Once again, Market Leverage has gone above and beyond what is expected from an affiliate marketing company. Yesterday I received an unexpected Fedex package, only to find it was a real care package from the Market Leverage affiliate network. I’ve worked with Market Leverage for a few years now, but first met up with Debby Banning at Affiliate Summit West. Since then we have talked frequently over email and I look forward to working with their network a lot more. As for the gift package… it was awesome! Most affiliate networks or companies will send you a gift package which is loaded up with mouse pads, clothes and hats with their company logo on it… which I imagine most people just stuff in the closet. Market Leverage went way beyond the traditional gift care package by sending the following:
The Ultimate Care Package sent by Market Leverage
- A plaque in Memory of Rocky
- USB Pen, Flight Travel Pillow & Kit, Sailing Clock
- Flip Ultra Camera with Accessories (Tripod & Travel Case)
- MarketLevege Hat, Polo Shirt (Nike), Fleece Jacket and Blanket
The dedication that was put together to make this care package was awesome. I’ve received a lot of gifts from companies, but the Rocky plaque and the Flip camera are just amazing.
If you haven’t already, signup to the Market Leverage affiliate network. They just recently designed their site and it is looking great. In addition to a great site design and an amazing staff, they really do have ad campaigns that can make you some big money. I highly recommend using Market Leverage and I’ve been an affiliate with them for years now!
Before setting up your site with Build a Niche Store, you should first know what the program does and how it works. Build a Niche Store is a program that you upload to your web site, which creates a database and admin area for you to easily create an eBay auction resource type site, the program costs $97. (Other alternatives to BANS is phpbay, which is a wordpress plugin and costs $47.) The Build a Niche Store program is focused and aimed towards new comers to web site design, marketers and anyone that doesn’t want to program or play with eBay’s API system. In short, the $97 cost on this software is to save you time and pay for the time spent on creating this product and to access their active members forum.
What is BANS and how does it make money?
Build a Niche Store is a program that you install on your web server, which easily creates sites based on eBay auctions. The basic platform and concept for earning revenue with a BANS site is through the eBay Affiliate Program. Every time your web site generates a new user to eBay or a winning bid for an auction, you earn money. Through this guide I will cover many different ways to monetize a BANS web site, in addition to listing eBay auctions.
What do I need to create a BANS site?
If you currently have your own web site or knowledge on setting up domains and new sites, you are set and should have no problems creating a new site for BANS. If you are new to creating/hosting web sites, you will need a host and a domain name. I recently setup a new hosting account with HostGator($7.95 a month / unlimited domains) to house most of my Build a Niche Stores. I also order domains through GoDaddy. Once you have your web site hosting and domain available, BANS comes with a very easy to understand guide for uploading and setting up your BANS site.
- If you need a web host, used coupon code “SPRING” at HostGator and save 20%.
How long does it take to go live with a BANS site?
If you are completely new and need to setup your own hosting and purchase a domain, you should be able to go live with your store in less than an hour. (HostGator had my new account live within 20 mins of ordering) If you are already established and know what to do, you’ll have a store up in minutes. Figure two minutes to register a domain, another 5-10 minutes to upload and setup your BANS store, then spend a couple minutes to link/submit your new site to a few indexes or partner sites. In addition to how quickly you can have your site setup, it shouldn’t take long to get indexed in the major search engines as well.
Can I see examples of current BANS sites?
When you visit the Build a Niche Store web site, on the right column you will see a section called “Customer Stores“. This area profiles a select group of BANS customers and the stores they have setup. You will see that most of them are just utilizing the eBay affiliate program as a source for revenue. In the next follow up post this guide, I will show you actual BANS sites that I have created and am promoting through search marketing, articles and linking to drive traffic through the site, as well as many different revenue sources added to the site.
Targets towards almost any niche with eBay Auction content.
How do I promote eBay auctions on my BANS site? eBay has their own affiliate program called the eBay Partner Network, which gives you linking access to all auctions currently running on their network. With the integration of BANS and eBay, your site can easily link up hundreds of auctions and will update automatically along with eBay. Once you setup your BANS site, in the admin area you can provide your eBay Partner Network account information and it will track all existing campaigns and referrals through your site. Depending on your site’s traffic volume, you will earn 50-75% of the revenue for each winner bid placed through your site. You will also earn $25-$35 per new active user sent to eBay.
Who should use BANS and why?
Build a Niche Store was created to make the ease of setting up niche auction stores simple and fast. After setting up your first site and going through the process, you can whip these out pretty fast. Unfortunately, making money isn’t so easy… anyone can create a ton of stores with BANS and hope for the best, but site promotion and monetization are key. I will provide you with many stats and real life examples on how to make the most of your BANS pages.
As for who should use BANS, anyone can use the program to create site, however most will find that it is very simplistic and could be a very good intro for anyone starting out in the web marketing and affiliate space. Though the program is simple, even veteran marketers can make use of the program. If you currently have an existing network of sites and traffic, you can easily setup new niche sites to bring new traffic to. Once establishing your new niche area, you can focus and build it up to a new residual revenue source.
This has been a quick intro the the Build a Niche Store program and what/how it works. While there has been some skeptics on the potential of the program or feel that I am wasting everyone’s time by even writing about it, I feel it definitely has potential and I have been working in niche markets for years and know they are profitable. In the next post on Build a Niche Store, I will use a site I setup with BANS as an example and show you how to target to niche markets, while monetizing your BANS site with more revenue sources besides eBay Partner Network.
As much as I would like for everyone to make money with the BANS program, it just isn’t likely. The program itself WILL NOT make you money, you need to dedicate yourself to put in the time to market and monetize your site. This program makes it super easy to install and setup a new site, but how many people stop there? I wrote this tutorial and guide to inspire and motivate you to go beyond the norm and put forth the time and effort to make money with your BANS store, than move onto bigger and better projects.
In the next follow-up post, I will cover how to focus on niche markets and break down one of my BANS created sites, including how to add new revenue generating sources to your sites.
I get emails daily asking “How do i start making money online?” or “How do i get started in affiliate marketing?”. Unfortunately I don’t have to time to answer all of these emails in details since I get so many and only have so much time. I was looking at a somewhat new program last week called Build A Niche Store (BANS). After getting the program and fooling around with it for a bit, I thought it would make for a good intro to affiliate marketing and an easy way for people to get started. Not only can you start making money with the program, by creating your own niche sites, but you can learn about all different types of affiliate marketing as you grow your BANS site.
I’d like for this blog to not only be a resource for successful and established affiliates, but for everyone with an interest to make money online and get started in affiliate marketing. This week I will start a series of posts on how to setup a Build a Niche Store site, implementing different Affiliate Programs, how to target niches markets and how to successfully repeat the process over and over again to eventually provide you with a network of web sites earning you residual income month after month. The BANS software in itself focuses on how to make money off eBay and creating Auction sites. In addition to getting you setup with the eBay affiliate program, I will walk you through all of the different methods and programs you can use to monetize your new sites to the fullest. Not only will I have detailed guides for each topic, but I will also use my own BANS pages to give you examples and walk you through the process, and earnings as my BANS pages establish themselves.
If you would like to get started with creating your own Build a Niche Store, visit their web site for more information and to purchase their software. If you aren’t interesting in using the BANS program, you can still read through the future posts and use the advice and tips to monetize any existing web sites or landing pages you may have. Feel free to post any comments or questions your have that I will try to cover over the series of post due out this week.
Will lightning strike twice for these entrepreneurs… or did they just get lucky? Fortune Small Business magazine did a spotlight on the few entrepreneurs that ended up starting a hot internet company, then ended selling for millions. Now the question is, are these players one hit wonders, or can they strike gold again. Let’s put the spotlight on Jason Calacanis, Philip Kaplan and Jeff Dachis.
Jason Calacanis (publisher of Silicon Alley & owner of Weblogs Inc.)
Calanis’ claim to fame was selling WebLogs Inc. to AOL for a reported $25 million dollars. Since then he has focused his time on creating his own human powered search engine, called Mahalo.com. In addition to spending time on Twitter and posting new Mahalo links (tweets) and videos to his 20,000+ followers, you will also find Jason stirring up controversy with his outspoken opinions towards the affiliate marketing and SEO industry marketers. FSB Lesson Learned: “Sell when someone offers you 10 to 15 times revenue”
Philip Kaplan (Founder of F*ckedCompany.com) Kaplan’s new focus is on his advertising network AdBrite.com, but what made Kaplan an internet superstar was his F*ckedCompany.com. Featured as the dot com dead pool, F*ckedCompany.com was a resource and gossip-like site viewed by millions, as employees and insiders at companies would send Kaplan the insider info, whether it be layoffs, earnings figures or ridiculous emails sent through the company to their employees. FSB Lesson Learned: “Transparency with your employees” - it makes them less likely to air dirty laundry on gossip sites.
Jeff Dachis
(CEO of RazorFish) After Microsoft bought aQuantive, the parent company of Razorfish, Dachis went on to be the founder of Bond Art & Science, a web design and consultancy firm. The biggest hit (or stike) for Jeff and RazorFish, was when their stock public, to trade at over $100 per share, then plummeting to less than $1 per share. FSB Lesson Learned: “Humility”
In addition to the players above, you can read about more industry movers in a new book called “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good“. Did players like Calacanis and Dachis, just get lucky or did they really earn their millions? It’s not rare for huge companies like AOL & Microsoft to put up millions/billions of dollars to acquire new companies… but do these guys have what it takes to strike lightning twice… or where they just lucky?
One of the most important factors in making your online business succeed, is getting out there and networking. One of the best ways to market yourself and get the connections you need, are to attend trade show events, conferences and exhibit halls. Here are just a few of the premier conferences during 2008 that you should try and attend.
Affiliate Summit Boston (August 10-12, 2008) & New York City (October 5, 2008) Over the past several years, Affiliate Summit has continually been increasing in size and recognition in the affiliate marketing and internet advertising industry. This is one of the premier events and conferences you should try and attend every year. This year Affiliate Summit is adding a one day NY networking event in addition to their EAST and WEST conferences. I have always made it priority to attend every Affiliate Summit, and I haven’t missed one yet! ( Except for London… but that doesn’t count! )
- Affiliate Summit Information
Ad:TECH SanFrancisco (April), Chicago (August) & New York (November) One of my favorite shows to attend is Ad:Tech, and that’s strictly just for the exhibit halls. Over the past few years Ad:Tech NY has been covered THREE FLOORS of the NY Hilton. Ad:Tech San Fran was just last week, Chicago is next on the list and New York is in November. I always make sure to attend the NY show and will try and make it to San Fran one of these times.
- Ad:Tech Information
BlogWorld Expo Las Vegas, NV - September 20-21 A new conference and expo show last year was BlogWorld. At first, I had no idea what to expect when attending BlogWorld, however it ended up being one of my favorite events I’ve had the joy of attending. Not only did I get to meet up with a whole new niche area of bloggers and marketers, but the event had an awesome line up of speakers. With the addition of Marc Cuban as the last day keynote speaker, this was simply a can not miss event. I’m looking forward to this year’s BlogWorld in September.
- BlogWorld Expo Information
EliteRetreat April 3-4 in San Francisco, California (2009 TBD?) I was fortunate enough to attend EliteRetreat this year. I’ve seen the even advertised for prior years and always wondered how it was and if it was worth the cost attendees were paying to be there. EliteRetreat is the premier learning experience. Jeremy puts together an awesome display of speakers with vast knowledge and during the whole event, all of the speakers make themselves available for you to ask anything, or just to chill and have a good time. EliteRetreat caters to all of it’s attendees is one of the best “learning experiences” available.
- EliteRetreat Information
IzeaFest September 11-13, Grand Bohemian Hotel, Orland FL I just heard about IzeaFest today and it looks to be a combination of fun times and learning from great marketers. With headliner names such as keynote Jeremy Shoemaker and many big name speakers such as John Chow and Brian Clark, this event looks to have some potential. The event it put together by Izea, formerly known as PayPerPost. I’m still deciding if I will be able to attend this event as there now seems to be a new event every other month, but I wouldn’t mind visiting Florida for a week and meeting up with some of the speakers, since I’m good friends with most of them.
- IzeaFest Information
These are just a few of the networking and conference events that I look forward to attending this year. In addition to the ones highlighted above, there are also SXSW, eComXpo, CJU(my first conference back in 2000!) and many other smaller conventions and networking events thrown by smaller companies. Have you attended any of these events or looking to make the visit later on this year?
There are a lot of ways you can start making money online. One of the quickest and most profitable methods is through Pay Per Click marketing. Please read my "Super Affiliate's Guide to Pay Per Click Marketing" to see if it's right for you. I recommend using the following ad networks to run offers from.
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of. [Read my full bio...]
eBay has their own affiliate program called the 
As much as I would like for everyone to make money with the BANS program, it just isn’t likely. The program itself WILL NOT make you money, you need to dedicate yourself to put in the time to market and monetize your site. This program makes it super easy to install and setup a new site, but how many people stop there? I wrote this tutorial and guide to inspire and motivate you to go beyond the norm and put forth the time and effort to make money with your BANS store, than move onto bigger and better projects.
(publisher of Silicon Alley & owner of Weblogs Inc.)
Kaplan’s new focus is on his advertising network 
After 
Over the past several years, Affiliate Summit has continually been increasing in size and recognition in the affiliate marketing and internet advertising industry. This is one of the premier events and conferences you should try and attend every year. This year Affiliate Summit is adding a one day NY networking event in addition to their EAST and WEST conferences. I have always made it priority to attend every Affiliate Summit, and I haven’t missed one yet! ( Except for London… but that doesn’t count! 
)
One of my favorite shows to attend is Ad:Tech, and that’s strictly just for the exhibit halls. Over the past few years Ad:Tech NY has been covered THREE FLOORS of the NY Hilton. Ad:Tech San Fran was just last week, Chicago is next on the list and New York is in November. I always make sure to attend the NY show and will try and make it to San Fran one of these times.
A new conference and expo show last year was BlogWorld. At first, I had no idea what to expect when attending BlogWorld, however it ended up being one of my favorite events I’ve had the joy of attending. Not only did I get to meet up with a whole new niche area of bloggers and marketers, but the event had an awesome line up of speakers. With the addition of Marc Cuban as the last day keynote speaker, this was simply a can not miss event. I’m looking forward to this year’s BlogWorld in September.
I was fortunate enough to attend EliteRetreat this year. I’ve seen the even advertised for prior years and always wondered how it was and if it was worth the cost attendees were paying to be there. EliteRetreat is the premier learning experience. Jeremy puts together an awesome display of speakers with vast knowledge and during the whole event, all of the speakers make themselves available for you to ask anything, or just to chill and have a good time. EliteRetreat caters to all of it’s attendees is one of the best “learning experiences” available.
I just heard about IzeaFest today and it looks to be a combination of fun times and learning from great marketers. With headliner names such as keynote Jeremy Shoemaker and many big name speakers such as John Chow and Brian Clark, this event looks to have some potential. The event it put together by Izea, formerly known as PayPerPost. I’m still deciding if I will be able to attend this event as there now seems to be a new event every other month, but I wouldn’t mind visiting Florida for a week and meeting up with some of the speakers, since I’m good friends with most of them.
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.