 2008, Maxalife is fast becoming the industry’s growing network for true natural health supplements. We want to work with and create serious affiliate marketers. Maxalife provides industry-leading sales analytics tools and the marketing support affiliates need to make their first sale and take their commissions to new heights.

Maxalife is a new breed of affiliate program for the health industry. We combine all the best elements of other affiliate programs in a single platform.

We’re a high-integrity program committed to affiliate excellence and focused on offering the best support in the industry. In short, we care about affiliates and see you all as our sales force and partners in business.

Join Us Today!

This is a guest post from Share Results

You’ve just started learning about PPC and have found the best spring and/or summer offers to promote to your audience. Now you want to launch a pay per click campaign to generate sales. In order to become a master of marketing via PPC campaigns, it is essential to efficiently allocate both your time and financial resources. With that in mind, here are a few insightful PPC techniques that you should apply to your affiliate marketing campaigns before you go over budget.

Don’t Sabotage Your Own SEO Campaign
Generally it is good practice to ensure that your SEO and PPC campaigns are congruent. However, if you have a small budget, you might want to hold back on adding more money to a PPC campaign that already sees you getting top visibility via organic search. If you’re already ranking high on search engines for specific keywords and phrases due to your SEO efforts, there’s no need to run a PPC ad campaign for the same terms. This is self-sabotage; therefore, your SEO campaign will be more successful if it is left in tact.

Be Specific in Your Headline
When preparing content for PPC ads, use keywords, terms, and phrases that tell search engine users exactly what you are trying to sell. A great method for this is including a price point so that the potential customer will know how much the product or service will cost them. Some beginner affiliates make a big mistake by using the name of the offer they are promoting in their headline. There’s a better way. For example, say that you are promoting rain boots. Instead of using the headline “Rainboots from [insert favorite brand name]”, get more creative. Try changing that headline to read “Red Spring Rainboots Starting at $50”, or something similar.

Make Your PPC Landing Pages Pop
Landing pages in general should be customized specifically for the offer you are promoting. This is even more crucial for landing pages in a PPC campaign. PPC landing pages should feature the exact same offer you featured in the creative used to generate clicks. The keywords used in your PPC ad should match those in your SEO campaigns. From a design perspective, it helps to graphics and large font so your visitor does not have to struggle to see what you’re offering. Also, your page should have the least navigation possible to reduce the amount of clicks needed to make a purchase. Essentially, your landing page should cancel any confusion about what you’re offering and easily convert your visitor into a buying customer without any hesitation whatsoever.

In addition to the three tips above, we encourage beginner PPC affiliates to test as much as possible. Split testing different landing pages, headlines, and keywords is really the only way to determine where you’re getting the most ROI for your efforts. Once you find out what works, duplicate your successful strategies and stop the campaigns that don’t work.

Have any thoughts on these or other PPC tips? Leave a comment below.

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About Share Results
Share Results has a network of over 12,000 affiliates that promote a variety of products and services from select merchants. Some of the more popular categories of product and service offers range from women’s apparel, family and education lead generation, as well as health and wellness.