I have my reasons to believe that it’s both. The millions of annual spendings of individual affiliate marketers are not stable, and are declining anyway (as will be explained in a minute). Compare that with fixed advertising budgets from big brands whose advertising aims mostly at branding and not at  making direct sales.


Due to the shrinking of profit margin expected from direct sales generated through Adwords more and more affiliate marketers are dropping the ball, and others are shifting their advertising budgets to other more reliable and profitable sources. And this very same shrinking is caused by Google itself. Here is how:

To get lower cost per click with Adwords you need a higher quality score, which in turn depends on several factors including the click through rate on your ad. Recently, the average Google searcher started to pay little to no attention to the sponsored links. This only means lower click through rates and consequently higher cost per click due to the low quality score caused and given by Google!

That only means one thing; the battle for the next several months will be in the SEO zone, where every one wants to get as many organic clicks as possible because this is where the average Google users shifted their attention to.

The first half of 2010 witnessed the release of tens of high ticket, as well as low ticket, paid traffic guides and courses. The target of those courses was the ex-Google Adwords users who lost their accounts in the late 2009 slap. Makes sense?

Now as it became obvious that Google is losing the PPC battle due to the natural development of user behavior (which is pretty predictable and I don’t know how in the world a giant like Google, with 50+ PhDs and a huge army of grad students, is not prepared for it) I expect tens of SEO courses and services, both in the high and low ticket zones, to dominate the marketing arena at least until the end of 2010.

The question is: Since PPC traffic is declining and SEO is unreliable (changes with Google’s moody algorithms), what is the reliable alternative?

PPV (pay per view traffic generated by adware) is also declining, not only in available inventory, but also in quality and profitability. So, this is not the answer.

Face Book PPC was really hot early this year, but not anymore. The attention is shifting back away from that ad zone and the competition is eating the profits of average affiliate marketers. They still can make it do better at Face Book by changing the ads display positions so that the user doesn’t get trained on ignoring a certain area on the screen.

Twitter doesn’t have an advertising platform yet. I have no idea when it will come to live, but unless they act now they’re missing a huge opportunity to fill a black-whole-sized gap in the advertising space.

Good ol’ banners died for a while, but advertising agencies figure out a way to partially revive it. The regular user is used to two kinds of banners more than the others: the 468×60 (like the on at the top right hand corner of this website) and the vertical 120×600 and 160×600.

On the other hand, squares 250×250 and rectangles 300×250 are more perceived as a picture than as adverts, especially when they are embedded within the text. This kind of banners still gets some attention and I expect it to keep getting that much attention as long as people are interested in pictures that could save them the time to read the whole thing.

Finally, my view of the way to revive PPC advertising again is only by embedding sponsored ads within the organic search results, or changing the search results page layout so that the ads are not shown where they are used to be ignored. This could give PPC another push for a while, maybe to the end of 2010 if implemented immediately.

For this reason you might have heard a lot of business coaches, or from your instructors in the business school, that you need to diversify your business and never to “put all your eggs in the same basket”.

Sounds wise, no doubt. But it also means a lot of distraction if you are going to do business in 3 or more different markets. In order to succeed in any business you need to focus.

How would you focus and diversify your business at the same time?


This is a controversial dilemma, but I’ll try to put my own experience in this article. If I were to go back in time this is how I would do it:

First I’ll study the market and pick up 3-5 business models in totally different markets. Then I’d put a business plan for myself so that I get to start each business at a certain time in the near future. Based on information interviews with other business owners in each one of these models I would have put a time table for starting each of project once the previous one has gained momentum as planned.

My goal would be to get each project to be able to support my business as a stand alone project (as if the others don’t exist). Then I would pick the one I have more passion for and take to the next level.

This way I would have achieved the diversification to reduce my risk focusing on each project at a time, and specialized when appropriate in the one field that I would like to end my career in.

I truly feel sorry for those trapped in the airports waiting for their governments to make other arrangements to get them back home, and for developing countries that are loosing millions of their originally tiny income from exports to Europe.

But as a marketer this is what I see:


Developing countries like Kenya exports flowers and fresh vegetables to Europe. For Kenya in particular, these exports account for more than 20% of the Kenyan GDP. Due to the current situation the Kenyan loss is estimated as $3 millions/day.

That’s a product that has already been produced, cannot be delivered to the buyers, and at the same time can not be stored or it’ll lose value.

What would you do as a marketer?

Exactly, find another market.

And that’s not a big deal of effort. If you can’t go North .. go South.

These fresh products were being delivered to Europe by air anyway. So, if you are in the import/export business and can see the opportunity you can make a few phone calls to prepare the market in some of the southern countries like Australia, or even other African and Arab countries and arrange for exporting these same products to them. In most Arabic countries there is no agriculture, or at least not enough to feed themselves (that’s why they import their food from Europe and the Americas). It will even be cheaper for them.

And don’t worry about the quality. These products were prepared to be imported by European countries. They had to pass the European standards check, which makes them good for all other nations.

This will solve a big problem for most of the affected parties, except for Europeans, but they have a bigger problem to worry about.

On an unexpected move from Yahoo! they announced discontinuing their publisher program by April 30th, and is advising their current clients to replace their ads with Chitika.

Yahoo! recommending Chitika is really a surprise, considering the partnership Yahoo! has with MSN, which also has a similar program. Besides, many people have been complaining about what basically can be due to the bad management of Chitika that made it look like a scam when it started back in 2005.

Chitika is a monetizing option for webmasters who have sites about products reviews, but only if they can not monetize their website traffic with affiliate links. I myslef would never publish a third party advertising on a website where I review products because it makes more sense and more money to monetize such reviews with affiliate links.

Anyway, Yahoo! is killing it’s publisher network that has been, and still is, a beta version. What concerns us now is the alternative for this wonderful traffic source and a monetization method for webmasters who can’t have a Google Adsense.

Try MIVA’s targeted, cost effective Pay-Per-Click advertising solutions. it is one of the best alternatives for advertisers in some niches. It also offers a pay-per-call, which is the perfect solution for call centers and MLMers who are still doing it on a one-on-one basis (which is good for their credibility and conversion compared to totally automated sytems).

For publishers from the US (and the UK) it is one of the best alternatives to Yahoo! Publishers Network because it is not only good for product review sites (like Chitika), but also in a variety of niches and site types.

Adbrite: Ok, I used this one in the past as an advertiser and wasn’t quite happy with my results. I eventually figured out a way to make it work for me, but that was after I found my way through Yahoo! content network which was superior to it and I didn’t have to use it anymore.

As an advertiser, you can pick which site to show your ads, which is a feature I’ve only found on Google’s network. This is by the way the only way to make your PPC ads on Adbrite profitable (by avoiding huge volume sites like ebay and dictionary like sites).

As a publisher, I must say it’s a really good alternative. It actually has some superiority to other similar publisher programs. For example, you can stay in control of what is published on your website. You can approve or disapprove ads based on any chriteria you want. For example you can disapprove low revenue ads, inappropriate ads, competitive ads … etc.

What I don’t recommend is Bidvertiser. The company has a black history for both advertisers and publishers. As advertisers if you are not tracking your ads (which is a killing mistake) you will be charged for clicks that never happened. And as a publisher most probably you’ll never get paid. I know it happened with me (as an advertiser and as a publisher) and it happened with hundreds of other publishers who might be really generating fraud clicks, but from my experience it doesn’t matter with Bidvertiser. And you don’t get any answers to your questions from any one over there in Tel Aviv. For me, Bidvertiser is a SCAM, so stay away from it.

The difference is that Robin promotes everything and anything to his list, and is only thinking about how to get them to open the emails and buy from my link. Ted on the other hand is picky on what he promotes to his list. He tries it first either by himself or by his staff, makes sure it provides and delivers a real value, and will help make his subscribers’ lives easier.

Not only that. Ted also provides value in all of his emails to his list. Even in his promotional emails, Ted provides valuable information on how whatever he is promoting now will help them, how to implement it into their lives, and how to avoid being scammed by other competitive offers around … etc.

The result is that Ted’s list is very responsive and is making him money on demand, while Robin’s list is unsubscribing/ignoring his emails and he doesn’t seem to be able to maintain the most valuable source of income that no body can take away from him: HIS LIST.

The difference is that Ted respects his list and treats them the way he likes to be treated, while Robin treats his list as a money machine with no human dimensions involved.

Ted acquired the credibility and respect of his list by providing value all of the time, while Robin lost them both.

The #1 ingredient in Ted’s success is VALUE. Provide value, and in return you’ll get all what you want.

Which one would you like to be: a Ted or a Robin?

During the first quarter of 2010 it was obvious that the biggest names in affiliate networks are flirting with brand names. And although these networks are criticizing the Google slap and it’s impact on the affiliate marketing industry, they are doing the same.

Small affiliate marketers are now having their accounts terminated or suspended for low volume. This means that small affiliates are now facing the challenge of either growing into big boys or losing their business. This challenge is time sensitive. And affiliate marketers who are just starting and those who lost their Adword accounts are supposed to find an efficient way to grow their business according to a plan.

The picture is not different on the other side of the coin. Small advertisers are now facing the challenge of being crashed by the big brand names. Some networks,  like hydra, is now moving on this new trend: brand names. If you don’t have a well known brand name your offers are facing the threat of elimination.

Which brings us to the point of this article. Branding is the key to succeed in 2010. And it works for both advertisers and affiliates.

What I expect to see during the rest of 2010 is as follows:

1. Advertisers will be spending more on branding their names. This will open the door for new positions in those small companies that will focus only on media placement and getting their name in front of as many people as they can, for as long as they can. Fly-by-night businesses will be having hard time getting their offers accepted to rotate on big affiliate networks, and as a result scams artists will be very busy finding a way around the new situation.

2. Affiliate marketers will also try to brand their names, or turn their small home “commission-based-sales” businesses into registered marketing companies with their own trademarks. This will put the marketers in a position that they will have to be picky on what to promote in order to maintain a good reputation for their trademarks.

3. The very limited liability of affilaite marketers will be a history due to the new FTC regulations, and the branding trend they have to take in order to succeed.

4. The small affiliate networks that deal with small advertisers will have a lot of work to do due to the increasing demand from the small advertisers who can not, or are not willing to, brand themselves, and due to the termination/suspension of low-volume affiliate marketers by the big networks. It’s pretty obvious that the quality of offers on these networks will be questionable and this will push their affiliates to work hard on protecting their anonymity.

As have been seen before in the offline world, small business will shrink, or be forced to the back alley, while big brands will be expanding. Good for the consumer, good for the super affiliates, good for the affiliate networks either way, and bad for the scam artists. New and low-volume affiliate marketers have to take it seriously from now on.

The way I see jobs is not going to appeal to most people, because for me a job is a modern disguise for slavery. In your job you trade your time and freedom willingly (as if you have the choice) until you retire, for  money that is hardly enough to pay for your shelter, food, and other needs. On the other hand, slaves trade their time and freedom against your will for the same things; shelter, food, and other basic needs.

If you disagree with me, as most people do, search for the answer of this question: Was there employment, as we know it now, when there was slavery? You’ll find the they never coexisted.

Jobs and employment have been invented very recently by capitalists to replace slavery. Before that there were professionals who could be hired per task, not for years or life to end up paying half of what they make as taxes, and 80% of their 401K or RRSP (whatever they call where you are) revenue to the bank while taking 100% of the risk and paying 100% of the invested capital!

Anyway. If you still think a job is more secure than a business, there are companies specialized in home-job placement. Their clients are big names, like Apple, IZOD, Microsoft, Calvin Kleim, and Compaq.

Click here to visit their website and apply if you live in Australia, Canada, UK, or US.

The rest of the world click here.

But please, consider owning a business. Consider the job as a means to survive until you switch smoothly from being employed to being an employer. You’ll see the world from a completey different perspective as an employer.

Whenever a new product is about to be released you’ll get emails from those top super affiliates giving you heads up about the new product, warming you up and preparing your mind set to be in the buying mode. And when it’s time for the launch you’ll receive an email (or several ones) telling you about their bonus for you in case you buy through their affiliate link. Sometimes, actually most of the time, the bonuses value is way beyound the commission that you’ll earn from buying that product through your own affiliate link, and difinitely more than what you are going to pay for the actual product.

That makes it look like a better deal for you to buy through the super affiliate’s link than when you buy directly from the seller or through another affiliate link (including your own link if you are allowed to).

And that IS the “not so secret” of the super affilaites. Build a targeted list, keep in contact with your list with bonuses and free information (keep moving the free line), and give incentives for them to buy through your affilaite link.

The real secret though is how to engineer this process. You’ll need to prepare a list building system that is engineered to funnel in a certain demography, subniche … whatever your target is. But first you’ll need to study this market and be aware of the past and the forcasted trends, the products that serve this market, and evaluate your share “to be” from this market and how to get it.

There are resources that will help you with engineering your list building system. In addition to the basics (the hosting, autoresponder or list management system, tracking software etc …) you’ll also need to have at your disposal a stock, or a source of, master resale rights products that you can use as bonuses (in case you don’t have your own products).

If you find this process intimidating it is recommended to get yourself a coach who knows the ins and outs of this business and can hold you accountable for your business building tasks as scheduled.

Unforunately I have too much on my plate to think about coaching, besides I don’t see my previous students doing any good (perhaps because I am not harsh enough or easy going). But don’t hesitate to ask any questions using the comment feature below.

The good news though, is that two of the underground affiliate marketers are willing to do the coaching for a really resonable cost (I have seen, and been a member of coaching programs that cost as much as 6-20 times what they are charging). Have a look at their credentials and download their FREE report here.

No doubt, affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money online without any virutal real estate. You don’t need a website or a mailing list if you want to make money from affiliate marketing. Of course, virtual real estate could, and will, make you even more money with affiliate marketing, but you don’t need them to start. Just drag traffic directly to your affiliate link and you’ll start making money.

But how to make money competing with the thousands of affiliates out there who are trying to make money promoting the same thing that you are promoting?

There are several ways to compete in the affiliate marketing field. One of the strategies is to capitalize on seasonal marketing trends.

Seasonal marketing trends are better explained by an example. Let’s take Amazon’s affiliate program. If you want to capitalize on seasonal trends in February for example, find special offers on gift items, like Valentine discounts or coupons, and promote those special offers.

I emphasized coupons because this word is so powerful in marketing. If you have a discount coupon for any product you are more likely to make sales than someone who else promoting the same product without the coupons. You can bid on the keyword [product name] + coupon. No one will search for a coupon unless they have their credit card in hand and ready to buy. So you can bid high on this keyword with confidence.

You can also build a web 2.0 campaign optimized around this coupon keyword. A web 2.0 campaign will cost you no money to make it, and will probably be there for you for valentine next year. You’ll just need to update it with the newest coupon codes from your affiliate network (in this example it will be Amazon) for the new season.

Click here to learn how to build a web 2.0 affiliate campaign to capitalize on free organic traffic

Whether it is a PPC or organic web 2.0 campaign, this has to be done ahead of time in order to start getting decent converting traffic from search engines before Valentine day.

Good Luck

It turned out that the real money is in the trading of oil, precious metals, and currencies.

The real money is in FOREX!

Every day, every single day, there is an average of $3.91 Trillion being traded.

Can you imagine how much is that? Every day more money than enough to feed the whole world for years is being traded in certain places accessible from anywhere as long as you have a computer and Internet connection.

You can buy and sell oil, gold, sliver, platinum, and foreign currencies for less and sell them for more. You can do that several times a day.

Is it ethical?

Whatever it is … it doesn’t seem to bother the governments, national central banks, other banks, and all sorts of financial institutions that participate in the trading activities every single day Monday to Friday.

Individuals engaging in Forex trading are increasing every single day. And those come from all walks of life. I personally know a university professor and a college drop out doing it and they both seem to be happy with their results.

Is it a good time for you to hop in?

An honest answer from what I understood is that it is not. The best time to take your share in forex trading is long gone already.

But …

Now is better than later. Today is better than tomorrow. Here is why (according to the seminar and after I searched Wikipidia):

Since 1971 the whole world adopted the currency floating regulations so that any currency is just a piece of paper with no real money deposited in the central bank (formerly known as bank notes, now it’s just currency).

With the exponential inflation rate the currencies tend to lose value over time, and this is expected to continue until the currency value equals 0.

It’s not something new or mere predictions, the currency systems have been used 4 times in human history, and every time the currency ended up with 0 value and a disaster (usually a war).

If you want your share you need to start immediately. Don’t wait until tomorrow. I am personally starting to devote 1 hour/day from now on until I get hold of it.

Where to start?

If you are a regular reader of my blog you’d expect me to refer you to a really good course out there to help you understand the basics before you start. But not this time.

This time I recommend that you download a piece of FREE software and practice with “FAKE MONEY” first. After you see how the software works and practice enough (for a couple days, weeks, or as long as you need) you can start experimenting with real money while reading and learning how to do it manually.

You see, this software automates every thing, it reads the charts for you, predicts the trends and gives you recommendations in real time so that you don’t need to be good at understanding trends, reading charts, or making predictions. You only need to know how to click with the mouse!

It is also useful to understand how it works and to know how to do it manually. But you can put that off for now. Just make money and then learn how it works. It’s really that simple.

Here is my affiliate link to download this software

Canada, US, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and UK:
http://tinyurl.com/fxsoftware

The rest of the world:
http://tinyurl.com/ufxsoftware

Please come back after you try the software and let me and the readers know about your experience. I promise to approve your comments as long as you don’t insult or spam .