Make Money with AdReporting

It’s been a while since I my last Network Review, and I want to keep you updated with some new areas to make money online. Today I will tell you about the AdReporting Network. The funny thing is, I haven’t used AdReporting for quite a while now, but I still get their email updates on new offers added to the network (which triggered me to write this review). Right off the bat, I really like AdReporting just for the fact that they haven’t deleted my account for inactivity purposes. I make money with a lot of networks and sometimes I don’t have any activity for months. (I was originally going to do a review on HyrdaMedia… but it looks like they deleted my account!) Bad for them… Lucky for AdReporting!

Overview:
I first started running AdReporting back in April of 2002. Around this time I was well into my sweepstakes / freebie type sites and there was a lot of great offers to choose from, which matched my traffic demographics and newsletters. I was also in close talks with Kevin Needham who started (and still runs) AdReporting.

Ease of Use:
The simplicity of the network is awesome. Right when I went to the site, I wasn’t sure if I remembered my password or not, so I went to the “forgot password” page and all my infor was sent right into my email. As for loading times, everything is very fast. Since the site is nearly all text format, and has a low intensity graphic design, browsing through the site is extremely easy and doesn’t take any time to get use to it.

Profitability:
I logged into my account for the first time in a while and wanted to see what type of earnings I used to make with these guys and it looks like I had made $32,573.57 since starting my account with them. For a good majority of 2002 I was earning around $4k to $5k a month off their offers. I’ll post a check stub if I can find a copy laying around.

I was hoping to make a list of some great offers on the network that I made all this money off of, but unfortunately they have since expired or been removed from the network. However, here are the top three performers while I was running offers on the network. I was able to target my traffic for free phone cards and that offer really paid off! The Foreclosure World and Norton SystemWorks also did extremely well.

Stats Tracking:
Viewing your stats is extremely simple and loads very fast. AdReporting keeps all of your tracking stats and doesn’t delete them as time goes on. I was able to check my reporting all the way back to 2002. When selecting offers, you are also shown the network average earnings per click over a 3 or 7 day span. Within your AdReporting account, you also have the option of earning additional revenue by referring other affiliates. There are also some neat tools and banner rotation scripts you can setup to get an idea on what type of offers will convert best with your traffic. Lastly, there is also a small section on how to start pushing offers through ppc advertising and offers a few resource sites as well.

Quality of Ads:
Right now there are 84 offers on the network. Since AdReporting is a smaller network, you may come across several offers that you won’t be able to find on the larger networks. There is a wide variety in offers available, ranging from pay per sale, to low end freebie offers. Some high end offers include Laser Beam Software (paying $30 CPA), eBay Auction Throttle (paying $20 CPA) and Blue hosting (paying $80 CPA). If you can provide volume, I’m sure Kevin will hook you up with even better rates! (tell him Zac sent ya! :))

Why Do I Like This Network:
Back when I was running offers with AdReporting, I was in contact with Kevin a lot. Since I was pushing some heavy volume on the network it was important for me to have a personal contact there and be appreciated. Payments were always on time and there were many offers on AdReporting that could not be found on the other networks.

Final Review:
As mentioned earlier, it’s been a while since I last logged into AdReporting, but after looking over their system again and seeing how quickly I was able to generate over $32,000+ in commissions with them, I may try and start pushing their offers again. Even though I have not used the network in quite some time I would have to rate AdReporting with 3 out of 5 “Zac Stamps of Approval“. A new change to the network I wasn’t too thrilled about, was their removal of affiliate referrals to the network. With so many networks around now, why wouldn’t you help your own network by allowing other two promote it on an earnings percentage basis. Still, looking back five years and seeing $32,573.57 earnings within the span of less than a year on a new network (with no PPC advertising), I think that’s pretty cool! I recommend you signup to the network and see if there are any offers that match your audience!

Click Here to Apply for AdReporting

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One Thing I Learned at Affiliate Summit

I was just recently tagged by Shawn to take part in this "One Thing I Learned at Affiliate Summit" tag post which has been going around for the past week. As an official "Blogger" for the Affiliate Summit East event, this time around I was more motivated to attend as many presentations as possible and meet up with a lot of new people. In addition to speaking in the "Elevator Networking" sessions, I also got to voice my thoughts and opinions on the event a few other times in open mic sessions. Coming back from Affiliate Summit, I am always full of new ideas and motivation, but this time around I would have to say I am most motivated about "blogging" and "ppc marketing". And here’s why:

BLOGGING:
Even though my blog is only a few months old and gets a decent amount of comments here and there, you really don’t know who some of your visitors are. The Bumpzee widget is super amazing, and shows you an icons of members that logged in and updates when they visit your blog, but not everyone is a member of Bumpzee. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I met up with some old friends and they told me they were reading the blog. What was even cooler was hearing this from new people that I was just meeting for the first time, like Jon from WickedFire and Scott Jangro of Bumpzee. Knowing that my blog was being read by so many people within the affiliate marketing community was really great to know, and inspires me to make the blog even bigger and more helpful to others just starting out.

PPC MARKETING:
From past events, I feel that I didn’t get much out of the presentations and speakers. They are usually good topics and the speakers know what they are talking about, but I have been around a while and attended every Affiliate Summit since they started… so it was only so often I heard something new. This time around it was different, and I happen to attend some great presentations and got to meet with some really cool speakers, mainly the guys in the PPC Market. The first speaker that really got me excited was Amit Mehta, and his story on how he is making big bucks in PPC marketing and within such a short period of time. I was also fortunate enough to attend Kris Jones’ presentation, which also went into some great detail on PPC. It’s knowledgeable and giving speakers like these that matter in the industry. After both of their presentations were done, they gladly took time to speak with everyone that stayed after to ask a question or just want to listen in for some good tips.

Since returning back from Affiliate Summit, I have been testing the water of PPC marketing, while working on some new ideas for blog sites and keeping in touch with my new friends. If you weren’t able to attend Affiliate Summit this time around, I stress that you find a way to get there next year!

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Buying a New Home

My girlfriend and I had started searching for a house to buy a few months ago. After going to several houses and checking them out we had come across an extremely nice house on the lagoon. The house was torn dorn and completely remodeled by the owner a couple years ago. What I really loved about the house was that it had a "Florida" type feel to it, and the house layout was perfect. Upstairs was even a loft, which would have been perfect for running my business. In short, the house was perfect for the both of us. After seeing it the first time we were hesitant because it was priced at $755,000. We decided to wait and still see what was available in the market.

Some time went by and we went through a few more open houses and nothing compared to the original house we looked at, and everything in the same price range did not impress us. A little less than a month ago I called my realtor up and told her I wanted to make a bid on the house. I told her $650k, then she said it would be better to start at $700k since they probably would not take $650k seriously. We submit the bid and did all the necessary paper work. Soon enough it was negotiating time with the owners. After talking with the realtor over the phone and having her go back and forth between the owner’s realtor and pricing, we negotiated on $715,000. More than I had originally expected to pay for our first house, but we both really like this one.

More time went by and we were having all the necessities done, which included setting up mortgage loans, house inspections, insurance and estimates. The owners already had a house in Florida and were ready to sell the house and leave. II had previously asked if they would sell the furniture with the house as well. Everything inside was brand new and Ethan & Allen type quality. The owners said they would take $20,000 for everything inside (which we felt was a bit high). The day of the inspection, Reena, my father and the realtor were all there. In addition to the inspection, we were looking over all of the furniture and making estimates on the value of everything. For the more part, everything checked out fine at the house for the inspection, but the inspector also pointed out that the bulkhead (wall separating the land from the lagoon) was old and on a 10 degree angle and probably only had a few years left on it’s life. This was a major deal as it can get costly. We soon had a marine construction company come over and do an estimate on the bulkhead and they said it would soon have to be replaced within the next few years, otherwise the whole backyard could fall into the lagoon. The price was quoted in the area of $25,000.

This was a completely new and unexpected problem for the house, and one that I did not want to have to pay for. More time went by and I had my attorney write a letter to the owner’s attorney about the problem. I talked to my realtor, who talked to the owner’s realtor and they said they had their own "opinion/estimate" given on the bulk from some other researchers. We were even thinking/considering the idea of the furniture in exchange for taking care of the bulkhead ourselves. Their final letter from their attorney stated they would not pay for the bulkhead to be fixed, nor negotiate on any deals or pricing to make up for the deal.

It was now my decision to take the house as is and take the $25,000+ hit, or close the deal out. I talked to my lawyer and he said I was under no obligation to go ahead with the buying of the house, since inspection found this problem and only the initial home sales papers were signed. After talking with Reena and thinking about what we should do, we decided to tell the attorney to send over a "Kill Letter", which basically read "Mr. Johnson has advised me that he is unwilling to accept the property and the home inspection report since the Seller is not willing to repair or allow with respect to the bulkhead repairs or installation. Accordingly and under the terms of the home inspection clause, the home inspection is deemed unsatisfactory because of the bulkheading issue and the Contract declared null and void." The same day, I had left a message for my realtor about the kill letter as well.

The next day, later that night I received a call from a David at Shopzilla, who I met at Affiliate Summit. He said he sent a package to my address that was on my business card, and that UPS was told there was no "Zac Johnson" at the house. He told me the package was still outside the house and I could pick it up. The address he mailed to, was the address of this new house that I was expected to be moved into at the end of the month. I had ordered the cards right before Affiliate Summit, as the deal seemed like such a sure deal and both parties were ready to buy/sell. We wanted to move in and ready to buy, they wanted to move out and ready to sell. Never did I think their ignorance to negotiate would stop this deal, especially since I was paying pretty much TOP DOLLAR for this house. The worst part of that night was we went to the house and it was no longer "Under Contract" and was "FOR SALE" again. This was the first time it really hit hard that we weren’t getting the house.

The next day I had talked to my realtor and she said she ended up talking with the owner’s realtor and wanted some "proof" on their bulkhead estimates/inspection, which they never provided. Apparently it was a heated discussion and she ended up hanging up on him. I had then told her about the "FOR SALE" sign being listed on the house already. She said this was definitely not supposed to happen, as she hadn’t even received a copy of the "Kill Letter" before this new sign was put up.

Looks like we are now back to square one. I was originally set on buying a house on the water, but now open to a few more options… possibly a brand new house with more land and will build a nice in ground pool and deck area that Reena would love to have. It’s quite upsetting, as I was excitedly telling everyone about the our first house and how we would have some networking parties there. As frustrating and disappointing it has been, I am now confident that we will find something even better for us.

As for everyone that received my business card at Affiliate Summit, please contact me and I will send you my current address. If you happen to send anything out (which is usually unlikely), please also contact me. I will be going to the post office tomorrow to make sure any mail sent to the house with my contact name will be forwarded to my current location. I will keep you updated on my housing adventures… or drama.

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Check Page Rank

I was recently at a forum and saw a post on CheckPageRank.com and how it recently sold for $50,000. If you visit the site now, you will see that the DOMAIN is EXPIRED!

Even though there isn’t a site on the domain anymore, I’m sure it’s still getting a ton of traffic and making GoDaddy.com a few bucks from the ads… after all, it is #1 on Google still for "Check Page Rank". Imagine paying $50,000 for a web site and domain… then forgetting to RENEW! I’ve had problems before with losing domains, but GoDaddy’s automated renewal process makes everything so easy. I can’t imagine what happened!

If you would still like to check your page rank anyway, try some of these:

Live Page Ranke (Recommended - Multiple Server Check)
http://livepr.raketforskning.com/

Google Page Rank Checker
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

iWebTool Page Rank Checker (checks across multiple datacenters)
http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_checker

Google Page Rank Prediction
http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_prediction

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How Top Bloggers Earn Money

Business Week just released a new article on their site profiling 13 Top Bloggers and how much money their blogs make. Some of the well known names on the list include Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney), Darren Rowse, Perez Hilton and a few others. Apparently some of the bloggers were not even aware of the article, as Shoemoney made a post on his blog saying he was getting emails congratulating him on the article, but didn’t know what they were talking about till he looked over his traffic referral logs.

There were a few bloggers on the list I’ve never even heard of… but where is the almighty and highly controversial John Chow? With so much secrecy on how much bloggers make, sometimes it’s a complete guessing game… why not feature John Chow, who gives a full revenue statement each month on much his blogging is generating. It could just be the writers of Business Week never heard of him, or his blog. It’s all too common that the people working in the industry (like myself) know a lot more than the people writing these articles… which is why bloggers are making a ton more than writers for these main stream magazines.

I know for a fact a good portion of the bloggers listed in this article are cashing in BIG TIME on side projects and their main (secret) web sites. Not pointing any fingers, but the article itself states that Shoemoney.com’s revenue only accounts for 3% of his company’s revenue. (Jeremy also runs the AuctionAds network, which I heavily recommend and report on) The article also pointed out that Darren Rowse "doesn’t disclose the details, but across the many blogs he writes, he clears six figures a year from a mix of private ads, affiliate deals, and ads sold through platforms such as Chitika, Google AdSense, Text Link Ads, and Amazon Associates". It’s likely he is also cashing in on a lot more earnings than disclosed on the site.

Big Earners like Jeremy Shoemoney & Darren Rowse make the footsteps for other bloggers to follow.

Making money through blogging is awesome and these are all super success stories to hear. More than anything else, you should take these examples as major motivational boosts and push yourself to make even more online. We are working in the greatest industry every created. More millionaires are being made every day… are you next?

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