Click2Sell Merchant & Affiliate Network

Lately I’ve been writing posts on how you can make money in niche marketing, along with methods for selecting which niche market is best for you. In keeping with the topic of niche marketing, I want to high an up and coming network called Click2Sell.EU. Unlike most other large affiliate networks, Click2Sell.EU is setup with a ClickBank feel. As an affiliate you can log into the system and find a various amount of niche products, services and ebooks to sell. Unlike most other networks, you can also login to Click2Sell as a merchant and easily manage your campaigns or setup a new program. Here is a run through of the network and how you can benefit as either an affiliate or merchant.

Navigation & Ease of Network
Once you signup and are logged into the network, you will see an admin area like below. When you are logged in you are sent directly to the “Reports” page, but with the easy navigation toolbar on top you can easily move around the site. The “For Merchants” tab is for setting up your own Affiliate Program and adding products, while the “For Affiliate” tab is for grabbing affiliate offers and existing campaigns. All other menu tabs are pretty self explanatory.

An Overview of Your Network Stats is Your Main Login Page

The MarketPlace
The main area and purpose of Click2Sell is their “MarketPlace”, where you can search and find all existing offers on the network. Right now they have 558 offers available, spread over 11 different categories. One of the features I like about the marketplace is that you can search on several different methods, such as Rank, Earning % and Conversions. The stats are really nice to have and it’s very easy to understand. Even with over 500 offers on the network, I wasn’t too thrilled with the conversion on most of these offers. Most of the offers are listed at converting 1% or below.

Top 5 Ranked Offers on Click2Sell Network

Selection of Affiliate Offers
Almost all of the offers listed on Click2Sell are ebook/information based, and have long sales pages. If you are currently doing well in the ebook promotion niche, you can probably find a few offers to promote and might find success. I was searching the network for a few niche terms from “comics” or “basketball“, but no search results came out. In my previous post, “Picking the Right Niche Market“, I wrote about focusing on basketball terms and “increasing your vertical leap“. Oddly enough, I did come across an ebook which focused on helping to improve your jumping and sports skills. There are some offers/ebooks on the network that could make money when targeted to correctly, you just have to search around for them.

Your Selected Campaigns will be listed in your “My Campaigns” Affiliate tab.

Promotion of Offers
Once you select an offer from the marketplace, it will then be listed in your “For Affiliate” tab where you can grab links and marketing creative. Unfortunately, I found that most of the products on the network did not have any marketing material and simply provide you with just a link. I know most affiliate marketers want a few banners and at least some email creative or ideas for writing content, so this would be a turn off to most affiliates. On the other hand, with a network full of offers with no marketing creative, those affiliates who take the time to create their own marketing material and landing pages could benefit that much more. If you put the time in to create a mini site based around of these ebooks/campaigns, you could have a winner. I can only imagine 90% of affiliates are turned off when they don’t see any marketing creative available.

Affiliate Marketers Want Marketing Creative, It Shouldn’t be a Mission.

Range of Commissions
The network offers on Click2Sell heavily vary. You will find products that cost $7.00 per sale, then pay 95% commission… while others cost $22.97 and pay only 5% commission. In addition the huge difference in commissions per program, the targeting and products of each offer varies as well. If you are going to promote an offer on the network, take the time to compare and make sure you are running the best offer.

Form of Payment
Click2Sell does not send out affiliate payments through checks, you must have either a Paypal account or a MoneyBookers account. When setting up your account, you will select your preferred method of payment and can check off what type of advertisers you want to work with, based on their payment method. Merchants on Click2Sell can pay in Euro and US dollars.

Using Click2Sell as a Merchant
I already covered most of the points to use Click2Sell as an affiliate, but using the network as a Merchant is also just as important. The first of the three screenshots below (click for full view), shows what your general stats look like from all of your affiliates and their sales. The second screenshot is a listing of all affiliates within your program and the last screenshot is a breakdown of your affiliate stats. The merchant setup looks like it would work really well for any sites looking to bill customers on a monthly basis as well. If you are unsure of what network or tracking system to use, you can always join Click2Sell as a merchant and recruit your own affiliates.

The Backend of a Merchant Account is Very Detailed, Yet Easy to Manage

Merchant Fee Structure
I think the best selling point for Click2Sell, is the very low cost for merchants to sell a push their products through the system. While most other affiliate networks charge a signup fee, then take 20-35% of each transaction (payment to an affiliate), Click2Sell has a very simple fee structure. No matter how expensive your product is, the most you will pay per lead acquired, is $3 (in addition to any cc/merchant processing charges if applies). If you sell a product that costs $50, you only have to pay a $3 fee to Click2Sell each time an affiliate makes a sale… on most other networks you would have to pay 30%, which comes out to $15 per lead acquired.

Final Review
I would like to see what Click2Sell becomes with time and how they will improve their network. ClickBank has been an amazing success for people over the years and Click2Sell, being based off that same idea could make a lot of people money as well. For now I think Click2Sell needs to focus on a selling point or something to break them apart from other networks to make them stand out. I would rather see a network with less offers and focus only on the higher quality campaigns. I do not want to go through 500+ campaigns and hope to find one that works, especially when most of them only have direct linking with no creative.

Though I have broken down the network and pointed out a few of the pros and cons, I still think it might be worth your time to join the network and see what type of offers are available. There might be something that already targets to your niche market, or a competitor that is doing something better.

Join Click2Sell Network

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Make Money with ClickBooth Affiliate Network

ClickBooth is an established affiliate network that is located in Sarasota, FL and has been in the game for over 5 years now. Today we will take a look at their affiliate admin area, campaigns available, earnings potential and reflect back on the recent controversy around the company and it’s affiliates.

Overview:
ClickBooth first went live in September 2002 and is a division of Integraclick. Through their affiliate network, ClickBooth is paying out over $16 million a month in commissions to affiliate networks. In addition to be a player in the affiliate network space, ClickBooth makes a great effort to attend and exhibit at most affiliate/internet marketing conferences and were just recently at OMMA Hollywood, SES Conference & Expo New York and the upcoming ad:tech San Francisco show. If you have been an attendee to any of these tradeshows, you will see ClickBooth usually has one of the larger booths. As an affiliate of ClickBooth, you will also have access to their 24/7 support, via email, phone and AIM.

Ease of Use:
When you first login to the ClickBooth system you are offered with a ton of campaign and search options. ClickBooth does a nice job in making it easy for you to search through their TOP Network offers, which are sorted by Email, OnSite Placement, Search, Path and Networks. Below the “Top” offers section, you can search out all campaigns on their network, and view the most recently added campaigns. Their backend is run off the DirectTrack system, but they have done a great job with customizing it’s look, so it has a much better look and feel than many other networks.

On the main login page, you will also find your full contact information for your affiliate manager, along with all the basic tools needed to manage your account, such as “program links”, “tools” and “running reports”. A “Quick Links” menu on the left side gives you easy access to new campaigns, deactivations and other updates made to campaigns.

Profitability:
As an affiliate of ClickBooth, you should be able to find a way to effectively market to your web site traffic or to almost any niche area. With over 600+ campaigns on the network, it should not be hard for you to find an offer related to your content or marketing needs. A quick run through of the 600+ campaigns shows they have some very high payouts on campaigns and will beat or match any offer on any network that you are currently running with. In addition to a selection of quality offer, ClickBooth also offers weekly payouts and bimonthly payments to qualified publishers. Payments can also be sent through check, PayPal, and ACH.

Quality of Ads:
Through ClickBooth you will have access to hundreds of familiar and famous brand names. With respectable name brand campaigns from companies like Gevalia, BlockBuster, Entertainment and VistaPrint, you should have no problem finding an offer than converts with your traffic, or to start your own ppc campaign. ClickBooth campaigns have an overall range of .40 per lead for FreeLotto, all the way up to $280 per lead for Medical Hair Restoration.

While searching through campaigns on ClickBooth, you can also do a search based on offer payout or the network epc (earnings per click). Below is a screenshot of just a few offers running on the ClickBooth network.

Stats Tracking:
If you are familiar with any networks running on the DirectTrack system, then you should have no problem getting used to the stats area for ClickBooth. A screenshot sample below shows a stats report from within ClickBooth. SubID tracking and creative tracking options are also available. You can pull stats reports based on campaign, subids and date.

Here is a sample preview of what ClickBooth stats area looks like.

What’s all the recent talk on ClickBooth?:
Recently ClickBooth has been the discussion of many affiliate marketing forums and blog posts. Management of an affiliate network can be extremely tough, especially when you are dealing with thousands of affiliates. If for any reason ClickBooth is responsible for closing an affiliate account due to violation of terms, ClickBooth itself would be in violation of it’s own terms if they were to bill an advertiser and keep the funds/commissions, which an affiliate would also lose. I was assured by ClickBooth that this would never happen, as it would be a breach in contract and an illegal action as well. As much slack or positive press affiliate networks may receive for their performance, reputation is everything. ClickBooth does not only work with affiliates, they are also working with many other affiliate networks and brokers such as NeverBlueAds. ClickBooth is dedicated to taking all necessary actions to defend their name and practices. I recommend you take a further look into all situations before coming to an assumption. I was told by ClickBooth, that they will gladly talk with any affiliates or advertisers on the matter, or interested in working with their network.

Why Do I Like this Network:
Before writing this review, I talked briefly with ClickBooth over the phone. I wanted to make sure everything with the network was going well and that I had a good grip on their business plans and well being. I was assured that the company continues to pay out millions to affiliates each month and they are making new strides every day to improve the company and performance for their affiliates. With over 600 campaigns on the network and being in business for over 5 years, I wouldn’t see why anyone couldn’t make money with this network. Another big plus of working with ClickBooth, is their dedication to working with you on a personal basis to make sure you are receiving the highest payouts through their network. To clear up any justification of this review, I will be promoting a few campaigns from ClickBooth through ppc campaigns and onsite placement on a few of my own sites. I will make a follow up post to this review once payment is received.

Final Review:
After final review, I rate ClickBooth with 4 out of 5 “Zac Stamps of Approval“. This review was done as a precursor to running my own campaigns with ClickBooth. Once I have a few successful campaigns running through the company and an established personal communication with the company and my affiliate manager, I will have a better idea on their performance and earnings potential. Based on talking with the company and doing a walk through review of their network, I recommend you join their network and let me know your thoughts on the company, or if you have previous experience with them. You can also use their web site contact form to contact them directly with any questions you may have.

UPDATE: If you are or were an active affiliate with ClickBooth, I highly recommend that you post a comment based on your experience with the company. While I am new with the company, I would like as much feedback from past and current affiliates as well. The more responses, the better we can get an idea on this companies’ performance. Thank you.

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Crazy Easy Contest with $7,695 in Prizes Up for Grabs!

I first came across Winning the Web a few months ago, and since then Gyutae Park has been doing a great job on providing quality content, while putting forth the marketing efforts to get more readers and eyeballs onto his blog. Gyutae is now ready for his biggest site promotion yet, and has put together one of the best prizes packages I have seen, especially from such a young blog (started in Oct 97). His contest is rightfully called the “Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen“, and I would have to agree. There are some high end prizes here up for grabs, and it’s ridiculously easy to enter… that in itself makes it pretty crazy! In addition to taking part in the contest, you should take a look at his blog, which covers tips on blogging, affiliate marketing, seo and other ways to monetize your online business or blog.

Contest & Prizes
Everyone seems to be making a new contest for their blog every week now… but the main reason why the Winning the Web contest stood out from the rest for me, wasn’t just the cash and prizes from big name networks, but also how he setup the listings on is page. The placement and usage of company logos ended up looking great. You can click here and visit his blog page with full graphics and prize details. Here is a quick run down of prizes available through the contest:

- $650 Cash from Azoogle Ads
- $500 Cash from PepperJam Network
- $250 Cash from NeverBlueAds
- $200 Cash from BidVertiser
- 1 Full Conference Pass to Affiliate Summit East ($949 value)
- 3 Month Membership to Aaron Wall’s SEO Training Program ($300 value)
- 6 Month Membership to SEOmoz Pro ($249 value)
- 12 Month Subscription to RankSense Professional ($630 value)
- 26 Week Internet Marketing Plan from Purple Internet Marketing ($800 value)
- The Secret Classroom from Joel Comm & Next Internet Millionaire ($497 value)
- Autographed Copy of Kris’ Jones Upcoming Book on SEO ($20 value)
- Copy of the SEO Handbook 2008 from HuoMah ($10 value)
- 8 PSD Custom Banner Designs from Banners Mall ($275 value)
- 1 Year Membership to Hlola ($354 value)
- 1 License to Website Optimal Performance ($97 value)
- 2 Exclusive Blog Themes from Unique Blog Designs (2 winners - $100 value each)
- 2 Revolution Wordpress Blog Themes from Brian Gardner (2 winners -$80 value each)
- Wordpress Coding from CSS Rockstars ($209 value)
- 1 Year Swamp Plan Web Hosting from Host Gator ($150 value)
- 1 Hour Blog Optimization Consulting from Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips ($175 value)
- Blog Consultation Report from Jay Francis Hunter of Scribbles and Words ($90 value)
- 3 Month 125×125 Banner Ad on AndyBeard.eu ($100 value)
- 1 Month Text Link Ad on Ades Blog ($90 value)
- 1 Month 125×125 Banner Ad on John Cow ($125 value)
- 6 Month 125×125 Banner Ad on JonLee.ca ($300 value)
- 1 Month 125×125 Banner Ad on Affiliate Confession ($35 value)
- 3 Fast Passes, 3 Featured Statuses, and 5000 Credits from Entrecard
- 1 Paid Review on Winning the Web - sponsored by 1 Cool File ($100 value)
- 20 Winning the Web T-shirts (20 winners - $9 value each)

How the Contest Works
I’m sure Winning the Web has spent a decent amount of time compiling this list together to offer his blog readers only the best prizes for his contest. After all, by offering such quality prizes, he will only increase the likeliness to keep his blog readers in the long run. I already went over the prizes up for grabs, so here’s how to get your hands on them.

To enter the WTW contest, simply visit their contest entry page and scroll down past the prize section. To submit your entry, you must “Sign up for the free Winning the Web mailing list (required).” and/or “Subscribe to the Winning the Web RSS feed.“. There are also additional ways for you to earn more entries into the contest, which are the following:

- Sign up for the mailing list (required) - 1 entry
- Blog about this contest and link to this post - 10 entries
- Every 5 comments on WTW (now until March 31 with 5 comments per day limit) - 1 entry
- Subscribe to the feed and stay tuned for more opportunities to gain entries
- Contest Clue entries on Contest Info Page

Winner Selections
The winners of all of the individual prizes will be selected by a random draw on March 31 - there will be at least 39 winners in total (including 20 free t-shirts to the participants with the most entries).

I congratulate Gyutae for his efforts on pulling together an amazing list of quality names and great prizes for his contest. Now it’s up to you to take a few minutes and actually enter the contest. You’d be surprised how easy it might actually be to win! Just last month, myself and Gyutae won the John Chow Elite Retreat contest, each winning a $5k ticket to EliteRetreat! Less than 15 people total entered that contest. Since you are only required to subscribe to his rss and email feed, this contest is so much easier to win and would be a great loss if you did not at least do that! I got my entries in and looking forward to seeing who are the winners at the end of the month, will you be one of them? Good luck!

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Blogging Tips - Blogging Guides, News, Tips, Resources

I first came across Blogging Tips when John Chow had done a review on the site about a month ago. I very happy to have Kevin Muldoon be the first to order a paid review on my blog. Not only because it’s related content, but now I get to spend some quality time to thoroughly read his blog, which I already visit often. Thanks again to Kevin for being the first to order a review!

Right when you visit the site you are hit with the big header on top “BLOGGING TIPS” and with his awesome Superman (Kevin Muldoon) logo/toon. Everyone already knows I’m a big fan of the cartoon mascots and I’m also a huge Superman fan… this site already has me hooked! In addition to the great header and character toon… the domain is excellent; www.BloggingTips.com. Sometimes forking over a few extra bucks for a domain really pays off! You can read more on Kevin through his About Me page… and his adventures around the world and Taekwondo training back home, while taking on some Thaiboxing in New Zealand! How cool is that!

I find a lot in common with my blog and Kevin’s. Like myself, Kevin does his best to try and have a new blog update to the site daily. Quickly glancing over at his Archives section, you can see an average of around two posts per day over the past couple months. Just having time to make one post a day can be quite a task, so Kevin also has an arsenal of other blog authors to post for his site. (Think you can write? Try applying for his blog.) Another big PLUS for the blog is how Kevin also spends time to reward his users with promotional contests. This month in his “June 2007 Competition“, Kevin is giving away 3 Blog hosting Packages, A Complete Blog and a sweet $100 in Prize Money. I’ve held some contests on my blog as well, and I really think it helps to offer your blog readers incentives to come back and post often.

Now, onto some posts which I found really useful and enjoyed:

- Why Paying for a Review on JohnTP was Worth the Money
Like Kevin, I also spent a lot of money on ordering reviews for my blog since starting. Blog reviews can get expensive and sometimes offer little to no help on reviewing your blog. This post explains not only why some blog reviews are worth buying, but also why blog reviews are more beneficial than free advice from forums.

- How to Install WordPress
To some, this post may be usless as you may already have WordPress installed. However, there are thousands of new bloggers every day, not to mention the growing amount of users on free blogging networks that want to expand to their own domain. Kevin does a great job walking you through the process on installing WordPress and setting up your own blog. (Through Blogging Tips you will also find many other posts on Wordpress widgets and ways to improve your blogging experience)

- Links Round Up
Occasionally Kevin will post his “Links Round Up”, which are a collection of some of the most informative and best blog posts he has come across. These posts are a big favorite of mine because they offer a wide selection of new blogs that you might not have seen yet, while pointing out what’s new and hot. I even got listed in his June 5th post!

- Advertising Networks: Stop Basing Our Advertising Rates on Alexa
This is an excellent post and spreads the knowledge of how manipulated Alexa rankings are. I have sites that are up in the 500k-1M range… but still make money, while other sites are ranked 50k-100k and make a lot less. This one is a must read.

In the end, I find myself and Kevin have a lot in common. Aside from both of our awesome toon characters , we are both looking to help others with blogging and to make more money! While other blog reviews sometimes rip sites apart and tell you what they don’t like, I did not feel the need for much improvement on this site. The layout, colors and content are all great and you are allowed to easily read the content without advertisements and contextual popups in your face. I look forward to future updates from Blogging Tips and recommend you read over the blog too!

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