When I first got started promoting affiliate offers, people always told me to ‘think outside the box’ to make money.  They always said there is less competition and it’s much easier to see a return on investment.  While this seemed easy for them to say, I was always frustrated with what exactly they meant.

Now, looking back on my success over the past few years, I have come to realize what exactly they were talking about ‘thinking outside the box’.  Let me use a real-life example.  About two years ago it seemed like almost every affiliate marketer was pushing ringtones.  Every network I was a member of was pushing them hard and it seemed like anyone that was making a lot of cash via affiliate marketing had at least one profitable ringtone campaign.

The most obvious thing to do to begin pushing ringtones was to bid on keywords such as ‘50 Cent Ringtones’, ‘Eminem Ringtones’, ‘WWE Ringtones’, ‘American Idol Ringtones’, etc on every major search engine.  The problem with this method was the big fish with huge bank rolls were already perched up in the top 3-5 spots on every search engine and were willing to lose a considerable amount just to drive you out of business.  While there was definitely money to be made in these positions, this was thinking ‘inside the box’ and had a very high barrier of entry.

Thinking outside the box, I thought of other ways I could reach that same demographic, but for a lot cheaper.  I decided to go against the regular search campaigns, and setup campaigns on the content networks of Google, Yahoo, etc.  Instead of bidding on keywords like ‘50 cent ringtones’ I’d bid on terms such as ‘american idol news’, ‘hip hop news’, ‘50 cent girlfriend’, ‘kim mathers’, etc.  I’d then create a ’squeeze page’ that would push the traffic from these terms to ringtones.  I was hitting the same demographic, but for a lot cheaper.

This way I was not only able to make as much money as the ‘big guys’ bidding on 50 cent ringtones, I was able to do it without an intense bidding war.

Ryan’s Golden Tip: Affiliate marketers that ‘think outside the box’ are able to gain a considerable competitive advantage on other affiliates.  While, ‘thinking inside the box’ can still lead to a substantial income, it also comes with a lot more stress, slimmer margins, and higher-risk opticals.  Affiliates that succeed in thinking ‘outside the box’ are able to create more stable, more profitable, and more long-term campaigns that can lead to astronomical revenue.

When creating your next campaign, keep my image in mind (there’s more cash outside the box).  Good luck!

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…

Earlier this month I wrote a blog titled “How Much Is Your Time Worth?“  I gave some examples how working on projects that were worth lower than my time could end up hurting my productivity. This week, I’ve experienced first hand, the real importance in outsourcing and time management.

Sunday I decided was the day I was going to get one of our upcoming projects at least 85% complete.  The project had been worked on by a team we hired a few months ago.  With all of their steps complete, I decided to dive in and put the finishing touches on myself.  Big mistake.  Before long, I found myself spending over an hour getting a javascript to function properly.  Then it was three hours writing an if/else statement in php to direct scripts in the proper sequence.

After talking to John, we both came to the conclusion, that this was silly not to outsource.  Time I was spending working on javascript, php, etc could have been time spent developing new campaigns, working on other projects, etc.  I was not properly evaluating how much my time was worth and therefore I was severely limiting my earning ability.

Especially when you’re running your own business it is very important to keep track of each hour you’re on the computer and how productive that hour is.  Are you doing something worth your time?

After four nights in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2010, Richard and I are now back in the office.  LOTS of catching up to do as I’m working on hour twelve right now with no break.  It was nice seeing everyone again as well as meeting several new faces.  I took some video footage from Vegas with the FlipVideo Camera Azoogle sent for Christmas.  I must warn you, I’m no cameraman, but i thought they would be more fun to watch than a simple photo gallery!  I want to thank Missy Ward & Shawn Collins for putting on another excellent show!

First Morning In Vegas:

Exhibit Hall At The Rio:

Azoogle’s Party in the Playboy Suite at the Palms (Richard and I got in an argument over if you were allowed to get in the pool or not. Did anyone get in?):

Our suite at the Wynn:

I hope the trip to Vegas was great if you went, I know that Ryan and Richard said they met up with a lot of readers and marketers so I was extremely pleased to see that we got a lot of good feedback even if I couldn’t meet you. I’ll be at the next one though and look forward to putting my face to my name as well.  I haven’t done a lot of work since school started mainly because we had fraternity rush week.  It was a pretty hectic first week of school but I’m ready to buckle back down and use some of the connections Ryan and Richard made for a profitable and busy 2010!

Anyways, I wanted to reach out to some fellow entrepreneurs/marketers out there for a little help reviving a charitable organization that gives scholarships to about 550 entrepreneurs across the country.  After the death of the founder of Monster.com and the McKelvey Foundation, Andy McKelvey, they have had trouble making ends meet.  I personally won a $40,000 scholarship from them in 2008 for my ZeroPriceTags, Inc. business plan.  I’m not necessarily asking for your help solely so I can get my money back but for the organization as a whole.  I know of at least 10 fellow scholars who aren’t able to attend college at all because of this organization having to take a step back.  I can’t imagine the frustration both parties are experiencing.  The many scholars thought that since they were awarded this scholarship they had struck a gold mine and would be set for 4 years… The foundation had foreseen many years of bringing education to entrepreneurs across the nation but the economic downturn and his death said otherwise unfortunately.

So here’s where your help can come in.   No emails, no cold calls, no donating, just a few clicks on Facebook.com.  Chase has agreed to give the charity with the most votes in their Facebook contest 1 million dollars!  Here’s how to do it:

1. Click on the following link: Chase Community Giving

2. Just click “Become a Fan”.

3. Vote for the McKelvey Foundation.

I greatly appreciate it and if you have any ideas to spread the word, please let me know!

Good morning affiliates! Day 2 of Affiliate Summit West 2010 wrapped with a bang yesterday at Azoogle’s party in the Hugh Hefner suite at The Palms. Azoogle is known for having killer parties and last night was no different. I don’t usually get excited for nice hotel suites. I’ve traveled a lot of places and I’m staying in a pretty nice suite myself here at The Wynn. However, at the Hugh Heffner suite at The Palms last night I was amazed.

The place was immaculate and is something that I will never forget visiting. I forgot to bring a digital camera with me but I took some cell phone photos I posted in the Photo Gallery. Luckily Ryan did a video tour of the suite before the party got too crowded and I’m sure he’ll upload that here on the blog as well.

The party featured a DJ, a couple of fully stocked open bars and the famous pool (with the Playboy logo) overlooking Vegas was open for business. It was pretty cold outside last night so I didn’t see anyone get in, but Ryan and I left early. I was able to briefly meet Azoogle co-founder Alex Zhardanovsky on our way into the party.

It’s funny because I recently saw the Huge Hefner suite on one of the shows Kara watches on E! and last night I got to experience it in person. Thanks Azoogle for a great party and more great memories!

Shortly after posting this blog we’ll be heading back over to The Rio to wrap up Affiliate Summit West 2010.  I hope to see you there!

Hello from the desert, it’s “the other Gray” reporting live from Las Vegas.  Today was our first full day in Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2010.  We’ve only been here a short time but I already feel like a lot has been accomplished.  I also learned some new things today:

The Meet Market Is Chaotic
No offense to the people planning but the Meet Market today at The Rio was utter chaos.  There were too many people in the rooms with the tables thus making it impossible to move from table to table.  I missed Affiliate Summit East in New York but Ryan told me they had the same problem at The Hilton.  Something needs to be done to better accommodate the event.  For starters they need to have the Meet Market in a larger space and better organize the way tables are displayed.  The way the tables were presented made it hard to distinguish who was at which station.  If you’re claustrophobic and spent any time at the Meet Market today you probably utilized the cash bars a good bit.  I’m having anxiety just thinking about it.

There’s A Lot of Interest in Affiliate Marketing
People came to Vegas in droves and it’s good to see with the current problems with our economy that so many affiliates are doing well.  We always hear a lot of negative stories but I talked with several people today that saw significant growth in their businesses last year.  Good job guys! We’re proud (and fortunate) to have achieved record success last year.  Hopefully 2010 will be even better.

AT&T Still Sucks
I’m not sure how many of you are carrying iPhones but mine has been very limited again this trip.  I had the same problem with AT&T at AdTech back in November.  It’s enough to make me want to change carriers but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love my iPhone.  The device is great but the service needs to be improved, especially in larger cities.  It gets old not being able to call out or send text-messages.

I’m Getting OLD!
The first time I came to Las Vegas was in 2006 and I’ve been back every year since.  Every year I can tell a difference in what I am able to do but I just can’t party like I used too.  I should be at the COPEAC party here at Tryst in The Wynn but I just can’t muster up the energy to go.  I had a busy evening working and still haven’t been able to shake the jet lag.  Maybe tomorrow will be a different story, but I’ll be going to bed shortly after I post this.  For those of you still able to bounce from party to party and are still under 25 years old, enjoy it while you can.  If you’re over 25 and can still do it, my hat is off to you.

Aside from my Dallas Cowboys completely tanking, today was a good day.  I got to enjoy Las Vegas, meet up with several readers of the blog and ate some great food.  I highly recommend the sushi at Wazuzu at Encore (I’ve already eaten there twice).  Ryan and I had dinner alone tonight at Red 8 in The Wynn and it was enjoyable.  I look forward to meeting with several of you tomorrow.  If you’re reading this before heading out to a party, be safe and drink one for me!

We’re finally here and ready to get down to business. But first, Richard is a HUGE Dallas Cowboys fan, so we’re going to watch them play the Minnesota Vikings here in the room first. Since my body is still use to EST, I’m had one heck of a time sleeping in.

Our first night was pretty quiet, just getting settled in, however we did have an excellent time. Richard and I arrived at the Tower Suites at the Wynn around 3:30 PST. Unfortunately our room wasn’t ready so they gave us a free pass for one round of drinks were we took them to Wazuzu in Encore and enjoyed the cocktails with a few rolls of fresh sushi. Great place, we’ll definitely hit it up again sometime today.

As we finished up our sushi, our room was finally ready, so we took our stuff up and got settled in. Ryan Eagle from the EWA Private Network briefly stopped by to say what’s up. It’s always a great feeling to be greeted by a network owner when arriving at a conference.

Richard and I then went off to a casual dinner at the Paris. Unfortunately, it was TERRIBLE. My prime rib (which was ordered medium) was cooked way past well done. I also had an order of crab legs which tasted like they came out of the ocean a year ago! I don’t understand how these little local Chinese restaurants can have good crab legs, but in Vegas, they can’t get it right. Richard kept saying “he didn’t see an ocean out here in the desert.”

Following our terrible dinner, I received an invitation from Ryan Eagle to join him and his crew for a nice dinner at the Wynn. Very nice restaurant called Wing Lei. We should have skipped the Paris all together! Anyways, it was nice chatting it up with most of the EWA crew (the rest of their team is coming in today). After our second dinner, it was either time to gamble or head back to the room. Since I retired from gambling last year, Richard and I decided to call it a night.

We have a full agenda today, so let’s get started! Feel free to follow our trip updates on twitter at twitter.com/affiliatetwins.

I also took a brief video showing our room this morning:

Over the last two years Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN, and other search engines have seen tremendous growth on their pay-per-click advertising platforms (and content networks). Large companies are now being advised from their senior staff and board of directors that the Internet is the ‘wave of the future’ and something they must ‘get it on’ to ’stay ahead of the competition’.

We as affiliates have to learn how to cope with this by thinking outside the box and finding keywords with lower competition to ensure we’re seeing a solid Return on Investment consistently.

Take the auto insurance industry for example.  Personally, I’ve seen keywords go from competitive to ultra competitive (especially in the last 2 years) in this niche.  Its been said that when you’re working in auto insurance to be sure and GEO target your traffic, as people that recognize the state/city (i.e.: California Auto Insurance Quotes), are likely to yield a higher quality lead (thus more the advertiser likes you).

While this method helps reduce competition greatly (and was a gold mine in the early 2000s), if you also  ‘think outside the box’, you can find some even higher converting keywords that cost less than $0.10.  Let me explain further.

I live in Beckley, West Virginia, a very small town with the majority of the local economy coming from coal mines.  Let’s say I want to target people shopping for auto insurance in Beckley.  Thinking outside the box, I GEO target my traffic to ‘Beckley, West Virginia’ and make sure my landing pages and creatives are written personal to ‘Beckley’.  I start plugging in keywords:

Beckley Auto Insurance
Buy Auto Insurance In Beckley, WV
Where To Buy Car Insurance In Beckley
Lowest Car Insurance Beckley, WV
Beckley, WV Car Insurance

You get the picture where I’m going with this.  While this method is likely to convert higher than bidding on very broad and competitive terms such as ‘auto insurance’, you’re still going to face more competition that you would have in the previous years.

Ryan’s Golden Tip: To find keywords with little to NO competition, start thinking of what else people are searching for that may also be interested in auto insurance.  I know you’re automatically thinking, ‘buy cars in beckley’.  This is not going to work.  All the dealerships are already going to be bidding on this.  However, if you take a name of a dealership, such as ‘Beckley Auto Mall’ you’re able to generate keywords such as:

beckley auto mall review
beckley auto mall used vehicles
vehicles beckley auto mall
beckley auto mall service department
buy car beckley auto mall

Type some of these into Google, I guarantee many of them will have little to NO competition (I didn’t even Google them myself, I just know from experience).  These are going to be of much lower volume, however with enough of these, you’ll be able to dominate laser targeted traffic at VERY affordable prices.  Don’t you think someone searching ‘beckley auto mall service department’ (looking for auto service) wouldn’t LOVE to save $500 on their car insurance?

This is just one of the many examples of ‘thinking outside the box’ in pay-per-click affiliate marketing.  Understand how I used simple logic, to find the SAME traffic as people typing in ‘auto insurance’ but without paying the >$2 per-click price.  It’s creative ideas like this that separate the a/k/a “Super Affiliates” from the people who make little to no money online.

Feel free to post questions below, I’ll try to answer them the best I can (it maybe a little slower with Affiliate Summit coming up).

Tomorrow Richard and I will be leaving West Virginia and heading to Las Vegas, Nevada for Affiliate Summit West 2010.  While I enjoy Adtech more on the business side of things, Las Vegas is one of my favorite vacation spots, thus I would never miss an opportunity to go.  I’ll be blogging throughout the weekend/next week and include video with our new Flip Video Camera (thanks again Azoogle).

I know my favorite affiliate networks: Copeac, Azoogle, and CX Digital are having some unreal parties and we’ve scheduled meet ups with Yep Revenue as well as a newer network, that we’ve recently started working with, EWA.  I look forward to seeing everyone there and hope to meet many of our loyal readers.  Feel free to come up to me and Richard, we’re by no means shy, and would love to talk!

See you in Vegas!