Yet again, another incredible event brought to us by EpicDirect (AzoogleAds)! For those of you who don’t know, EpicDirect brought their 40 biggest publisher to Playboy Mansion, and I was fortunate enough to be invited for the second year in a row!! An “Epic” night it was, and I have the pictures to prove it! For those of you who havent had a chance to make it to the Playboy Mansion, I highly suggest you find a way over there because that place is a man’s dream! HUGEEEE Thanks to everyone from Epic who showed me a great weekend, especially the EpicDirect CMO Michael Sprouse who put this all together. He hit the nail on the head with this party, and I highly doubt anyone is going to be able to pull an event like this again in the industry. It’ll be interesting to see what they pull out for next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even more crazy!
And now… I bring you the pics! Some of the more appropriate ones of course 
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I’m going back to the Playboy Mansion! For the second year in the row, EpicDirect (aka AzoogleAds), has invited Bevo Media to the Playboy Mansion this weekend! In case you missed last years post, the party last year was absolutely INSANE! This year I am hearing, there are going to be a bunch of new surprises in store for the Azoogle publishers. Events like this, is proof of why EpicDirect/AzoogleAds is the best in the business! Get prepared for some epic pictures tomorrow night! And if you don’t already, follow me on Twitter, and I’ll be sure to document my night, one picture at a time
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The Difference between now and then…
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
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Burned Out?
Remember how it was like back when you thought that making $100 or $200 per day online was next to impossible? Remember that “wow, making that much or more would motivate me to work and work… and work!” way of thinking which seemed logical at that point?
Well, as most of you will probably confirm, things definitely DON’T stand that way. We humans are an interesting bunch: you’d think that a person who has managed to reach a certain financial goal (let’s say making $200 per day online) would be willing to work like a maniac in order to continue earning $100 per day, $200 per day or whatever but that’s not how things stand. In fact:
Things Will End Up Seeming Boring… FAST!
Ok, you’ll feel all motivated and everything. Great, you’ll continue working like a maniac and making $200 per day for a week. Two weeks, maybe three. But after a certain point, things will definitely start seeming boring and making those 200 bucks per day will end up seeming like a chore. Here’s why:
****you start taking things for granted
****that initial excitement is no longer there
****the financial “shock factor” is behind you, $200 per day doesn’t seem all that impressive anymore
Reaching one goal or another is NOT enough, thinking that you’ll feel happy and just as motivated after reaching a goal and without setting higher ones is just plain wrong. If you don’t see the big picture, it’s just a matter of time until you’ll end up feeling burned out and the most important question arises:
What to Do?
First of all, you need to understand that you have to keep things fun and exciting. Always set higher short-term goals and always be guided by your long-term ones. It’s really not rocket science.
Being an affiliate marketer is tricky because on the one hand, it’s great that you have all of the freedom in the world but on the other hand, things will quickly get out of hand if you don’t organize your time accordingly. If being an affiliate marketer starts seeming like a job, you’re doing something wrong. Not a lot of people have the opportunities we take for granted, most of the people who are trapped by a 9 to 5 lifestyle can’t even understand how someone can make a lot of money yet still have as much freedom as we do.
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Are Sales Letters Effective?
If you’re an experienced Internet marketer and someone tries to sell you a certain product through a newsletter, you will probably not take that person/product seriously. But the average Internet user is NOT a marketer and that’s definitely something worth keeping in mind.
Most of the people who are selling ebooks, for example, are huge fans of long sales copy. Are all of them idiots? Do they like losing money over and over again? Think about it: the fact that sales letters have been used for a very long time says a lot and it should be obvious that they at least represent:
An Alternative Worth Keeping in Mind
There are lots of examples of extremely successful products which have been promoted exclusively via long sales copy. The world’s most popular copywriters charge tens of thousands of dollars for a lander and yes, there are always people who are willing to pay that much.
As experienced marketers, we might think that those sales letters we come across a lot are pathetic (most of them are) but maybe others don’t consider them pathetic at all. Maybe a lot of people are not willing to buy a certain product unless the landing page contains lots of details about it (something along the lines of “What? You want to convince me to buy your product but are only willing to write a few paragraphs about it?”) and that brings us to the most important questions we, as marketers, need to ask ourselves:
Should I Promote My Product Through a Sales Letter?
It really depends on your niche, on what makes your potential customers tick and at the end of the day, split testing is the only way to know for sure. After you come up with a series of concepts for your landing pages, throw some traffic at them and see what sticks. A lot of times, the results are surprising to say the least.
Just remember to always focus on quality, not quantity. If you have 30 crappy landing pages, all of the split testing in the world won’t help. Always choose copywriters and designers who know what they’re doing (you can definitely tell based on their portfolio or “street cred”) because otherwise, you’ll end up wasting valuable time. After all, is trying to save a buck really worth it if you’d be wasting time which is worth tens or hundreds of times more than what you’d end up saving?
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