Since I was five years old and bright eyed surprise I’ve always dreamt of going 220mph (330kmh) in a super car dressed as a pedobear.

I joke…that is probably one of my nightmares.  But doesn’t everyone enjoy seeing people piss their pants and confront their nightmares? That is a gift I am prepared to give to you guys.

Three weeks ago a contest was started by Affiliatewire. Affiliate bloggers had to submit their blog and get votes. The prize is flights to LAX, three days accommodation and a ride in a super car that goes 220mph. While I do not like to be coerced into affiliate network promo contests, in this case I made an exception.

I entered two weeks late – stone cold in last place. Now I’m hustling at 5th place but there is stiff competition.

So in the Mr Green fashion I’ve decided to give things a little twist. I have pledged that if I win I will do two things:

1. If I win, I will drive the car dressed as pedobear.

100% polyester. Surprisingly pricey but well worth the investment. They guarantee that it's enchanting.

2. I will also personally host an STM/Mr Green readers meet up whilst I’m in LA.

There ain't no meet up like an STM meet up!

I don’t ask much out of you almighty readers…but now I’m calling on you, yes YOU. I need your help to make my nightmare come true.

There’s around 20 other bloggers that are trying to take me down. They are trying to stop me from dawning the pedobear suit.

Vote for me here. (Thanks in advance)

For extra Mr Green respect points get your aunty to vote for me too.

Thank you to everyone who has voted already!!!

P.S. There are three world records at stake.

1. World’s fastest affiliate on land.

2. World’s fastest pedobear on land.

3. World’s fastest affiliate dressed as a pedobear on land.

I apologise for the title; it sounds angry. I love you all dearly however today’s post is not of my quill.

The ever so graceful Angry Russian is back and is about to explain to you a proven affiliate strategy that takes the luck out of this game.

Angry Russian:  Does this sound like you? You hear of a hot new offer or a hot new traffic source so you fire up Photoshop, bang out some creatives, and launch a new campaign. You sit and wait for approval…then…BAM all of the sudden $100 spend and 0 conversions.

Mr Green: Yes I hate that. I always think I could have spent that $100 on a day’s worth of laser tag.

Angry Russian: STFU! Don’t start this crap again.

The Problem.

A lot of  you affiliates wait until your affiliate manager throws another “sick offer that’s crushing it” your way. Then you repeat the process, launch the campaign and again, you curse “this shit don’t work!”

Of course it doesn’t work.

How can it when all you do is fling shit against a wall and hope it sticks? Let’s face it, most affiliates treat their business like gambling. They keep waiting to hit it big. So they throw $50 here and there testing new traffic, new offers and wait for that jackpot.

Now don’t get me wrong. If you test enough, something will make money.

BUT

… how long before that shit dries up and falls off the wall? We experienced affiliates have seen this too often. Traffic sources dry up, affiliates copy your campaign, ad networks rip your stuff or out your strategy, it’s just a matter of time.

Success in affiliate marketing isn’t achieved through luck, it’s found in scrupulous process. You need to build a systematic approach to how you run your campaigns. Mr Green can agree, and is actually one of the people who encouraged me to systematically test campaigns.

Mr Green: Ye speak truths. If you want to be in this long-term, you have to have a method to the madness. Relying on wishbones and horseshoes will only guarantee you a good conversion rate for a heart attack.

Angry Russian: Indeed. A seasoned affiliate has developed a process to which he can make almost any offer work on any traffic source. The only question typically is volume not profitability. A solid converting offer doesn’t need to be a monster to be scaled to $x,xxx a day. All of these “killing it” offers are just distractions. Stick to steady offers and develop your process and you will feel better knowing that no matter how this eternally evolving  industry shifts, you will have a system for testing and optimising campaigns.

The Solution.

Angry Russian uses a simple 7 step routine.

Just to share a real world example, here at FlipSite Media we’ve broken down our process to something like this:

Mr Green: Nice Plug. Very subtle.

Angry Russian: …I wish I could physically hurt you through the internet.

• Step1: We have a “go to” traffic source(s) with whom we test offers. What we look for are reasonable rates, CPM bidding, quick approvals and easy launching.

• Step2: We then leverage our media buying experience and use past experience of creatives to build new ones to compare against controls.

• Step3: We collect data. At this point profitability isn’t vital. We just want to know which ads and landing pages work and if we’re lucky we gather some targeting info as well.

• Step4: We take our data, dissect it and launch more campaigns to figure out the exact [banner + lander + targeting] that yield the best results yet still have enough VOLUME to warrant us pressing further. NOTE: You don’t need to use a lander – you could direct link – but often advertisers have more than one lander so we try to test all combinations.

• Step5: Once we know our combinations, we scale to other traffic sources. Typically once you know your target demographic, it’s likely that you’ll be able to make it work elsewhere.

• Step6: Rinse and repeat for new offer(s).

• Step7: Always be split testing and optimising existing campaigns – usually weekly or monthly depending on ROI and volume.

Mr Green: Thank you Mr Happy Fappy Man. My strategy is very similar to yours, except I tend to use landers the majority of the time.

Mr Green: For sure. Take a look at Bear Grylls, he uses the same strategy in every single survival situation. 1. Climb to the highest point, to have the best view on surroundings. 2. Find food and water. 3. Sort a shelter. 4. Find a stream and follow it down (it always leads down to civilizations).

Angry Russian: What has this got to do with affiliate marketing?

Mr Green: Not too much..it’s just that I’ve wanted to talk about Bear’s strategy and never got the chance.

Angry Russian: …

———————

I am curious how many of you readers follow a systematic approach when creating campaigns. If you don’t, have you successfully been doing affiliate marketing for more than a year?

I thought I would pop in and let you know what’s been going down in Mr Greenland. This post will be like secret baby-sitters club “dear diary” update, but ten times as tough.

For those who’ve been trying to get hold of me for the past month, I haven’t meant to ignore you. I was AFK (away for komputer). I have been trying to catch up with emails as much as possible, although in practise this has been tough >>

The reason for this backlog is that I went road tripping around the north of New Zealand with some Italianos and either had limited wifi access, limited mobile phone access, or a combination of both. My calendar says it’s meant to be summer in New Zealand but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. We actually had a historically horrific storm. Here are some photos from the music festival we went to:

Image Copyright Scottie T Photography

Image Copyright Scottie T Photography

I got back home yesterday and tomorrow I am going to be leaving for Affiliate Summit West in Vegas wohooooooooo!!!

This is going to be a big one for me for a few reasons:

• I am helping co-host what should be the most epicest affiliate meet up EVER. We’ve had over THREE times the RSVPs that we can accept. I’ve actually had to block new RSVPs (sorry!)
• I have got some new ventures in the works which means meeting after meeting. This will be the first time I am going to be running on a schedule. Hope I will be able to release the news soon!
• I’m going on a mini affiliate snowboarding trip after ASW (with the coolest possy ever).

• I am nominated for Pinnacle Awards Affiliate Blogger of the Year. I never ever imagined my blog would get recognised anywhere. I intended it as some kind of “venting tool”. When I first created it I went with the slogan “Best Affiliate Marketing Blog* *In New Zealand”, since I thought I was the only NZ affiliate blogger. Fingers crossed Joe’s picks are right and I will be able to change my slogan to something more official.

I’d also like to say thank you to all you glorious readers! If I could give each of you an award I would, but I dunno how feasible that would be. I feel like I can have a conversation with you guys, instead of just being a lecturer with an e-whiteboard. Your feedback and suggestions have been extremely valuable. Thank ya!

Lastly, if you want to meet up at ASW, just holla. I won’t bite unless you give me food. I’ll be getting in on the 6th of Jan. Can’t wait to see the crew!

P.S. I kissed a girl last week.

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Before I get started I want to warn you that this post is high cholesterol; it’s packed with a copious amount of cheesy metaphors. Please don’t judge me.

Now, leggo!

Affiliate managers are key figures in this industry. They bridge the gap between advertisers and affiliates. They are extremely useful, especially when starting out. I’ve made some great friends over the years with some of them (some have even visited NZ to challenge me to a dance battle). Over a year ago I wrote a post on what affiliate managers want from affiliates. It’s time to flip it around.

I’ve worked with more than 30 affiliate managers over the years. I’ve broken them down into five groups based on their approach to affiliate management.

1. The Drill Salesman

I got the best offer for you!

This is a hybrid of a drill sargent and a used car salesmen. They hit you up about all the new offers you should be trying, even if you mention that you are not looking for new offers. It seems like every offer they have is the new hottest thing. They have the highest payouts. The best everything…unfortunately not the best affiliate managers. They drill you with offers until you crumble like a piece of racid feta cheese.

2. The Ghost 

brb.

Never around. Takes ages to respond. They are there to collect your commission without anything in return. Contact is as scarce as a unicorn with 17 legs.

3. The Tech Support

How may I help you sir?

Pulls your links, places your pixels. Reliable and predicatable. You come to them, they wont come to you. Great for experience affiliates, might be a bit tough to work with when you are starting out.

4. The Premium Concierge

Have you tried doing this?

Whatever you need done, they make it happen. You give them an end goal and they help you to get there. They are your business partner. They have experience so they can suggest improvements for your campaigns. Most importantly they are professional.

5. The Hustler

Check out what I found for ya!

These guys push the line of what affiliate managers do. They have eyes all over the place. They get “inspiration” from other affiliates…on the network. They share entire campaigns with you. Do they share your campaigns to their other affiliates? Of course not…they are your exclusive BFF…yeah right.

Now obviously there are affiliate managers that cross between a couple of these groups, but that is the main crux of it.

I’d also like to disclaim that I’m not hating on any affiliate managers. There is always just a couple in the bunch that ruin it for everyone. For the most part they act on the feedback they are given by affiliates and mould to their needs. So if an AM suggests a campaign that they saw, and the affiliate reacts in a positive way, obviously the AM will keep doing that.

Personally, I like the “tech support” type and the “premium concierge” type depending where I’m at with a certain campaign.

Trust is the biggest thing for me. I want to know that whenever I run a BAWSE campaign, my affiliate manager won’t go parading it around their network. I’ve experienced a network sharing my campaign, and I can tell you it got saturated as fast as rug at a keg party.

If an affiliate manager comes to me and says “try this campaign, one of my affs is KILLING it. Here’s the lander, run it on this traffic source“, it makes me automatically think that if they are sharing this stuff with me, it is very likely they would have no problem sharing my campaign with others.

I want someone who’s responsive, who’s creative, who treats you like a business partner. I know when an affiliate manager has got my back when they suggest running a certain offer at a competitor’s network.

What do you want from your affiliate manager?

How do you feel about AMs sharing campaigns with you? Have any of your campaigns been shared around by a network?

P.S. To all my affiliate managers reading this, I <3 you.

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STORY TIME

Affiliate Summit West (the best conference ever) is creeping up fast! I knew things were changing up over at 202, so they’d be a bit busy to hold their meet up. I also knew Mr Affbuzz is hecticly working some mysterious venture so him hosting one is out of the question.

Someone has to host a decent affiliate meet up…

Weeks pass, no word of a meet up…then out of the blue I got a call from Adsimilis Eleah. She let a brotha know that they’d hired the “Hangover Suite” (from the movie) at Caesar’s Palace. She was wondering whether we would be down to hold a meet up there.  Lets just say, when I started doing some google image searches, the word “no” disappeared from my vocabulary.

We started brainstorming what we’d need…it quickly became clear that a beer pong tournament was necessary. I’ve always wanted to have battles to the death against, other affiliates,other  traffic sources, other affiliate networks. What better way to fight it out, than with a brutal game of beer pong?

Next, I hollared at my boy from Affbuzz. I knew he could make the MEANEST birthday cake (it’s disgustingly delicious). This is a vital ingredient for any meet up. Whether it’s someone’s birthday or not, is irrelvant.

Two examples of cakes that can't live up to the Affbuzz legendary standards.

• Beer pong – check.
• Affbuzz birthday cake - check.

We ain’t stopping there. We need mooooaaarrr!

BONG! (the sound of a new Skype message). Nana from 202 hits me up, he had a flash of genius “We are happy to sponsor a white tiger to be at the meet up”. Alright now we are talking!

Our second choice animal. Originally we were gunning for a Liger...turns out that they don't exist.

• Beer pong – check.
• Affbuzz birthday cake – check.
• A white tiger – check.

There is just one more piece missing….

YOU GUYS!!!

There are already over 200 people registered for this meet up. Crazy! This includes all your favourite traffic source reps (except for the blue devils).

If you haven’t RSVPed already, do it!

This will set a new standard for affiliate meet ups. We want all of you sophisticated, dapper people with a touch of swag to enjoy it with us.

Find out more info on Facebook here.

If you have already RSVPed, you are just super awesome. ex oh ex oh.

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Today I watched a great TED Talk video. It was titled “The Suprisinging Science of Motivation”. The speaker in the video (Dan Pink) explained how incentivising people to do creative-based tasks does not work. Having an incentive to fulfill a certain task is proven to numb creativity.

This point was backed up using the data from the “candle problem”.

Subjects were asked how to attach a candle to a wall using these objects:

a box matches, a box of thumbtacks, and a candle.

Many people that attempted the test tacked the candle to the wall, and others tried melting the candle wax to use as an adhesive to stick the candle to the wall. Close but no cigar!

The correct solution is shown below:

The solution is to empty the box of thumbtacks, put the candle into the box, use the thumbtacks to nail the box to the wall.

You can watch the video here:

This got me thinking about affiliate marketing…

Affiliate marketing is such a creative job. You need to come up with unique sales angles, ad copy, design, hunt for the perfect demographic, the works. If you are extremely focused on making or losing money, could that harm your chances of being a successful affiliate marketer? I dunno…

I can only speak for myself, but I can honestly say that I didn’t come into this industry for the money. I came here for the stimulation. I came here for the creative outlet. I came here for the competition. I came here to play the game. Being paid was just the reward for playing the game well.

Are you in it purely for the money? Or is there something else that attracts you? If you are in it purely for the money, have you been successful?

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• “Last night I stayed up till 5am on the grind, yeaaah boi!”
• “Grinding all day, all night, 247, 365, work till I die.”
• “Haven’t slept for 3 months. #onthegrind”
• “@SirBankALot first time I’ve been out in the sun in 2 weeks. Hustling n grinding baby!”

These are then followed by a tonne of “likes” and postive follow-up comments.

I don’t know if it is just a craze within the affiliate industry, but frankly I’m baffled.

Before I get into why I’m baffled, I want to clarify what exactly “grinding” or “on the grind” means.

• Dictionary defintion: To devote oneself to study or work.
• Urban dictionary definition : Staying “on the grind” means to work hard, always be hustling, or otherwise engaged in money-making.
• The affiliate defintion: Working on campaigns all day long, seven days a week.

WHY is “grinding” for 20 hours straight something to be proud of?

WHY is having no sleep for more than 72 hours something to be proud of?

WHY is this idea of working ’til the end of time bannered around the affiliate industry?

Don’t get me wrong, working hard is a great thing; it will get you far. However, working smart is what is going to get you the furthest.

I’ve been burnt out a couple of times from working too hard. Was I proud of it? No. Why would I be? I was totally exhausted. I didn’t go out. I didn’t socialise. All in exchange for (MAYBE) a few extra dollars.

Could I have made those few extra dollars by working smarter and being more productive with my time? Yes.

Check out this productivity graph:

Thank you idontfkingcareanymor for posting this on the forums.

After eight weeks of working a half-ass grind schedule, you’ll be at 10% productivty.

It seems to me that in this industry being “on the grind” is more important than being productive.

Internal voices do weird things to people, convincing them that the longer they stay in front of a computer, the more money they will make. Sorry, but that’s far from the truth.

Want to make money so you can buy swag like Soulja Boy, Lil Wayne and 50 Cent?

Then DO WORK. If you have tonnes of tasks to complete, outsource them.

Don’t spend all your time on Twitter and Facebook telling everybody how long you have been grinding for.

To achieve your goals you have two options. Work smart and be productive, or, get on the grind and “work” double the hours (while getting some mad street cred from your boys on Facebook).

Now this is not an attack on anyone. I just do not understand the mindset. I was chatting to someone in the same confused boat as me, goes by the name of  The Angry Russian, and he said this could just be a US based ideology.

Who knows…I would love some answers!

It would also be refreshing to see someone’s Facebook saying “I worked smart this week. This gave me enough free time to take some saxophone classes“.

I would “like” that comment.

Do you live to work? Or, do you work to live?

My naive mindset was buy my stuff now or forever hold your peace.

It was only when I started getting involved with a weird thing called “split testing” that I truly appreciated the subtle techniques of creating ads and landing pages.

For all the budding marketers who haven’t figured it out yet, here is my shot at explaining in layman’s terms why subtle ads and landing pages work extremely well. The idea of the “picking up” analogy was also mentioned in marketingexperiments.com…great minds think alike?

Story Time!

I would like to introduce you to Dennis; he’s your typical lonely, single lad, eager to meet and greet:

Bored and sad on a Friday afternoon, Dennis decides to head down to a local bar. He sits at the bar and scans the area. His watchful eyes lock on to a fine specimen of the opposite gender.

He then thinks about Mr Green’s mindset “buy my stuff now or forever hold your peace”, and approachs the girl. Dennis grabs her then gives her a kiss on the lips.

SLAP!!! The girl lays a five finger special on Dennis’ right cheek.

Dennis was unsuccessful.

Why? Because he rushed the call to action.

If Dennis wants to have any kind of relationship with a lassy he has to have some form of communication before he introduces the call to action.

Dennis needs to engage in conversation with the girl. He’s gotta start busting out some pick up lines. Once he initiates conversation, Dennis has to show the girl why he is a great catch. He doesn’t need to show that physically he’s a great catch; maybe he’s funny, smart, or simply interesting. Whatever it is Dennis needs to show to his victim why.

How does this relate back to affiliate marketing?

• Think of the hot girl as a user browsing the site on which you’re advertising.
• Think of the pick up line as your ad’s headline.
• Think of the conversation as your landing page.
• The kiss (or more) as your converted lead.

By having a smooth headline, followed by an interesting, undemanding, relevant langing page, you’ll increase your odds of hitting a home run.

Not interested in a short term fling? Get started with follow up emails.

I can personally say I’ve made most of my money  from a series of landing pages encouraging conversation.long strings of conversation. I’d say that 10 per cent of my affiliate income has come from direct linking (going straight in for the kill).

It’s true that most internet marketers start off like Dennis (me included!). Those that stick around are those that’ve learnt to analyse their game strategy and technique.

So next time you’re on the prowl for a hot traffic source, don’t just see her as a sugar mama piece of meat. Play it cool, take it slow, and start con-ver-sating with Miss Prospect.

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The masses asked for conversion data, so I am answering! I have slapped down some succulent slices of split testing goodness, cooked it ’til it’s golden brown, then served it up on the finest silverwear in the land.

If you haven’t read the intial headline case study post, please do so.

Alright, moving on…

Test 1

(Two Principles vs. The Two Principle Haters)

A1 follows the principles of focusing on the value proposition and having it in the front of the headline.  B1 does the opposite.

The Results:

A1: CTR = 0.162%, CR = 14% Total Conversions = 11.

B1: CTR = 0.160% CR = 6% Total Conversions = 5.

Total spend: $100

My Thoughts:

Crazy! Close to exactly the same CTRs, however, A1 had more than double the CR. Value proposition at the start of a headline = win. Thank you Marketingexperiments.com.

———————-

Test 2

(The original definition of conversation vs. The Mr Green definition of conversation)

The Results:

A2: CTR = 0.158% CR = 6.89% Total Conversions = 6

B2: CTR = 0.187% CR =  19.5% Total Conversions = 17 (profitable)

Total Spend: $70

My Thoughts:

The reason I came up with this test is because I disagreed with a point MarketingExperiments.com made. I humbly accept this overwhelming victory. B2 (the question) absolutely destroyed A2, both CTR wise and CR wise.

This is how I see the two conversations went down…

A2 – (conversation level low)

Me: Get a Girlfriend. Click Here.

POF Lonely Guy: I want a girlfriend! Click.

——–

B2 – (conversation level through the roof)

Me: Want a Girlfriend? Click.

POF Lonely Guy: Yes, I want a girlfriend! How did you know? You reckon chicks will dig me? Click.

Something for them haters:

I know some of you are worried about inconclusive tests and statistical significance. Well Mr Angry Russian showed me an anti-hater tool supersplittester.com. You insert all your campaign data and it tells you whether you have enough data to call your test conclusive.

Here are my supersplittester results:

Test 1:

A1 has a higher CONVERSION RATE than B1 (90% confidence level)

Test 2:

B2 has a higher CONVERSION RATE than ad A2 (95% confidence level)

Boom bang bing!

Final Words:

I had a 32 character space to write my headlines. By changing five characters I was able to increase my headline CTR by 26% and my CR by 300%. It ended up a profitable campaign (I’ll share it on the forum). From this case study alone I’ve gained a new appreciation for headlines.

The goal of a headline is to get users to converse, so start asking them questions!

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Alert: This post contains copious amounts of data and discussion. 50mg of ritalin recommended.

Editor’s note: Due to unforseen complicationz I will be reverting to my natural spelling which is British English. P.S. The “h” in herb is pronounced.

I think all agree that affiliate marketers are the kings of writing headlines with high CTRs (click-through-rates).

However, many struggle to create headlines with high CTRs and CRs (conversion rates).

I am guilty of creating sucessful headlines, but not taking the time to understand why they are successful.

I read one case study today that really opened my eyes (thank you Mr Polarbacon from the forum). It really made me appreciate the craft of creating effective headlines.

Marketingexperiments.com posted this case study where they split tested 10 headlines for the paid survey website seen below:

Before they released any data they asked their readers to chose which headline they felt would produce the highest conversion rate.

Voting results looked like this:

“Get Paid to Take FREE Surveys” was the king of the ball taking a quarter of all votes. “Here’s Your First Survey, and an Invitation to Join Our Research Community” was crowned the ultimate loser. The actual best performing headlines were:

Headline two smashed the original headline by 10.44%. Ok cool, that’s not going to float no boat. The really cool thing is how these guys break down this data.

Look at headline eight. It scored 7.23%. Look at headline four. It scored 7.46%. There are two principles that you need to know that demystify the results of this data set.

Principle 1. All marketing messages must emphasise what visitors GET, not what visitors must do.

Principle 2. Treat headlines like the opening scenes of movies. Dominate your visitor’s attention. Place the value propositition at the start of the headline.

With these two principles in mind, move you gorgeous eyes over to the image below:

Boom! Five out the top six performing ads follow the two principles to a tee. The four worst performing, peasant-esk headlines, completely ignored the principles. Fancy that!

I really enjoyed the data they drew from this case study. However, some of their comments made me say “Eh?” (in a kiwi twang).

For example they say:

“The goal of the headline is not to sell your product. The goal of a headline is not to enforce your call to action. The goal of a headline is to get them in conversation.”

Although I agree with that concept, I don’t agree that they applied that concept to their case study. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t know many conversations that would spur from “Surveys – Quick, Easy and FREE.” I would use headlines like “Hate Your Boss? Click here” or “Want Money? Try our surveys.” If I want to introduce conversation into my marketing campaigns, I use questions. Simple as that.

Anyway enough of my theorectical hating, time to hate in the way Mr Green knows best.

Mr Green Case Study to De Death!

I just booted down the door to the Plenty of Fish ads platform and set up two campaigns as seen below:

Fight 1: The two principles vs. The two principle haters.

Fight 2: The original definition of conversation vs. The Mr Green definition of conversation.

I put all the theories I just spoke about into battle to see which ones hold true. The images are indentical. The ad copy is identical.

Which ads do you think will CONVERT the best? I will post results sometime this week. Correct answers will be given a free supply of oxygen for a year.

Extra for experts.

For those of you superior beings who managed to get through the post, you would have noticed that I skipped past one headline that stuck out like a sore thumb.”Here’s Your First Survey, and an Invitation to Join Our Research Community.” This headline performed second best in the headline case study. However, it received the LOWEST amount of votes in the poll. It also ignored the two principles (marketingexperiments.com beg to differ).

Why do you think that headline performed so well? I’m stumped.

Summary for  A.D.H.D sufferers.

1. Headlines should focus on benefits for the user, not what they should do.

2. Headlines should mention the benefits for the user before anything else is mentioned.

3. Headlines should not be used for selling but to start conversation with your visitors.

4. The first three points could all be proven wrong in the case study I’m running. I will get back to you on that sometime this week.

5. You are free to go now.