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

I started making money online sometime around 1996 I’m guessing, and before I ever came up with the name MoneyReign, I had a whole stream of free hosted sites and usernames I would use. When I first started to make a few bucks online, it was through AOL internet access. Whenever you made a new account with a free AOL disk, you’d have to make a new username. The first few years passed, as did many free AOL accounts (remember those free AOL disks!) as did many various usernames. None of the usernames really stuck, and the money wasn’t in serious amounts yet, so any checks coming in would just be made out to “Zac Johnson“. It wasn’t till I finally came up with the name “MoneyReign” that I would finally stick with my company name, eventually incorporate it (around 2000) and buy my first domain, moneyreign.com, in 1998.

Today I was doing some domain research and looking to pick up any nice domains I could find for sale, or that were about to expire. I then did a few data reports on a bunch of domains that I own. To my surprise, the one day I’m actually pulling some stats on my domains, I see that MoneyReign.com was registered 10 years ago TODAY! I remember how cool it was to finally have my own domain and finally get off the crappy AOL member pages and Geocities/Tripod sites. I also remember how we were all hostages to Network Solutions and their $70 domain registrations, and that $70 was so expensive!

Over the years, MoneyReign.com has been everything from a free stuff site, a stock site, an online book store and a portfolio/directory for my other sites. Recently it’s just been a placeholder site for my company name/site and a listing for this blog and contact info. I’m sure I have most of the versions all saved on my old computers in my basement. It’s so funny to see how things change over the years. (I should throw up one of the old school designs and see what people think! )

Setting up your web site and buying a domain is easy now a days and only takes a few bucks, but if your old school, you probably have some stories to tell! What are some of your oldest domains and how long did it take you to go from a free hosted web site, to your own domain?

The other day I was in the doctor’s office and I was flipping through an issue of Portfolio magazine and I noticed an ad that said “Women Don’t Ask… It’s in the Numbers:“. The advertisement is for a book called “Women Don’t Ask“, and I found their web site to be a lot less thrilling then their actual advertisement. Anyway, this advertisement went on to give a few statistics backing up their big titled ad on how women don’t ask questions. Their number points were:

- 2.5 times more women than men say they fear negotiation.

- Women report salary expectation up to 24% lower than men for the same job.

- Women will pay over $1,000 more to avoid negotiating the price of a car.

- 20% of adult women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all.

The ad focuses on women using the power of negotiation and to get that they really want. Unlike a full page advertisement, this was a leaderboard ad, broken up and shown on two opposite pages. The one said says “Women Don’t Ask… It’s in the Numbers:“, and the other side says “If You Don’t Ask, You’ll Never Hear ‘Yes’“.

I found all of this advertisement not only interesting because it grabbed my eye, but the first thing the ad made me think about, was how this is so related to internet and affiliate marketing. If you are successfully running a business online, whether is be through creating your own sites, or running your own PPC campaigns, you will most likely stay in the same place if you don’t start asking questions. If you are pushing some volume on a campaign and aren’t asking your affiliate network for a boost in commissions, you most likely will never get it! Same hold true for testing… everyone can only know so much, as other experts and friends about how you can improve your ad campaigns or for new marketing ideas.

Another funny thing about this advertisement and the affiliate industry is that there shouldn’t be any shame or fear to ask questions, since we are all so EMAIL and instant message based. There shouldn’t be any fear of asking a stupid question or getting rejected for a higher commission payout. The worst that could happen is you get a bad answer, or no response at all. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, be more afraid of what NOT asking questions is costing you and your business!

I remember when a good friend of mine introduced Market Leverage to me a few years ago. Since joining them years back, I have been able to earn thousands of dollars in revenue with their network and high paying offers. I recently met up with Debby Banning (Digital Media Relations for ML) and talked with her about running some new offers on the network and what new projects they have in the works. If you are ever able to attend Affiliate Summit, AdTech or any of the other big conferences or net shows, Market Leverage always has a presence.

Some highlights of the Market Leverage network are easy access to their “Top 20″ performing offers on the network and a rewards program that pays out in American Express gift cards each month. Another excellent and unique feature of Market Leverage, is how they are standing out from other networks, by producing their own weekly videos (known as MLTV), where actual company staff and affiliate managers highlight new offers and what you should be running to make the big bucks.

Can You Spot Your Market Leverage Affiliate Manager?

The Market Leverage team was cool enough to request some MoneyReign shirts and take a picture of them all supporting their favorite affiliate . If you aren’t currently a member of Market Leverage, I highly recommend you join their network and take a look at their high paying offers. Also, if you are currently working with ML, please feel free to leave any comments or experience you’ve had with the company.

Join MarketLeverage Affiliate Network

During my time at San Francisco, CA for Elite Retreat, I experienced a lot of big problems with outsourcing… and surprisingly enough, none of it had to do with actually being in California. Out sourcing sucks for everyone that is losing a job as a result of it, but it also sucks for everyone using it… especially when you can’t even understand the person on the other line. In the end, companies outsource and save a few bucks, and the consumer will usually get screwed in the end. Here are a few issues I had with outsourcing over the past week.

Google Support
Just yesterday I talked about how I was sent an email from Google Support on how they appreciate me working with them and information on how to visit their headquarters… only to later find out I would immediately be asked to leave. What is the problem here? If my Google account manager was located within the United States or did some research, this would not have been a problem. I understand that Google is a worldwide company, but they should specialize in providing county specific responses. The response I got from Google on visiting their offices, was someone located in India.

US Airways Customer Support Hell Trap
Also mentioned in yesterday’s post was how I had to extend my flight plans. When I called US Airways to make the change to my account, they told me it would be a $100 transfer fee per ticket. The next day I was looking at my American Express statement and saw there were four charges from US Airways, two for $100 each, then another two for $468.50 each. I quickly called US Airways to find what these additional charges were. They said it was the result of changing over to a new flight in such a short time period. I (nor anyone else) would ever approve charges like this for one day extra to their travel plans.

Now, this is where the outsourcing problem comes in. I had a serious problem here and needed this to be fixed immediately as my flight was just a few hours away. My morning began in US Airways hell, calling multiple times and talking with someone from a different country and ascent every call. Every call was also a waste for the first several minutes, as I had to explain the situation to representatives just reading off of their procedure forms. I even tried talking with upper management and supervisors, but was then getting attitudes and still no help.

It wasn’t till my fourth try that I finally stopped calling them and had to step away for a minute. Frustrated, I had Reena call them and see who see would get this time in the game of who’s going to pickup this outsourced call?! Amazingly enough, Reena was able to talk with someone that redirected her to their supervisor (named Richard), who actually cared and spoke clear English. Everything was going smooth, and then the call went dead… the phone had died. I gave Reena my phone and she called back asking to be redirect to Richard, but was told it’s a cycle of representative from around the world and it could not be traced! Amazingly enough, after Reena was disconnected, Richard still was trying to make the change and remove these charges from the account. The representative that Reena was currently on the phone with saw the changes and let her know.

After all of the drama with US Airways outsourced support (besides Richard), I probably will never be use them again. I had to fly with US Airways this time only because I had a voucher to use, which was limited only to their company.

What’s the point of this post? Besides my rant on how outsourcing can really suck and screw over the support and relationship between customers and a company, it’s also to bring the situation to light and let others share their experiences as well. Outsourcing for products, fulfillment or labor is one thing, but person-to-person support really sucks. How has your experience over the years been with outsourced companies?

If you’ve been promoting the same ad campaigns for a while and looking to get into some new niche areas or follow the world media with what’s hot, a new site from Yahoo can help you out. While other search Yahoo Buzz for hot articles and use it as a new “Digg” type of resource, marketers can utilize their “Top Searches” features for new ideas on whats hot and what people are searching for.

Check Yahoo Buzz Daily for New Top Searches

The “Top Searches” feature on Yahoo Buzz is updated hourly, and not only serves as a top list, but also provides the option for you to search Yahoo results, or lookup to the Top Articles relating to the topic. How can you tell if a “top search” has any value or is worth targeting? Simply click on “search results” for the specific top search, then you can compare how many and what quality advertisements are shown for that individual keyword. The “Top Articles” feature is also there for research. Average users to Yahoo Buzz can look up the top articles, but as an internet marketer, you can see how others are targeting towards these keywords and link to these type of pages if you are going to create a resource web site for the niche terms.

If you watch Yahoo Buzz for a few days, you may see some drastic changes in the Top Searches. This makes perfect sense because people are only interested in something for so long. However in many cases, there may be a hot topic that you can focus on and grab a decent amount of traffic from the long tail of it’s related searches and any future news or media that may focus on the keyword/search in the future. Once you think you may have come across a new keyword or niche area to focus on, be sure to check and compare search and advertiser competition with Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.