If you have not already noticed that most affiliate programs have had a payout decrease over the last couple months. Some affiliate programs have really dropped their payouts as much as 75%. This affect is a huge blow to most affiliates running campaigns. One of the big problems is for those who run search engine campaigns, as this drastically reduces the profit per click.

A few tips that might help out would be:
- Talk to your affiliate manager about getting a payout increase
- Run comparable offers
- Try new ways to promote your offer that cost free
- Talk to your affiliate manager or the company about creating a special promotion

On the other hand, some newer affiliate programs have come out with very nice payouts while other affiliate programs have increased affiliate payout to try to boost sales. I have seen a few affiliate programs offer bonuses, contests, and special prizes.

One big mistake new affiliate marketers make is paying to join an affiliate program. This is commonly know as a pyramid scheme or a scam. It is usually very enticing and promises to make you rich. The fact is that the only person getting rich is the guy who came up with the scheme.

Take for example Dan, he approached me about three months ago and wanted to learn about affiliate marketing. I gave him lots of advice and resources (free) to learn more. He said he had just gotten back from doing a seminar with Mr. $$$ and that I should check it out to. he gave me the information and I told him I would check it out. The next day Dan calls me back and says he would like to have a conference call with him, me, and Mr. $$$. At first I really didn’t want to do it, but I wanted to support Dan as much as I could. So two hours later I am on a conference call with all three of us and we get talking about Mr. $$$ product and how it is going to “Revolutionize the Industry” and the rest of his sales pitch. Then came the time for me to ask questions. I didn’t care to much on what he was selling, but the way he was selling it. He wanted me to pay him $250 to join an elite network of sales people to sell his product. BIG RED FLAG New affiliates take notice, no network, affiliate program, or any company wanting you to sell their stuff should ever charge you any fee. Not even for a membership or “exclusive” deals. I kept asking him about this and he tried to explain it but I kept reminding him that no company I have every represented or worked for charged me to join them. To make a long story short, he finally gave up and said “I was missing out”.

The point of the story is that you have to be very careful on what you promote and who you work with. They can be very convincing. You NEVER pay to join a network or affiliate program! If you do, it is more likely a scam or some sort of pyramid scheme. Stay far away.

Not many new affiliate marketers realize that they could be making more money without doing anymore work. When you are working with numerous affiliate networks you run across the same offers from different networks. What you don’t realize is that you can negotiate a better payout. Most affiliate networks have a base payout which is set for every campaign. The secret to getting a better payout is just plain and simple, ask your affiliate manager. Nine out of ten times they will most likely boost your payout. Remember affiliate managers are there for you.

How to Play Network Payouts Against Each Other

If you have two networks that have the same offer but different payouts then this can be a good thing. For example network A has campaign BOB with a payout of $23/lead while network B has campaign BOB with a payout of $21.50/lead. Now all you have to do is contact your affiliate manager from network B and tell them that network A is paying $23/lead for campaign BOB and you would like them to match or beat that. More than likely they will beat the other offer. So instead of making $23/lead you would be making $25/lead. I even had some go up $5 dollars on a $15/lead campaign!

You could then just play each network against each other back and forth until you get a even better payout. Affiliate networks would rather break even or lose money (if you are super important) on a campaign then have you run the same campaign at another network.

Just a reminder, you most likely will have to show some type of proof that you are getting that payout from the network. May it be an email, screen shot, or some other type of written evidence.

Just a little FYI for those running campaigns with Google Affiliate Network:

Google Affiliate Network publisher payments will soon be made through Google AdSense accounts. AdSense will offer you a wider range of payment options, improved ways to manage payment information, and consolidated payments from Google (if you’re working with other Google products).

You must link to an approved AdSense account in order to receive payments for earnings. Starting on August 13, 2009, if you’re the primary user of your publisher account, you’ll see an account notification asking you to create a Google AdSense account or link to an existing Google AdSense account. (If you aren’t the primary user, you won’t see the account notification.)

You must link your accounts before midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on September 21st, 2009 to receive payments through Google AdSense for July and August 2009 earnings (depending on relevant advertiser payment terms). Please create or link an AdSense account as soon as possible to avoid delays in your Google Affiliate Network payments.

Earnings prior to July 2009 will be made through the existing Google Affiliate Network payment system.

We just got the opportunity to try out RingCentral and we love it. This company allows you to have Toll Free Numbers For Your Business Loaded with time and money saving features .

RingCentral Features Include:

• 800 and 8** Numbers
• Dial-by-Name Directory
• Local Numbers
• Real Time Call Control
• Voicemail
• Click-to-Call from the Web
• Fax Send and Receive
• Call logs
• Call Forwarding
• Music On Hold
• Virtual PBX
• Outlook Integration
• Answering Rules
• and much more

RingCentral Online is a Web-based telephone and fax service for professionals and small businesses. It provides a toll free or local phone number and advanced features not found in traditional phone systems.

Right now they have some special offers available listed below. So take advantage and try RingCentral now.

- Free Trial Plus $10 Off
- Try RingCentral Fax FREE for 30 days

Click Here to Try RingCentral

New affiliate marketer mistakes are gonna happen. But preparing yourself against them can help you rise to the top and become a successful affiliate marketer. Lets take a look at the top ten new affiliate mistakes.

1.) Using an existing script or someone else’s work

This doesn’t work for one big reason, everyone else is using it too! If you think you bought something that is “unique” then run it through CopyScape. This is a free service that searches for website plagiarism and duplicate content online. Upload your content and run the site url and you will be surprised on how many copies of your “unique” bundle they sold. Read my story on Sue who thought she bought a special site package and the disappointments that I found for her.

2.) Filling site with ads

I see a lot of new websites created by new affiliates filled with adsense, adbrite, and other ads. As this is a good means of additional income for your site, it should not be the main attraction. Making the ads your main attraction takes away from your sites usefulness to the visitor. For example, if I where to visit a site with lots of ads and then see a tiny blob of content I will just leave the site without clicking on the ads. But if the website had a nice informative content and mentioned XX product I would click on the ad to learn more. I would then browse around the site for awhile and see what other information is useful to me. If the site is really good, I would then bookmark it and tell my friends. My rule of thumb is; build the site for the visitor, not for the money.

3.) “Jumping the Gun”

Launching a new site without fully testing it or creating a campaign without researching it can cost you thousands of dollars. It’s easy to waste $5,000 on a search engine ad that yields little results but could have been avoided researching more and finding that if you might have used another keyword could have yielded you the same results but with only $500. I see this happen a lot and have seen new affiliate marketers waste $40,000. Really makes you sick.

4.) Picking the wrong host/domain

Not to many new affiliates realize how important their domain and hosting company is. Having a good domain could mean better natural search rankings, easy for your visitors to remember, and so much more. Even more important is a good host. I highly suggest staying away from free hosting companies. These where good back in the day when hosting was expensive, but now you can find hosting for cheap. I suggest Hostgator for any newbie. They have great 24/7 support and provide you with free templates to use. Having a bad hosting company results in server downtime. This means that your website will return a “404 Page Not Found” error when people try to visit. If you are running any paid traffic, then you are just wasting your money.

5.) No link management system

Now many affiliates might not think this is too important, but when you consider dead links, link thefts, expired links, bad links, ect. then you might consider getting a good affiliate link management software. I suggest Manage Affiliate Links for any affiliate marketer. Not only does it cloak and protect your links from link theft, it will email you when a link is dead, expired, or broken. This is very important if you manage more than one site or don’t check your links often. A down link can costs you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

6.) Spamming!

This is a big no no and will make a lot of other affiliates upset. I for one, hate getting spam email or messages and neither does the next person. Spamming on message boards, blogs, forums, websites, so on is a good way to get you banned or blacklisted. Try to look at this way, would you like it if I where to dump my trash all over your yard everyday? Spammers are the scum of the affiliate world.

7.) Not putting in the time

Making a million dollars does not happen overnight. It takes time to build a successful online business. Many new affiliates think that if they do this or that they can easily make a lot of money. This is one of the biggest misconception new affiliates have of affiliate advertising. Like any other business, you have to put in the time to reap the benefits.

8.) Copying someone else’s idea

Similar to using someone else’s content and articles is copying someone else’s idea. This is done when you basically clone their site and its concept. For example, eBay is a billion dollar idea and has been doing good because it was the first to bring the concept online. Now, how many eBay clone sites do you see making a large profit? Not many at all. Especially since so many more people create a new auction site everyday.

9.) Bad sales pitch

Once you get the visitor to your website it is time to convert them to a sale. Having a bad sales pitch or landing page is another way to loose thousands. Using Google Analytics Website Optimizer can help you compare different landing pages and help you find which one converts the best. To help create a better sales pitch ask friends and family to review your website before launching any ad campaigns.

10.) No idea of what you are doing

Very similar to jumping the gun is having no idea what you are doing. Yes, you could make some money but if you studied and learned how to build a great website you could be making a lot of money. I still run across top 100 sites that could be making more money just by changing a few things, nothing would be different to the user. A lot of websites have high earning potential but just don’t know it. Research, study, and learn and maybe one day you will be one of the top affiliates “Gurus”.

Many new affiliate marketers fall into this scheme and buy pre-written articles and content and think they are going to make millions. The sad truth is, they are not even going to make $5. The reason why they are not going to make money is because that same article or content has been sold numerous times over and over again. There may be over a thousand copies of that article or content online even before you get your site up.

Why this is bad?

Google and other search engines rank your site on how unique your content is. They will punish the site owner who uses other peoples work, especially when there are thousands of copies already online. By then the search engines will just skip over you and your site will not be ranked and possibly considered as spam.

Take for example Sue, she came to me one day saying she bought a special package that was going to be on sale for today only and limited to 500 copies sold. We talked for a bit more and I told her to upload the info and send me over her site url. I then entered her site url into CopyScape and you wouldn’t be surprised to see she had 3,293 identical matches to her website content! The sad part was that she spent $12.95 for it. Even though this wasn’t much, I have heard of people spending $300 for an all access pass to thousands of articles….which most likely have already been put online millions of times.

How you can prevent this

If you happen to have already purchased pre-written content then I suggest you run your site through CopyScape. This will check your website against duplicate content and show you how many other websites have the same content as you. Don’t be surprised if you have more than one hundred matches.

To prevent this, don’t buy pre-written content. The best content for your site is written by you and is unique online. The time you invest into your content and articles the better your results will be.

I have been using 2Checkout.com for over three years now on a small website that sells car alarms. This was one of my first online business I started up years ago. After awhile I wanted to offer my visitors something else besides Paypal. After hours of research I decided to go with 2Checkout because it was the only company that didn’t have monthly fees and only charged a one time setup fee of $50. Even though the transaction price of 5.5% + $.25 was higher than other companies, I didn’t have to pay a high monthly fee of $20 or so. This was perfect for me because I didn’t have a high sales volume and was beginning to move away from the company and branch on to advertising.

There are a lot of great things about 2Checkout.com. It is very easy to use and setup and doesn’t require a lot of knowledge of web programming. It has a lot of built in features that will help you make your checkout process easier. One of my favorite things about 2Checkout is that almost all ecommerce software supports 2Checkout.com.

Click Here to learn more about 2Checkout.com

GoDaddy promo code is different in the US and UK, for example $3.20 OFF a .com is FED3 in the US and BRIL3 at the GoDaddy UK site.

It is interesting how the codes work, you have to keep track of which ones are active, I will update here as I buy domains constantly and web hosting for clients all the time. Not only are the UK and US codes different, but there is also a difference in the codes used for hosting, or at least the deal is slightly different. But I think the promo codes may work both in the US and UK, regardless, not sure.

US Domain Codes

FED3 - $3.20 off every .COM (domain will cost just $7.49)

FED1 - 10% off any order (if ordering alot and different domain extensions)

FED2 - $5 off any order $30 or more (good if the domains are not .com’s)

HITCH2 - $5 off $30 or more

CHN3 - $7.49 for a .COM promo code

CHN1 - 10% off anything and everything, the entire order and hosting too

HITCH3 - $7.49 for a .COM

HITCH1 - 10% off

PETS3 - $7.49 .COM domains, as many as you have in your cart

PETS2 - $5 off $30

PETS1 - 10% off

UK Domain Codes

BRIL3 - 30% OFF / $3.20 off a .com

BRIL1 - 10% OFF any order (if ordering alot and different domain extensions)

These are codes that will work at the GoDaddy.co.uk registration site.

Hosting Codes

SPN1 - 10% off 12 months of website hosting, only $51.19 for an entire year

SPN2 - $5 off an order of $30 or more when 12 months of hosting

PETS1 - 10% off 12 months of website hosting

PETS2 - $5 off an order of $30 or more when 12 months of hosting

How to Use The Coupons

The coupon code is used toward the end of the checkout process, but before you have paid. Here are the steps:

1. Go through the checkout process, but before you pay stop at the Shopping Cart step 1 where you see your items listed
2. Below the items in your shopping cart is coupon box that says “enter your promo or source code“. So enter the code from above and then click the orange button that says “apply code“

That’s it, and if for some reason a code does not work, try another from above and hit apply again until you receive the best discount for your order.

Hot Domain Extension

I see the .mx is available for pre-registration. Once the .mx domains become available please message me with any coupon codes you have for the .mx so I can add them here. Thanks !

Add more coupons to this post for everyone please. Just leave them in the comments and I will add them to the list.

If you are new to selling websites online, I recommend a third party service such as Escrow.com to handle payment. Escrow.com and its operating subsidiaries provide online escrow services that facilitate and accelerate e-commerce by assuring secure settlement.

They have a service for buying and selling domains online. Domain Name Escrow Service protects your money and your domain.

Since the Buyer pays Escrow.com and not the Seller, Escrow.com can withhold payment until it’s satisfied the domain name has been transferred by the Seller. One of the ways Escrow.com does this is by checking the WHOIS database of the appropriate Registrar* to make certain it properly reflects the new Buyer’s name as the domain name Registrant. Once this has been verified, Escrow.com releases payment to the Seller.

Benefits for Buyers

• Peace of mind, Security, and Convenience
• Assured Domain name transfer prior to paying Seller
• Ability to confirm domain ownership directly with the registrar before the seller is paid.
• Ability to pay by wire transfer and in some cases PayPal, check, money order, or credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) Restrictions apply
• Ability to send credit card information to a financial institution, not a stranger
• Easy access to live customer support by phone or email

Benefits for Sellers

• Peace of mind, Security, and Convenience
• Payment verification prior to Domain name transfer
• Guaranteed payment once transfer specifications are met
• Protection against credit card fraud, insufficient funds or credit card chargebacks
• Ability to accept credit cards and PayPal if otherwise not able to. Restrictions apply
• Escrow fees that may be lower than merchant credit card processing fees
• Easy access to live customer support by phone or email

You however have to be careful. There is always risk in selling your website online and getting paid for it. You can always opt for Paypal. This is a great alternative but just watch the fees. If you sell your site for a lot of money, the Paypal fees will really eat up your profit.