This is probably  geared more to the younger crowd of affiliate marketers because I know age inquiries of older people are definitely insulting but I just couldn’t let this go.  I had passed by a local dealership here and noticed an unusually nice car parked out in primetime real estate for traffic so I had to call and find out what the deal was.   It’s hard to understand the context and message of the blog post without mentioning that this car happened to be a Range Rover so naturally the audience that buys this car is generally an older audience that I assume car dealers think have managed to become successful after many years of grinding out in the work world.  Anyway, I call them to find out more information about mileage and price and midway after the conversation the dealer just flat out says, “How old are you, buddy?  You sound kind of young…”.

I didn’t say anything to him on the phone at the time just because I’m not someone who blows up with anger on the spot but rather fumes with smoke later on.  I was very nerved that this guy thinks just because someone is young that they don’t have the intelligence or opportunity to attain enough wealth for a Range Rover.  Maybe I should refer him to Birdman?  To say the least, it caused me to decline two of his requests for me to come by today and test drive it because of this belittling.

The other side of the coin is that these type of inquiries are a form of flattery.  My parents have given this notion because they feel like if you can be recognized for being younger and still being able to afford luxuries like this, then all the power to you.   However, I’ve never seen it that way…

Have you ever had an experience like this?  I’ve had many where my age caused me not to be taken seriously, especially when dealing with car dealerships.  Sound off in the comments section, I’d seriously love to hear some stories.

I’ve never mentioned any of my offline businesses on this blog, because I like to keep the concentration on my online stuff.  However, the other day, I saw a need to bring something up.  I’m part owner in a self storage facility here in West Virginia.  For those of you unfamiliar with self storage it’s simply a block of buildings that includes multiple sized units people can rent to store their belongings.

If you follow us on Twitter you know I’ve been moving the past week (Richard’s getting married so I had to move out).  Since I live about 2 hours from the storage facility I own, I had to rent a storage unit from a local facility.  The woman renting the unit made sure I understood that these units were in the ‘projects’ and it’s very possible my unit could be broken into and my stuff stolen (LOL I wish I was joking).  Even though she did a poor job of making me feel safe, I do realize if someone really wants to steal something they’re going to do anything they can to get it (regardless of the location).

The other day I was making one of many trips to my unit and noticed two units down from mine the lock had been cut off exposing the stuff inside.  This is a common practice when a renter doesn’t pay their monthly fee; you cut the lock and either trash or auction their stuff (depending on what they have).  Well, I don’t think they’re going to be auctioning any of this stuff.  Check out the unit:

Unbelievable!  They were using their storage unit as their own personal land field! It looks like a bag of sugar, bottle of vinegar, McDonalds bags, etc.  Now obviously they quit paying on the unit (as the lock had been cut off) but at one time or another they were paying the $79 a month rate for this storage unit.  $79 a month to store sh*t!

While this doesn’t really relate to Internet Marketing we can gather one important piece of information.  The value people place on items (or a service). Before we can promote products online as an affiliate or working direct with an advertiser we have to know how much a person values an item (or service).  Do they value it enough to pay the amount that’s being charged?  Obviously the person that was storing their garbage valued the unit and was willing to pay the $79 a month (for a while at least).  $79 to store garbage.  That’s almost absurd!

Something to keep in mind when developing your next campaign .  The price people are willing to pay for some things may surprise you…

It isn’t the massive amount of monies that you can be making online that is keeping you awake, guys, it’s the light of the computer screen screwing with your internal clock!  CNN’s latest article in the “Living with Technology” section throws around the idea of artificial light from computers and other gadgets tricking your mind and body into thinking that it’s not time to go to bed yet. Of course there’s no scientific research behind this claim but basically a guy turned off all his electronics for a month and noticed a “significant” difference with a new lack of restlessness before going to bed.

Whenever I read this story I have to think to myself…  Is this really the problem for why I can’t fall asleep before 2:00?  My answer: hell no.  I literally laughed out loud when I read this article and it has one blaring flaw that I don’t know how you could ignore.  If you turned off all the electronics in your house, what is there left to do?  Instead of surfing the Internet or watching TV for 5 hours after ole J.D. Moyer got home from work, he probably did lawn work or played with his kids more.  Obviously you will sleep better if you have more physical activity.  I also laughed at the notion of them tying the Apple iPad into the mix.  They specifically address gadgets who might be the cause of this problem as “laptops and the Apple iPad”.  I guess they want to tie something more “hip” into to the article by not just saying all electronics and use a media buzzword instead.

So anyway, guys, remember to turn off all your gadgetry at sundown from now on to ensure that you catch those Z’s efficiently.  (Especially your iPad) If you do dare to leave them on… well… perhaps you should consider investing in a nice pair of sunglasses?

If you want an unhappy mother/wife this Sunday buy her flowers from ProFlowers. Many affiliate networks are blowing this offer up right now because ProFlowers has a really good marketing strategy, but that’s about it.

This past February, for Valentine’s Day I screwed up big with ProFlowers. My mother called me and told me to order my girlfriend of 5 years flowers from ProFlowers because they had an excellent deal going on and she said they were ‘beautiful’. Being that I listen to my mother, I dialed up ProFlowers (using an affiliate link from my favorite network) and ordered one dozen red roses.

On their website they were advertising one dozen red roses for $29.98. For Mother’s Day I see they’ve upgraded that to two dozen:

Anyways, by the time i got through their checkout system my order was up to $47.96 after they tacked on a delivery fee.

Still, considering roses from the florist on Valentine’s day are around $90, I thought I came out ahead.

On Valentine’s Day I’m hanging out at my girlfriend’s house when the FedEx guy knocks out the door. He gives her this long box, she signs, and he leaves. She tears open to the box to find twelve roses that haven’t even begin to come out. They’re also tiny, tiny, tiny! Her response, “um oh wow hunny… they’re cute…” CUTE?!? Guys: You don’t want your flowers to be cute, you want them to be amazing. A few days later they began to come out more and looked better, but huge disappointment at first:

To make things even worse my identical twin brother Richard bought his wife-to-be flowers from the florist. As my luck would have it she took multiple pics of her amazing arrangement to Facebook:

Not only did ProFlowers make me look bad, they made me look cheap. For an extra $40 I could have saved myself. So don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’m sure it’s likely someone from ProFlowers will be emailing in. I’m not saying your company is bad, I’m just saying your roses were a huge disappointment. Not what I was expecting… Good job with your promotion though, you got me to order… Once!

</rant>

I want to start this post off with an apology for the lack of content of the last few weeks. We’re actually in the process of developing some really cool features for the site and it has taken most of my time. Right now it looks like this exciting new feature (that will hopefully make a lot of you money) is going to be launched on or around Monday, May 3rd. So definitely keep checking back as I’m really excited to get this out! This was actually one of the main reasons that kept any of us from attending AdTech in San Francisco this past week. I hope everyone had a profitable and fun trip! John and I will all be at Affiliate Summit East in New York City this coming August so we hope to get together with many of you in the Big Apple!

Richard and I did decided to take a short break from our busy work schedule to attend last night’s Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game against the Ottawa Senators in Pittsburgh, PA. We were lucky enough to find some really sick tickets online at face value (front row behind the glass)! The usher in our section was a real jerk and kept ‘threatening’ to throw us out for banging on the glass, but he was all talk! It’s sad that some people hate their jobs so bad that they take it out on others! I always believe in making the best of every situation. It did suck that the Penguins ended up losing 4-3 but the triple overtime was very exciting!

Here are some photos from our trip:

Amazing sandwich at Primanti Bros

Richard outside Mellon Arena

Richard in his ‘white out’ t-shirt

Don’t forget, Monday May 3, 2010!  We’re going to have something definitely worth checking out!

I want to ask you all to keep our small town of Beckley in your thoughts and prayers. For those of you that have kept up with the news the last two days, a mine explosion happened in our small county (Raleigh) yesterday killing 25 coal miners and leaving 4 unaccounted for. Being such a small town, everyone around here knows of someone effected by this grave tragedy.

While Richard, John, and I no longer live in Beckley, we are all from that area (I’ve actually been working out of my office there all week which is about 8 minutes from the accident). Words cannot describe the magnitude an event like this has on such a small town. Thank you all for remembering us, I hope to have some more content this week.

I want to start this post off with an apology. I was actually working on several posts to post automatically throughout this past week, but due to numerous other projects, I didn’t have time to perfect them. I don’t want to release subpar material on this blog, but assure you, I have a lot of good stuff coming. Anyways, I just got back home from an AMAZING cruise vacation and thought I’d share before unpacking my things and getting back to a massive amount of work!

For those of you have never been I suggest you go ahead and book one as soon as you finish reading this post! I had never been on a cruise and not only had my expectations met, I was KNOCKED off my feet impressed. After some research, I decided to take my girlfriend on a four-night cruise that left Miami, Florida on Monday, March 22nd, went to Key West, Florida on Tuesday, March 23rd, then to Cozumel, Mexico on Wednesday, March 24th, and returned to Miami on Friday, March 26th (Thursday was a ‘fun day’ at sea). Our cruise line of choice: Carnival, ship: Imagination

When I booked the trip I was a bit skeptical because of the low price. For this trip I paid around $550 per ticket. Some of the more luxury cruise lines were as much as $15-$25K! I was definitely not paying that much money for something I’ve never experienced. Before leaving, I asked John his thoughts and he said he went once, but his only compliant was the small rooms. To avoid this (and in normal Super Affiliate fashion) I booked the penthouse suite. It was approximately 400 square feet, included a private balcony with furniture, and a Jacuzzi bathtub. Still, given the low price, I was somewhat concerned.

After arriving at the Miami Seaport on Monday, we were quickly booked in and after a passing through a security checkpoint, were able to access the ship and our room. I was SHOCKED at how amazing everything was. I didn’t even feel like I was on a ship. I felt as if I was standing in a five star hotel in South Beach. Our room was very clean and the staff was very helpful. We decided it was time for a quick lunch before the ship set sail at 4:00 p.m. ET. This would be the true test? The food.

We made our way up to the deck where the pool was, which also included a ‘cafeteria style’ restaurant. Once again, I was taken back. Not only could you choose from the normal cheese burger and fry lunch, but you could also chose from Asian cuisine, pizza, deli sandwiches, and even more! The best part of all, it was included in the price of my ticket (seriously $550). We chose stir-fry from the Asian cuisine line. Simply pick out your vegetables, hand your bowl to the chef, tell him beef, chicken, or shrimp and how spicy of sauce you want, and it’s quickly made right in front of you! Unreal!

After eating, we enjoyed a glass of wine, and set sail for Key West, Florida. That evening we went to the main dining room, were seated promptly and indulged on a number of gourmet items. All freshly prepared, still, included in the price of the ticket. To cap off the night, we enjoyed some time in the adult area (21 or older) hot tub with some spring breakers (they were unusually calm and very polite).

The fun continued throughout the week with visiting the beautiful beaches of Key West, snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of Cozumel, Mexico, while enjoying the immaculate food, entertainment, and clean quarters of Carnival’s Imagination. You couldn’t go anywhere in the ship without seeing a staff of employees constantly cleaning or attempting to assist people. My hat is off to Carnival Imagination’s staff, their corporate leaders, and their CEO. I’ve been to numerous five-star hotels throughout the United States, but I have to say, this cruise is in the top three best vacations EVER. It is also without a doubt, the most affordable. I’ll NEVER go spend another $500 – $700 a night at a hotel in the US, while I could be spending it with a fine company like Carnival. I cannot say enough about my experience. I have no complaints, not one. For those people that complained on the review sites I visited, you must just hate life. I’m sorry?

In a nutshell, that was my vacation. I could go on for a few more pages, but it’s time to get back to work. Richard and John have been continuing to scale, optimize, and product excellent results while I’ve been gone. Thanks guys! Again, I want to remind you all to stay tuned to our blog as we have a lot of excellent material coming out. I also want to encourage people to be sure they download my Media Buying 101 Guide. It’s received a good amount of downloads this past week, so you’re not going to want to miss out! Thanks for reading, back to work!

Wow, it’s been a while. I’ve been super busy with just life in general lately so Ryan has really picked up the reins at the SuperAffiliateTwins helm and cranked out some very quality stuff for you guys. We’ve got a lot more on the horizon that he’s been working on so be on the lookout!

Like I said, just been super busy being a college student really. I was just accepted into the undergraduate business school two weeks ago so I’ve been busy forming my major and going to all these meetings and what not. I decided to pursue a newer program here and my major will be Business Management with a concentration on Marketing. (We don’t have a marketing major available) I also elected to do an entrepreneur minor which requires an internship in order to qualify. I wonder if they will let me intern at my own company… Haha, probably not. I applied for an internship at Erwin-Penland in Greenville, SC if anyone has ever heard of it?

Aside from school and what not I went on a trip to Cancun for spring break and boy, it was wild. A couple friends and I went with an all-inclusive resort in order to get a hell of a bargain for a 5-day stay. I don’t want to offend anyone out there but I think about 80% of the guys there could have auditioned for Jersey Shore if they needed anymore cast members. Haha, all jokes aside, it was a pretty scary place whenever we went to clubs and bars away from the resort. When we took a taxi from the airport to the resort, we saw a number of police officers doing random car checks with M-16 assault rifles across their chests. To say the least that was a little shocking coming off the plane. I’ve also never been offered more drugs in my life. Everywhere we went there would be multiple offers for cocaine and weed, which got to be a little annoying considering the fact that we assumed every single one of them was a DEA agent ready to throw us in jail.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t really feel that safe in Mexico for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’m used to being in a bubble at my school or maybe cause I’m from West Virginia I’m not used to places like that but I still had a great time. One positive of the trip was visiting a resort where the parents of one of our friends was staying. It was honestly one of the nicest places I’ve been ever. It’s definitely going on my list of goals once we hit some lofty milestones this year and I would highly recommend it to anyone out there who could afford the whopping $3,000 – $5,000 a night price tag. Check out the hotel here: Banyan Tree Mayakoba. (That’s where the above picture is from the by the way.)

I’ll be posting a lot more in the next few days as Ryan is on cruise enjoying a little time off from the daily grind. I’m going to be tying in some topics I’ve learned about in my entrepreneur and marketing classes here at one of the top business schools in the country so stay tuned!

A quick heads up to all our readers out there, big time affiliate marketer and friend of ours Jonathan Volk posted our interview this morning with some pretty extensive questions for all of us. If you want to learn more about us, the faces behind SuperAffiliateTwins.com, check it out!

The combination of being easily amused and somewhat geeky has me tickled to death about the free Internet that can be found in airports across the country sponsored by Google. Maybe it’s the many frustrating attempts to find wireless in various airports before and the refusal to pay for wifi makes me appreciate Google’s holiday gift more than the average person. As I read the sign above I literally smiled and thought of how my wasted time in concourse C was going to be that much more enjoyable as I monitored campaigns, browsed on AffBuzz, and etc.

A couple of ideas popped into my head as I saw this sign though. How much was Google actually spending for this type of gift and for what purpose? This kind of thing is exactly why Google’s brand is loved by so many people. They are providing something that wouldn’t normally be free and they are spending mega bucks letting people know about it. There was one of the pictured displays above every 200 feet in the Jacksonville airport and same with the Charlotte airport along with other various sizes of signs. Instead of advertising on websites, Google spends their marketing dollars less frequently but I’m assuming more expensive ways. I can spot a lot of people using their laptops out right now and I could guess I’m one of the many that consider this complimentary Internet a great luxury.

The part that doesn’t make sense to me is that after you accept the Google agreement to not do illegal stuff with their connection is that you are redirected to a page about their photo contest. My twin brother, Robert, asked why wouldn’t they just plug Google Chrome or some advertisement for the Android. Hell, if they said that I had to install and use Google Chrome for free wifi, I would definitely do it and I bet the majority of people in here would do it too. That type of requirement would allow users to find another browser that probably would be a lot faster than their current one. I know Chrome is faster on my Macbook Pro but only cause I read nerdy comments on Digg about browser arguments; most people have no idea what it is nor that Google is connected to it.

After checking out the site that they provide, I’m a little late since they’ve been offering this since November 10th but it’s interesting how the biggest company in the world goes about a lot of their business. It’s starting to make sense why all these Google books and news articles are being published with the “What Would Google Do?” philosophy. The only thing that I still find looming over me as I browse the Internet is what kind of information is Google collecting and what are they doing with it…?

(Taken from the website):

Q. What kind of information are you collecting about users with the networks?

The network operators collect the information they need to run the network. Google will have access to some aggregate, non-personally identifiable information.