Eric's Estimate

How to Promote Email/Zip Submits in 20 Minutes

Posted on February 5, 2010 by EricNo Comments

If you don’t know, an email or a zip submit is a CPA affiliate offer that requires the lead to enter in either their email or their zip code. Once the prospect enters that information, you get paid. These offers usually don’t pay a lot, but you can expect to get anywhere from $0.80 – $3.00 for these offers.

There are a ton of different ways of promoting zip or email submits. I want to share one that I have had success with, and it also doesn’t take long to setup. First up, you need to be a part of an affiliate network. My favorite right now is Peerfly.

That part will probably take you longer than 20 minutes, but once you’re setup with an affiliate network, then you want to pick your offer. Peerfly has a ton of zip/email submits on offer and you can pick out about 10 to promote. The key with email and zip submits is to promote a bunch and see which ones convert. They will not all convert, and out of 10 campaigns, you’ll probably only run into 1 or 2 that are really profitable.

Once you have your offers, you need some traffic. CPV traffic is really hot right now because it’s really easy to get started, and you don’t need to worry about quality score or having your own site. CPV traffic will create a popup over the browser of an internet surfer showing your ad. You don’t need to worry about click through rates, or anything else. You just bid on keywords or URLs and you get the traffic.

You can get some CPV traffic really quick by heading over to Direct CPV. When you sign up you need to call them to be approved, and then you can start getting traffic right away. Plus, you’re usually only spending around $0.01 per view of your ad!

Direct CPV traffic can be targeted in three different ways.

First, by category. This targeting is pretty broad and I don’t really recommend it because you don’t have full control.

Second by keywords. This targeting will show your ad when a lead views a website that has the keywords you select. It is best to combine this targeting with the third option.

URL targeting. This is the most exact type of targeting offered by Direct CPV. It allows you to target specific URLs. Just imagine, someone goes to the checkout section of WalMart’s website, when your ad for a $1000 free gift card pops up. Who wouldn’t want to sign up for just their email?

Remember, always test test test. And then, test some more. You will have some campaigns that don’t work… MANY campaigns that don’t work, but after a while you’ll get the hang of things and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

When did it all go to shit?

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Eric6 Comments

I’ve got a question: When did internet marketing become throwing shit at a wall until we get a piece to stick?

I haven’t been in IM since the beginning, but from what I can tell all of the wanna be internet millionaires who whine about crap information are just that… whiners.

They don’t want to be marketers. They don’t want to run a business. They just want someone to give them some key to some vault which has all of their dreams stored up in some bag with a dollar sign on it.

WAKE UP!

There is no secret. There is no dream campaign that all of the big guys are keeping from you. There’s just marketing, and then there’s shit being thrown at the wall…

So which type of internet business are you running?

Are you actually trying to connect a consumer with a product that they want or can use? Or are you uploading 10,000 keywords into Yahoo Search Marketing and hoping that one of them will convert on that Walmart gift card offer?

If you want to make a living at the internet marketing game, you’ve gotta stop thinking like a drone, and start thinking like a marketer. You’ve got to come up with a concept that makes sense, and that connects real people (yes they are people on the other end of your website, not just conversion numbers) with real services/products.

I’m not saying you can’t get a $250 Walmart gift card to convert well. I’m just saying that putting it on a blank page that says click here to get it isn’t going to do fuck all.

Where does this come from? Well I found a site (I won’t list it here because I just feel sorry for the guy) that was just a page with a black background and a bunch of affiliate banners on it. They weren’t similar banners. In fact there was one for dating sitting next to one for auto insurance.

He had claimed that he was sending PPC traffic to this site and trying “everything” he could to get it to convert, yet he was just losing money. These types of people just shouldn’t even try to be internet marketing people.

And in fact, if you are reading this and you own a site like that… just get out… get out NOW!

Marketing is about telling a story. A story that jives with the views of a group of people (for those of you who don’t know who these people are… they are your “customers”). Your story has to be convincing… and your story has to be consistent (as in, don’t say you have the best customer service when you don’t ever answer the phone).  And yes, even if you are promoting email and zip submit offers, this story needs to be there.

So ask yourself; what story is your site telling?

More on this later, but for now do yourself a favor and pick up Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars and start being a marketer, not a chump.