AzoogleAds Makes Good on New Referral Terms

It didn’t take long for AzoogleAds to get in contact with me, right after I my "New AzoogleAds Referral Terms Screw Affiliates" post went live. Though I was not first to break the news on the new terms and conditions on the changes to their referral program, I have not seen any updates from other blogs since. Today we will look over their term changes again and why AzoogleAds say it was a necessary change for them.

I first talked with Mitch from AzoogleAds about an hour after the post went live. Mitch wanted to make it clear to me that they are still "dedicated to the long term and wants to put the right measures in place" and that "there are custom programs in place for people like u, these changes were more to weed out the bad players who were taking advantage of the program".

Later that night I was also contacted by AzoogleAds co-Founder Alex Zhardanovsky. Unfortunately, at the time I wasn’t available, so I got to talk with Alex this morning. Like Mitch, Alex just wanted to clear everything up and try to set things straight. A few minutes before talking with Alex, he stopped by the blog and posted a comment response himself:

After talking with Alex and Mitch, I can understand their situation, and I pointed out to that the reason why everyone was so steamed about their announcement, was because their was not listed justification or reasoning behind the change. If you are working at a job, then the boss comes over and hands you a letter stating "You will no longer receive a raise or any bonus"… you would flip out too.

AzoogleAds will make exceptions for their new affiliate referral program on a personal basis, as the new terms are in effect so they basically don’t have to monitor every account for referral fraudulence. Apparently there was a big amount of money of affiliates within the networks that were being referred by "family" or "friends", then 2% of their earnings were just coming in as gravy, while cutting into AzoogleAds’ margins.

I will continue to list AzoogleAds program and offers on the blog, as they have made the effort to correct things on their end for deserving referral sites. If you are currently sending referrals to AzoogleAds, I would contact them personally to discuss your situation and see what they can do for you. Once again, this fiasco has shown the power of blogging and communication. While some readers were angry that I removed AzoogleAds from the blog, simply because you thought it would be a loss of revenue for me, you are wrong. My referrals and revenue sources from AzoogleAds are minimal and I made the decision to remove their links because at the time, new terms were put in place with no explanations or reasoning. With so many networks and revenue sources available, I will not tolerate drastic changes without reasoning, and neither should you.

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Make Money with Gevalia Affiliate Program

Affiliate Program Review:
Yesterday I touched on the emphasis of promoting high quality brands and the impact it has on conversions and campaign success. Today I will introduce another campaign that has the same high quality branding to it’s name, and that’s Gevalia Coffee. Like Omaha Steaks, this has been one of the best and consistent money makers in the affiliate marketing space for some time now. While competition in the “coffee” area can be tough, the combination of a high commission payout and the incentive of a free 12-cup coffee maker, it shouldn’t be tough to have success with this offer.

Gevalia is spread across a decent amount of affiliate networks, and most of them with their own unique twist to the campaign. Hydra Network and offers ranging from $10-$13.25 cpa, which all offer a free coffee maker and the campaigns are also divided up by banner/search promotions. NeverBlueAds has a $13 payout on any leads that try request any of their four 1/2 pound packages of coffee for $29.95, and receive a Deluxe Coffeemaker and Stainless Steel Coffee Scoop as a special gift. Lastly, Gevalia is also available through AzoogleAds, with a payout of $14.50. Through AzoogleAds you have a various amount of promotional ad copies for banners, text and search marketing. Each network has their own specific campaign setup for individual marketing, so make sure if you are promoting through search, to only grab the search urls.

Landing Page Screenshot:

- Gevalia: View Landing Page

Participating Networks:
- Hydra Network (CPA), NeverBlueAds (CPA) & AzoogleAds (CPA)

Commission Rates:
$10.00-$14.50 per Lead

Traffic Allowed: Search, Banners, Text, Email

Related ppc Keywords:
coffee, discount coffee, coffee makers, coffee gifts, gourmet coffee, free coffee, premium coffee
(Refer to my Super Affiliate Guide section for pay per click marketing tips. Test this search campaign with Yahoo and receive a $25 credit and/or Start a new campaign with MSN AdCenter & receive a $50 credit.)

Relevant Categories:
Shopping > Food > Beverages > Coffee and Tea

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New AzoogleAds Referral Terms Screw Affiliates

It wasn’t til today that I caught attention of the new terms and conditions set forth by AzoogleAds on their affiliate referral program. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get their email notice, and I’ve talked to a couple others who also didn’t receive it, but are still an affiliate of the network. The news is already a couple days old, as already discussed by CPA-Affiliates, Cashtastics and many posts on WickedFire, but I will go into some detail on what I think of the changes of how it will affect future relations with AzoogleAds.

Let’s first take a look at the new terms in place by AzoogleAds:

The new terms and conditions are made up of nine new bullet points, though it’s really only two big changes, which are shown below.
• Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.
• You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.

Let’s first focus on “Referral commission will continue to be 2% of referred publishers’ revenue but will now expire after 6 months.“. I can’t stress enough how awesome “lifetime” commissions are, and that some affiliate networks are offering this as an incentive is great. I know many networks that only pay commissions for 3-12 months of the affiliates earnings with the network. While I’m not sure how much volume AzoogleAds’ earns each month based on referred affiliates from affiliates, but I can’t imagine the 2% “lifetime” that they were paying affiliates, would put them out of business. After all, you are only making money if your referrals make money. I believe AzoogleAds is large enough and have been successfully pulling large enough margins on their offers to have a decent profit margin. (Despite recently laying off a bunch of staff and removing their rewards program!)

Second point, “You must maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 in your primary account on a monthly basis in order to receive any referral payouts for that month.“. I’m currently an affiliate with almost every network out there. I want to see what offers are new, which can make money, and update my blog readers on network news. This new requirement of having to earn $1,000 a month from actual AzoogleAds campaigns, to get credit for any affiliate referrals is just ridiculous. What about all the bloggers or network directories out there that only specialize in referrals to networks? Well, if you were making money with AzoogleAds, now you’re screwed. I’m sure $1,000 a month isn’t much to many, but to make it a requirement… you’re just digging your grave. I put forth the time and effort to give you accurate and detailed information on how to make money with these networks, a clear example of this success is my “My Blog Readers Have Earned Over $100,000!” post. I will no longer recommend AzoogleAds to my readers…

I really hate to see when an affiliate network doesn’t have it’s own referral program, but the new terms are AzoogleAds is almost at that. How much would it suck, for you to look at your stats and see you made some earnings off your referrals, but won’t be paid because you didn’t hit your $1,000 monthly mark… or to see a “big” referral go black after six months. While it sucks for us, it makes sense for AzoogleAds to not do away with the whole referral program since any referrers will probably still keep their existing links up (I wont), which results in free advertising money for AzoogleAds. However, if AzoogleAds keeps up their tactics and pisses off enough affiliates and referral networks, they may find that their advertising costs to bring in new affiliates would possibly match or outweigh that 2% lifetime in which they used to offer. With the removable of the rewards program and now a horrible referral program, AzoogleAds is now a network for big media that cares only about profit margins and not a meaningful relationship, which I heavily emphasize on.

To finish off this in-depth post, let’s focus on two testimonials from Jordan Visco at NeverBlueAds and Kris Jones from PepperJam Network, whom I will point out, heavily respect their affiliates and referrals to their networks and continue to pay honest commissions on all referrals.

“Its great to see that Zac’s hard work has been paying off for him as he has just passed the 2K affiliate referral commissions mark. Even greater is the realization that new webmasters who have been referred by ZacJohnson.com have now made over $100,000 with the NeverBlue Ads affiliate network. We’re excited that we can work together with affiliates like Zac to spread the affiliate marketing word and bring steady income to entrepreneurs worldwide who are looking to make a living for themselves online.”

“You’re becoming the next Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker, or John Chow! I should mention to your readers that you are also one of the top referrers of new affiliates to PepperJam Network. Today marks the two week anniversary of the launch of PepperJam Network and since then you’ve referred more new affiliates to us than 90% of the other publishers in our referral program. In addition, your referrals (aka, your readers) are very high quality.”

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Make Money with Omaha Steaks Affiliate Program

Affiliate Program Review:

Back when I used to send out newsletters from my sites and do permission based email marketing, running an ad offer that was a well known brand, the offer always performed well. The same holds true for search marketing, banners and text. One of the hottest and most consistent offers in the affiliate marketing space is Omaha Steaks. Not only does the offer perform well, but the steaks and their food selection is amazing. I’ve ordered from Omaha Steaks several times, and when you are promoting an offer that you actually use and believe in, it makes the marketing that much easier.

After searching across a bunch of networks, I found Omaha Steaks on HydraMedia and Copeac. During the year I usually come across a couple promotions from Omaha Steaks, depending on the holiday. Right now the landing pages for Omaha Steaks have the current promotions of 61% Off + 6 Free Burgers ($8 cpa) or  59% Off + Free Cheesecake ($11.25-$12.50 cpa). It’s always nice to promote an offer with a discount or added bonus, this one has both.

Lastly, Valentine’s Day is just a couple weeks away. Would you rather have some nice juicy steaks… or roses and chocolates?! There is an amazing opportunity available for you to promote this offer in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. A purchase from Omaha Steaks for Valentine’s Day is not out of the ordinary… especially when they throw in some free cheesecake. If you visit their landing page below, click to their main page or gift center and you will see they have some Valentine’s Day specials.

Landing Page Screenshot:

- Omaha Steaks: View Landing Page

Participating Networks:

- HydraMedia (CPA) & Copeac (CPA)

Commission Rates:

$8.00-$12.50 per Lead

Traffic Allowed: Search, Banners, Text

Related ppc Keywords:

omaha steaks, steaks, steaks online, grilling steak, meat gifts, gourmet steak, filet mignons

(Refer to my Super Affiliate Guide section for pay per click marketing tips. Test this search campaign with Yahoo and receive a $25 credit and/or Start a new campaign with MSN AdCenter & receive a $50 credit.)

Relevant Categories:

Shopping > Food > Meat

Popularity: 3% [?]

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What are Your Favorite Affiliate Networks & Why?

I think back to around 2000 quite often, when things were still all coming together. At that time there wasn’t the massive amount of affiliate networks and it was no where near as easy to buy some licensing software and setup shop. Back then we had the big players like CJU, LinkShare, WebSponsors, BeFree and a few others. I also remember when the Sharesale network first came out and I really liked what I was seeing. So much, that after I pulled all my merchant programs off CJ, I loaded most of them onto Shareasale. I’ve been an advertiser and affiliate with them since the beginning.

These days, there are just a massive onslaught of ad networks right in your face. With so much competition out there, how can they all last? Even just looking back 2-3 years ago when DirectTrack released their own operating system for running your own network, everyone in the world was starting their own! Even I had my own network for a few months! I couldn’t deal with the management and frustration of running a network on my own, so I said forget that!… but I can say that I tried it! Find a list of DirectTrack’s clients that were running their network software and I’m sure that most of them are out of business or never got to make it big. (Two examples of networks that have thrived using DirectTrack, are XY7 and CPAEmpire) Why is that? DirectTrack had a decent system for managing networks… but I’m sure the offers, competitive rates and affiliate support just wasn’t there.

I really only use a handful of networks for the majority of my business. What matters to me more than anything else is getting the attention and support I deserve. If another network is paying 5% more on an offer, but I’m not already established with them… I don’t care. My personal relationship means all the difference. Just off-hand, five of my top preferred networks are. NeverBlueAds, PepperJam Network, RocketProfit, ValueClick Media & Shareasale. I’ve never had an issue with payment, I’ve always had someone personable at the company to work with, and I’ve made good money with all of them. What are your favorite affiliate networks and how can they better serve you?

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