Being First with Affiliate Products
Subscribe and Thrive Launch
Hi Folks. I think it’s time for another post – I’m falling behind on my 1 per month pace over here! Actually this is a spur of the minute thing as I thought I might give you guys a heads up on a new affiliate program. About an hour ago a new ad appeared on my beginners blog for a program called Subscribe and Thrive. I thought I would mention it as the program just launched and if any of you have tried affiliate marketing then you know one of the biggest hurdles is getting in on it before all the gurus have flogged the crap out of it.
One of the things that I’ve experienced since ascending the MMO niche is a flood of JV offers from everyone and their dog with another product to promote. I really haven’t done much as I’m not interested in going the way of the A-list – selling crap to my readers. The only offers I have entertained are the ones that want to pay me to put their banner on my site. I’m not going to add an affiliate link to these programs though.
With that said it dawned on me that maybe some of you might be interested in knowing about these programs ahead of the general public. I can’t sell this stuff to my readers or they will kill me. Some of you may not be so restricted. This is definitely one of the perks I am getting due to my traffic and serp ranking so I figure if I’m not interested maybe some of you would be.
I know when I was starting out I always wanted to know what went on behind the scenes – the deals that the super affiliates and the A-list were privy to but not the rest of us. In that light I thought I would show you a typical promotion that I’m seeing more of all the time.
The following email was sent to me from Luke Amoresano of Subscribe and Thrive
Grizzly,
As a company that has a background specific to investments and maximizing ROI, we understand the value of an ‘opt-in’ newsletter subscriber list and/or customer/affiliate base. Since you market to such a list of your own and are in the business of monetizing on that list, we propose a mutually beneficial alliance. Cordially, we offer you a corporate sponsorship into our affiliate program. As a result, you will be able you to offer our product and affiliate program to your client base at no cost to you.
We are in pre-launch and expected to go live within the next 7 days.
We create and sell a newsletter called the “Internet Profits Subscription” packaged with the best of the best e-books and software related to making money online. The cost is $5.00 for the first month, then $10 a week thereafter. The newsletter benefits those who want to learn how to make money online. The current state of the economy makes this service timely and marketable. Yet, the true value comes from combining this service with our ‘exclusive affiliate program’ which assists subscribers with increasing their monthly cash flow immediately. The two work hand-in-hand. In fact, 100% of our subscribers are automatically given an affiliate account and notification on how to begin promoting.
You’re obviously familiar with affiliate programs. The major difference between the conventional affiliate program and our exclusive affiliate program is that we pay on three (3) tiers and we require affiliates to be active subscribers in lieu of paying an affiliate fee. This condition maximizes retention of subscribers and, thus, results in both accruing commissions and longevity of paydays our affiliates can count on.
For you though, the arrangement would be different. You would be part of our ‘invite only’ affiliation which has no upfront cost or condition. This privilege is yours because the value of your affiliation is greater. Put another way, you can create more subscribers than a standard affiliate and you can do it faster.
At first glance, the true power behind our program may not stand out. Read this through and the power of our 45-15-15 income plan jump out at you.
Participation in the affiliate program qualifies you for a 45% ($4.50) weekly recurring commission on your 1st Tier subscription sales, a 15% ($1.50) weekly recurring commission on your 2nd Tier, and a 15%($1.50) weekly recurring commission on your 3rd Tier for all the subscription sales your sub-affiliate/subscribers refer. You simply promote the affiliate program to your current customer/affiliate base and subscriptions will be created and you will get paid over and over again because this is a strong money making vehicle.
On a very small scale, the numbers work out for you well. For example: (Assuming sub-affiliates can only refer 5 subscribers of their own.)
100 1st Tier sales x $4.50 = $450 a Week
Then, those 100 1st subscribers sign up 5 each, totaling 500 2nd Tier sales x $1.50 = $750 a Week
Then, those 500 2nd Tier subscribers sign up 5 each totaling 2,500 3rd Tiers sales x $1.50 = $3,750 a Week
That’s $4,950 in commissions every week from just one mailing to your list or customer base.
Let’s play with the numbers a bit and say that you only refer 50 instead of 100, but the people you refer get 10 each. (This is piece of cake, by the way, because it only costs $5.00 to get rolling and they have an entire month to refer others.)
50 1st Tier sales x $4.50 = $225 a Week
Then, those 50 1st subscribers sign up 10 each, totaling 500 2nd Tier sales x $1.50 = $750 a Week
Then, those 500 2nd Tier subscribers sign up 10 each totaling 5000 3rd Tiers sales x $1.50 = $7,500 a Week
That’s $8,475 in commissions every week from just one mailing to your list or customer base.
$40,000+ in monthly commissions is a reality for someone of your caliber. And, you only have to do the work once to keep getting paid every week.
Your conversions are assisted by our $5.00 trial rate for the fist month. This makes it convenient for all subscriber/affiliates to get started right away. You still get paid for the first month at ALL 3 tiers – $2.25, $0.75, $0.75 respectively. Yet, the big checks commence once the weekly re-bills start.
REMEMBER: The subscribers you refer will likely become affiliates, also the affiliates must become subscribers, and they will NOT cancel their subscription because, if they do, their due commissions stop. No logical person cancels a subscription payment of $10 a week when they are earning more than that in the affiliate program. It only takes 3 referrals for them to exceed their own subscription cost and that’s just at the 1st Tier.
What if they do leave? – Then, all of their subscriber referrals get moved up to you and you earn a higher commission for them.
All sales are tracked by the leading affiliate software, Post Affiliate Pro v4.
The billing is handled through Authorize.net gateway ARB, the highest recurring billing performance available.
Paydays are every week, on Wednesday for the previous weeks pay cycle. The pay cycle is from Friday – Thursday, paid following Wednesday. You can choose your preferred method of payment, yet we desire you take advantage of direct deposit to you bank account or the Chase Visa Pay Card we will give you.
Please go to:
http://subscribeandthrive.com/affiliates/exclusive-affiliate-program.html
This is the page that you would send potential sub-affiliates. You can also use our sister site www.EinsteinIncome.com to push people through with an Invitation Pass. We are accepting a limited number of ‘invite only’ affiliations. Failure to respond to this invitation within 7 business days will constitute a decline to participate and by signing up later normal conditions will apply.
To join the ‘invite only’ affiliate program right now go to: (IGNORE FEE OR SUBSCRIBER REQUIREMENTS)
https://subscribeandthrive.com/pap4/affiliates/signup.php
You will be notified when we launch so that you can broadcast to your current customer/affiliate base.
May your day be filled with fun and fortune.
Respectfully,
Luke Amoresano
admin@subscribeandthrive.com
http://www.subscribeandthrive.com
Needless to say, I signed up – why not it was free for me – and strolled through the site just to see what it was all about. You guys can check it out now that it is live but I’m sure you see the money angle pretty clearly already. Yes they have a newsletter full of software and ebooks that subscribers can sell with master resell rights but we all know the money is in signing up affiliates under you. Like all tiered programs the only people who do well (the A-List and Super Affiliates) are the ones that promote these programs first. If I only had search traffic I would probably give a few of these a go but alas… my credibility would be shot with my readers.
To Luke’s credit he must have read my mind as he sent me another email a few days after I checked out the program…
Grizzly,
I took the time to read through your recent post.
“I get a ton of JV emails – people wanting me to promote stuff – many of the people are legit and well-meaning but they sell crap. Sorry – no offense but if I wouldn’t buy it then it’s crap. I’d really like to see something worthwhile come along one of these days.”
Although you have read through our proposal and signed up as an affiliate, I want to drive home that our service is NOT crap. Plus, for a $5.00 start up cost for an entire month and weekly payouts that begin right away, our program is two-steps ahead of competition.
We will not disappoint your readers, A-list or anyone. You credibility will remain in tact. You WILL assist others with achieving an income to match your AdSense revenue.
I hope this email finds you well and marinates so that everyone you share this with will enjoy the juice.
Respectfully,
Luke Amoresano
I’m not so sure this could match my “Adsense Income” but I appreciated the fact that he actually took the time to read my blog. Needless to say this isn’t for me but if any of you want to take a crack at it – feel free. Here is your chance to get in early on one of these launches but I don’t recommend you recruit your loyal readers. Those of you with a list or search traffic might make a few bucks while it is still a novelty. I have no idea if John Chow or Darren Rowse will be pushing this in the morning so I thought I’d let you know about it now. Btw – I got another email stating that the $5 fee was waived and the first two weeks are free – enough time to see if you can make some conversions. If you suceed great – if not dump it before the weekly fee starts.
Here’s the link to the affiliate page – no affilaite ID so you can relax 
In a similar vien I thought you guys might like to read an email I received from Brad Callen today.
Hey Griz,
Thanks for the kind words on your review of PPC Web Spy:
http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/2009/01/ppc-web-spy-brad-callen.html
It means alot coming from you. Wanted to let you know that we’re working on adding more functionality to the tool.
1. Adding a link next to each keyword so users can see the cached page on Google when the Adwords advertiser was found for the specific keyword.
2. Adding better logic for narrowing down which keywords advertisers are bidding on. It works pretty good right now, but will be much better in the next few weeks.
3. Likely changing the overall look of the tool to something brighter and more upbeat for aesthetic reasons.And a few others.
Also, I noticed some people commenting about SEO Elite on that page. We’re currently working on a major SEO Elite update. We’re working with SEO expert Jerry West of SEORevolution.com to come up with the most relevant and helpful features. Am hoping to release this soon. And as always, updates are free to current customers.
Anyway, thanks again Griz! Let me know if I can ever do anything for you.
–
Brad Callen
Bryxen Software, Inc.
Nice of him to drop me a line and glad to hear about the SEO Elite upgrades – I suspect he didn’t read the post I put up after the PPC Web Spy article… I almost feel bad now. Ooops. 
If Paul from Internet Marketing Product Reviews is reading this you should be happy to know Brad read your comments – I’m curious to see what he does to SEO Elite given the abundance of free tools now available.
Okay – that’s my fluffy post just to change the page this month. I am curious if any of you would like me to pass on all the JV proposals I get. Leave me some comments if any of you think they would be useful – I get quite a few and figured some of you may be able to do something with them. If nothing else it will give you an idea of what transpires behind the scenes in the IM gig. Nothing wrong with a free education.
Cheers,
Griz
(Yes I am trying to rank for Subscribe and Thrive – I want to see if this blog can pull off some serp rankings without the post title. It’s a new term (read no competition) and if this site has built up any authority I’ll find out pretty quick – I know SOMEBODY is going to ask! lol)
How to Convince a Skeptic
There is little doubt that the Make Money Online niche has a horrible reputation – so bad in fact that I would have nothing to do with it except that it does have a huge selection of keywords that draw traffic. It is an ideal Adsense niche for that reason alone but when coupled with the amount of advertisers available it is proving to be an exceptional Adsense niche. Compared to my best niche it doesn’t have the CPC but it has almost unlimited potential for adding keywords. When I say “adding keywords” I simply mean it has an unlimited number of terms that I can rank on top of the serp’s with. Take the 4 word term “Make Money Online with…”and add anything after the “with” and you have a new keyword phrase that can be targeted. The point is obvious – the more keywords you rank on top of the serp’s for the more search traffic you will get.
There are not a lot of niches that can grow with such ease. Most niches have a small core group of terms that garner traffic and once you have topped the serp’s for them you are done growing. They can be profitable but your profit is limited.
The MMO niche unfortunately attracts a lot of social bloggers who jump in with the intent of selling crap that will supposedly make people money. This is nothing new and the cumulative effect has been to give the entire niche a bad rep.The sad fact is that most people with an ounce of skepticism in them now assume that anyone claiming to make money online by any means other than selling advertising is full of bullshit. I can’t say I blame them. The vast majority of people who claim to make money online really only make a few dollars and it comes in haphazardly and usually at the expense of someone else without giving value in return. The odd affiliate sale for a product that is worthless would be the norm here.
I like to think I’m different from 99% of the people involved in the MMO niche. The big difference between me and everyone else isn’t my willingness to give out free information or my willingness to help others out. That is nothing more than my shtick – it is an easy way to produce content. The difference is that I use the niche to make money with Adsense and can do it with or without readers.
Having readers is a double edge sword – they provide me with great links (having subtly explained how to use anchored keywords in the links) and I try and repay their generosity by writing useful content that really will make them money if followed. On the other hand having readers curtails my ability to target keywords. Simply put – I have to optimize my posts for various terms without being too obvious. I would love to create a post a day on my beginners blog with titles like – “Make Money using Twitter”, “Make Money using Digg” and “Make Money using Stumbleupon” but my readership would quickly evaporate. It’s not that the posts would be accurate or useful – I just want to rank for those terms which would bring in yet more search traffic in order to increase my Adsense revenue. The same goes for writing posts about every piece of crap affiliate product that comes online. I don’t want to sell any of it – I just want the search traffic. I make money online by driving a lot of search traffic to my sites and there is no niche that I have found that has the potential for search traffic like the MMO niche.
If I could make more money without readers – why don’t I? There are a couple of reasons aside from links which I can rustle up on my own if need be. The biggest reason is that I like having readers – I have made lots of friends and we help each other out. I also haven’t given up on the idea of selling Advertising – at some point with a large enough base of readers I may be able to command enough Ad revenue that it will outperform Adsense. This has happened with my best earning site. I have 3 Corporate advertisers who pay me far more than I was earning with Adsense. The site has no readers per se but it sits atop the serp’s for a highly searched set of keywords and I outrank the 3 corporate giants for their own products. They couldn’t outrank me so they joined me. I should point out that it’s only in the MMO/Blogging/Social Media niches that you need RSS subscribers to attract advertisers – you just need to dominate the serp’s in any other niche.
Okay – aside from blabbering on and stuffing in a few keywords there is a point to this. Yesterday a fellow left a new comment on an old post on Court’s Internet Marketing blog. His name is Jim Green and he left the following comment;
What difference does it make? Attempting to make money from Google ads is an exercise in futility. You can write brilliant articles, get a high ranking and subsequently get a crap load of traffic to your site, but at the end of the day while you make have a crap load of impressions, your ad clicks will be low for two reasons: 1. Google’s algorithms are seriously flawed when it comes to matching relevant ads with content (Their Competitive Ad Filter is a joke). 2. People have simply stopped clicking on ads or banners.
Face it, the days of the average site owners making money from Adsense are over. The only one who is making any real money is Google and a modicum of business owners who have always used the internet to marketing their products or services. If any site owner or blogger tells you otherwise, ask them to show you a copy of their last tax return.
Jim’s impression of Adsense is by no means isolated – I see comments like this almost daily in one forum or another or in the comments on one blog or another. If you click on Court’s link and scroll down the comments you will get a pretty good idea of just how ill-informed people are when it comes to making money online. The post had to do with everyone’s favorite topic – “content vs links”. As usual all the comments come from bloggers and not internet marketers and with few exceptions they all feel that content is king because it will get you readers etc… I won’t rehash my feelings on this except to say that none of them mention “making money”. The goal of bloggers is obtaining readers. None ever seem to ask if readers will make you money – they simply assume that they will. This doesn’t bother me in the least as they can find out the hard way. Jim’s comment did bother me though and it did so because he actually addressed the issue of making money online.
It bothered me because he came to the conclusion that Adsense doesn’t work because of all the crap he has read and from his own trials. He is a skeptic and rightfully so. He added several more comments in response to others telling him he was wrong and the end result is that unless he sees a tax return he can’t be convinced that Adsense is a viable way to make money online. There is no chance in hell that I’ll be forwarding my tax return to anyone but he got me thinking that there has to be a way to convince a skeptic. Normally I wouldn’t care but I liked how Jim wrote and I read his blog posts and my impression was that he is a decent intelligent fellow that is simply fed up with all the crap he’s come into contact with. I don’t know who he has been reading but it took 2 seconds to see where his problems lie. His posts are fine but his site is a SEO nightmare as far as Adsense goes. His site is not unlike all of the sites my readers have ask me to review – sites that I glance at and sigh because it will take posts as long as this one to explain what is wrong with them. Stuff that I have written about at length in my blogs. Stuff that new readers don’t bother to read. (Hint! – it would be quicker to read Make Money for Beginners than wait for me to review your blog – the answers are all there)
In Jim’s case I want to point out a basic fact about Adsense. If you are optimizing your site for the benefit of readers you will not do well with Adsense. You have to optimize your site for a machine (Google) and always remember that a machine is stupid compared to a human brain. Everything about Jim’s site is written for a person to read and absorb. If you want to write for people that is fine but you can’t make money with Adsense doing so and this doesn’t mean that Adsense doesn’t work – it works fine but not if you think you can just create a blog and write whatever you feel like.
Jim’s blog makes the following errors.
- his url has no keyword in it. (He uses his name – nothing that the bot can asign ad relevancy too)
- his blog title is “Demystifying Internet Technology” – Drop “Demystifying” – no ad relevancy.
- he has 5 separate unrelated posts on his home page. Use only one post per page for Adsense unless all the posts target the same keyword.
- the Adsense bot uses your post titles as the main indicator of what ads it will display. Give it five unrelated post titles on a page and yes you will get irrelevant ads. The bot is a stupid machine – it doesn’t know what the home page is about. If Jim checks his post pages (only 1 post on each page) he will see that he has relevant ads on them.
- put the large adsense block in the money spot – top left corner above all the content. Who cares if it looks ugly or that nobody reads your blog – you want to make money with Adsense. If you want people reading your posts then forget about Adsense – you can’t have both. (okay – yes you can but not until you understand how optimize for Adsense while writing for readers)
- Jim’s content is perfect for Adsense – it’s relevant to the post titles and it is real and well written. It would pass a visual inspection with flying colours. (International spelling 
)
- last point and this applies to everyone. Quit trying to use adsense on your precious baby – you know the blog that means so much to you and conveys your true passions. If you want to make money then make money – if you want to be a writer be a writer. If you want to be a famous blogger be a famous blogger but quit assuming that you can make money with Adsense just doing what you feel like. I’d really like to make money just sitting on my ass sipping Rum in the sun but Google won’t give in and send me a check. The buggers actually require me to work for it.
It would do a lot of you some good to understand this – Google is not concerned about publishers. They are only concerned about giving value to their advertisers. They make money from them – not the publishers. They let anyone publish Adsense but if your site doesn’t provide quality traffic that converts for the advertiser they will pay you a cent a click. Jim mentioned in Court’s comments that Google isn’t very good at explaining how to make money with Adsense. He is correct – they don’t tell you how aside from a few vague references to producing quality sites. There is a reason for this – Adsense and SEO run hand in hand. If they told you how to optimize your site for Adsense they would also be giving away the farm on how to optimize your site for top serp rankings. They can’t tell people this or everyone would quickly be gaming the serp’s. I’m the one telling you how to do it.
Every thing I just mentioned about optimizing Jim’s site for Adsense will also optimize his site for the search engines. The last ingredient to making money with Adsense – and the hardest – is ranking on top of the serp’s for your keyword. It’s search traffic looking for your keyword that produces the best Adsense results. It’s a numbers game that can best be understood as follows;
1000 people find your site using stumbleupon – they see your post title “I Got Rich Overnight”. The stumblers read your post and find out you got rich overnight because your “Rich Uncle” left you a fortune. Most read and leave but a few click on an ad for a get rich quick product. They are just curious and don’t buy. The advertiser is pissed at G so G says – “don’t worry we will only charge you a few pennies for those visitors”.
1000 people find your site searching for “I Got Rich Overnight” in the serp’s. They read and most leave but a few click the get rich quick ads. They are more than just curious – they came online specifically looking to get rich quick. These people are far more likely to buy the advertisers product and a lot do. The Advertiser is happy and Google says “We will charge you a buck a click for those visitors”.
In either case Google doesn’t give a damn about you the publisher – you can provide the advertiser with traffic that converts or with traffic that doesn’t. If they convert Google gives you a better CPC. If your traffic is crap then you get pennies or worse – PSA’s (public service ads). If you really screw around you get banned.
Jim this post is for you and everyone else that thinks Adsense is crap. If you read my beginners blog and follow my advice you will make money using adsense. I’m not going to show you my tax return but I will ask you to use some common sense. My Make Money Online for Beginners blog is two years old, it has 2400 subscribers, it ranks on top of the serp’s for a lot of keywords. You can query a few to confirm – “how to make money”, “how to make money online”, “make money”, “make money online”, “making money online”, “earn money online”, “make money blogging” and dozens more if you are really bored. The point is my site gets traffic – a lot by most standards. So why don’t I sell anything? Why am I using Adsense on the site if it doesn’t make me any money? Why don’t I have ads above the fold? Does it seem logical to you that I would keep producing the kind of content I do and not be making money with Adsense? Would you continue for two years and not try and sell crap to a readership of 2400 people? There must be a logical reason as to why I only use Adsense.
You can click the link below to see my Adsense earnings for my beginners blog for the month of December – could I fake it – probably but I ain’t selling you anything except my integrity so keep that in mind. (Plus I am far to lazy to sit up all through New Year’s eve photoshopping a meaningless screenshot… and I don’t own Photoshop. lol )
Make Money for Beginners Adsense Earnings for December 2008
Below is a comment Jim left for me on Court’s blog and the motivation for this post.
Grizzly-
I’m not disillusioned but rather skeptical. I only put those ads on my site to prove a point regarding Google’s flawed algorithms. I wrote Google’s support asking for advice regarding the mismatch of ads to my content only to receive a form response giving me a list of links leading to explanations that I found to be far to complex for the average person to comprehend. I find it absurd that people like yourself have to explain Google’s Adsense model as obviously their own explanations are convoluted and that their support team is inaccessible.
Being that I am not a know-it-all, I will pursue your advice and if it works or doesn’t work, I will write an article about it down the road. Until that time, in all due respect, I remain somewhat dubious as to your claim that you make a lot of money from off your ads. Although I don’t doubt your sincerity, I think you are selling a pipe dream to bloggers.
-Jim
I don’t sell pipe dreams – I don’t sell anything actually to people who bother to read my posts. I make money from Adsense and search traffic and I tell others how to do it. Jim you have found someone willing to show you how. I hope you give it a try – the right way and drop by one day and tell me how you’re doing.
Oh for those of you who wrote to ask me why I used link bait on my New Year’s post – I did it to find out if my site is fully optimized for my keyword. The post title was The Death of the USA. If my blog wasn’t fully optimized in Google’s eyes I would have got some gruesome ads from Adsense. As it turns out I got a mixture of gruesome and MMO ads – this means I still have work to do optimizing the site as a whole. If done right you can get away with off topic post titles and still retain your primary keyword ads. Sorry for the change of pace – I told you it’s hard trying to optimize for a machine while keeping your readers in the loop!
Cheers to all and have a great year!
Griz
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