Inside the Secret Life of a Super Affiliate - Zac Johnson dot Com Let the Reign Begin

If you had the choice between having $10,000 to build a web site from scratch, or to buy an established web site that is generating $500 a month, which would you choose? The market for buying established web sites has always been hot, but it’s always a tough decision as the auction clock counts down… especially if you get into the high five and six figures sales! The million dollar question is, if you took the time and had the resources, could you build something better, vs. buying a web site, or are you just wasting time?

After buying  few established sites over the past several months, I’ve had my fair share of stressful moments and going over the numbers time and time again to make sure I was making the right decision. Through my experience, I’ve broken down my decisions to a few major factors.

Here’s a list of my top reasons why I would rather purchase a solid established web site for 20+ times earnings, then build my own from scratch.

TIME IS WORTH MORE THAN MONEY

We all have great ideas. Unfortunately we get side tracked, have problems executing and get overwhelmed… which leaves most of our ideas on the back burner. Hence, time is more valuable then money. If you are already established and making money online, you may already have the resources and money to purchase a web site, which saves you the time from starting from scratch. If you buy an established web site, the design, infrastructure and establishment is already there.

IMMEDIATE BRANDING, AUTHORITY AND DATA

Depending on the size of the web site you purchase, you may be paying for the branding and authority already associated with a site. One of the biggest problems with starting a web site from scratch, is having to get people to your web site and building a solid presence. This can easily fall into the “time issue”, but is actually a whole set of problems/solutions in itself.

The data from picking up an established site is also a huge benefit. These days every site has a mailing list, a twitter account and a social appearance. While these advantages usually don’t have a dollar figure on them, they definitely do contribute to the growth and exposure of your site. The time itself to build up traffic, collect newsletter subscribers and study these numbers is quite a hefty number.

OUTSOURCE YOUR NEW SITE COMPLETELY

How is your business doing financially? If your numbers are doing great, picking up an established site that is already generating a few hundred/thousand a month in revenue is a good idea. Actually, if it’s a site that you can completely outsource and keep profitable, then it’s a great idea! Web sites that may fall under this category are media/video entertainment sites, blogging and web forums. Even if the cost of outsourcing is 75% of the profit made from the site, you are still earning a potential 25% profit while increasing in size month over month, while not having to manage the site.

PUTTING YOUR EXPERTISE TO GOOD USE

The last and most important factor in deciding to buy an established web site, or create your own… is if you can put your expertise to use. Whether you specialize in affiliate marketing, social media, web design or search marketing… it’s tough to find an established web site that is doing their best on all of these, and that is your advance. Find already profitable web sites, what they are lacking, and most importantly what you can improve upon.

PLACING THAT WINNING BID!

In the end, it all comes down to a few deciding factors on whether or not you are going to be the TOP BIDDER when that auction clock counts down. (I hate that 4 hour extension on Flippa!) In realistic terms, it might come down to the size of your wallet, but if that’s not the case… then it’s the following. Do your research and make sure the site is legit. Think really hard if this is a site/niche that you want to dive into. If you’re going to drop a few thousand or more on a site, make sure you are ready to take it to the next level… or you may find yourself putting out a fire, losing money and cost yourself even more time than before you picked this site up.

WHERE TO BUY & SELL WEB SITES?

There is a huge demand for the buying and selling of web sites, but also a big lack of competition. So where is the best place to buy and sell web sites? Right now Flippa.com (formerly SitePoint) is leading the way… and by a mile I may add. Since their launch, Flippa has done over $28 million in web site sales. Where is all of the competition for Flippa? Sure, you have sites like ebay.com, that usually have crap sites. Then you have a bunch of “in the mix” sites, that just don’t compete. Right now Flippa is KING.

A little less than a year ago I decided to change over from hosting on my own dedicated servers I had running with another company, to picking up a couple dedicated servers with MediaTemple. I had previously heard a few good things about MediaTemple, and their pricing wasn’t too bad after pre-ordering for a year and using a 20% off coupon code. What I didn’t realize til later, was how much the support (email at least…) at MediaTemple sucks. We live in a virtual world, and you should never have to wait more than a few minutes to get an email response back from a hosting company… and with wait times of up to 15+ hours, MediaTemple was just a disaster. On top of that, my servers were managed like crap, site were running slower, and MediaTemple just left me with a bunch of reading material on how to fix this.

Now it’s time for a change. Over the past week I’ve been working with WiredTree on setting up a new server and moving over a few sites. This process would have been much faster, but there were timing issues with DNS and getting the latest database batches uploaded. This morning I ended up catching Hristos, an awesome support member during the night/early morning (2-4 am) and he whipped everything together real fast for me.

So why the decision to go with WiredTree vs. the other million other web hosts out there? First off, I heard their customer support and response times were excellent, and that immediately won me over. I quickly sent them an email about the type of servers and hosting I would need, and they came right back to me with a few solutions. Another reason why I was feeling good about WiredTree, was that several friends in this industry are already hosting with them. With a few highly praised recommendations and a proven support team that actually cares about your, it was a no brainer.

With all of that said… here’s to a much faster ZacJohnson.com and much praise to WiredTree if you are in need of a new host.

PPV (pay per view) or CPV (Cost per view) traffic is a hot topic these days.  With more and more affiliates jumping ship from Google AdWords, they are turning to networks like Traffic Vance, Media Traffic, and many of the smaller PPV networks. Most affiliates (with any traffic source) are going to be running traffic straight to CPA offers via a landing page or direct link. As an affiliate, you can make great money with that strategy, but what are some of the other ways to leverage PPV traffic?

Build an Email List

PPV traffic is a great way to build an email list. You can collect emails for as little as $0.01 per opt-in and market to that list over and over. Instead of sending that customer off to your CPA offer for a flat commission anywhere from $1-$30, you can market multiple offers to that customer which could end up netting you hundreds of dollars in commission. Remember, once you collect the customers email address, it doesn’t cost you any more to mail them more offers. You can accomplish this by building a landing page with your opt-in form on it using a program like Aweber. Offer your customers something in exchange for their email address. For example, if you are promoting a weight loss offer you might offer then  a free report like “The Top 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Dieting” which they will get after they opt-in to your email list.

Pre-Populate

Why not send the traffic to an offer page with their info already filled out? All they have to do is click submit, and you get a commission. You can even pre-populate the offer and collect the email address to market to later. Sounds pretty good right? You will have to check with your affiliate network can see which offers can be pre-populated and the specific instructions on how to do that. Usually it just requires something to be added to the end of your affiliate link. If you want to also collect the email in your autoresponder like Aweber, you will need some additional code to send their email to your offer and Aweber.

Incentivize Offers

It can be hard to find incentive offers that work well but you can combine these with PPV traffic to really increase conversions.  You will have to follow the rules as far as what you are able to incentivize with but since the traffic on PPV networks is relatively cheap, it’s possible to get a lot of views to your page. To accomplish this find some offer that you think might do well and build a  landing page highlighting what the customer will get (the incentive) if they fill out your offer. If you are paying attention, you will realize this is another great opportunity to collect their email!

Promote Your Own Product

There is really nothing stopping affiliates from making their own product. You might think you need a lot of capital, resources, etc. but in reality your own product could be something simple like an ebook or an audio/video download. Take a subject you know like playing the guitar, gardening, or anything else and write a short guide about it. You will be surprised  when it actually sells!

PPV traffic is fairly cheap and there is a lot of it. The key to monetizing this traffic is to think outside the box. Everyone is sending traffic straight to offers, so what can you to do be different and compete with all the other affiliates? Don’t be afraid to try new strategies and ideas…you never know what will work until you try.

David Ford will be doing an 8 week live PPV webinar series with Corey Bornmann from Affportal taking students through these techniques and much more. To learn more visit http://www.ppv123.com and register for the free webinar.

This guest post was written by David Ford, author of the PPV Playbook, and runs a PPV coaching forum. He has been involved with internet marketing for 8 years as an affiliate, coach, and product creator. He also created the ppv123.com webinar series with Corey Bornmann from Affportal.

Last month I wrote a post on Good and Bad Branding and how much of a waste it can be for companies. The majority of companies out there will slap their logo on anything, then order 10,000 products that no one will ever use. Affiliate.com put this concept to the test at this year’s Affiliate Summit West and went the extra mile to try and make a shirt people will actually wear after they leave the event.

With overwhelming feedback while at the event, Affiliate.com wants to keep the testimonials alive by holding a contest for $1,000 cash to any blogger that enters and writes about wearing their Affiliate.com shirt after the event. (improve your chances of winning by including a photo) The incentive to win $1,000 cash is great, but Affiliate.com is also going the extra mile to donate an additional $1,000 to the Haiti Red Cross Relief Fund. (full details below).

Official Contest Rules
- Contest runs from today, 2/1 through 2/22.
- Entrants simply need to blog about the shirt (hopefully including a photo, but not required) and send the link to Tom@affiliate.com to enter.
- A winner will be announce on 3/1.

Good luck and don’t forget to join Affiliate.com if you haven’t already.

Maybe it’s just the new budgets in the beginning of the year… but it looks like some of us are just killing it with earnings on Sponsored Tweets. This month was easily my best month with Sponsored Tweets, and that’s even with turning down a few offers. Why would I turn offers down?… some just aren’t relevant at all. With that being said… the business on Sponsored Tweets has just exploded lately.

SponsoredTweets has one of the best monetization concepts around. As a Twitter user, you just need to click YES or NO to accept a new advertised tweet. How much money is being made in whole by “sponsored tweeting”…I don’t know exactly, but it’s enough to make a full scalable business. Sponsored Tweets isn’t the only game in town… Ad.ly is also a huge player in this space, however in the past several months I’ve had an account with them, I’ve had only ONE tweet request. Ad.ly has the big name advertisers, and the backing of many Twitter celebrities… but something just isn’t ticking like it is at Sponsored Tweets.

Back to the money… it’s not enough to retire or quit your day job… nevermind, it is! Let’s get serious… no one is really going to retire from tweeting, because anyone who is making that much is already in a position where they most likely don’t have to work. But to keep things fun, let’s just look at some of the earnings going around. John Chow just posted an image of his Sponsored Tweets account with his $4,000+ in earnings. I asked how long of a time period that was for, and he said about a month and a half. That’s pretty damn good for clicking an approval button! Let’s bring it up another level. Another big name is Jeremy Schoemaker of course. In a post a few months ago, Jeremy talks about how he sometimes makes over $15,000 a month for sponsored tweeting!

Even if you had the extreme following and brand awareness on Twitter to make $1,000 a month, that’s still an very honorable figure. However, in reality, most people are using Twitter for fun, see what other people are saying and just to be part of the group. These big name players are the exception… but there is definitely enough money to go around!

With this month being my busiest month yet for Sponsored Tweets, I’ve also come across a few new advertisers. Three new advertisers I had request a tweet this month are below, each with their own reasoning for ordering a sponsored tweet and how they got their message across.

1.) ShoeMoney System - Jeremy already had all the branding and following he needed to easily fill the 500 lead cap on his new ShoeMoney System program. However, that didn’t stop him from ordering a ton of targeted sponsored tweets by well known names in our affiliate industry. I’m not sure on his end numbers and ROI, but Sponsored Tweets was able to get his message around to a targeted audience in a short period of time.

2.) $DGDM Awareness - This was the first stock related sponsored tweet I’ve seen. I also decided to promote this one because I found it quite interesting. I do a fair amount of stock trading, but didn’t jump on this one. The tweet url went to a site by 8020m which gave an overview on DGDM stock and why you should own their stock, and highlighting company achievements. During the past week, this penny stock went from .10 to .75! If anyone else decided to buy this stock based on their paid tweets, it would be hard to tell.

3.) MyHosting / Affiliate Summit West - Bringing awareness to an event that you’re attending is an excellent idea. MyHosting.com has tweets going out to display they had a table at Affiliate Summit West, then to promote their $100 activation bonus on new hosting accounts. Both relevant ad copies, and unique to anyone attending ASW.

This is just the beginning… it’s only a matter of who can find the best ways to monetize their Twitter traffic, and who can monetize your Twitter followers with new ad buys. Which side will you be on… or can you manage both?