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Pepperjam Network has upped the ante recently, and has taken a much more aggressive stance towards recruiting new affiliate marketers.  Right now, they are offering a $10 sign-on bonus to all new members.  A pretty nice welcome gift if I do say so myself.

But behind the scenes, there is even more going on.  As of today, they have raised their referral bonus from $5 to $7 for the month of July.  So, as things stand now, affiliates promoting the Pepperjam Network are pretty much making $7 to give away $10; quite nice!  (Of course, new affiliates have to reach a minimum payout before getting hold of that bonus cash.)

To add even more icing to the cake, they have started a very lucrative Blogger Incentive Program.  For any Pepperjam member who has a blog, simply writing a post that promotes the Pepperjam network or any tool they offer, will earn a cool $10.

This is a very easy assignment, and their blog has plenty of ideas to write posts about.  The only condition is that you must email them to approve your topic.  I was surprised at how fast I was approved for this post, literally minutes after I sent off my email.

The best part is that you can take advantage of this offer 5 times a month!  So, if you are a fan of Pepperjam, or of paid posting in general, that’s an easy $50 a month right there.

I’m not ready to officially review the network, as I haven’t run any major campaigns through them yet, but so far I do like this network.  The user interface is really unique and easy to navigate.  I also contacted them a few times, and they were always very quick to respond.

So, for all the reasons above, I definitely recommend you sign up today and take advantage of Pepperjam’s new incentives and help spread the word about this fast growing affiliate network!

Sign Up for Pepperjam Network and Get a $10 Sign On Bonus

Today I wanted to let you guys know about a place where I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately reading about PPC and affiliate marketing, the ClickConsultants Affiliate Forum.  It’s run by Derek Salyers, the author of one of my favorite blogs, and a very skilled affiliate marketer and teacher.

This is a paid forum, with a monthly price of $29.99, and while this may seem steep for access to a forum, you’ll soon see it’s well worth the price of admission.  First off, every month, Derek gets 6 professionally made landing pages created for members to use for their campaigns.  This forum has been around for quite some time though, so you actually have access to months and months worth of back landing pages.  I’ve got over 60 landing pages downloaded now ready for use

Another nice bonus is that Derek has secured a KeyCompete membership that all paid forum members can use.  The account has some standard limits on use, but the members rarely max them out, and the limits reset daily.

Considering the value of these two things alone, I am already super satisfied with what the subscription fee has gotten me; and I haven’t even talked about the forum itself

There is some really great information on the boards.  While most of the info may be somewhat outdated (mid-2007 mostly), the core concepts talked about here still apply.  I’ve had a few light bulb moments to say the least, especially learning how Yahoo Search Marketing can be a great place to start in the PPC game, and how to do it right.

The bad news is that the forum is not very populated, nor super active.  Considering it’s a paid resource, I guess that’s to be expected, but the good news is that the small core of active members are very cool and quick to reply.  While small, it is a very helpful group of affiliate marketers.

Right now, there is a niche workshop going on, where members will all work on campaigns in the same niche, so results can be pooled together and niche specific strategies can be discussed.  It’s a really cool concept, and a new affiliate marketer can follow along with some experienced guys and ask questions.

If you are just getting started with affiliate marketing, or even an experienced marketer, I do recommend checking out the ClickConsultants Affiliate Forum.  No matter what, that first month’s value will more than make up for the entrance fee, and then you can decide whether or not the forum itself is something you need.

The guys over at ZipCodeGuy.com are offering a massive free zip code database that they have been developing since 2003.

All you have to do is make a blog post about it, and it’s yours.

So, what do you need a zip code database for?

Targeting keywords on a “local” basis, such as California Dating, or Oklahoma Real Estate, can be a gold mine. Having a database like this would enable you to create huge long tail keyword lists to experiment with.

Lists similar to these can be quite expensive, so I definitely recommend you take advantage of this offer; you never know when you’ll need it! Check out this video for more information.

They also sell zip code maps and other US geographic information, so check out ZipCodeGuy.com

In the past few days, there have been a massive number of new contests sponsored by MarketLeverage, a very cool new affiliate network that has been generating a lot of buzz among the blogging community as of late. I actually just recently won a contest at Affiliate Confession and got a $50 prepaid MarketLeverage Rewards card and an XL Golf shirt, which I may give away on my blog soon since it’s outrageously too big for me (Thanks again Alan!)

These contests are not only easy to participate in, but easy to win as well! I’ve mentioned before how I’ve won loads of prizes from blog contests in the past, so I highly encourage you to check these contests out and participate!

…click here to read more

When I read about split testing, most of the time I see that the best way to conclusively determine whether a page performs better than another is to measure conversions. The only problem though is that to get an accurate number, you need at least 100 conversions on a page. I don’t know about you, but since I’m selling products, it would take me forever to get a decent sampling size.

Even if you were marketing CPA offers, that’s still a LOT of traffic you would need to drive to get 100 conversions on a page, and if you are trying to start a new campaign, you could be losing a lot of money waiting for those “definitive” results.

I have found out a few different metrics you can use to speed up testing, and give you early projections on a landing page’s potential. The reason I like this is that while these methods aren’t perfect, they will still help make better landing pages until you have a successful campaign running where you can afford to wait for 100 conversions.

Click-Throughs

If you are an affiliate marketer, then this can actually be a very good way to split test regardless. Your merchant’s sales pages are out of your control, so it may actually be a good idea NOT to incorporate them into your own testing.

Let me give you an example, say you send 100 people to 2 variations of a landing page, each promoting the same product. Landing page A has a 10% CTR, and landing page B has a 5% CTR. It’s obvious that landing page A is better, so you start a new split test.

Once you have created a great landing page, for example’s sake, one that converts at 25% CTR, THEN you can start measuring conversions as a metric, and see what merchant has the best converting product.

Now, say you drive 100 visitors a day to your landing page. If you hadn’t started by split testing with CTR, and were using the 5% CTR landing page, it would take you 5 times longer to get to 100 conversions than with the 25% CTR landing page.

Time On Page

This is an interesting concept; by measuring the time a visitor spends on a page, you can roughly gauge their level of interest. This method wouldn’t work as well for squeeze pages or CPA offers, but if you have a longer page, even a sales page, then this could really help.

The only problem is that you need to look at this on an individual visitor basis, something I haven’t found a free solution yet, since averages can have skewed results (one person visiting for an hour ruins everything).

I originally got this idea from a product called Conversion Prophet (which I haven’t tried yet). They use a three level system that ranks a visitor’s interest level. They call the levels attraction, interest, and desire.

It’s quite funny, because this is taken from a well known acronym called AIDA, or Attention Interest Desire Action, which relates to the selling process. As you can see, Action (or, a conversion), is last on the process, so these preliminary indicators could foresee a landing page’s potential.

Heatmaps

If you have a highly graphical landing page, maybe this will help. Are people clicking where they should? Are they clicking non-linked images? Could you move your main button to a better area?

I haven’t experimented much with mainly graphics landing pages, which are surely more relevant in CPA marketing, but I do know that Crazy Egg is a great tool for heat maps, and you can try it free.

So these are just a few ideas to get creative about split testing, just remember that even though these methods are supposed to speed up testing, you still have to be patient to get the most accurate results.

Leave a comment with your favorite ways of testing and optimizing your landing pages!