A couple of months ago, I decided that I would really help out my school and help some entrepreneurs out with getting  websites for their businesses.  Little did I know how time-consuming and tedious this task would be… especially so in the college atmosphere as alcohol was frequently in between my “clients” and I.  Needless to say, these projects dwindled to nothing with usually my time and money wasted but I learned a couple of valuable lessons that seem to be very common judging from the website that was passed my way.

These relationships really made me appreciate a link that was passed my way for a site very similar to the popular TextsFromLastNight called ClientsFromHell.  A lot of the scenarios seem a little bit embellished but you can’t help but appreciate a couple of these, especially if you dabbled in the biggest thing to hit affiliate marketing since sliced bread, local lead generation.   Here’s a couple of good ones I found…

Hi. I own some websites. I have ads on these websites. I need some quality clickers to click the links on these websites (ads). I am looking for people to click 1 hour, 3 times, for one week. Then I will determine if I want to repeat what I just said.  For doing this gig the compensation will be a coffee or tea or soda at Starbucks or Pete’s coffee and $10 dollars. I will be with you because I am looking for a standard.

Pure genius way to making monies online!

I need you to get me a picture of a black guys mouth and add gold to all his teeth. It should be on every page of my site.

Definitely for a biz opp flog, haha just kidding. Seriously, anybody remember Chedda’s flog?

I already paid for the googles, I just want my website on there!

“Paid for the googles” sounds like a potential candidate for an upcoming WickedFire meme.

Client: I talked to God for a couple hours last night, and he agreed that I shouldn’t have to pay you.

Hahaha, I don’t have any stories as good as these but I think this site will take off if the affiliate marketing industry gets a hold of it.  Sound off in the comments section if you’ve got your own ClientsFromHell-worthy stories.

There’s not much relation to affiliate marketing and video games but I figured since I indulged in COD all weekend I might as well blog about what’s been taking up my time.  Judging by a couple of Twitters there are quite  a few marketers out there that play Xbox Live so be sure to check the bottom paragraph for my gamer tag and post yours in the comment section.

As you probably know the map pack is $15.00 which I think is a little steep but I had some spare Microsoft points laying around that I didn’t blow on a 10th prestige lobby so I didn’t mind paying the 1200 points price tag.  Two of the five maps that you receive in the map are part of the Modern Warfare game that was the previous title in the series. (Vacant and Strike) I really liked that they included these because it was good to know these maps from memory so I didn’t get my ass beat as badly as the others where I ran around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.

The other three maps that are brand spankin’ new are Carnival, Trailer Park, and the gigantic Fuel.  The first two are pretty self explanatory and both of them have a lot of props involved in the map.  I’m not a big fan of either one of these because of the sheer amount of places people seem to camp on them.  In the Trailer Park map there are a ton of windows and corners that make it hard to see a head or gun poking out so a lot of people take advantage of that and it’s always super effective on people who just bought the map pack.  Fuel is absolutely gigantic and Infinity Ward claims that it meets the demand of another sniper map.  I’ve played it more than a few times and I’ve never seen someone successfully snipe on it but it’s by far the best map out of three new ones in my opinion.

Overall, I think the maps are a pretty good addition.  I get a little burnt out on video games pretty quickly and this revived my interests for at least the weekend so I think it was worth the $15 to me.  As for recommending it, it all depends on what type of player you are.  If you will play this more than a few days, I would definitely recommend buying it but if you aren’t a serious player of COD then you could definitely skip it.  I’m a level 63 at the time being so I’m not a huge gamer but I still am happy with my purchase as it kept me entertained for awhile.   For those of you out there who play on Xbox Live as well, send me a friend request or post your gamer tag in the comment section and I’ll add you.  My twin brother and I are a deadly combination so I look forward to winning a couple games with you.  My gamer tag is: TXP JKirk

You don’t have to master the Google Adwords system in order to land a job… check out the cleverness of this guy:

Okay, I admit I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately as a buddy of mine has been sending them my way by the hour but I stumbled across this gem while I was my latest YouTube adventure.  This video is about two weeks old so I’d say an influx of these campaigns have been popping up everywhere but if done right, I guarantee you’ll at least get some clicks from a possible employer.  I may try this for an internship next summer!

With all this talk of Super Bowl commercials, I was reminded of a textbook example of a terrible commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. Although I personally can’t remember it nor would have even noticed it at the mere age of 11 years old, I still find it amusing that this particular commercial for OurBeginning.com was so horrible. The website now is some kind of day care center in Seattle, which I was very disappointed to see considering the fact that the airtime cost them a couple million dollars. The site used to be a website that produced, of all things… wedding invitations. I just can’t understand what made these entrepreneurs think that this was good targeting. Perhaps I was too young during this Super Bowl and only recently have all commercials been geared toward beer, Coke, and Hyundai cars…

Yet another example of my nerdiness became apparent to me when I was the only one in the room that was astounded after watching the Google commercial. One of my friends commented, “Now John is going to text all his cyber friends”. Sadly, I did…

After thinking about the horrible wedding invitation targeting incident, I started to think of the blunders Ryan, Rich and I have made with our targeting in the past. One particular example I had in mind was some of our first Facebook campaigns that we started with in the education niche. In fact, they were so bad we couldn’t even use most of the data in order to turn the campaign profitable so it just had to be scrapped. Have you made any particularly stupid targeting mistakes in your career? Surely not as stupid as the wedding invitation blunder, right?

How’s it going, everyone? I have been ghost lately on the blog but thankfully Ryan and Richard have been picking up the slack with quality posts. I’m having trouble adapting to my new schedule here in school with 4 hours of straight class on Tuesday and Thursday. Good thing they are all entrepreneur and marketing classes though! Other than that I’ve been looking over some of the projects Ryan and I have been throwing together and trying to balance my life as best as possible without compromising too much. I’ve been exposed to a lot of AWESOME entrepreneur articles and information in my classes that I am going to be sharing very soon.

I really debated talking about this next topic for fear of negative media attention but it’s so entertaining that I decided I might as well post it for everyone out there to see what their thoughts are on the whole mess. As soon as I got to school, rush week started for all the incoming freshman of 2009. As I said before, fraternities are huge at my school and I am also a member of one. Hopefully you are a little familiar with what I’m talking about but on the last night of rush week we give a bid/invitation to the kids who we want. The following night we then have what’s called “Kiss Night”…

Kiss Night described in two words… mass chaos. Basically before the event every greek member who got a bid into a fraternity or sorority gets extremely drunk before the event and heads to a club where the object of the night is to kiss as many people as possible. No shame, no holding back, all social rules are cut loose. As a result, you have sloppy 18 and 19 year olds going around making out with 50-60 people, if not more. As you may have guessed, authorities do not approve of this event very much due to underage drinking and etc. and this year it was cut short because all the ambulances in the area were in use due to the massive amount of ambulances in the area being used for alcohol poisoning. Fortunately nobody on campus suffered any irreparable damage so we were lucky in that aspect. The repercussions of the event have not been completely determined though so we are staying tuned.

So yeah, Kiss Night was my kick off to a new year two years in a row, maybe it will prove good luck this year too? Definitely a unique experience that I will never forget for more reasons than one… (One reason that cost me 9 stitches, but we’ll save that for a rainy day!) More relevant blog posts to affiliate marketing to come…

How sad it is… Great post guys!

http://www.ppc.bz/get-dirt-nasty/leaked-bye-bye-american-acai

My brother stumbled upon a pretty funny video on YouTube. It’s probably been on a social media site or your aunt’s forwarded chain letter but nevertheless it’s still pretty funny.

It’s Friday the 13th so I figured it would be the perfect time for a fun post. This one is just for a laugh, so don’t take it too serious. Without any further ado:

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A SUPER AFFILIATE WHEN…

You drive a nicer car than anyone in your family.

You read AffBuzz more than your local newspaper.

You cringe every time you hear or see anything about the FTC.

Random people message you on Facebook looking for employment.

You’d give up your girlfriend before your traffic sources.

You’d rather scale a campaign than go out on Saturday night.

You hire your parents to work for you.

Your neighbors think you’re a drug dealer.

Your parents think you’re a drug dealer.

You think Oprah Winfrey is a greedy bitch.

You’d like to see Dr. Oz’s medical degree.

You know what “Slingin’ da berries” means.

You can make a bank teller’s jaw drop.

You smoke the eCig and think about what a missed opportunity.

You replace all your friends with Affiliate Managers.

You understand this sentence: Based on our spend we think that’s an adequate EPC given the CTR.

Your credit card bill is 6-figures on a monthly basis. (or 7)

You think $100,000 isn’t that much money.

You think $200,000 isn’t that much money.

Hell, you think $500,000 isn’t that much money.

Your girlfriend has to hide your iPhone to get your attention.

You travel to a major American city at least once a month.

Feel free to add your own in the comment box below. I had several more but I figured I had to stop at some point and get some work done. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

I was taking a break for a few minutes and decided to browse Digg to see if I could find something to clear my head. Usually it’s the stories that I find entertaining but surprisingly it was one of the advertisements on the right side. A lot of times I will notice certain ads and have a certain admiration for them but I can never tell if it’s the consumer side of me that appeals to these ads or if it’s just because I’m always looking for new ideas for my own ads. In this case, I feel like this is just a quality ad that had a lot of thought put behind it and turned out very amusing:

You can see the Flash version here where you can actually pick if you want to let Kimbo do what he wants to the caterpillar or vice versa.

I feel like to a certain extent other advertisements are great to enhance your own advertisements (even if they aren’t rivaling your own). As an affiliate marketer, do you have this same mindset? Or are you the guy that turns on AdBlock on FireFox and flips the channel as soon as the commercials start up?

Without a doubt Billy Mays will be remembered as a legend in the direct response marketing industry. Billy had the look and was an excellent pitchman. Just like a Super Affiliate, Billy drove a $200,000 Bentley and lived in a 8,000 square foot mansion. He’s someone I personally will always remember and look up to for the things he did in the industry. Working in the direct response marketing industry online, I thought what a better way to honor Billy than to dress up as him for my Halloween costume.

After hours of searching online, no company made a costume, so I had to get creative. It took about a week, but I grew out my beard and canceled my monthly haircut appointment. I then went out, bought a blue button up shirt, printed off an Oxi Clean logo, and made my own costume. Check it out for yourself:

We’re going to head out to some Halloween parties and I’m going to try to sell this bottle of Acai. Let’s see how well I can ‘pitch it’!

Happy Halloween everyone – have a safe evening!