No, not because he started an affiliate network where charged people to join and had the shittiest payouts possible, but because he got beat by the tax man.

I have a junk box setup for guru bullshit and i saw this email from Shoemoney. I don’t know if it’s “OK” to publish this email, but Shoemoney can send me the C&D like he does to everyone else that mentions his name with commercial intent. Go get yourself on shoe’s list so he doesn’t have a hissy fit and pretend you got this email too.

Anyway, this email chronicles the story of Mike Filsaime’s retardation of not doing the proper paperwork for the IRS. Even the most half-assed business person knows about 1099’s… and how someone generating millions of dollars a year DID NOT DO THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING TO ME.

Really dude? Fucking millions of dollars a year and you couldn’t afford a fucking CPA (cert. public accountant …. not the other CPA) that went “Hey, wait a minute Mike… I think you need to fill out some 1099’s” You figured “Paypal was good enough?” WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET THIS FAR IN LIFE?

The best part of this story, and by best I mean worst, is that Mike Filsaime is leveraging his stupidity into a product called Pay People Online. This product tracks 1099’s or some shit for people you pay through paypal.

WOW MIKE GREAT IDEA. HOW COME I DIDN’T THINK OF THIS?! Oh because I have a CPA that doesn’t smoke fucking crack and tells me obvious shit.

This story exemplifies the disconnect between real life businesses and online businesses. You think just because it’s online the same rules don’t apply? Well, when it comes to the IRS, you better believe they do. Now you’re $1.5 million poorer HAHAHAHAHAH!

From Shoemoney:
As I always say I learn 100x more from my failures then from my successes. What do you find more scary? Getting dinged by the IRS for 1.5 Million dollars in fines and penalties or having the FTC break down your door and virtually bankrupt you? One story we will cover in this email and the other in another week.

Mike Filsaime has been one of the biggest internet marketers in the world. His products have done millions in sales annually. Mike also has an army of affiliates that act as commission based sales people to sell products for him and he has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to them for years. I am sure many of you reading also pay people in some regard… maybe you have affiliates or maybe you just have contractors or other people you pay money to. All of you can benefit from hearing Mike’s story.

In Early 2008 the IRS conducted a random audit on Mike Filsaime’s company. There was nothing Mike did to trigger the audit, well other then being in our industry and the crazy spikes we see in revenue setting off some “Red Flags”. Anyway… They went over all of his financial records going back 7 years and came back to him with a huge mountain of paper work asking where his 1099’s were on all these people he had paid money to.

Mike told me for years he had been paying money to affiliates via PayPal and figured that was good enough records to keep on them. He had no clue he needed to also get a 1099 on every person he was paying money to through PayPal. After all… PayPal has records on these guys right?

The IRS told him it did not matter what PayPal had. It was HIS responsibility to have the 1099 tax forms on file for each of these people he was paying money out to. OUCH.

Mike said they not only let him NOT deduct those expenses but now HE now had to claim that income on that money that was actually paid out to people.

But here is where it really sucked…. bad…

Since some of the people Mike paid were way back in the early 2000’s… and he now had to claim that as income…. Guess what? That’s right he had to pay the taxes PLUS a fine for each infraction AND interest on that money FOR THE LAST 7 YEARS.

Now the actual money paid out to affiliates that he did not have 1099’s on only totaled a couple hundred thousand dollars but Mike had to write a check to the IRS for back payments, fines, and interest for over 1.5 MILLION dollars…. ZOMG!!!!!!!!!

So what did Mike do wrong? He always paid all his taxes and took proper deductions. He just did not have good paper work and that cost him 1.5 million dollars of his hard earned profits.

Mike told me over a year later he still thinks about it at least once a day what he could have done with that money. Help family and friends… Build a school for children in a 3rd world country…. geez…

But like most bad ass serial entrepreneurs Mike figured out how to turn his experience into an incredible positive.

He created a service that completely prevent people from ever ending up in his shoes. Honestly I can’t believe someone has not thought of this yet.

The website is called Pay People Online and its pretty hot. Right now its 100% free to use.

The way it works is you upload your payment file to it… then if it does not have someones electronically filed 1099 on record it emails them and tells them they need to complete it in order to get paid. Once this is done it lets you know.

For users who use PayPal Mass Payment files (like 99% of us) its even easier. You just upload your mass pay file to it, it then checks to see if it has 1099’s on file and if not emails people and lets them know they need to fill it out to get paid, then spits you back out a payment file for people you DO have 1099’s on.

Slick eh? I really like this site and I think its going to turn out to be worth MUCH more then the 1.5 Million that it cost Mike to have an epiphany about this much needed service.

I say it all the time adversity is opportunity and this is a classic example of just that.

First things first: I am aware of the lack of quality posts lately.

Look, I may have the strength and good looks of two men, but I am only one man. There’s only so much I can do on a blog that makes no money, and there’s only so much I can keep up with in this industry before I have to ignore it and focus on shit that is actually important. Not that there is a lack of complete bullshit or anything, but it really is a full time job – trying to keep writing new posts and be funny.

If you ever seen that Futurama episode where they went to the Slurm factory, then I kinda feel like Slurms McKenzie.

I’m not retiring or anything, just don’t expect PPC.bz to be your lord and savior. If I feel inspired to write something and it’s going to be funny I’ll do it. The problem is coming up with ideas and shit, then spending hours writing the posts, blah blah blah it’s actually a lot of work to please you people.

Speaking of which if you ever have an idea for a post, or a good inside story, or something you want to get out there, hit up barman [at] ppc dot bz. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not begging for post ideas like other bloggers, I’m just saying if you want a venue for some shit that is funny or drama-filled, holler.

Other blogs

Pro Tip: If you are spending more than 20 minutes a week reading blogs then you are wasting your time. I realized this (although i knew it in the back of my head) after I went through over 1,000+ posts that were backed up in my Reader. I spent a few hours skimming the shit and really I would’ve have been better off punching myself in the face and knocking myself out for the same period of time.

Here are some new blogs that are writing quality material that will keep you busy in the meantime.

MrGreen – is some crazy person from the Southern hemisphere that has written some good posts lately. The blog is pretty new, so we’ll see if he keeps up with it or fades away like almost every other blog that had potential.

Riley Pool – keeping it as gangster as much as a white dude can keep it gangster.

ViperChill – writes about SEO and shit like that, long-term big-payday stuff. Quality writing.

Stats are Here

I won’t lie – when I was editing these stats for the post I laughed harder than any other month in recent memory. Quality shit here:

I’m thinking of installing Analytics or something. It seems to me that AWGhettoStats is missing a lot of the search terms.
» Read more: February Stats and Other Things of Importance

Everyone’s talking about this PPV thing, so it was only a matter of time before one of the greatest thinkers in affiliate marketing gave his say on it. Andrew Wee, blogger and photo-whore extraordinaire, committed to a 2-week case study to see what PPV was really all about.

You can read Wee’s case study here if you’d like.

To get the gist of Wee’s case study, here are his statistics:

Assigned daily budget: $10/day
Total views: 627
Total spend: $7.47
Average daily spend: $0.30

-
Total number of conversions: 0
Net profit/loss: -$7.47

WOAH! WHAT A CASE STUDY! SOMEONE GET ME IN TOUCH WITH A SCIENCE JOURNAL SO WE CAN PUBLISH THESE RESULTS!

So basically Wee did a 2 week case study that made no conversions. If it didn’t make conversions, is it really a case study? Isn’t it like dividing by zero? It’s something that you can’t do.

Let me give you some advice from a semi-experienced PPV marketer.

First off, you might want to stick to only one pop a day. With an average of 45 views a day, this is way too much. Anything over 2-3 views a day can lead to analysis paralysis (when you spend too much time thinking about the data rather than doing.) Having too much data is somethings a bad thing, so stick with what you can put on one page of an Excel document.

If you don’t convert on every single view then you’re obviously doing something wrong.

Second, I don’t get how 6,000+ urls can only yield 45 views day. Wee must have been scraping the anus of the SERPS for targets, because it makes no mathematical sense to me. Maybe because he ran on DirectCPV and it sucks ass? Hopefully they don’t jack this winning campaign from Wee.

Third, with a 30 cent a day spend, Wee is really balling harder than most people reading his case study. I recommend that Wee bring that down a lot, because the most newbs won’t have that much to blow. For PPV to really work, you have to spend a decent chunk of $$ to just gather data and split test everything. If you can’t hang with that 30 cent a day spend then you’re not going to get statistical relevance from your campaigns.

All in all, PPV is really where its at and I look forward to more case studies from Wee. With everyone jumping on PPV, the bidding wars are going to get fierce, so you need to know what you’re doing.

When the next blogger asshole posts his “winning PPV campaign and landing page” and 50 newbies do the same exact campaign, sending bids through the roof, you will have the head start because you are following the true pioneers, one which is Wee.

God have mercy.

via dully.

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Who is … YTCracker?

Well, besides dropping hot tracks and DJ’ing parties at Affiliate Summit, YTCracker is pretty much the most scientific motherfucker on the planet.

YTCracker is busy winning the space race, and it can be hard to keep up with all the shit that YTCracker is doing in the name of science. So if you need a quick primer on nerdcore, this post is for you.

YTCracker makes nerdy music for nerds. He can be found posting on this forum for nerds. I will admit that I’ve spent at least 32 minutes watching random Nerdysouth videos on Youtube.

Below are videos I cannot get enough of. Some people watch the news…. I just watch these.

G$H – Get Money Ho

Just one of the videos about gettin’ money, ho. Bidet, ya’ll.

YTCracker makes it rain … on city streets

Money LOL

if you haven’t seen this shit by now, kill yourself.

LOL Bunny

Most people don’t like remixes more than the originals, but personally I think this remix is better

I made this post because I am a fan of YTCracker, and that STC, being the greatest, needs some more recognition. Peep game ho.

Are you an affiliate network?

Are you having trouble deciding if you want to put that offer on your network?

Please use this handy chart for your decision making process.

Personally this Google Buzz shit is a joke. I just shit a brick realizing how much I rely on these fools at google and i need to swtich it up.

Stolen from digg but funny.

Did you know that even Adwords was a rip-off?

No you do.

This is Adwords 2.0

How high am I? High enough to write this post. I had to celebrate 420 readers.

I know Nickycakes talked about Nick Throlson before, in his 10 worst blogs post, but I feel like this video deserves some special attention.

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, you can learn a thing or two from Nick Throlson’s video. It is truly full of insight into how this internet thing works. Like if you’re sitting there, pants on the ground, you might be wondering how people can make monies online – obviously everything out there has already been thought of.

So what can you do, lost child, about your mindset to get your paper right? You have to think outside the box. You have to have time to think.

You have to think … in the park.

Some of you people have seen this video before but didn’t quite grasp its genius. This is why I’m writing these notes – so you can get all the juicy information Nick drops on your heads.

Alright bro-ski. We’re gonna talk about full websites versus landing pages. Why? Because that’s a common question among everyone in the industry. We need to know what works better – but different people have different opinions. Let’s analyze Nick’s expertise on the matter.

Here’s what Nick thinks about landing pages.

1. Lot of affiliate marketers don’t know how to make a full website so they
2. Hire someone for 60 bucks. Get an LP Done. Slap it up.
3. Put some offers on them, and review them.
4. Do some PPC.
5. ……
6. $$$$

See this shit is easy!

But! BUT! If you use Wordpress, because it has plugin for SEO, or Jamula for Meta Tags, you can save a lot of time. A lot of that time can be spent making money.

You can build a full website and just make a profit off of it by adding an aWeber form.

Ranking SEO vs Ranking PPC

Nick talks about the reasons why you might want to make a full website, because you can rank it SEO, all while ranking it PPC. What’s the difference between the two? For newbies it might be tough to understand, but if you collect opt-ins you can get a lot better conversions.

Some people here might disagree with Nick Throlson about ranking SEO. I call those people idiots. Nick is an expert in the field so you better know your shit before arguing with his facts.

Which Networks to Work with

Another great tip for newbs. Say you want to start making like $20,000 a day. Which network do you sign up with so you can do that?

Nick recommends only the best networks, which are Hydra, Neverblue, and Market Leverage. Motive Interactive has some hotter offers too. What matters is that these networks treat you like a professional blogger, like if you were already John Chow or Shoemoney.

You see, in this industry, other networks treat you like crap. He might be talking about network.ppc.bz, where they pour hot candle wax on your neck beard when you sign up. These are the type of scoundrels you do not want to do business with.

Get Money Get Paid with Your Own Products

Nick talks about making your own product. He drops a little nugget of info and talks about how he is going to develop some Wordpress plugins.

Why not just be an affiliate and not deal with customers, maintenance, and support?

Well, Nick smartly has new affiliates not putting all their eggs in one basket. This is good advice, because you never know when a niche can die. Like what if Acai berry died? What if the rainforests couldn’t produce any more berries?

That’s why you want to have your own product. Because when something like Res-V dies, you want to fall back on… you know… Wordpress plugins. That’s really where the money is.

Side Note: ResV is pretty hot right now. I know this video is close to 2 years old. But ResV is like anti-aging in a bottle, so that can never get old right?

Networking and Dreaming the Internet

Definitely network. You can go to Meetup202s and find people to outsource to. When you do this affiliate marketing thing, you’re not going to know everything. So to make the monies online you just have to outsource things that you don’t know. You can surround yourself with other likeminded newbs and outsource to a different group at your Meetup.

More important that social interaction, of course, is reading forums. DigitalPoint, Wickedfire – they are all the same. The trick is to absorb it all. Get your mind full of informative posts on these forums. Trust me, you will learn a lot.

This is the best advice in the whole video. From about 4:20 (ironing) is the gold of Nick’s teachings. If you don’t watch the video just watch the clip. If you have watched the video, watch it again from 4:20 on.

Dreaming about these things means you’ll wake up with thoughts like “Woah I should make a landing page for acai berry” or “Woah, everybody is making money on these ringtones!” or “Woah Google Adsense pays you money for clicks? I need to get my friends click on my stuff.”

All great ideas.

You don’t want to be working all of the time. No, fuck that. Productivity is going to kill you fast. You need to spend time reading these forums, so instead of actually getting anywhere with hard work, you just come across a million dollar idea. With a great idea you can just go up to people and ask for investment because the idea is so good and they will give it to you.

So make ideas happen with outsourcing to people you meet at Meetups. Wordpress and Jamula plugins are pretty much the future of making money online. Just make sure your “Donate Here” button is big enough! Split test it! You never know when Zwinkys is going to die because of government regulation.

Peter Parks should be Affiliate Spiderman, not Affiliate Punisher. Get it? Parks. Parker. Peter Parker. Spiderman.

Oh wait… Affiliate marketing already has it’s Spiderman.

If you are very confused right now, I made a post about some guru dipshit product called Affiliate Punisher recently. Today I noticed a comment from the creator himself. You can read the whole rant here

The part I care about is this –

You got balls, if you really got balls, set up a live webinar for your subscribers, I have no problem showing them affiliate marketing campaigns live, because that’s what I do… “LIVE”

So I want to take him up on his offer. I would like to tell all of the “subscribers” on my “list” about this “underground” “opportunity” from Peter Parks the “guru.”

If we can get enough interested people in the comments, perhaps Mr. Punisher will show us all how he’s making monies online.

Now if you know barman, you know he is a master of rolling joints already. One handed joint rolling on a motorcycle while on the lam from the FTC is a skill they don’t teach in class. But I’m not here for the education – i’m here for the T&A

Very NSFW

This SuicideGirls video via Nickygates