I have removed Clickbank Contexual Ads from this blog. They have a very poor response rate and zero conversion rate.

With a move that makes it more global, the Clickbank has added 30 countries to the list of countries where it can accept clients from.

Following countries have been added to the list

• Albania
• Armenia
• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Cambodia
• Colombia
• Comoros
• Falkland Islands
• Georgia
• Honduras
• Haiti
• Indonesia
• Kyrgyzstan
• Lebanon
• Montenegro
• Macedonia
• Mali
• Nicaragua
• Peru
• Philippines
• Pakistan
• Paraguay
• Russian Federation
• Swaziland
• Ukraine
• Uzbekistan
• Venezuela
• Vietnam
• Yemen

Congratulations to all those who wanted to use Clickbank but could not because of the restrictions.

Clickbank has updated its client contract. Though the most of the change has been made to make the language more legal and effective, following changes are actual modifications

1. ClickBank now no longer allows the sale of any product that, in ClickBank’s sole judgment, encourages the unlawful transfer of copyrighted media, such as music, movies, video, and games.

2. Clickbank now allows the sale and promotion of website templates. These were previously prohibited.

3. Previously applicable charge of $50 fee to transfer an account to a new owner has now been lifted.

All existing clients would need to accept the new Client Contract in order to use the account.

If you have any questions regarding this, you can ask on their blog

Studiopress has raised affiliate commission on its products namely Genesis, the new Prose theme with point-and-click design controls, any of child themes designs, or the popular Pro Plus All-Themes package.

Earlier the commission levels were set at 35% but from end of this year the new percentage would become effective.

Sign up for the affiliate program if your niche caters to their products.

I came across a story that could shock the affiliate out of you. I would share the story with you in a while. It is related to cookier stuffing therefore let us clarify what does that mean.

Cookie stuffing is also called cookie dropping. Cookie stuffing or cookie dropping is said to occur when a user visits a website and as a result of that visit receives a third-party cookie from an entirely different website (target affiliate website), usually without the user being aware of it.

If and when the user visits the target website and completes a transaction like making a purchase or subscription, the cookie stuffer is paid a commission.

How Cookie Stuffing Is Different From Normal Affiliate marketing?

In affiliate marketing the user receives a cookie when he clicks on a link. This is considered normal practice and is how affiliate marketers generate genuine income.

By definition, cookies can only be considered to be stuffed when

• One or more is placed on a user’s computer purely as a result of
• Viewing a page or more than one is added at a time as a result of a single click.

Is It Okay Thing To Do?

NO.

Cookie stuffing is a blackhat online marketing technique and amounts to fraud.

Why?

Because this not only has the potential to generate fraudulent affiliate income for the cookie stuffer, but may also overwrite legitimate affiliate cookies, essentially stealing the commission from another affiliate.

It is morally wrong.

Is It Illegal?

YES!

It is illegal to do cookie stuffing and one should not engage in such activities as it has potential to land you up in the jail up to 20 years.

The Story

On August 28, 2008, eBay filed a civil suit against its three affiliates alleging fraud, racketeering activity  and unauthorized access of eBay’s servers.

EBay alleges that the affiliates named engaged in “cookie stuffing”, specifically generating hidden forced clicks of their Ebay affiliate links.

Hidden forced clicks are when an affiliate link is invoked without a physical click by the end user.

After FBI investigations into the matter,  two separate indictments were handed down by a grand jury in California against theaffilaites on June 24, 2010.

On July 22, 2010,the affiliates appeared before the court and pleaded not guilty. They were released under a $100,000 property bond and surrendering their passports.

The matter is still pending  in the court.

The the maximum penalty  as per document could be

* Imprisonment of 20 years
* Maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain/loss (whichever is greater)
* 3 years of supervised release
* $100 special assessment (per count)

All involved in the affiliate marketing should be aware of this cookie stuffing and keep themselves away from the tricks which could end them possibly behind bars.

As more and more people turn to internet business these days affiliate marketing success secrets are in demand now. While many claim to sell you those secrets, in reality there are no hidden secrets. You need to follow certain principles and eventually you are going to succeed.

While I was pondering over this, I asked myself this question – What are most desirable qualities which assure success in affiliate marketing business. So I came up with this list of five best qualities.

Below, you’ll find each qualities you would require to make it in affiliate business.

1. Willingness To Learn

As in any other field the first requirement is learning the subject. Whether you self study or learn it under guidance of someone is not the issue. Learning and continued learning is the key to knowledge acquisition. A willingness to put your mind and heart into the knowledge learning is must.

You need to keep your eyes and ears open and  use every opportunity to sharpen your knowledge and skill as you go.

2. Investment

Many people fret at the name of investment but investment is much more than mere monetary investment. There must be the willingness to invest money, time and effort in helping your business grow in spite of what your immediate results are expected. You must be able to foresee what your  business is expected to be like in the future and what does it need to succeed. In business, the weeks may pass without hearing good news, but it’s very important to be poised and invest in your growth.

3. Determination

This is one quality that is key to all others. Zeal to succeed in spite of every hurdle is the force that would keep you moving upward in your business. If you want to make it in the world of affiliate marketing, you must possess to push yourself forward. The ability to push yourself to greater heights will determine what type of future you have.

4. Discipline

When you are in a job you have an imposed or forced discipline. When you have your own business you need to create and maintain your own discipline. If you teach yourself to work everyday with all of your heart and soul, you’ll be that much closer to reaching your goals and making your dreams come true.

5. Optimism

Attitude matters and   determines the success. Never mind the naysayers around you and work in pursuit of your goals. You are the captain of your ship and you are the one steering it towards destiny.

These qualities come inherently to some people and other people have to learn them. What ever is the case , these qualities become guiding light of your affiliate success journey.

I happened to join Google Affiliate Network for becoming an affiliate at DIYSEO, an SEO solution for small business owners.

Google Affiliate Network needs you to have a preexisting Adsense account which I had and my application was approved within a day.

Once I logged in I was surprised to see the number of advertisers Google Affiliate Network had. There are a lot of products that you can sell with your payment in just one account.

What Is Google Affiliate Network?

Google Affiliate Network is self explanatory. It is an affiliate network that allows you to an advertiser’s banner or text link on your site. When a transaction, such as a sign-up or purchase, occurs through one of these affiliate links, Google Affiliate Network will track the sale and pay you a commission.

What Are The Requirements?

You need to have a website with audience. Google says

We encourage you to consider Google Affiliate Network if you:

• Manage a site that attracts a desirable audience.
• Can test advertising offers and nurture the most productive relationships.
• Are an expert in driving and converting visitor traffic.
• Adhere strictly to Google Affiliate Network quality standards and advertiser-specific terms.

It further mentions

We’ve found that Google Affiliate Network tends to yield greater benefits to publishers who create niche content, manage loyalty and rewards programs, aggregate coupons and promotions, or manage social media.

So if you have a website you can potentially apply for joining the network. Google Affiliate Network even accepts publishers outside of the United States.

Is There Any Fee?

A good affiliate network is always fre of charges to join. There’s no cost to participating in Google Affiliate Network.

How To Apply?

To sign up for Google Affiliate Network:

1. If needed, apply to Google AdSense.
2. Visit the Google Affiliate Network sign-up page.
3. Provide your AdSense user name and publisher ID.
4. Provide your website information, promotional details, and other profile information to create your Google Affiliate Network account.

Typically you would receive a confirmation or rejection when the review process is complete. That usually should happen within 24 hours.

I am still restricting my campaigning with DIYSEO but I am considering joining few publishers more.

Would let you know.

You can share your views in the comment box.

A recent product launch on this topic got me intrigued and I started searching. What came out was just quite surprising.

And you will find that there is a whole lot of world out there. Outside realms of organic or paid traffic from search engines or social sites or other web places.

And that the people are making good money with this kind of traffic. silently and effectively.

Before you fully understand the concept of PPV marketing let us refresh the concept of adware.

Do not worry. Dots would be connected very soon.

Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. [Wikipedia]

Advertising functions are integrated into or bundled with the software, which is often designed to note what Internet sites the user visits and to present advertising pertinent to the types of goods or services featured there. Adware is usually seen by the developer as a way to recover development costs, and in some cases it may allow the software to be provided to the user free of charge or at a reduced price.

Some adwares aer viruses and harmful for computer but many other are genuine and do not do more than annoying pop ups.

Suppose  you type a url in the address box or tried to perform a google search, and a new, seemingly random browser window opens up over your intended result. That is adware.

PPV marketing is based on the platform of Adware.

How does PPV Marketing Work?

Suppose you are an advertiser with a particular target audience.  You sign up with an adware company  that has built adwares which your target audience might use. You signup and choose the keywords and  user of a computer affected with program performs a search on that term on that computer, the user will get their normal search results, but, the adware causes their computer to open a browser on top of their search results with their ad.

This is one method of doing it.

In addition, the advertisers can also bid on URLs. This causes the adware to open their ad or page in a browser window when the user of an infected computer types a certain url into the address bar.

Cool!!

One of the benefits of PPV marketing is that  keywords or urls are much cheaper to bid on compared to adwords.

Trafficvance.com, mediatraffic.com, and zango.com are the major sites dealing in this kind of marketing. When I visited Zango.com asks you to mail. Strange! Nothing else is there.

Some people have had extraordinary success with PPV marketing.

I am not sure if I would like to try this. I personally do not like the pop ups. They have annoyed me a lot in the beginning when I had a new computer and I was fool enough to download these kind of stuffs.

But if they say it is effective, it must be.

Some one with an experience might throw some light on this issue.

With Federal Trade Commission guideline coming into effect, all bloggers must offer a disclosure policy about their connections and compensations wassociated with the products they endorse.

If the you are  receiving something of value from the product (such as free products, free services, or cash), it needs to be disclosed this relationship to your website readers.

I created my disclosure policy about two weeks back. I advise you to do the same.

You can take a look at Home for Profits Disclosure Policy here

If you want some help in drafting of the policy, here are few links.

• http://disclosurepolicy.org/

• http://cmp.ly/

• http://mikeyounglaw.com/wp/2009/10/23/affiliate-email-disclosure-language/

At least they did not work  here

In an experiment, I had started putting Clickbank contexual ads, a new feature introduced by Clickbank. After six weeks of observation, I have concluded that they are  not effective.

There could be many  reasons for that.

For one they resemble Adsense ads and it has not good CTR  on this blog. May be the readers are overexposed.

Secondly, they are not my recommendations and I do not have a control over what appears in those ads. Therefore they may be irrelevant and possibly do not enthuse same level of trust.

As a result I have taken them down.

I have always felt that best way to promote affiliate products is to recommend them personally in your newsleter, blog post or video.

Moreover, contexual ad perform poorly because there is not sustained promotion of same product.