Thor's Archive
If there was one simple answer to that question, there would be no need for you to read this blog post. There are so many ways you can niche that answer that people have made fortunes selling software, DVDs, and ebooks that promise to show you the magic secrets.
I am pretty skeptical of traffic generation software because it almost always achieves its goal by spamming forums, blogs, or doing other devious things. But this time I think I have found something different.
Eric Holmund and Bishop Anders have partnered up to create a new traffic generation software suite called Web Traffic Machines. After recently being burnt by Blog Blaster, I was a little skeptical about it.
I had the chance to meet Bishop (yes he is a real person) and talk to Eric about the software while we were at JV Alert Live in Orlando. I straight up asked if this was some kind of scarping software or spamming software like Blog Blaster.
Eric laughed and reassured me this was nothing like Blog Blaster at all. In fact, with a monthly price tag of $97.00 the software had to be ethical, effective, and last the test of time if they wanted to keep subscribers.
Eric launched the software suite yesterday with a twist - a 10-day trial of the entire suite with no limitations for $37. I decided I would fork over my $37 to get a peek at the software that can generate thousands of visitors to my website. If it works, it is well worth the money. As Shoemoney says, you bring me traffic and I will find a way to monetize it.
When I installed the software, I was amazed by the number of tools that were available. I *might* not even be able to really play with them all in 10 days. I was also relieved that these were actual TOOLS - that means that in the hands of someone who is willing to WORK these are powerful software packages. No get rich quick stuff here.
I am going to review some of the tools over the next 10 days to let you know what they are, how they work, and who they would benefit. Here is just a sample of the kind of tools that are available:
- Software that locates, catalogs, and automates forum account creation based on keyword presence
- A package that creates a surge of natural organic backlinks from AOL accounts
- An automation suite that helps you drive traffic from Yahoo Answers
- Software that locates keyword significant Wordpress blogs and tracks comment publication
- A Proxy tool that locates and manages open proxy servers
- Automated Software that creates Blogger accounts and automates the posting process
- A video blasting program similar to Traffic Geyser that uploads your videos all over the web
- An automated search engine clicker that clicks your results in the SERPS to make then popular
- An automated YouTube comment posting application
- A pop-in video generator that allows you to place small videos in your web content
These are just 10 of the tool offered, and I will review one each day for you so you can decide if it is something you could use to boost your website's traffic.
If you would rather not wait to see the tutorials, you can jump right in and see all of the software programs offered by purchasing your own 10 day trial. I would recommend focusing on one or two products during the trial period so you can master them.
Later tonight I will be posting a tutorial on Web Traffic Machines' Forum Traffic Machine. Check back for it!
Brad Donner is the latest addition to the Schrock Innovations team in Omaha. Its no secret that I have been getting pummeled with video production, graphic design, website design and proposal requests lately, so we brought Brad on board to help get things caught up and on time again.
Brad has extensive graphics design experience, website design experience and knows his way around a video editor. This means MORE Compute This episodes on the Schrock Innovations website and FASTER response times for our web design customers.
Affiliate Summit West was the first affiliate conference I have aver attended, and I was impressed! Kim and I made the trip to Vegas together and canvassed the entire Summit from top to bottom for the better part of two days.
The Rio where the conference was held was full, so we got a room at Treasure Island and rented a 2007 Mustang convertible. You should have seen he people walking around Vegas in winter coats. It was 50 degrees outside and we had on short sleeves with the top down. People thought we were nuts! Little did they know we are from Nebraska where it was -10 and snowing that day :-)
One of the highlights was the Affiliate Bash party at the Tao Nightclub. There was a mini-performance by Blue Man Group who was launching their own affiliate program. Check out this video I found on John Chow's website of their performance:
One of the big reasons I never did many conferences in the past was because I was always concerned about my return on investment. The "Expo Only" tickets for Affiliate Summit were $200 each, and with airfare and hotel the total for the two of us making the trip was about $1,650.
But i my opinion, the opportunity to network with more than 3,000 of the industry';s top players was well worth it. While we were there I was able to hook up with some exciting new affiliate companies, sign sponsors for Top Affiliate Challenge like Pepperjam Ads, talk one on one with John Chow about being a guru on the show, and meet Brian McCarthy from Revver.com out some exciting things going on with the Revver player.
If I had to peg one of the oddest tables at the Summit, it would have to be AshleyMadison.com had the most interesting concept. They were giving away tshirts that said "life is short have an affair." It turns out they specialize in matching married people together who want to have an affair. I can't say that I will be using the website anytime in the future, but I guess that just goes to prove there is a market on the internet for jut about everything!
CPA Empire had a booth that looked like it required an engineering staff to assemble. Seriously though, I give huge props to their marketing department for making their people stand out from the crowd. Their entire staff was dressed in blue jogging suits. They were seriously the most comfortable exhibitors there, and stood out like a flower in a pile of stuffed suits.
Pepperjam's table and booth were happening places too. Joel Comm gave away 5 $100 bills on Sunday to promote his new TextCastLive service. It's an interesting concept - they are branding themselves as Awebber for cell phones. the idea is that people opt in to receive messages on their cell phones. It just might work if they can overcome the intense dislike for junk text messages on cell phones and properly control their clients' use of the service.
I met people who flew in from as far away as South Africa and Turkey for the Summit, got a bunch of pictures and made more connections that you can shake a stick at.
I have a lot more to come on all of the great people I met at the Summit. More to come later!
I normally don't make posts calling a company out like this, but Overnight Prints has royally messed up a component of the marketing I was planning on doing at Affiliate Summit West so please bear with me as I work my writhing anger out through my keyboard.
If you are not a big reader and want the short version, check out this video. It pretty much says it all:
We wanted to have some post cards printed up about Top Affiliate Challenge so we could distribute them at Affiliate Summit West in Vegas. Kimberly spent a couple days designing and tweaking them so they were just right.
Overnight Prints did our business cards, and although they arrived nearly a week later than when they were promised, we have received many compliments on them.
I know things go wrong sometimes, and I was willing to chalk up the late business cards to a fluke. We ordered the post cards from their website on 2/20/2008 and paid an outrageous $65 for Next Day Air Saver UPS shipping just to make sure they got here on time.
The cards were supposed to arrive today, so we logged on to our Overnight Prints account and checked the status of our order just to make sure (thank God Kim is thorough). Shockingly, the cards have been printed, but not shipped. We leave for the Summit on Sunday, and today is Friday. We called their customer service line to see what could be done to get them here Next Day Saturday Delivery.
Now, we ship things from California all the time Next Day Saturday delivery. Its nothing new, and we know it costs more and we were prepared to pay. But the Overnight prints operator stunned us when he said that UPS does not ship Saturdays from their warehouse.
WHAT?!? The UPS website clearly shows that Saturday Shipping is available.
It turns out the only thing we could do was change the shipping address to our hotel in Vegas and HOPE they get there on Monday while there is still a little time to hand them out.
I decided to do some Google searching (I know day late, dollar short) and see what other people are saying about Overnight Prints. Lets just say it is not good.
I was able to find multiple complaints just like mine dating from 2004 to present. This is the email I just sent to Overnight Prints expressing my displeasure with their service and shipping policies:
I found this email address on a blog, and I wanted to email you to let you know how disappointed I am with your turn around time, shipping policies, and customer service.
We ordered business cards for a new company we started, and they arrived a week later that when they were promised. I figured that was a glitch, and being in business I know that can happen to anyone.
So now we have ordered 500 post cards to distribute at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas (order #97177934 placed on 2/20/2008). We were given the impression from your website that if we paid for the next day air $65.00 shipping option, we would have our cards by today (Friday).
We checked the website this morning to see that the cards had been printed, but not shipped, which means they will not arrive in time for our trip. We called your customer service line and pleaded with the operator for Saturday shipment – we even offered to pay more for it. The operator told us that UPS does not ship Saturday delivery from your California warehouse.
That is when I started to get mad. We ship things all the time Saturday delivery from San Jose, and a simple check of the UPS website shows that next day Saturday shipping is available from your location. So either the operator didn’t know what they were saying, or ONP just doesn’t want to ship things Saturday delivery.
This is a MAJOR problem for us, and the only thing we could have the operator do is change the shipping address to our hotel in Las Vegas. We will at least have the cards for ½ of the conference.
I understand things happen, but when I Google your company and the word complaint, I see a mile long litany of complaints dating from 2004 to October 2007. I can only assume that late shipping and under delivery are part of your corporate culture, and not a passing problem.
The ONLY reason I am not asking for a refund is that no one else can print these cards before Sunday morning. I am deeply disappointed with your service and will not be ordering from you in the future for anything that is remotely time sensitive.
Like most of the other people online, I don't expect a reply back. Have you had problems with Overnight Prints? Have you had excellent service from them? I sincerely hope that my experience is unique, but based on what I have read I am not sure how that could possibly be the case.
For those of you in the industry, I will be going out to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas this weekend.
I plan on meeting with some people from CPA Empire and Revver about the Top Affiliate Challenge Show. We also had some post cards printed up about the show to hand out while we are there.
If you are in affiliate marketing and can get to Vegas, an exhibition ticket for Affiliate Summit is only like $200. Its a great networking opportunity too.
I will also be attending the Webmaster Radio FM's Affiliate Bash Monday, February 25th at 8pm at The Venetian in The Grand Canal Shoppes. If you are going to be in the neighborhood, stop by and say hi.
I will be the guy talking abot the affiliate marketing reality show :-)
I guess you make one political post on your blog and suddenly the Google AdSense bot pegs you as a political website.
Since then my boy Mitt dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain (who I am still not completely convinced I should vote for). All of that aside, I suddenly started seeing John McCain banner ads on my blog.
The above ad appears quite often on my pages, and since I get paid when people click on it, is John McCain trying to buy my vote?
Oh boy... I think I just made another political post... Great now the Huckabee ads will start rolling in. Wait.. Oh yeah, he's broke anyway. Never mind :-)
I have had a ton on my plate the past few days which has left me with little time to keep you all in the loop with what is going on.
The past week or so has been a whirlwind of conferences, new faces, audition videos, press interviews, and then sickness.
Kim Jake and I touched down in Orlando last Sunday for JV Alert Live where we managed to audition 1/5 of the people in attendance for Top Affiliate Challenge. In fact, some of the people who auditioned were so funny that we were able to make a pretty cool blooper reel. Check it our below:
We touched down back in Nebraska on Monday at midnight after a 5 hour delay in St. Louis. We all caught some sleep and evidently something else too.
When we woke up my wife had the flu and strep at the same time, and I was feeling like death warmed over. I tried to go to work at Schrock Innovations that day, but ended up shivering at my desk wearing a winter coat in a 72 degree room while I did my best to catch up on over 400 emails.
Wednesday we were both down for the count, so we stayed home to tag team on my son who suddenly decided it would be cool to wake up three times a night for an hour at a time.
Thursday I had the first day of live auditions at Nebraska Bookstore, so I put on my best happy face and went to work. We ended up getting a ton of local media coverage and some awesome people turned out to audition.
By this time I was so backed up on emails and phone calls that it was starting to bother me. But Friday was day 2, so I had to do it all over again. By this time my wife was at the doctor getting meds because her voice was gone and she was hurting all over.
The end of the day Friday I was driving home from a second successful day of auditions and my voice started to go out.
And of course, I have a radio show in about an hour and a half. I'll muster some kind of voice for it, but afterwords I will probably be spent!
I had an awesome time a couple weeks ago at January's meeting of Nebraska People Making Money Online. This meeting as held at Shoemoney's offices at the Shoeplex in Lincoln, NE.
These meetings are great for networking, so I took the opportunity to pass out some Top Affiliate Challenge business cards and explain the show. Of course, I demanded that everyone in attendance audition since they are RIGHT HERE in Lincoln.
Special thanks to Brian Mark for putting together a great event!
Subscribe to the group at Meetup.com and be sure to get in early for the February meeting. Seating is limited!
Dave Lakhani was the first speaker at JV Alert this weekend, and he had a hilarious exchange with Jason Marshal, a contestant from Next Internet Millionaire who was in the audience with his wife.
Take a minute to watch this. Its a blast.
I am at JV Alert LIVE at this moment, typing this message. We are doing something that has never been done before.
Check out Instant JV Secrets and see what I am talking about.
Joel Comm and his team are having everyone at the conference assemble their top joint venture and product launch tips into a single e-book. Imagine 125 top internet marketers all sharing their top JV and product launch secrets all packed into one $7.00 ebook - and for charity at that!
That book is going to sell for $7.00 with a portion of the proceeds going to Hearts and Hands International.
There are THOUSANDS of dollars in bonuses being thrown in as well. We all were asked to fill out a slip of paper with out TOP marketing and JV secrets. As I type this they are being compiled into one document for release in just about an hour.
At this point its looking like over $2,000 in bonuses, but that is literally what Eric JUST said as he sorted through the offers he was collecting.
You know I would not be emailing you this if it was not cool, so hang tight in front of you PC for the next hour or so and I will email you as soon as I have more details.
Take a look for yourself! The page is not even up yet. Check back in an hour and it will be!
I have been in Orlando for a couple days now. Its strange to be in a town that is opposite of Nebraska. The people on the street and in traffic are complete jerks, but all of the service workers from the people at McDonald's to the front desk of the hotel a the nicest people I have ever met.
The first night I had dinner with Joel Comm and his right hand man, Dan "the dojo man" . We talked a little about Top Affiliate Challenge and the logistics behind a 24-hour turn-around per episode.
Later that night, my son's birthmother drove in (a 6 hour drive) so we could hang out. She hadn't seen Jacob in almost a year, so it was com play. Jake had a great time with her and I could really tell she had a great time with Jake. (If anyone out there is wondering if open adoption is the right thing to do, email me and I will show you why its the best choice for everyone - especially your child - just don't use the Independent Adoption Center to do it.)
More on the confrence tomorrow - I took some video of onef the best public speakers I have ever heard - Dave Lakhani telling Jason Marshal there were other men in the room who could satusfy his wife (she was right beside him). Its a funny vid, so stay tuned :-)
**NOTICE** This post has nothing to do with technology, Top Affiliate Challenge, or online marketing. In fact, it is a political statement. If you don't like that stuff, excuse me on this one.
I am a Mitt Romney supporter because I feel he is the best person to lead our country forward as President of the United States. As my wife and I watched the Super Tuesday votes roll in last night we were saddened to see John McCain winning a majority of the delegates.
For those of you who don't follow politics, McCain swiped a win away from Romney in West Virginia when he instructed his supporters to back Huckabee when it became apparent he was not going to win that state's caucus. All is fair in love, war, and politics, but that single, needless act of sabotage reminded me what kind of man John McCain has become as he has served in the Senate.
I decided to take a trip over to the McCain website and blog to see what was going on. Here was the VERY FIRST comment on the latest post:
TO ALL MCCAIN DETRACTORS AND NEW ARRIVALS HERE,
We all know that there is a concerted effort by the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs in the media to exhort you to come to this site in hopes of peeling off some of McCain's support in hopes of reversing the tide and getting Flip-flopping Phony Romney chosen as the Republican nominee. It is too late. The wave is cresting and will wash over the land of America. When it recedes, it will take away with it the bitter, divisive partisan politics that has resulted in gridlock and stagnation in our government.
I want all of you self-described "true conservative Republicans" to realize that your efforts will be fruitless. And you are for more likely to change your position and join us McCain supporters, just as the majority have in Florida. When you do, we will forgive your errant past and unkind remarks, and welcome you into the fold. You are "true" Americans, too. I look forward to the day four years from now when some of you critics of Senator McCain call me on the phone and ask for my help in getting him re-elected. And though perhaps I shouldn't, I will tell you, "I told you so!"
I was shocked by the arrogance, condecention, and most of all the tone of that comment, which appears to be posted by someone associated with the McCain campaign.
On the flip side, watch Mitt Romney's speech to his supporters last night as he faced what could be best described as a tough night:
When I compare John McCain's arrogance with Mitt Romney's Reaganesque speech, there is no doubt in my mind who will be better for America from the Republican side of the equation in 2008.
For the first time ever, I have opened my wallet for a presidential candidate.
I am not going to try and tell you how to cast your vote, but I will remind you that your vote does matter and there is a real difference between Mitt Romney and John McCain. If Mitt has a shot at winning the Republican nomination, he needs to go on an unprecedented delegate run in the remaining states. That does not happen with out some amazing help and support.
If anyone from the Romney campaign reads this, tell Mitt Romney that he must fight on for those who believe in him, his ideas, and his ideals.
Oh, and congrats to Ron Paul supporters for the 14 delegates.
We are about 45 minutes before the Giants beat the Patriots by 3, and people are starting to file in for our Super Bowl gathering.
My wife asked me to pick up after myself a little, and I came across a shirt my buddie Browie gave me last week.
Free T-Shirt Friday is Shoemoney's thing, but I figure if I put the shirt on my son Jacob, I could get away with it for one week.
Browie.com is a free sports betting website and is gearing up for the upcoming fantasy season. Check it out and let him know Jacob Sent you!
I had an awesome interview yesterday on Webmaster Radio's SEO 101 show about Top Affiliate Challenge. The hosts and audience had tons of questions, some of which I could answer and others are still TBA.
For example, the big question hanging out there right now is which Affiliate Networks believe in their products enough to sponsor this show. We haven't even started auditions yet, and we are already getting requests for interviews, printing T-Shirts, preparing press releases, and getting submitted to Digg.
With all of the promotional opportunities that we have had to this point, it is amazing to me that some affiliate networks are either too scared about having their names plastered all over this project or just not confident that their networks are ready for this kind of exposure.
The first network we contacted was Azoogle Ads. Chantalle did an awesome job moving us up the food chain to the marketing department. I was pretty pumped until I got the kiss-off email saying we had just missed Azoogle's budget cycle.
I know business works on budgets and time lines, but I pointed out that we wouldn't need the bulk of the sponsorship until late June of 2008 - nearly 2 quarters away at the time. I was told, "I think we budget 2 quarters out." They added to call them "if anything changed" whatever the heck that meant.
Next we approached CPA Empire. One of their former affiliate managers had recruited me into the network a while back. Again, we quickly moved up the food chain to the upper management of their parent company. They have said they will get back to me next week. Of anyone we have approached, they have been best with their interest, questions, and requests for additional information.
Next we reached out to the new Pepperjam Network. I emailed Kris Jones directly and he pinged me back in less than 10 minutes with a simple sentence. "How much do you need." I shot him the number back and... crickets.
I waited a few days to let the idea sink in with them, then I contacted him again. Kris, the consummate politician, said this is an opportunity that is best for another network at this time. I know the Pepperjam Network affiliate stuff is new and still scaling up - maybe that was the problem.
We also contacted Commission Soup, and they are currently reviewing the materials we sent over and will get back to us.
We emailed RocketProfit as well, and heard nothing back. By coincidence a friend of the show has a relationship with Rocket Profit and contacted them on our behalf. They are in the middle of a major acquisition right now, but we should check back in a few weeks.
Sorry guys, but in a few weeks we will be going full tilt. We want to wrap up this sponsorship next week so we can produce commercials and bottom thirds for the auditions that will appear on our website in March.
So there is the update folks. I have been talking with some friends about splitting up the sponsorship into smaller amounts and bringing on multiple affiliate networks. I still believe that this show will catapult one network to household-name status among affiliate marketers.
Evidently that is not worth allocating some budget outside of the plan, returning my email, or giving a new affiliate network a one-of-a-kind exposure opportunity for some networks out there.
Based on the interest we are receiving I KNOW we are going to get the sponsorships we need. I am going to ENJOY season 2 when the networks that didn't sign on for season 1 come back asking to be a part. Exclusivity has its privileges, and one of those is boxing out your competition.
It's nothing new to see scrapers trolling the RSS feeds of good bloggers stealing original content and posting it on MFA (Made for AdSense) blogs.
I was pretty pumped to install Joost de Valk's RSS Footer plugin to help get a little something back from those who would steal my content for their own gain.
The RSS footer plugin adds a credit link to each post in your RSS feed so that when the automated scrapers come knocking they inadvertently post a link back to your original post. Until now.
A few days ago I made a post about the Top Affiliate Challenge show we are working on. Within minutes, a scraper MFA blog had nabbed my content and re-posted it.
The funny thing was that the blog REMOVED the RSS Footer link from the beginning of the post, leaving a single period behind. The even funnier thing as that despite all of that work, they GAVE me credit at the end of the post for the content.
When I first started using the plugin I noticed that most scrapers disable any links in the content they steal when they steal it. I was getting track-backs from other blogs that had my custom RSS Footer text at the beginning, but no link.
Now it appears they have gone a step further and are removing the text all together.
Scrapers will always be around, and I guess as long as they give credit for my work I can't complain too loudly. It is still frustrating though when you write a super-star post and Google points to your blog as duplicate content.
I noticed a significant increase in scraping activity when i signed on with Feedburner. I wonder how many of my RSS subscribers are scrapers?
The other day Shoemoney clued me in on Kris Jones new affiliate network, the Pepperjam Network. I sent in my app and am waiting for a review before they let me in.
I met Kris Jones on the set of the Next Internet Millionaire and he seems like a pretty cool guy. I emailed him to say hi and I was stunned to hear that he had been waiting for my application! (I'm sure he says that to all the boys)
As soon as I get a peek at the offers and payouts I'll let you know how things look. I know Pepperjam rocks in SEM, so I would have to assume their Affiliate Network will as well.
Just wanted to post a quickie to see if any of my readers are going to be at JVAlert Live on February 8th.
I will be attending the entire conference which is in Orlando this year. I am participating in a Next Internet Millionaire panel to talk about the show.
If any of you are going to be there, be sure to seek me out! I'll be the guy passing out Top Affiliate Challenge cards :-)
I was uploading the Top Affiliate Challenge video around the web yesterday and I came across a video sharing website I had not heard of before.
Break.com has an interesting deal where you can get paid to upload your videos to their sharing network. If you are good at making viral video content that is side-splitting funny, you could make $400 - $600 for sharing it.
If your video makes it to the Break.com home page, they offer you cash via PayPal. They offer bigger payouts if your video is exclusive to their network, and smaller payouts if you are going to spread it around.
I had never heard of this kind of a payout structure before, so I figured I would throw it out there. Maybe Break.com will be willing to sponsor the audition and episode hosting for Top Affiliate Challenge. It's only a mere $5K sponsorship. Cre8buzz thought it was a cool idea (hi Antman!)
We figure we will have over 1 million viewers between the audition process and the episodes. That averages out to $.005 per viewer, and each viewer will see multiple impressions. Something tells me a LOT of people would find Break.com REALLY fast.
And I have NO problem giving them exclusive rights to the content ;-)
For the past few weeks I have been eluding to a "super-secret" project I have been working on. While I wasn't doing any active promotion on the project, I was not keeping a hermetically sealed lid on it either.
Top affiliate Challenge is the web's first real-time reality show. 12 affiliate marketers and three industry gurus will face off for cash and prizes and the title of Top Affiliate!
We are still working on nailing down all of the sponsors for the show. Obviously, we are looking for an affiliate network to be the banner sponsor. We have proposals in front of CPA Empire and Azoogle Ads, among others. I am hopeful that we will be able to get a soft commitment by the first week of February.
I am sure a lot of you wondering if this show is going to be the Next Internet Millionaire 2.0. While my experience on TNIM is definately going to color the look and feel of Top Affiliate Challenge, the shows are going to be very different.
To be up front, TAC is not going to have a for-sale DVD set at the end. This is not an info-product marketing vehicle. While I am sure we could make a ton of cash following Joel Comm's model, that is not what this is about.
Don't get me wrong, we are going to have to raise a TON of cash to make this happen and the IS a revenue model behind the show. I just want everyone to know out of the boxes that this show is going to teach you affiliate marketing secrets and techniques that you can use in each and every episode.
One other important difference is that this show will be airing online in real time (yes, I consider a 24-hour delay real time in web production). That means that the audience will be able to participate in the outcome of each episode.
There is a ton of detail and planning behind this, and we will be announcing our first sponsors later this week. Needless to say, if you own a company and want to be part of the show, email service@topaffiliatechallenge.com and we will find a place to work you in.
Auditions for the show will begin in March, so dust off your cameras and prepare to make some video!
If you want more detail about the show, check out the Top Affiliate Challenge Media page.
I haven't posted in the past couple days because my computer repair business, Schrock Innovations has needed me in the shop fixing broken PCs for the past couple days.
On my radio show last Saturday I launched a PC Maintenance Checkup sale for $9.99. My Service centers took in around 160 computers for maintenance in four days. We have 20 bench spots for computer repair, and a checkup takes about 8 hours to do, so you do the math on how hard we are working right now ;-)
Needless to say, this is the busiest we have ever been. I took a break to snap a few photos when we hit the 100 PC mark on Monday. Here is what it looks like when you pack all of those computers into a 750 square foot service center.
The computers were coming in so fast we could not shuttle them into the backroom fast enough. We were checking in PCs from when we opened Saturday at noon until 1:30 nonstop.
Our tech room quickly reached its storage capacity, so we created a "computer island" in the middle of the room to help store the volume of machines that were coming in.
When we quickly ran out of room in the tech area, we started an overflow underneath our laptop repair bench.
Our wireless network s getting POUNDED by all of the notebooks downloading Windows Updates and antivirus updates.
It wasn't long before the underside of the laptop bench filled up as well, so we started storing them in any and every scrap of space we could. As I write this we now have more than 180 PCs in our shop for repair - an all-time Schrock record.
So that is my excuse for not posting more frequently :-) Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my super-secret project will not be super secret much longer. I am meeting with the Lincoln, NE Mayor's office, the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development, and the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce tomorrow to further the project.
I will keep you all posted ;-)
Imagine being able to monetize every singe visitor to your website no matter what they do when they get there or why they came. Too good to be true?
I read a post the other day on Garry Conn's blog about Pay-Per-Play audio ads. I filed it away in my brain and just today got around to looking into it. I am kicking myself for not checking it out more quickly!
Pay-Per-Play ads is an interesting concept. In a nutshell, it is a pay-per-impression audio advertising program. Rather than worrying about getting clicks or converting visitors through an affiliate program, Pay-Per-Play pays you EVERY TIME an audio message is played from your website.
It almost seems too simple to be true - or at least too simple to last long against the darker powers of the Internet.
They are paying their publishers 25% of every penny the advertiser spends on the ad that is played through your website. That is an unheard of payout percentage (at least for those of us who are used to making pennies per click on AdSense).
The only unknown is what kind of ads will be played on the network and how much will advertisers pay for them? That will determine if the ads are right for your website and how much money you stand to make.
The Pay-Per-Play advertising network is set to go live on February 1st, and right now they have a three-tier affiliate program. That means you will make 25% of every ad you play, and if you refer others to the network you will get 5% of what they earn as well, and so on with those they refer.
Some of the components of their website (including their network blog) are a little "basic", but the advertising system has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and apparently several presidential candidates have expressed interest in advertising.
The Pay-Per-Play network is in beta right now, and they are offering a limited-time "open enrollment" for publishers. The site goes live on February 1st, and payouts will not begin until later that month.
I have pasted their code on a couple of my sites frankly because there is nothing to lose. Their ads are compatible with my contextual AdSense ads and they convert EVERY visitor for money, so its not like I am giving something up by trying them out.
Of course, they drop a cookie so they don't ad bomb your visitors who click on multiple pages. Visitors only hear one Pay-Per-Play ad every 3 minutes if they navigate deeper into your website.
Imagine if you had been one of the first people to go online with Google AdSense. You would have made out like a bandit before the marketplace was saturated with ads everywhere. Seriously, how often do you have the opportunity to break into a new advertising system on the ground level?
I would recommend you go ahead and sign up and put the code on your website to help them with their load testing. You can always take it off again later, and who knows... You just might make some serious cash in the meantime!
So everyone from Charles Trippy to Joel Comm is all hot about social networking and how it is changing the face of marketing on the Internet. I am ashamed to say that I see the opportunity, but I frankly am a MySpace sellout.
Check out my MySpace page at www.myspace.com/thorschrock. To be 100% honest, my wife made that layout for me after I put off doing anything with it for months.
I know it needs a bit more edge, and I am looking into some tolls available at www.myspaceprofilemagic.com to help me out. They have everything from games, to gidgets, to custom graphics all loaded into one unified toolbar. That sounds perfect for lazy MySpace updaters like me.
Seriously though, how much time do you put into social networking? My Facebook page is stock, and the only other networks I do anything with are www.youtube.com and www.cre8buzz.com.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but most of my friends reach me through email and IM. What am I missing here?
About 12 hours after I wrote a post about how I was moving most of my traffic over to CPA Empire, I received an email from Chantell White, an Azoogle Ads Consulting Manager. She wrote:
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and moreover open up the channels of communication. Please advise me if your schedule will permit for a call this afternoon. I would like to learn more about your business and further discuss how we can build your monthly revenue!
I look forward to speaking with you!
I replied to her message and we spoke later that day. Within 3 hours she hooked me up with my new Azoogle Ads Affiliate Manager, Ryan Sessler. He immediately started helping me with some pretty advanced requests I had that were a little outside the box.
Chantell was also able to get information about my super-secret project to the Azoogle Ads marketing gurus.
It was nice to see that Azoogle still knows what personal service and attention is, and I appreciate their help in pushing a few ideas forward. I am still going to pursue some offers with CPA Empire, but I'll let you know how the income and service performance stacks up over time.
Have you ever found a $20 bill in a coat you had put away last winter? The other day I logged into my Azoogle Ads account and noticed that I had accumulated about $100 from some offers I promoted in 2007 and forgot about. I just had to complete an W-9 form to get my money.
I had some other business I wanted to propose to Azoogle with regard to my super top-secret project that almost no one is privy to yet. Not knowing where to start the communication process, I asked Shoemoney where he thought I should start.
Shoemoney suggested I approach my affiliate manager first and work up from there.
The trouble is that I don't have an affiliate manager at Azoogle. For a while, my manager changed as often as Nebraska's weather. Eventually they seem to have settled on this blue fellow that is remarkably featureless.
I emailed Azoogle three days ago and have not heard a hiccup since. Needless to say I am not a super-affiliate myself (yet), but I am feeling left out in the cold Nebraska winter here with no affiliate manager, no money from 2007, and no communication.
All of this has me testing the waters for another affiliate company. I found an old email in my inbox from October from a woman named Julie Chubb with CPA Empire. I left sent her an email on Sunday and went about my day.
Today I got a call from John Ringhofer with CPA Empire. He explained that Julie was no longer with CPA Empire, but he would be happy to help. He got me signed up, expedited my application to trim a 48 hour process down to a mere three hours, AND he put me in touch with the higher-ups at CPA Empire who could help me with my additional business requests.
In fact, two hours after I had completed my affiliate application one of their upper-management executives called me personally to welcome me and discuss the opportunities that CPA Empire offered.
Needless to say, I am impressed. You simply don't get that service anymore - let alone on the Internet. CPA Empire is going to get some traffic from me, probably at Azoogle's expense.
Seriously, if your affiliate manager is ignoring you, you don't think you can trust your affiliate company, or you just want some TLC, check out CPA Empire. Create an account and take a look at some of the offers they have. From what I can tell you so far, there is a reason they are one of Fortune 500's fastest growing companies.
Brad emailed me yesterday and told me he pulled all of his AdWords ads that were bidding on our trademarks.
The last time I asked someone to stop infringing on our trademarks it ended up being a long and nasty exchange that in one form or another goes on to this day. It was SOOOOO nice to deal with a level headed guy who obviously runs a reputable business and cares about his customers.
This is a perfect example of the power of asking nicely. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, before you pour on the legal vinegar try a little honey.
Thanks Brad for being cool about it and I am so going to pop in and take you to lunch sometime!
It has been conformed officially by Google that the referral buttons for the FireFox browser and the Google Pack are not being displayed as they should on thousands of sites across the Internet.
I noticed a significant drop in my earnings beginning a couple days ago. When my referral conversion and impressions both reached 0 for over 36 hours, I started poking around. I found that the buttons were not showing on my sites either.
After you have breathed a sigh of relief that you have not been banned for some reason, the next question is what is wrong and when will the revenue generating gems be back online.
Jordon, an AdSense Pro who appears to work for Google, posted in the AdSense Google Group:
To those of you who are having trouble seeing referral units, what
browser and OS are you using? I heard that this issue is mainly
affecting users of Internet Explorer 7. Is anyone having trouble when
viewing the ads in other browsers?Our engineers are working as quickly as they can to resolve this.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Since that post it has been confirmed that the outage is across browsers (IE, FireFox, and Opera) and across operating systems (Windows, OSX, Linux). The problem is definately on Google's end, but non of the brain trusts at G seem to know what when wrong.
When was the last time Google had an outage like this? Imagine if this would have happened to their ad blocks. If Google was the one losing thousands in revenue every second, something tells me the problem would be fixed already.
**Update 8:25 PM CST** My pages have started showing the referral buttons again, but I am still not seeing any income activity. Google AdSense has a scheduled maintenance update tomorrow morning at 10 AM CST. Hopefully they plan on making some additional corrections.
I was doing some vanity searching yesterday on my name and the name of my computer repair company, Schrock Innovations. It was interesting to see one of my local computer repair competitors, Brad's PC Repair, buying AdWords on searches for Thor Schrock as well as Schrock Innovations.
Brad's PC Repair just moved their office less than a block away from us in Lincoln, NE. They seem to be running a pretty solid budget on Google AdWords using our trade names as their keywords.
While I have never met Brad, I am sure he is a good guy. From what I can tell from his website, he is promising personal service (i.e. he will do all of the repair work on your PC) and he is doing it for between $20-$40 below the going market rate.
This is America, and unlike some other competitors in the Lincoln marketplace, we are not going to pick up the phone and sick our attorney on him. But it does beg the question, what can you do if a competitor is trying to ride your coat tails and skim traffic from Google using your trade name?
Is it Wrong to Buy Trademarks in Google AdWords?
Yes and no. It is against Google's terms of service to use another company's trademark in the TEXT of your AdWords Ad, but it is not against their TOS to bid on keywords that are trademarks.
However, Google clearly states in the AdWords TOS that AdWords users are exclusively rsponsible for the keywords they select. Here is what Google replied back via email when I asked them directly if there was anything th can do to help us shield our trademark:
Our terms and conditions with advertisers prohibit intellectual property infringement by advertisers and make it clear that advertisers are responsible for both the keywords they choose to generate advertisements and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements on Google.
On the legal side of the equation, if a company could prove that it was Brad's intent to deliberately confuse and misdirect customers seeking to do business with Schrock Innovations, that is a violation of Nebraska's state laws (we have some experience dealing with people doing that in the past, so I know that first hand).
On the moral side of the equation, it all comes down to intent. If the intent is to confuse customers and redirect them, then it is very wrong. If the intent is to compete in the marketplace of products and services by giving customers another option, then that is perfectly fine.
What Can You Do if Someone is Buying Your Trademarks?
As far as Google is concerned, it is perfectly fine to sell your trademark for use by others. Google says on their website that they encourage you to contact the company and resolve the situation pri9vately. In other words, Google could care less.
Depending on the impact the activity is having on your business, you might want to take a more direct approach to handling the situation.
You Can Sue
While we are not planning on doing it, we could have an attorney ask Brad's company to stop buying our trademarks. There is something about getting a certified letter or a visit from a constable of the cour that gets some one's attention. Who knows what the intent is, or if it would even end up in court, but it would be the fastest way to force a competitor to stop.
You Can Ask
You would really be surprised how many business owners are responsive to a simple "Please stop doing that" request. Brad's office is only 1 block from mine, so maybe I'll pop in and welcome him to the neighborhood.
I sent him an email yesterday to see how recetive he would be to my request. I haven't heard back yet.
You Can Raise Awareness of the Situation
Don't underestimate the power of public awareness. Don't hesitate to blog about the situation or mention it in your other advertising on a passing basis. Buying trademarks in Google can be a questionable practice, and pointing out that a smaller competitor wants to ride your coat tails can be entertaining to your current customers. Some of them may even laugh and tell their friends!
Depending on your situation of course, you want to be careful what you say and how you say it. I am a big believer in not badmouthing my competitors even when they desperately deserve it. Stay classy and honest and as the pressure builds, your competitor just might stop buying your trademarks!
Click the Ads
This option speaks for its self. The ads are there for the clicking, so take a look and see what your competitor is up to. It's their dime ;-)
In all seriousness, I have asked Brad to stop buying my trademarks. I will give you an update and let you know what he says. Like most people in our industry, he is probably a very skilled guy with a good business head on his shoulders. From time to time we have customers who we can't or don't want to handle, and when that happens, we need a place to refer them.
Everyone wants to make money online. With all of the options out there for generating revenue, the question becomes where should you begin?
Affiliate marketing was my second stop on the income trail. I first looked into affiliate marketing when I felt I had a good handle on how AdSense worked and I wanted to add another tool to my income arsenal.
AdSense is a great place for new internet marketers to start. Google offers cut and paste code that automatically finds the most appropriate ad for your page and serves it. AdSense allows you to "fire and forget" ads and let Google do all of the background work and heavy lifting.
When I entered the world of affiliate marketing, the only online income I was earning was from AdSense which pretty much takes care of everything for you. I had some experience with Google's referral products (which are as close as Google gets to affiliate marketing), but I had never ventured into the land of payment on ACTIONS instead of CLICKS.
AdSense vs. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing can be intimidating at first when you are coming at it from an AdSense perspective. The biggest difference is that AdSense pays you when people click on an ad, whereas affiliate programs pay you when users take actions like making a purchase or signing up for something. Payout can range from a few cents to more than $25 an action.
Another difference is that Google's AdSense will sort out a lot of the less desirable companies and individuals for you by prohibiting pornographic content, and content related to illegal activities. hen you venture into the land of affiliate programs, you need to be a bit more careful when you select a product to promote.
A great example is that I promoted Joel Comm's Secret Classroom DVD set because I believed in the product. Since then, I have been asked by a number of individuals and companies to help them promote their products as well. Some I helped out with, but most I did not. It wasn't because they were bad people or anything - I just didn't believe in their products.
How to Find Quality Affiliate Products to Promote
Most companies who are serious about promoting their products through affiliate programs hire an affiliate management company to handle the process. A company the I use and like a lot is Azoogle Ads.
Now don't misunderstand - just because Azoogle has a TON of high-quality products you can make money promoting on the Internet that doesn't mean that ALL of the products they have are awesome.
A while back I ended up promoting a desktop wallpaper program that was FREE to download, and I earned $.75 for every person that downloaded it. It turns out that the wallpapers were actually spyware, and they were making their money by displaying ads to people who didn't want to see them. Talk about blowing your credibility! As soon as I realized what had happened, I stopped promoting the product - lesson learned.
On a more positive note, I earned more than $100 in a week by promoting Omaha Steaks online. I bough some Google AdWords ads and drove traffic to a discount coupon I had created for the promotion. I spent about $70 on traffic, with a profit of $30. Nothing to write home about, but imagine if you scaled that success across a hundred or so products!
Do Your Home Work and Strive for Scalability
When it comes to affiliate marketing you have to do your homework and make sure you are promoting a product that is legitimate and worthy of your reputation. There is a lot of money to be made in affiliate marketing, but it is by no means a "quick buck".
If you are experienced and knowledgeable in a niche, you should be able to find a product that resonates in that niche. Determine the best way to promote it, get your promotion online, and move on to the next product. In most cases, affiliate marketing is a numbers game. If you play your cards right, there is a LOT of money to be made.
I just received my copy of the DVD set as well as the Secret Classroom closed door sessions. Even I did not get to see the closed door sessions, so I am pumped to watch them sometime when I have a chance. I might rip the audio and listen while I drive unless the video is nifty.
I am still waiting on the second set for the contest. I imagine that one will be arriving any day.
A couple of guys named Vince and Edmund are about to release an Internet Marketing newsletter tomorrow called IMGuerilla.
The trouble with internet marketing publications is that they are almost always the same old info retread mashed together by people who are so inexperienced they think it is news... They all promise to help you make more money or get more traffic. The one thing that is ALWAYS missing are examples of the publisher's own success.
The third paragraph of the IMGuerilla website even says that the newsletter was written by financially troubled guys who figured out how to make it online.
You've heard us alright. Something *BIG* is about to come and change the way you do business forever - just as it had changed the fortunes for these problematic, financially-challenged individuals...
The ONLY thing that *might* give these guys a shot at a successful newsletter is the fact that you have to PAY to get it. They have a revenue model, and if they are as financially secure as they say, they should have no problem feeding most of that revenue back into some high-calibur content for each issue.
I was impressed with the design of their sales letter and the comic-book style cartoons they used to draw traffic (If you don't check out the site for anything else, take a look at the cartoons).
I get approached about twice a week to push or promote some one's product. I can't promote everyone, and I am very aware that if I promote the WRONG product every ounce of credibility I have earned with my readers is out the window.
I expressed my concerns to Vince and Edmund after they contacted me about being a part of the affiliate program. They replied promptly and assured me the content would be worth my time. Then THEY signed me up for the affiliate program and sent me a user name and a password.
For those of you new to affiliate marketing, typically YOU have to go to the website and sign YOURSELF up. So the fact that they did it for me caught my attention at least.
They are going to send me a sample copy of the newsletter at some point, and I am going to ask if I can reproduce some of the content here on my blog. If it looks good, I will endorse it. But if it is nothing earth shattering or if the quality drops off over time, my support will as well.
So what's it going to be guys? Can my readers have an exclusive sneak peek?