I want to thank you all for your amazing feedback and bug finding. We are actively fixing every single bug we find as they come in. We are also in the process of developing a HUGE feature list that we have yet to make public. These are all the most requested features suggested by our users. I think that they will take our interface to an entirely new level.

Note to pending users: We are letting people in as we feel would be most beneficial to the userbase. I’ve been trying to respond to each individual email, however this weekend I received 172 emails requesting account approval, so I figured I’d throw up a quick note on the blog just in case I couldn’t get back to you all.  I will be enabling a few hundred more accounts early this week.

To create an account and take part in the Bevo Media Beta check out http://beta.bevomedia.com. We are looking to have the interface in an open beta stage within the very immediate future!

Click here to find out more information regarding Bevo Media.

Thanks to good old Facebook, I couldn’t help but realize that the Syracuse graduation was this past week (my undergrad). This caused me to reflect a bit, based on my time from when I graduated school to where I am now. I will say that my life now is probably the polar opposite from college… for better or for worse. As a disclaimer, this post is based off my own experiences in both the business and social worlds, which may have been very different than other people’s experiences…based on how I see the world.

Point #1: DON’T FALL INTO THE AMERICAN TRAP! American society, as we know it, instills this SICK trap into the education system making 99% of the world destined for mediocrity. When you were growing up, everyone always said to you,  ”You can do whatever you want with your life! The sky is the limit etc. etc.” Then, suddenly, you get to college and all you think about, and general advice you receive, revolve around, “being good enough to get an entry level job.” Or worse, “Just find SOMETHING, some job….anything!” Whatever happened to those hopes and dreams?

So often in college, students stress about grades so they can “get a good job with a high paying salary”. Unfortunately, anyway you look at it, 99.999% of undergrads are going to have a horrible paying, entry level job coming out of college. The mindset: “I just need a few years and I’ll have enough money to do my own thing, to pursue my DREAM.” Well, guess what? In a few years, you will be getting a raise, and your mindset will then shift to, “I can’t quit now, I’ve worked my ass off to get this promotion, I’ll keep going for just another 2 year or so.” By this time, you’re already 27-28 years of age, likely have a whole life setup, with friends, family, girlfriend/boyfriend, and dare I say a child?… Yes, actual responsibility. The problem with these responsibilities is that they require monetary support. At this point, it makes NO sense to quit your job, as you are risking ruining people’s lives. You keep moving up the “corporate chain” and next thing you know, you’re 50 years old, your life is 70% over, and you’ve been bossed around pretty much your entire life. Another DISCLAIMER: Your goal might very well be to “climb the corporate ladder and be a ‘big boss” someday. This post still applies to you because to actually stand out in your profession, you will have to make an aggressive move sooner or later. You’ll have to do something that veers off the “path of mediocrity.”

Anyway, this, my friends, is the American Trap. I worked very hard (maybe “I worked very smart” is a more appropriate phrase) to ensure that I do not fall into this trap. Once you fall into it, it requires an extremely risky move to get out of. So do yourself a favor, recognize it, and avoid as much as humanly possible. This brings me to my next point, which is KEY to avoiding ‘it.”

Point #2: WORK ON BUILDING YOUR VALUE DURING YOUR FREE TIME: This where I feel I had my biggest realization. All throughout high school and college, I used my free time perfecting an internet marketing hobby. This hobby lead to me being pretty damn good at search marketing, which lead into money, and ultimately led into bootstrapping Bevo Media, which is now my life. Keyword: [MY LIFE]. Not answering to anybody but myself. In the meantime, everyone in college who used their free time to play video games, play the guitar, and do whatever else college kids with too much time on their hands do, are now pissed off at the world because they have to start at the bottom of totem pole. If those students would have just used that free time to develop a skill extremely well, they could have used that skill as leverage and experience going into the work force. This leads into point #3.

Point #3: YOUR VALUE IS DEFINED BY YOUR EXPERIENCE. The reason why first year graduates get paid such a low salary is because, as bad as it sounds, that’s basically what you are worth in the profession. 90% of what you need to know, you learn on the actual job. College is beneficial for the most basic aspects of your job, however, the true value of college is throwing a kid out there on their own and seeing if they can *make it through alive* with all sorts of obstacles thrown their way. Anyone who’s been through college knows that the vast majority of students study the day before the exam, take the test from mere memorization, then forget everything the next day. The only way you truly understand the concepts of your profession is to experience it firsthand.  Obviously, someone who has been doing the same job for 9 years is more valuable to a company than some new college graduate who has only proven that they have good interview skills. This is why developing a useful skill during your free time can be so powerful (Point #2).

Point #4: YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO ANYTHING. As horrible as it may sound, aside from your family and really close friends, nobody really cares about you or your feelings until you’ve accomplished something in life. There are 7 BILLION people in this world. Yes, BILLION, and you are just a single one of them. Realize this, and see it as a challenge.  Make it a point to be better than everyone else. Don’t accept mediocrity.  So many kids these days think that they are magically going to become rich but don’t even take the time to map out how these “dreams” of theirs can become a reality. NEWSFLASH: You need a game plan and unbelievable determination to achieve your goals. It’s easy to just “keep going” in life, but if you really want to make something of yourself, explode forward, get off your ass, stop complaining and actually DO SOMETHING to make people care.

Point #5: REFLECTION IS KEY: The only experience in life that is truly harmful is one that you haven’t learned something from. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good or bad experience; make it a point to reflect on how you felt during the experience and what you learned from it. You will begin to correlate those experiences with a similar situation in the future. You will find that this will give you a much better idea of how to handle yourself. This is called maturity, and in the long run, you will find yourself much better off because of it.

I am adamant in my belief that your life is a culmination of a few vital, life defining moments that ultimately leads to your destiny (destiny, by the way, is self-constructed.) Everything leads to your goals and your dreams. Each day is just a step forward. Graduation is one of those life defining moments. Do NOT just go with the flow. Take the time and develop your goals. After you have these goals, develop your plan. Finally, revolve your WHOLE LIFE around this plan, and strive for that euphoric moment of achievement.

The biggest problem newbies experience, is that after spending hours developing a solid landing page, getting a keyword list, finding the best offers, and coming up with a solid ad variation – they run their campaign, blow through their money without a single lead to show for it. They then quit on their campaign as they haven’t even sniffed a positive result from hours of effort. This happens to almost everyone – so don’t worry! The following is a list of key points that all newbies should strive to attain, and to know when their campaign really wasn’t a waste of time:

1.) Make sure you have a good niche! How can you expect to get hundreds of leads a day when you don’t even know if there is that many people looking to buy your product? Sure you can be the first to exploit a niche, but leave that to the big guys. If you are just starting out, you don’t need to make things any harder than they have to be.

2.) Find the leads! Regardless if you spent $100 or $1000 on your campaign, if you haven’t generated any leads – then all you know is that atleast ONE variable within your keywords, landing page, offers, ad variations, bid price, and ad position combination does NOT work. You need to distinguish what variables need adjustments and which doesn’t, and the only way to do this is to compare results between what is working. The problem is that if you don’t have any leads to use with your data – it’ll be very hard to make adjustments because in essence – you have no idea what is working. The first step in the right direction is to FIND as many leads as you can, and try to optimize your efforts to more leads in that realm. This is why it’s important to make sure you are promoting a hot niche. You KNOW the leads are out there… Go find them!

3.) Don’t give up – I can’t stress this enough. The only real money you lose is when you don’t learn from your mistakes. Keep grinding until you’ve tried every combination of keywords, ad variations, landing page, offers, position and bid price as you can.

The big thing ALL newbies should know, is that if you just keep at it, you will hit your campaign! Even if it takes 20 swings until you hit, that hit will be ever so sweet. Once you hit your first campaign, everything starts to make alot more sense in your mind, and your experience starts to kick in. Affiliate marketing is like developing an extra muscle in your brain. It’s tough at first, but once you get the hang of it – it becomes much easier to hit more campaigns. Enjoy the ride!

When mentoring publishers, I am often asked what is the biggest difference between when I started, and where I am at now. The answer, although seems quite simple, is actually what I believe is the key to success in this industry. I’ve been doing online marketing for quite some time (started in 2001) in all the different aspects of internet marketing and became really serious about search marketing specifically about 4 years ago. Below are some points based on my personal reflection between me now and then:

1.) Start campaigns with $1000 to spend, not $100! When I was starting off, I did the common mistake of depositing $100 into my Adwords account, and seeing where that got me. After I blew through the money in an hour, I would freak out and call my campaign a failure. This is HARDLY the case. There is a TON of trial and error in campaigns, especially when starting off. One ad group may get creamed and lose $80, while your other ad group may get a ton of leads for $20. The important thing to realize is that your statistics are worthless unless you have enough data to prove they do or do not work. 20 clicks and no conversions on an offer that pays $50 a lead does NOT mean it’s a failure. What happens if 2 clicks in a row convert? All the sudden your “failed” campaign is a huge success. It is important to make sure your keywords have atleast 70-100 clicks each before you make any decisions. In most cases, this will require more than $100 for your campaign to figure out. I’d say closer to $1000. Once I started depositing more money into my Adwords accounts, I started finding that MOST of my campaigns were actually having some sort of avenue to profitability. I found my converting keywords/ad variation combinations and scaled my traffic. This was only possible because I had put the proper amount of money into trial and error.

2.) If you’re not a designer, don’t create your own landing pages! There’s nothing wrong with admitting that a professional landing page designer is better at designing landing pages than you. Realize this, and accept it. A solid landing page increases your chances at success substantially. If you are truly serious about trying to succeed at online marketing, do it the right way. Spend the $100 and get your page done by someone who knows what they are doing. It could be the difference between your campaign hitting, or missing.

3.) Develop a healthy disregard for money. Don’t stress over a loss. Look at the situation similar to a college education. You are paying to learn. Be sure to reflect on every swing at a campaign, and develop a conclusion from your attempt. Document what you learn. The only way you really lose money, is if you don’t learn something new.

4.) Scale like CRAZY!!! If you find a particular keyword or niche that is working, SCALE! Do not hold anything back. Go after every single engine, every single language possible. Examine new traffic sources. You need to milk every cent of profit from you findings. You will find yourself in regret for not doing this when your niche dies down. Don’t leave a cent left on the table!

5.) Track your results thoroughly! This is the main reason why I made Bevo Media. I always found it a pain to track my results thoroughly, however it is of the utmost importance. I mean much more than tracking your keywords too. You should track your landing page and ad variations thoroughly. I built Bevo Media based on my needs as an affiliate marketer, and once I started tracking my results thoroughly with it, I found it much easier to draw conclusions about the aspects of my campaign that were successful, and optimized from there.

6.) DO NOT GIVE UP! A full time affiliate marketer, may as well be considered a full time ‘trial and error’ expert. 90% of the game is trial and error. Just keep trying different combination of keywords, landing pages, offers and ad variations. You are bound to hit eventually. Use your resources, such as your affiliate managers to let you know what niche is hot at the time. If you have a niche that is proven to be converting extremely well at the moment, then you know it’s working for somebody. It’s just the matter of figuring out the right combination within you campaign!

These are all points that have cost me both time and money to realize, and feel all newbies can get a jump start to success from my sharing. Do yourself a favor and take these points seriously. Don’t cut corners. Affiliate marketing is a dream job, but it’s still a job. Strive to be the best, but you need to earn it first. Lazy people do NOT succeed in life, no matter what the situation is. So work hard and celebrate after!

-RB

Enjoy!

As many of you know, there are many unexplained aspects within Google Adwords. Google, makes it a point, to leave specific aspects of the system mysterious, leaving their advertisers to figure things out on their own. This is especially the case for affiliates. I have been using Google Adwords since 2001, and throughout my years, I have seen the Adwords program evolve drastically. Specifically, within the past 3 years, since the emergence of the almighty Quality Score, there are some specific aspects of Adwords that are still unexplainable. I have formed strong assumptions based on “What I think”, or “How exactly it works”. These assumptions were based off of my experience and countless hours of trial and error to form my conclusions. Still, there was always that random slap, quality score decrease, or ad variation denial that never made sense to me…. Until now….

I recently had a extremely indepth conversation with an Adwords representative about the Adwords program, and exactly how it works. This was a face to face conversation, during non work hours. I can confirm that many of my assumptions were dead on the money, while others were surprisingly off. The conversation lasted for well over an hour, and I can truly say, that I feel I learned more from that single conversation, then anyone in the industry could from years of trial and error. Below is some information provided to me directly from the rep. These are answers that many affiliates have been seeking for years, and can make all the difference for those of you who are not already banned or given up on Adwords.

1.) Google slaps are entirely automatic. I always assumed that there was automatic slaps and manual slaps. A manual slap is EXTREMELY rare. There are tens of thousands of publishers using Adwords daily, and hundreds of thousands ad variations. This makes it extremely hard for manual monitoring of campaigns, which is why it’s an automated process.

2.) So what are the main reasons a site gets slapped if it’s done automatically? A slap, is a complex equation that takes a variety of campaign and account variables into consideration. Some of the main variables are:
a.) Duplicate content – This is the reason most affiliates get slapped. This is because there are so many other affiliates copying landing pages from each other. Duplicate content is not just limited to sites using Adwords, rather, it includes ALL websites indexed in Google search. Even when someone copies your own landing page, both parties are penalized. Content exceeding over a certain percentage of duplicate material is almost always an instant slap.
b.) Account History – This includes account age, and account spend. $50,000+ spend has extra weight.
c.) Rebill offers – Slaps weight more heavily on specific niches notorious for consumer complaints. Specifically weight loss and teeth whitening. Google will monitor for keywords and weigh against your campaign for rebill type words, such as “Free Trial” and “Acai berry”
d.) Severity of previous slaps – Google does not only take into account how many times your account has been slapped before, but also the severity of each slap. For instance, a slap from duplicate content does not weigh as heavily as a slap from a rebill teeth whitening campaign that has been reposted and slapped 5 times already.
e.) Content is king! The more content you have, the more it waters down the algorithm. Meaning, if they are looking for specific faulty words, and then placing a value to that word based on the comparison of total words on the site, the more words the better! This is why I always recommend to the people I mentor to get 20-30 unique articles minimum for your landing pages.

3.) How often does Google do these automatic checks? Every single time Google updates their algorithm, it automatically recrawls ALL of the sites on the Adwords system, whether they are paused or active. So this means that between the time of the last algorithm crawl, if there was another affiliate who copied your landing page, you will get slapped. Additionally, their updated variable could spin your site’s slap score in an entirely different direction, for better or worse.

4.) So how often does Google update their algorithm? Basically, it is unpredictable. It could be 2 months, it could be 2 days. It’s sporadic based on when the guys in charge change the algorithm. I will say from experience, it seems to be around every 2 weeks.

5.) Having the keyword in your domain name is huge! This is especially the case for assigning a high quality score. It’s good practice to have your targeted niche keyword once in the ad variation title, once in the ad variation body, and once in the ad variation display URL.

6.) Always keep your ad groups under 25 keywords. Over 25 keywords in an ad group can KILL your quality score. The quality score is as much about how you group your keywords as it is with the content of your page.

7.) And Finally…. what’s the deal on all the random bans? The mass amounts of Google Bans that occurred during November and December were automated. These bans looked at severity of prior slaps, duplicate content frequency, and if your promoted a questionable offer. Being said, the automated banning method completely screwed some undeserving advertisers over. Google will not give out much info as to why a specific account has been banned, and if you are one of the unfortunate ones, there is nothing you can really do. Moral of the story – don’t promote rebills on Google!

I have much more info that I plan to write in the Bevo Classroom, however that’s all I’ll blog about for now. I hope this cleared up some confusion from the affiliate side of things. If you guys need any further explaining about what was wrote, let me know and I’ll try to explain the best I can!

-RB

So why did I chose La Jolla? La Jolla is one of the most beautiful, wealthiest areas in the world, on the Beach, perfect weather year round, in sunny Southern California. I am a firm believer that if you truly want to achieve your goals in life, everything you do needs to revolve around them. My goal is to build a top quality, head over heals, internet marketing powerhouse. In everything I do in my life, I strive to be the best, and do so by challenging the best, building the best interface, having the best design, associating myself with the best personnel, and hiring the best team humanly possible. I am a positive thinker to the max, who is satisfied with nothing else but the highest of quality, and I feel that La Jolla represents my mindset perfectly. The best part of it all is, that my teams vision is just as strong, each and every person…

I will leave you with the most beautiful sunset I can possibly find, from this new place I can now call home, La Jolla, CA:

As many of you know, Bevo Media has taken me 2 entire years to develop, without a cent of outside funding to finance the project (also referred to as “bootstrapped”). As you could imagine, with 4 full time, inhouse American programmers, the cost of this is substantial. A ton of people have asked me why I have done such a thing. Well I am here today to fully explain my logic and reasoning behind this, and although some people think it is crazy that a person would take on this type of investment at my age, I think bootstrapping can be the key factor of achieving my ultimate vision of Bevo Media. My goal to this project was to create an extremely efficient and time saving tool that would be widely used by the industry, for free, and become established in the market.

To date, Bevo Media has cost me a substantial amount of money to build. The entire project has been funded entirely from my affiliate marketing earnings. I had several opportunities to accept venture capitalist funding even before development has started, but after much advice from several successful entrepreneurs, I would never have been able to provide a high quality product for free with someone else in charge. I know the industry inside and out, I am fully aware of the concerns and desires of affiliate marketers, as well as the potential competitors to our idea. I do not want someone forcing me to do something that inhibits the chances of the Bevo interface from being the most popular tool in the industry.

However, my main reason for bootstrapping is not for control of the product. Simply put – you cannot hit it big if you take major funding. Mark Cuban says it perfectly, when he said the best thing that happened to him was the sale of his first company that allowed him to self-fund Broadcast.com, which he then sold for $5.2billion. I have adapted a similar mindset for this project. After Affiliate Summit West, I have been getting phone calls from investors almost every day, and although these offers do sound enticing at times, I know that these 18 hour days can make all the difference in the long run.

With this project, I am going for the absolute homerun. This project is just the first of several major projects that are going to stem from the initial success of Bevo Media. Bevo Media, is in a sense, a mere way of getting into the market. I could care less about the actual revenue earned from Bevo. I am pleased to say that we have a much, much, much bigger project in the making that will benefit from the success of Bevo Media. Although the size of the market may only allow Bevo Media’s max potential to cap out at a few million valuation, these other projects apply to a much broader range of publishers, and all of the Bevo projects together can be that 8,9, or even 10 figure company that I envision. If I achieve my goal of bootstrapping this entire project, then the reward would be substantial.

With all being said, I have nothing holding me back. I am going to be extremely aggressive to achieve my goals. With 6 figures allocated to marketing , and really no reason to charge users for the service, I am determined to make the most beneficial advertising platform in the industry.