So it’s like 2012. Let’s see if anything interesting happened since my last affiliate marketing news roundup post. Thank god for the holiday break though… less shit to sift through overall.

Affiliate Marketing News

The Secret to Getting Rich in 2012 is APIs. Yeah, that’s kind of a bullshit headline, but a good read nonetheless. There are many APIs available… creating a new service is just a matter of mashing these APIs together to provide something fresh and useful.

Probably the most interesting article you’ll find in this post: How to block AdBlock.

FinchSells launches Premium Posts Volume 3, one of the few things worth paying for in the affiliate marketing world.

Finch then writes about a flog with 7 offers on a single page. I see your 7 steps Finch, and raise you the 15-Step Flog.

One last one from Finch. How to really get rich in 2012. Pro-tip- it involves putting your head down and pumping shit out, not dicking around on Wickedfire or worse- writing blog posts!

Speaking of optimizing your time, here are 10 Firefox Addons for Freelancers. May not be relevant to many affiliate marketers, but the WOT Plugin is very useful for Facebook Advertisers.

Everything I know I learned from Eleah.

RedFly (not updated often but a great blog nonetheless) has a thorough post on using Google’s in-Page Analytics.

Here’s a neat breakdown of the Louie CK experiment. If you don’t think Louis CK funny, kill yourself with AIDS.

Really cool post about a “Searcher’s Mindset” and there’s an infographic involved!

Nickycakes writes about the excellent WhatRunsWhere service. What’s this… Cakes updating his blog more than once a year? That’s right, another post to unlock the time-saving power of virtual assistants.

Speaking of ad spying, Zac Johnson ( I apologize in advance for linking you there) has a post about Moat.com, another neat tool to add to your arsenal.

Mr. Dan Palanchuk has a couple good reads. Some shit you can learn from Mr Green, and 5 Weird Facts about Affiliate Network Offers. Good information in there… go direct whenever possible!

Hilarity from Mr Green as he describes 5 types of affiliate managers.

Great post on PPVPlaybook – Making Chee$e with Trends.

Direct Response has a good breakdown on sweet, juicy cloaking.

White Label Dating launched a mobile platform. I’ve never worked with this network, but there is definitely some opportunity there.

Four ways to unlock the traffic power of Browsers. Good stuff – make a toolbar or plugin that sticks to the user’s browser. Still clueless? Here’s how people are doing it.

Jay Weintraub dissects a good internet marketing scam.

I’m only linking to this because the stock photo being used is HILARIOUS. HAHA Grandpa, you ol’ pimp you.

Mobile

Smaato releases new metrics on mobile ad network fill rates and response times and such.

Pingdom don’t fuck around. The Mobile Web in Numbers.

Facebook is slowly but surely blending ads into their mobile apps. Judging by how fast Facebook’s mobile traffic is growing, great opportunity lies here in 2012.

Infographic Mania

Because if you read it in an infographic, it must be true.

Good one via IMGrind on the Anatomy of a Killer Facebook Campaign.

The decline of Organic Links via SEOBook. Next up, Google Affiliate Marketing Infographic.

Every CEO (or whatever you are) should understand gamification.

10 Mind Blowing Mobile Inforgraphics that will blow your fuckin’ mind FUCK YEAH!

2011 Round Ups

Yo dawg I heard you like posts so we put some posts in your posts….

Best of Royal Pingdom 2011

40 Facebook Marketing tips from 2011 via Luna Metrics.

Best of KISS Metrics 2011

That’s all folks!
Now get to fucking work and
stack paper high as skyscrapers
in 2012

This post is about the upcoming Affiliate Summit West show, happening in Las Vegas January 8th thru 10th.

Now, there are two main things that people keep pestering me about… Am I fighting Shoemoney and Where the Parties At?

Affiliates with No Balls

Let’s start with Shoemoney.

No I will not be fighting Shoemoney.

As much as I wanna do this, Shoemoney has health concerns regarding his precious appendages.

While I’m not going to run around claiming this cheesy, give-away victory, I do encourage all of my readers to call Shoemoney a pussy, bitch, or nancyboy at every opportunity.

Also, Clickbooth jacked the Fight Night idea, but theirs will probably suck. It doesn’t look like there will be actual fights. Just meet Randy Coulture and shake his hand or some shit.

Affiliate Ball

Next is some information on one of the better parties for Affiliate Summit, Affiliate Ball.

PPC.bz ( The Party Planning Committee ) passed on the party torch to Darren at last years ASW 2011. The performer was 3 6 Mafia and it a lotta fun, but I’m not even going to lie and say my brain wasn’t warped on drugs during that whole conference. I haven’t been to a conference since last year’s Vegas, so I can’t say anything about the awesomeness of Affiliate Ball parties since, but Darren is a godamn professional.

Below is Darren’s detail’s of the Affiliate Ball. Sign up or Sponsor, FOOL!

Sponsorships are still open.
Hit up Darren – info [@] affiliateball.com!

This time around, we really stepped up our game up a notch.

MaxBounty Presents The Affiliate Ball will have a top 3 performer of the decade named by Billboard, Nelly. He’s going to perform a full concert infront of 2500 invited guests of the Ball. I recommend everyone interested in attending should register online at http://affiliateball.com/registration.html to guarantee their ticket. All passes can be picked up at our Affiliate Ball Meet Market table.

We are the only “official” party of the Affiliate Summit on January 9th. We welcome everyone at the show to come party with us. For those who don’t like Nelly’s music, we still have a few DJ’s that play a mix of everything and some smoking hot Go Go dancers provided by our friends at EnvyusMedia/Scrubkit. YT Cracker is one of our super star DJ’s. The other is DJ Diamond who was also the DJ for Beyonce, Prince, Diddy, Executioners, Making Da Band and more. He’s a battle DJ and puts on a crazy show.

This event has a few reserved tables left, all of them come with HUGE exposure. If anyone is interested, I’ll put a logo on the big screens all night in rotation, text link on the site and promo in our RSVP’d newsletter, thanks on the microphone and 20 VIP’s with every table. Super deal right now,your peeps can hit me up directly at info [@at ] affiliateball.com. Trust me, I’m not breaking the bank on my prices. I will guarantee this party will be regarded as the best party and the biggest of all time. I’ve thrown some good ones too so that’s big statement ;)

For those who don’t know, the party is on January 9th (Monday night), starts at 9:30 until whenever. Same venue as last years when we did Three 6 Mafia, Crown Theater at the Rio.

Oh yeah, one last thing I’d like to address. In the past, before I started throwing the big parties at these trade shows, there were horrible girl to guy ratios at industry parties. That has changed this year with the Affiliate Ball. Also consider that most women at the show are dying to see Nelly and are huge fans. You might even see more girls then guys this time!

Get in where you fit in…

Did you hear that mobile is all the rage?

Everyone seems to be jumping on the mobile bandwagon. But how will you make your millions? Sure, you can rip off other successful apps (Yes, the App stores need more flashlight apps) or you can make something original and make money off the ads.

But that route is for the birds (not of the Angry variety). If you want to make millions with mobile games, you need to take advantage of one certain demographic: Stupid kids and their tiny fingers.

This demographic is ripe for the picking because a) They play the shit out of games. b) They are extremely gullible. “Hey kid! Better pay up if you don’t want your virtual farm to set on fire.” c) They don’t understand the concept of money and responsibility. Screw it, it’s mom’s credit card.. All of these factors combined provide a great target demographic for your app developing adventures.

There are some big players in the mobile app gaming space. One such game is TapFish, which has millions of downloads. They’re mastered at the craft of taking money from people via their children. Find out the story to their success below:

A couple of months ago I hacked together a script that looked like the Facebook modal window. The script has been sitting around for a while so I figured I’d make it public.

bz FBModal on Github

Click here for the Demo and Downloads

It took me a while to clean this script up and write the documentation, so no, I will not help you any issues you have with this script.

Enjoy! Remember to use your powers for good, not and evil lawl.

Holy shit it’s almost December. At this rate, by the time i finish this sentence, it will be just after Christmas.

Now, let’s see if Google Reader has anything good for us during this month of November. Overall, it’s a relatively quiet month compared to my previous “Best of” posts. Probably because everyone has their heads down grinding the fuck out till Christmas Eve.

Industry News

IMToday bought a banner recently so let’s give them a shout out. It’s kind of like Affbuzz, but apparently its handed-edited, unlike Affbuzz, which uses an algorithm of hits and clicks and a sprinkle of pixie dust.

Do you run traffic on Lead Impact? Are you a fucking ninja? NO?! THEN BECOME A LEAD IMPACT NINJA. THIS ISN’T NEWS BUT THE LANDING PAGE IS SO FUNNY ITS WORTH MENTIONING. WHY AM I YELLING?! Ninjas don’t yell…

Take a knee. This is my new favorite website.

OK on to some real news.

Affiliate marketing is still dead or dying, because this post on DirectResponse.net says so. Joking aside, there are many good points there on why the affiliate ecosystem tends to eat itself. There’s another good post on DR that can help you reduce charge backs.

If you’re feeling voyeuristic, DR also posted up this recorded call that has some good insight into the advertiser side of the online marketing space. Definitely worth a listen.

Do you suck at Google? That’s probably because you’re not a brand. Everything Google has been doing the past few years has been giving preferential treatment to brands, and kicking SEOs / small businesses to the curb. Aaron Wall says so in this fancy infographic.

I’ve been too busy to post about WhatRunsWhere again, but Finch did it so you can just head on over there.

Mr. Green has a new case study on the 310px ads at Plenty of Fish. I ask, is there any traffic left on PoF that isn’t going to Mr. Green’s case studies?

Here’s a good post on image ad blending. Basically, making your ads look like content of the targeted website.

Are you doing Lead Generation? Silly question, but Kiss Metrics has a nice post on improving the effectiveness of your lead gen sites.

Speaking of Leadgen, eConsultancy has a good series on improving your skills. Part 1 and Part 2.

Mobile, Facebook

Ruck has an extensive rant on mobile click fraud. Mobile marketing is dead already.

Mobile is exploding. Yes, still, even though its dead. Check out these pretty charts from Unbounce as they look at some sweet Swedish mobile traffic.

Check out how mobile apps are being monetized. Hint: Its in-app sales. Not convinced? Here’s so more data off Techcrunch.

With all these talk of “the future,” there’s still opportunity in video, whether desktop, pad, or phone.

Copywriting and Sales

I like info marketing blog because it talks a lot about old school copywriting greats. This is a new blog I follow so I won’t link to anything specific, but check that shit out if you’re a fan.

Direct Creative Blog has a good post on working with testimonials, and how you can integrate them properly into a marketing campaign instead of pasting them randomly on a page.

Are you building email lists via mobile? Here are some tips for making that more effective. Time is critical!

Motivation

Do you like to look busy by scribbling stuff on paper? I know I do ( if you only saw my desk…) Finch has a good post on why this is bad at Filthy Rich Mind.

Also Finch is banking pretty good with those Premium Posts. Maybe it’s time other bloggers to start providing real quality content over the drivel they post daily ( * just kidding John Chow doesn’t know anything worth paying money for.)

And finally, How to have a 36 day. Better yet…. how to work from home without going insane.

Edit: Fixed the Ubot link. It should link to the $1 trial that is not available to the public anymore. Use Promo Code ppcbz199

“Sell Out Monday” continues…

So the guys are Ubot asked me to make a post about their $1 Trial. I was hesitant since I am lazy but then they offered to write the post for me, in “my voice.” I assumed they meant the “ppc.bz voice” but they actually gone and wrote it in first person.

The post below was written by Jason on the Ubot team. He prefaces the post with … “I wasn’t sure how to get in the mindset to write as you so I went out and killed a homeless man with a hammer, and then drank a few fingers of whiskey. I think that worked.”

Did it work? I leave my commentary below… (everything below is the actual post they wrote for me with my commentary added in)

Build Your Own Marketing Bots For $1? What the Hell is Wrong With These People?

A few years ago UBot came on the scene and I got a review copy. This was so far back that no one really knew what it was. So I put up a review where I said I didn’t know what the fuck it was either, but then I tried it and it was legitimately the best tool ever created, because it made other tools. And I said you were an idiot if you didn’t buy it.

It’s true. When I wrote the original Ubot post back in the day I barely knew what it did. It’s also correct that I might have called you an idiot.

“Well that’s easy for you to say barman,” some people commented, “because your copy was free.” Well, if you were as amazing as I was maybe they’d give you a free copy too, first of all. Second, don’t even bother trying to be as amazing as me, because now your copy is basically free also. The guys over at UBot just opened a limited trial that lasts for 14 days and only costs $1. And if you are smart enough to read this text then you are smart enough to use that 14 days to build a bot that will make you at least enough money to buy the damn thing.

Now you, for the price of a double cheeseburger off the McDonald’s Dollar Menu, can script up personalized tools with Ubot

What’s New In UBot 4

I’m not a programmer, besides the basics needed to keep this website and a few other things looking amazing. So UBot seemed perfect to me 0 build your own software and customize your marketing instead of paying a million dollars for SENuke. It has an easy interface, lots of instructions, its built by marketers for marketers, yada yada. So yeah, if you didn’t try it out, that would be pretty stupid.

Sadly, after the past few months, you might actually consider me a decent programmer now

Now there’s a new version – 4.0 – that does everything the old UBot did plus about a dozen other newfangled things. It was already designed for idiots, but now it’s somehow even easier to use, so I guess that means even stupider people can use it. It’s still not going to do anything out of the box, ie, you have to come up with your own damn ideas (or use mine), but it will do more shit for you automatically – like filling in forms without you having to think too hard, with something the UBot people call “Artificial Intelligence.” Yeah, it’s not going to make breakfast for you, but after playing around with it some, it’s definitely easier to use and smarter than it was before.

Jason is correct in that I would call you stupid and even stupider

There’s also some stuff in the “professional” version that seems pretty wicked – Image Recognition lets you control Flash websites, and there’s now a “code view” that shows you your code in text form. Even if you’re not a programmer this is pretty nice, because the code is obvious shit like “navigate(http://www.ppc.bz)” for the most part. Oh, and this version has multithreading, too, for those of you that need that sort of thing.

I can’t afford $1

Yes you can, shut up, you cheap piece of shit. There’s no reason not to try this while they have the trial open. This single piece of software can replace a dozen other programs and if you spend a few hours a day for the next two weeks using it, you’ll understand why. And you’ll probably hate your stupid self for not buying it sooner. $1 is less than it costs to buy a pack of gum. It’s less than a cup of coffee. Trying UBot now costs less than the handjob you got from that toothless crack whore, and it will probably only make you feel half as dirty, you sick fuck.

The above paragraph might as well have been written by me. I think that whiskey helped, Jason

What should I do with it?

You should do whatever the fuck you’re already doing, because this thing can basically automate whatever that is. If you are using a tool that you wish was customized for your weird fetishes or one that you wish worked better, then you can improve that by building your own script to do the same damn thing. If you aren’t already doing something or using anything and really don’t have any idea what to do with this sweet $1 deal, then maybe you should buy a fucking clue instead. This software is still amazing and getting better, so just cough up the buck and try it before the trial closes.

And before I forget, the coupon I’ve got still works – ppcbz199 – so put it in when you sign up.

_____________________________

Now for the sake of disclosure, I don’t really use Ubot that much anymore. I will use it occasionally for random scripts but that’s rare. I’ve actually learned to program, and over the course of whenever I wrote the original post, I’ve gotten away from the hell that is SEO.

Thanks to the Ubot team for writing this post! If they left it up to me I doubt it would have ever been written.

Rejoice! The ever so popular Premium Posts from Finch comes back with Volume 2.

There are very few things in the affiliate marketing space worth spending money on. 99% of ebooks and courses are generally rehashed shit. But Finch is doing it right by providing excellent, fresh content for a fair price. Fresh, meaning he writes it off the top of his head, not rewriting some Warrior Forum’s already shit course ( like some people like to do ).

Premium Posts Volume 2 is all about…
Facebook – A number of chapters about cracking that Facebook nut. How to Bid. How to make successful dating campaigns. How to say “wanna fuck?” in other languages. And the future of making money on Facebook in general.
Mobile – Just kidding. There’s only a single page about it and it links back to my Mobile Marketing Resource.
Future of Affiliate Marketing – Is it dead? Did Copeac kill it? Buy it and find out!
And More! – There’s always an ‘and more!’ What kind of marketer are you?! Anyway – 70+ pages of in-depth quality content makes up Volume 2. Get on it you cheap fuck!

Keep up the quality work Finch, you sexy seductive Brit.

PPC.bz is like the rip-off report of online pizza trackers.

Holler at these Advertisers

Affiliate Marketing News
Ryan Eagle World
BlamAds Content Locking
CPA Tank Affiliate Network

Advertise on PPC.bz if you want.

» Read more: October Traffic Stats 2011

Well, the short answer is No.

Looks like a lot of marketers are expanding their horizons and trying to figure out the mobile game. Good for you, there’s a lot to figure out. That’s why I wrote this Mobile Marketers Resource to try and keep everyone updated.

It just seems so easy, doesn’t it? Throw up a mobile-formatted version of your working landing page, add jQuery mobile to handle everything, and walllll-a! Sick looking website bro! Now trying running it on a smart phone built in 2009….

jQuery Mobile, at the time of writing this, is at Release Candidate 2. That’s not an official release… so the stuff is still in Beta.

But it’s so shiny!

And that is the allure of jQuery mobile. Seems like it can do everything! But everything comes at a cost. There is so much overhead in jQuery Mobile to make sure it works on every smartphone, which means it doesn’t work well on any smartphone.

Don’t get me wrong. I love jQuery, and when jQuery Mobile is ready, it will be bad ass. But for now, it is definitely not the way to go, especially when money is an issue. Simplicity is crucial on mobile devices. You want as little code as possible so your page works on every device that lands on your page. Not just that it works, but it actually works without 6.3 second delays between pages.

Ghetto Speed Test – jQuery Mobile vs XUIjs

So I concocted this ghetto speed test just to compare jQuery Mobile to another framework.

The test is simple:

I start on this page in the jQueryMobile docs. I navigate to “page two.” I go back to “page one.” I go to “show Popup (as a dialog)” I go back to “page one.”

Simple enough, right? I am using the “Profile” feature of Firebug to see what the Javascript is doing. This plugin has been crucial for me while messing with my own mobile framework.

jQuery Mobile Results

Almost 30,000 calls to functions to navigate about 4 or 5 pages. That doesn’t seem like trouble for a desktop computer, and it’s not. But you have to think mobile, and to most mobile devices in use today, 30,000 calls to functions to navigate a few pages is a killer on its tiny little processor.

XUIjs Results

XUIjs is a lightweight framework from the makers of PhoneGap. It’s what I’m using to build up my personal jQuery Mobile alternative. Before you jump into XUI.js, be forewarned the documentation is lacking and not nearly as good as jQuery’s.

Anyway, for this test – I had to replicate it on my own page. I did the same thing though: navigate back-and-forth between a number of pages:

The result is under 1,000 functions calls. That’s 1/30th less processing power to do the same exact thing! While XUI.js lacks many of the neat features (ease-of-use, slick willy transitions) that jQuery Mobile provides, the trade off can be the difference between life and death of your landing page.

The saddest part is that the “formatPage” function is my own that I wrote, and it’s taking up most of the processing power. Imagine if i was actually a good coder?

So What the Hell Do I Do for my Mobile Landing Page?

Why is jQuery Mobile so damn slow anyway? For one, it’s based on jQuery itself. You not only need the jQuery Mobile script, but original jQuery as well. Then it comes packaged with a massive CSS file that’s about 3,000 lines long. When you package it all up, that’s quite a payload to deliver to processing and bandwidth-limited devices.

If they build jQuery Mobile from the ground up (not basing it off jQuery which has a lot of cleanup for desktop browsers), or at least remove all the junk that tries to make it work in IE6 (why, why, why are we still bothering?), then maybe it will improve.

Anyway, there are plenty of other mobile frameworks out there each with its pros and cons. More keep coming out and I can barely keep my list updated. XUIjs is definitely one of the more “lightweight” ones. This is another “lightweight” framework I stumbled across.

The trade-off is speed for fancy-ness. You have a lot of options and I don’t have any answers. All I’m saying, for now, is that jQuery Mobile is not the best option.

The mobile game is a mess. I believe it will just become a bigger mess. But there’s gold in them hills!

I’ve been diving into mobile stuff lately, so I figure why not create a little resource for myself that others can enjoy as well. I’ll try to keep this post updated as new resources come in, but the mobile space is growing so fast it will be tough. As of writing this, I am focusing on Android, so the iOS stuff might be a little sparse.

Mobile Development
and Marketing – The Complete Resource

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