If you’re one of those newer affiliate marketers who is frustrated with losing money on PPC and need a bit of positive reinforcement to help motivate you and realize the potential in this here crazy business, then this post is for you.

To be honest, I’m getting pretty sick of Facebook. What a royal pain in the ass to have to constantly re-create and re-submit ads after they are disabled. I had a good run with them, but now I’m getting more involved in other things and I think our relationship is just about over.

To celebrate the burning of this bridge, I’m going to go ahead and outline in detail a very laser targeted dating campaign that will make you a few bucks. Of course, if enough people stumble upon this article and run it, it will probably become worthless rather quick. It definitely won’t make you rich (because of the limited size of the target audience), but it has always been profitable in my experience. I’ve been running this campaign and slight variations on it for over a year.

It’s also worth mentioning that this of course doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to Facebook. I’m sure with a little imagination you can find ways to run similar campaigns on other platforms.

Nerds Love Asian Chicks

Okay, to be fair, plenty of non-nerds have an inclination towards Asian women, but never mind that for now. From testing various keywords with different dating sub-niches, I determined that guys who are heavily into sci-fi, anime, RPGs, and martial arts are also heavily into asian girls. Not a huge surprise perhaps, but something you might not have considered.

You could always build an Asian-oriented (no pun intended) landing page, but I’ve always found landing pages to be unnecessary when promoting dating offers on FB. That is, as long as you find a decent offer/lander from the merchant.

The best converting offer I’ve used this with was Spicey or Sweet which I was running through Affiliate.com (who no longer has it). They had me at $3.50/lead. Copeac still has Spicey or Sweet with several landers, but I don’t see an Asian one currently. If you ask your AM nicely, they might be able to hook you up with one.  Ads4Dough also has Spicey or Sweet. You will probably have to cloak the offer to something a little less “suggestive” to get it approved by Facebook.

Check out the Finding Singles offer from Neverblue. They have some customization options you can utilize, such as changing the graphic on the LP (say, from a blond white girl to an asian girl in glasses). You can also change the title text on the LP. The Facebook nazis seem to be alright with Finding Singles. You might also want to try actually running it. It doesn’t convert as well as Spicey, in my experience, but it was still profitable (about $0.19 EPC).

If you know of any other Asian themed dating offers, feel free to test them out as well.

The Campaign Details

Since I promised full details, here are the exact interest keywords I targeted for one particular ad:

Anime, Anime Club, Anime/Manga, Animemanga, Bleach, Chobits, Dragonball Z, End of Evangelion, Final Fantasy, Full Metal Alchemist, gundam seed, Gundam Seed Destiny, Gundam Wing, Hellsing, Inuyasha, Love Hina, Naruto, Naruto Shippuuden, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pokemon, Prince of Tennis, Robotech, Wolf’s Rain, Yu Yu Hakusho orrr yugioh

Feel free to add your own. I can’t remember exactly (that’s from a now-disabled ad) but I believe the target audience was around 100k. Single males, 18+, of course. Here, take the creative, too, you greedy bastard:

I ran that particular ad for several months, only in the evening hours and consistently on Thurs, Fri, and Saturday. I would throw in other days randomly as well.

If you have any experience with FB ads, you know that an ad’s effectiveness will dry up if you run it too often. At the peak of this one’s performance, it was getting a CTR of nearly 2%. The all-time CTR (after running it after it had cooled down significantly) was %0.30. I had to pay 11 cents per click to get decent volume, but I could run it at 3 cents without getting a “bid too low” warning from Facebook.

I ran this ad using a URL redirect which some of the time directed to Finding Singles with Neverblue and some of the time to Spicey or Sweet (Asian) with Affiliate.com. Here are the stats from Affiliate.com:

“Main” of course is the subid of the campaign detailed above. “you2b” is shitty YouTube traffic which obviously doesn’t do anything spectacular. “MA” as you can see has a slightly better conversion rate. “MA” stands for “martial arts”. It was an identical campaign except it was targeting males 18+ with martial arts related keywords on their profile. This target was somewhat bigger, but for whatever reason the CTR just wasn’t quite as good and I had to pay around I think something like $0.19-$0.25 per click.

Since I’m feeling generous, here is another creative that was effective with similar campaigns:

Not quite as effective as the first, but still pretty good. Hopefully those two creatives will give you an idea of what works and what you can realistically get approved.

In Conclusion

Like I said, this specific campaign isn’t going to make you rich, because of the low volume. But hopefully it will be that “ice breaker” for someone out there, or at the very least give you a little insight on a successful campaign to inspire you. I’m willing to bet some of you already have some ideas on how to take the fundamentals of this campaign and apply/scale elsewhere.

Best of luck.

EDIT:

I guess it wouldn’t be full disclosure if I didn’t give you the title/body of that ad.

I know there are a lot of anti-Twitterers out there crusading against the rapidly growing Twitter monster, but aside from the ethical debate over whether or not it is socially healthy to be hyper-connected to each other with play-by-play updates of our daily lives, there has also been much discussion on how to monetize this strange new obsession.

I do have a personal twitter account, but I try to keep it separate from business. However, I do have a few additional accounts that I use for marketing purposes.

None of my friends “IRL” are into internet marketing in any capacity whatsoever. The closest is probably a friend I’ve had since kindergarten that used to bank pretty nicely selling bootlegs on eBay back around the turn of the millennium. Just the other day a female friend of mine followed me on Twitter, so I went to check out her page and see who her followers were. Who did I see at the top? John Chow.

I suppose that is one approach. Just follow as many people as you possibly can since you know that some of them will invariably follow you back. Then just speet (spam tweet, I just made that up) all day and wait for the $ to roll in. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not the “hello friends! I want to teach you how to increase your passive income!” type. At least not when my real name and likeness is associated, in any case…

Where I have found success with Twitter is by cultivating a follower base with a sincere interest in whatever it is I’m doing. Many people have found success doing this with celebrity-based Twitter accounts. Unfortunately, some of you have gone as far as impersonating notable personalities. This will work in the short-term, but has no real longevity. On the other hand, acting as some sort of obsessed fan tweeting about the same person all day will also turn people off real quick. So what is the off-white hat solution?

Without revealing any of my awesome Twitter accounts (best one gets around 200-300 new followers per day, and I don’t do shit other than tweet maybe once a day), here are the steps I take when creating and priming a new Twitter account:

• The Name – Obviously very important. Using the exact name of a celebrity/band, etc might be a bit much. Try to incorporate something else into it that gives people the impression that you are the “official” Twitter for that personality, even if it that specific celebrity is not actually the one updating the account. You may or may not want to actually use the word “official”.
• Tweets – Obviously don’t spam crap, especially right off the bat. Just do a quick Google news search to find relevant info and make a tweet about it. Include a link. You can check the official website of your subject for updates as well.
• Be selective about who you follow – Any Twitter savvy user can tell you, your follower:following ratio determines how cool/important you are. Keep your list of people you are following to a minimum. Many Twitter-crazed youngsters will see your impressive ratio and follow you based on that principle alone.

Monetization

Okay, great, you have a ton of followers. Now how do you capitalize? Well, luckily famous people and bands are always selling something that their fans want. Whether it be an album, a DVD, concert tickets, memorabilia, whatever. All of these things can be monetized through the proper affiliate marketing channels. And boy, does Twitter make it easy.

Tiny URL

The fact that Twitter automatically appends just about every URL you post into a Tiny URL is a great blessing. Over the past few years people have become more aware of and more put off by affiliate links. This may have been the fate of Tiny URLs as well, if it weren’t for Twitter making them totally mainstream and acceptable. So you can go ahead and convert that obscenely long iTunes affiliate link through Linkshare into a Tiny URL link, tweet about Joe Blow’s new album release with your link, and the user will have no idea whatsoever that they just clicked through your affiliate link. On top of that, iTunes (or whoever) will have no idea where you are sending the traffic from (unless the referrer leaks…if you’re that paranoid just use a double redirect).

This concludes my Twitter marketing seminar. Sign up as an official consultant now for $50,000. That’s $150,000 off the usual rate. Refer your mother and your grandmother to become consultants and you’ll get your own island.

If you’re not already familiar with phpbay, I’ll give you a moment to slap yourself.

Go on. Right in the face.

Phpbay is an incredibly useful WordPress plugin (API is also available) that allows you to display relevant ebay listings on your websites to earn a commission. In order to use it, you’ll need to be signed up with the Ebay Partner Network. Some people have reported difficulty getting approved by EPN, but there are alternatives available. You can also join the Ebay affiliate program through the Pepperjam Network.

There’s a reason you’ve heard about Phpbay so much around various internet marketing portals: it’s awesome. But instead of just praising it like a lunatic in hopes that you will purchase it through one of my sneakily masked affiliate links, I will instead give you some other useful info that I myself use that will make your phpbay stores even more awesomer.

Ebay Search Results
Depending on the nature of your site, a lot of times users will land on your site and not realize that you’re simply serving them eBay results. As far as I’m concerned, this is a good thing. However, they may try to search for items that you don’t have listings for on your site. If you just have a regular old wordpress sidebar search bar, it’s not going to find what they are looking for unless you’ve included matching content on your site. Wouldn’t it be nice to display ebay results on your site that match their query?

All you have to do is go into search.php and replace some code. Starting with the line:

Delete everything up to:

(including that string) Replace with the following code:

Ta-da. That piece of code is brought to you by Wade himself, creator of PhpBay Pro.

In some cases, your particular theme may not have a search.php, but rather a searchform.php. I have not yet devised a way to make this work with this sort of rogue theme, but as soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.

Make the Entire Listing Clickable
By default, only the text of your phpbay listings are clickable. Poo on that. Why not make the whole thing clickable? Depending on whether or not you are displaying results in rows or columns, you will need to make the following adjustment to the respective file.

If you’re using row results, you’ll want to edit the file called template.ebay.results, which is located in the “templates” folder inside the phpbay plugin folder. The original file looks like this:

The new, edited file should look like this:

Now, for those of you using column results, you’ll want to be editing template.column.results, located in the same place as the other template file. The original file will look like this:

Go ahead and replace all that with the following code:

There you have it. Now your auction results are completely clickable. Mo’ clicks = mo’ money. But beware, mo’ money = mo’ problems.

Removing Icons
On some sites, I like to go the extra mile to minimize the ebayness of the results displayed. To do this, I simply remove those pesky icons that are so reminiscent of ebay. I almost always get rid of the “But it Now” icons, and I sometimes get rid of the paypal logo. To do so is really simple. You’ll need to edit the same files talked about above, except all you’ll need to do is delete the line of code that calls that particular icon.

In template.ebay.results, you’ll see a string of text that says:

Deleting that line entirely will remove the paypal logo from your listings and not adversely affect anything else. Similarly, deleting:

will effectively remove the bid/buy it now logo.

In template.column.results, you’d simply need to delete

to remove the paypal logo, and so on and so forth.

In a future post I’ll go into detail about how to construct your Phpbay sites in such a way to minimize your bounce rate and maximize your CTR. But for now, it is time to open another bottle of Martinelli’s award winning apple cider.

I know talking about Facebook Ad trouble is sort of like beating a dead horse now, but this is my damn blog and I reserve the right to bitch.

Everyone who is in the know knows that IQ offers are hot. By hot, of course, I mean they’re converting wonderfully and not quite as regulated as other profitable offers. At least, that is the impression one gets while perusing Facebook with the sheer abundance of IQ ads to the right.

Now, I know the old song and dance; resubmit, tweak, resubmit, resubmit, tweak, resubmit, until eventually you get an intern that isn’t a complete tool to approve your ad. That’s all fine and good. But after having about a dozen IQ ads rejected, I decided to do a little experiment.

Instead of linking to the Challenge IQ offer at Ads4Dough (which is the one I so dearly wanted to promote), I decided to link somewhere else. Are you ready for it? I linked to an ACTUAL FREE IQ WEB SITE. That’s right. I found a non-profit (as far as I could tell) website that offered 100% free, legitimate IQ tests.

Knowing fully well that most Facebook interns shit their pants when you use the word “free” in your ad copy, I made sure to omit it. I then submitted two separate ads both linking to the free site, both using puzzle type images with very simple title and body messages that got the point across (while still avoiding the term ‘free’).

The result? I bet you can guess.

The content advertised by this ad is restricted. Per sections 8 and 9 of Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines, this content is prohibited from being advertised on Facebook. Ads for this product, service or site will not be accepted in any form, and may result in your account being disabled.

So, now Facebook is basically threatening me for trying to spend my advertising dollars to sate the desires of their enthusiastic userbase to demonstrate their intelligence quotient so that they may pat themselves on the back and revel in their computer generated recognition. As retarded as it may be, college kids love that shit. So in essence, I was trying to spend my own money to enhance user experience, and I was not allowed to do so. What a shame.

Oh, but don’t think I’m giving up. I’ve already started tracking down young women that work for Facebook ON Facebook, then cross checking their names on MySpace and adding them as friends (using a different social network I think will rule out any chance of suspicion). Budding online romances will soon ensue, followed shortly by a flurry of ads for online casinos and fuck buddies on Facebook. And you’re all gonna be like WTF!?

Psh, Facebook. More like poopbook.

Seriously. Recently in #cakes chat, some BHW folks were defending E-Whoring, saying it is a no different method of making money than creating “so and so’s” weight loss blog.

First of all, I don’t promote weight loss crap, and I never have. I don’t have a problem with it, it’s just not something I ever got into. Luckily, however, I have a couple referrals that have been actively slanging them berries. But I digress…

The very first money making forum I ever encountered was Wickedfire. I was referred by my girlfriend’s brother who is a designer/coder. It was sort of a sink or swim experience, and one I’m grateful for. However, the first thread I really got into was in the newbie section, and it was basically a step-by-step tutorial on e-whoring.

I didn’t know anyone in the community, so I didn’t know who to listen to or who to trust. But I went ahead and dove right in, signed up for Dating Gold under some schmuck’s affiliate link (okay, maybe I was the schmuck) and started e-whoring on MySpace.

If you don’t already know what e-whoring is, good. But if you insist on asking, it’s basically the practice of impersonating women online in an effort to get guys to sign up to your dating offers.

I was never able to break more than around $60/day. That’s about the same as what I supposed I would make working some mundane hourly job. However, it really took its toll on me, reading all of the terribly pathetic messages from some of the loneliest and most depraved people around. Eventually I learned ways to go about it that didn’t require as much manual interaction, but the vibe was still there. The whole concept just never sat well with me. And all that moral bullshit aside, it doesn’t generate enough money to even be worth it.

Fortunately, I never gave up, and I read the shit out of the golden stickies on Wickedfire. If you’re still banging your head against the wall trying to figure out ways to make money online, it’s because you haven’t taken the time to educate yourself there. I still promote dating off and on, but not like that. There are so many better ways for you to utilize your time and to apply yourself online. Don’t get caught up in that e-whoring bullshit. Even if you find that you are fantastic at it, you’re just going to get dropped from your network when they find out. It’s just not worth it. Not to mention it’s totally gay.

Christmas is finally here. Finally we can get it over with and get back to our normal lives and our normal department store music.

Have you heard the latest gossip on Wickedfire? According to Ruck, Co-Commander in Chief of Convert2Media, his fantastic affiliate network will be changing its payment terms for the new year.

What will the new terms be? Beats the eggnog out of me. He didn’t reveal a whole lot of details.

“Anybody that has been with Convert2Media is grandfathered until Jan 1st”, Mr. Ruckman quipped, “and then I am changing over to a different payment structure based on volumes.”

So, in other words, the current payment terms are probably better. That means you have just a few days to sign your ass up with Convert2Media, and hope they approve your application before the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Now, I must crack open my 3rd bottle of apple cider (it’s not even noon yet, so don’t worry, I’ll be switching to Stella Artois at some point).