When you first started out in affiliate marketing, it’s likely that you turned to a popular niche. Ringtones, dating and dieting all spring to mind. As the affiliate lifecycle progresses, we gravitate towards the less popular niches. Why? Maybe because popular niches are overcrowded and there are smaller payouts.

Does this philosophy really make sense?

Does popularity define difficulty? Not at all. Just because there is less competition and the initial payout is a little higher, doesn’t mean the niche is going to be easier to scale.

Then & Now

Think about it this way. Ten years ago, running a mildly successful dieting campaign would bring in a sweet chunk of change. Why? Barely anyone was interested in affiliate marketing. The competition was low and the payouts were high. Why wouldn’t you be paid more?

Now, there are niches that are known for success – the popular niches. The customer demand for these campaigns is high, so they remain fairly consistently successful. Of course, as more people flood to these markets, there is no need to offer the same high initial payouts offered in 2001. That just wouldn’t make sense, right?

Great for Beginners

That system has made the popular niches a great place to start for new affiliates who are looking for the easy route into the Internet marketing world. They would rather stick with the tried and true to make an ok amount of cash each month. So, they push their dating, ringtone, dieting and debt offers as hard as they can.

Everything has made perfect sense up to this point, right? It’s all fairly common sense. Here’s where everything takes a turn for the worse.

Once these new affiliates have their feet wet and are making a steady income, they want to get out of the popular niches and try their luck. It’s as if popular literally means impossible to earn big money from. So, of course, the affiliates pack their bags and head for greener grasses in less established niches.

Why Leave?

This is the big question. Why is everyone so convinced that popular means impossible? I can say with certainty that it doesn’t.

The fact of the matter is that it’s not 2001 anymore. You can’t jump three tax brackets just for trying out an offer. If you are creative and iterate your campaign frequently, you will rock your niche, regardless of its popularity.

If you branch out to a less popular niche, you’re going to have to get creative. There is no “proven path to success” and your water is uncharted. If you stick with a popular niche, you’re going to have to innovate and find a way to break away from the pack. Either way, affiliate marketing isn’t as easy as it once was.

What’s wrong with less popular niches?

Absolutely nothing. You shouldn’t avoid new, undiscovered niches like the plague. But, you also shouldn’t discount the popular niches just because they’re popular.

What do you think the best way to go is? Are you rocking the popular niches or are they just for beginners?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Whether you decide to continue developing the website and generating passive income or turn it into a network, there is obviously a lot of potential.

Google Rankings:
The site currently ranks for:
#1 – CPA Networks
#3 – CPA Offers
Loads of others…

For Sale:
You can go to Flippa to view the auction, site details, and place your bid.

The auction ends in on Thursday morning, so be sure to check it out before it’s too late.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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If you have been an affiliate for any length of time, it is highly likely that you have made one of these five mistakes in the past. Maybe you’ve made more than one. Maybe you’re making one right now! Whatever your case may be, check out the five common affiliate mistakes below.

1. Staying Home

Affiliate marketing means working from home for most people. Most of the time, working from home is a huge luxury of working online. Sometimes, however, it can be a huge problem for your business. Working at home is nice, but it’s important that you get out of the house and meet people.

Start by networking on Twitter and Facebook. Look for people you think are killing it at Internet marketing and start chatting with them. Work your way up to offline meetings. Go for lunch, go for coffee. Next? Get passes to the big conferences like Affiliate Summit.

Remember, a big part of Internet marketing success is who you know.

2. Thinking “Extra Money”

Thinking about affiliate marketing as a way to earn “extra money” every month won’t get you very far. Even if it’s not your full-time job, don’t think of affiliate marketing as “extra money”. At the very least, think of it as a part-time job. You can’t show up for a couple hours every other week and expect success.

Affiliate marketing needs daily attention to work, especially when you’re starting out. Make time for it as often as possible. You might have to work all day at your full-time job only to come home and work all night at affiliate marketing. Thinking in terms of “extra money” won’t get you to where you want to be.

3. Not Iterating

Don’t throw something up on AdWords and expect it to make you thousands overnight. Your first couple of campaigns might suck. Actually, your first dozen campaigns might suck. For the best results, make changes and iterate. Your first attempt should never be your last. Keep tweaking and altering until you find the combination of tactics that work! You should always be learning and trying new things.

4. Going Alone

Delegating is important in business. The same is true for online entrepreneurs. If you’re not particularly good at something or don’t have time for something that must be done regularly, outsource the work. There are talented freelancers out there who specialize in what you hate or don’t have time for.

Put all of your focus into what you’re best at. Do what you do best and find other people to do the rest. Hiring freelancers your friends recommend is a great way to get more done!

5. Being Afraid

Most people are afraid of losing money. It’s natural, especially in this economy, to be afraid that you’ll be risking money with affiliate marketing. Don’t let this fear hold you back. Put some money aside every week and save up. Find ways to spare expense, but don’t expect to make money from nothing. That doesn’t happen very often.

Another big fear for most is the fear of failing. The good news is that failing is awesome. Affiliates fail all the time. Only a small percent of the campaigns affiliates try actually turn out to be successful, so don’t sweat it. Keep failing and learn to fail faster so that you can find the perfect formula.

What do you think? Have you made one of these mistakes before? Are you making any right now?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Rooms and rates have been pre-arranged with Ritz Carlton for November 18th to 20th. They definitely didn’t spare expense on the hotel – this place looks sweet.

Here’s the itinerary for the 19th:

7:30 a.m. – Start boarding outside of Ritz Carlton for Catamaran
8:00 a.m. – Leave for Catamaran
9:00 a.m. – Check in at Catamaran
10:00 a.m. – Departure (Icacos, Palominito, Lobos, Tortugas or Palomino)
11:00 a.m. – Arrive (Icacos, Palominito, Lobos, Tortugas or Palomino)
12:00 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 p.m. – Departure (Icacos, Palominito, Lobos, Tortugas or Palomino)
2:30 p.m. – Sail to Villa Marina
3:30 p.m. – Arrive at Villa Marina
4:30 p.m. – Arrive back at Ritz Carlton
6:00 p.m. – Start boarding for La Rumba Dinner Cruise
6:30 to 8:30 p.m. (possibly 9:30 p.m.) – Dinner and open bar

The best part is that it’s all free as long as you RSVP. You just have to find your own way to – and from (sadly ) – Puerto Rico.

NDemand is even giving away a free trip for two! All you have to do is RSVP to enter for a chance to win it.

Looks like an amazing couple of days! Hopefully I’ll see you there.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Please note there are other parties, meetups, and stuff but I generally only post the ones I care about. I might have missed a few that are cool… so if I did, message me below.

1. Affbuzz Adtech:SF Meetup

The rules are:
NO network sponsorship
NO free beer/food
NO ipads to win
NO strippers (lol)
NO mind reading devices (due to some problems last year – Mr.GREEN EXPOSED)
FREE-BIRTHDAY-CAAAAAAKEEEEEEEE (it’s compulsory to eat it, fighting may follow otherwise)

(The perfect place to network…)

More details

Need I say more?

(I should add that if you’ve never heard of PPV Playbook, you are missing out… one of the best internet marketing forums around.)

Details.

I guess, when you come to enough events you’ll get the private invite too. Thanks to Leadcola (review of Leadcola on Affiliate paying) for sponsoring the event.

- Clickbooth (Affiliate paying review of clickbooth) is huge.
- Clickbooth people are really awesome.
- Therefore, the party will be fun……. lol

Details

What else is there to do?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Here is the official release below:

Victoria, BC, March 31, 2011: It was announced today that Neverblue, a premier global lead generation network, has acquired AKMG, an international performance-based online advertising agency, based in El Segundo, CA for an undisclosed sum. AKMG will become an independent wholly-owned subsidiary of Neverblue.

AKMG was founded in 2007 by Internet marketing industry veterans Kimberlee White and Steven Patton. Kimberlee White continues as president of AKMG and all staff remains in place in its new El Segundo headquarters while Steven Patton will move on to new entrepreneurial endeavors.

Commented Hakan Lindskog, CEO of Neverblue. “This acquisition significantly expands Neverblue’s ability to offer our clients proven expertise to reach new customers, with the right message at the right time, via email performance marketing. AKMG is a leader in email marketing and we think that brands and marketers who rely on us now for web-based and mobile performance marketing will be excited to engage with AKMG in email channels,” he said.

“This is about fit and our collective ability to better serve our combined client base. That is why we are excited about joining Neverblue,” said White. “There are real and rapid sales and operational synergies we can realize with Neverblue. We can offer new marketing channels to Neverblue advertisers and similarly we can offer our clients access to Neverblue’s global performance marketing footprint. In the end, the winners will be our clients with measurable results,” said White.

This deal comes on the heels of other first quarter 2011 announcements from Neverblue. The company announced Neverblue Mobile in January, and the opening of its European regional office in Amsterdam in February and its regional Asian office in Hong Kong in March.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Looks like Neverblue (Affiliate paying review of neverblue) bought AKMG (affiliate paying review of AKMG).

Looks like Shoe has the story here… although it’s far from an official Press release.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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And you thought that the whole false advertising, making things up to get the sale, was only in the affiliate marketing world eh?

Well, the more I work in multiple areas, the more I realize how much false advertising goes around… even in ecommerce.

I’ll be honest that when I started working with ecommerce sites, I figured it would be much more black and white than I have seen the affiliate marketing world be. I mean, how much false information can you give about an actual physical product?!

In the affiliate world, it’s extremely common to see affiliates basically making up any and every claim imaginable to get that ever so sweet affiliate commission. “It doesn’t matter right… the advertiser will have to deal with it,” seems to be the mindset of many affiliates. I hated that.

The more I delve into the world of ecommerce I am realizing that the same marketing lies that are used to sell customers in the affiliate world are also fairly commonly used in ecommerce.

I guess it all comes down to one thing… greed.

Greed is what compels certain people to do whatever it takes to make that sale including falsely leading the customer.

In the niche I am in for ecommerce, I see a common trend on all the big sites. They all mislead customers with features that don’t exist. How can they get away with it?

It’s basically equivalent to marketing a 16gb smartphoneA as a 16 gb smartphoneA + speedbooster. Will anyone ever really know that there is no such thing as speedboosted?

Most likely not.

Does it help sell better?

Probably. Gotta love those comparison shoppers!

So what’s a guy to do when the competition lies? I was impressed with the reaction from Jacob and my wife as I told them about what others are doing. Their reaction was to do what’s right… and not falsely market our products.

In the long run, I think honesty is the best option for running a long term business. Those who lie might never be exposed, but in the mean time, our sales and profit continue to go up on a daily basis.

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© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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The second annual RevenueAds (RevenueAds on Affiliate paying) Affiliate Meetup is coming up fast! I always blog about how important relationships are in affiliate marketing. Networking can take your success to a whole new level. That’s why you can’t miss out on this awesome opportunity.

What: Affiliate Meetup 2011

When: March 18th, 2011 at 12 p.m.

Where: Oklahoma City, OK

What’s great about this event is that you can mingle with plenty of successful affiliates for free! Yep, for FREE. If you missed out on Affiliate Summit, are in the Oklahoma area, or are a basketball lovin affiliate, this RevenueAds sponsored event is one you wont want to miss!

After talking with other affiliates and listening to some amazing presentations, everyone will go to RevenueAds’ VIP suite for an Oklahoma Thunder game. There will be hors d’oeuvres, refreshments and door prizes throughout the entire event! Did I already mention that the event is free?

I’m still trying to see how busy my schedule will be in March, but I hope to be there! John Chow, Zac Johnson and other great affiliates have already confirmed their attendance. If you’re free the weekend of March 18th, you would have to be crazy to miss this event.

All you have to do is RSVP. I hope to see you there!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Content gateways have been a great way to both increase revenue and monetize content you might not have been able to monetize.

Recently, BLAM Ads (BLAM Ads Review on Affiliate Paying) – owned by Ryan Eagle, released their own content gateway that has been killing it. The reason is because they are continually innovating.

sample gateway

Check out some of their latest new features:

• Gateway automatically displays the top offers based on CR% and EPC
• Setting up Gateway is accomplished in three easy steps, then your on your way.
• Adjust how the offers appear on the gateway, you decide the order which they appear.
• You can change the title and description of the offers, you have complete control.
• Live search feature, makes looking for offers simpler.
• Cloning Gateway Feature
• Store unlimited templates
• Split test multiple gateways, and track them by sub id
• You can decide how many offers must be completed before gateway releases
• Mobile Gateway, optimized for smart phones.
• Global IP Bypass: The gateway will not appear to IP’s you designate.
• You can customize which countries you want the gateway to appear.

The main thing that is really cool is the automatic display of top offer based on conversion rate and EPC.

If you have any sort of website that has some premium content but you can’t figure out how to monetize it, you should check out their content locking feature!

BLAM Ads Review On Affiliate Paying

Although BLAM Ads is fairly new, it already has a ton of great reviews from top affiliates.

One of the cool things I see is Ryan Eagle himself replying to any negative reviews the site got; even if the negative reviews were due to being denied to the network, etc. Lol.

Check out BLAM Ads review on Affiliate paying

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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