The Future of Online Poker

The future of online poker is as uncertain as ever a gambling laws in countries around the world are constantly under review.
I was actively playing back in 2006 when the shock news from the US came into action.
They passed law to make it a class c felony for anyone in the country to gamble online.

Growing Your Affiliate Income

Growing your affiliate Income every month is the key to success but its also the hardest thing to do

Affiliate marketing is a funny old game
Some days are great! The sales keep rolling in and the commisions just keep coming.
Other days nobody seems to want to spend their money and you don’t make a sausage.

Should I Pull The Plug On Principle?

Its been a bit of a kick in the teeth this weekend.
It all started when one of my campaigns suddenly had some tracking problems.
( No names  – but its run independently )

The Apprentice In Lego

The best thing about a Wednesday night is watching the apprentice on BBC one
Apart from The Dragons Den its probably the only thing that I bother to switch the TV on for these days

Building a Strong Affiliate Portfolio

Much in the same way as a stock trader builds a share portfolio by investing into a range of business sectors to spread their risk – I find its important to use the some of the same principles in affiliate marketing.
I’m sure most people have heard of the expression ‘ Don’t put all of your eggs into one basket’ 

But Thats the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Wouldn’t it be great…
If you only had to make one sale for a merchant and then every sale thereafter from that customer guaranteed to pay you commission every time, over and over again.

Choosing What to Sell on a New Website

Deciding which products or services to promote/sell on a website shouldn’t be taken lightly .
If your main aim is to build your own ‘brand’ by creating a website – then your best bet is to focus on a niche. Whats a niche ? I hear you say ….

Put Your Glasses On

….You need great vision to be successful at affiliate marketing.
As I explained in one of my previous posts ‘My First Affiliate Campaign’ you won’t get very far making a website thats just stacked high with fancy banners.

You need a bit extra if your going to actually suceed in creating a respectable income for yourself.

Dragons Breath Fire Back Into ‘Red Letter Days’

Exciting news this week as the strong brand ‘red letter days’ launches a new affiliate program.

The relatively new owners Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis from the popular television programme  ’The Dragons Den’ took over the company from ex dragon Rachel Elnaugh.
They are now breathing fire back into the company which launched a new  program on affiliate window this week.

Red letter days sell experience days and have some unique gift ideas.

The commission on offer is a whopping 17% of the sale if you go through AW
They have an average order value of £140 
This would generate average commissions of £18.20 per sale for affiliates.

This looks like a fantastic program which is sure to cause a stir in the industry.

Thanks for reading
Mike

My First Affiliate ‘Campaign’

This is a follow-up from my last post:  How I got into Affiliate Marketing

After reading the affiliate merchants page and signing up to the program I was eager to start making money.
Now was the time to start my first affiliate campaign. 
I say ‘campaign’; but at the time I didn’t really care to think about it, I just wanted to get on and make some money.
Looking back, it may have helped me to take the time to look it up in the dictionary or something lol
 
Definition quoted from dictionary.com
“campaign = a systematic course of aggressive activities for some specific purpose: a sales campaign.”  

In fact it wasn’t a campaign at all, just one big disaster!
You see I had one important thing missing, I wasn’t at all ’systematic’ in my approach ( ticked the other boxes though;) )
I just fell into the trap that most other new affiliates do.

 I got myself a domain name from somewhere like this: poker–table.co.uk ( needless to say Its not around anymore )
Quickly figured out how to create cells on dreamweaver – Slapped a few banners in them from various poker rooms – uploaded it – and thought I had myself a nice little poker site.

I’m not too ashamed to admit all this as I know I’m not alone here. I’ve found a million and one sites that looked just like mine.

I must have kept this site for about a year and I had spent alot of hours on messing about with it.
Swapping banners around, getting ones that looked better, signing up to new programs that paid higher commissions, writing a few reviews on each site etc.

Sure I got something out of doing the website
I learnt had to use dreamweaver, a bit of html coding and stuff + where to get all the best poker bonuses:)
But I never made one naffing Sale out of the damn thing!

I’m writing this post in the hope that someone new to affiliate marketing may read this – take a step back from what they are doing and realise AM is not all about pretty banners and the hope that some punter is going to click one of your links.
I wish it was that simple because I would definately have made that first million by now I can assure you.

Please don’t make the mistakes have made, you will just waste alot of time and get nowhere fast

Take a step back and use your time to do some good research first
The best thing of all about affiliate marketing and your greatest allies believe or not is the other affiliates themselves ( well not all of them of course as some are trying to pitch your campaigns and get your leads lol )
But on the whole you may be very suprised just how forthcoming and helpful most of these guys are.
My No1 tip is to join some affiliate forums and read plenty of good affiliate blogs ( oh and mine ;) )
Do alot of reading and ask alot of questions and I’m sure you will go along way

One of the best forums I use and inspired me to start this blog is A4u  -  Alot of the guys there really know their stuff
I’ll post some of the affiliate blogs that I read another time.

Thanks for reading
Mike

 My next series of Posts : In my next few posts I’ll be outlining the way I would have done it ( the way I do it know ) if I had the time again.