One of the easiest ways to get more sales is to build a relationship with your customers. This is a very cost effective method to increase the number of customers that convert into paying customers. If you are not collecting email addresses on your web site then you are missing out on a huge number of potential sales. There are many easy to use services to set up a pop form that asks visitors to your site for their email address. Once you have collected email address it’s time to build a relationship with the users subscribed to your newsletter. No hard sell you are building trust and providing the customer with useful information. This is why using an automated service works best for this type of marketing. You can set you first few messages to welcome the user and provide useful information. Once you have created trust then you can start to slip in a few related sales pitches. It would work best if you use soft sale skills to build interest in what you are promoting. Some of the top affiliates online use this method to make a huge amount of money each month. It takes a little practice to plan the perfect marketing campaign by email, but it can be well worth the effort. If you want to learn how it’s done then enter your email the next time you land on a page that offers a newsletter. Watch as messages arrive in your inbox with customer relationship building messages. Start to count how many messages are sent before you get a sales pitch. If you signed up to a good marketer then you will see how this system works and why so many are making money this way. The nice thing about building a list is that you will have an audience that trusts your opinion, and will take action to offers that are targeted to them. The set up for email capture is not that difficult if you understand a little HTML. You will need to place a small bit of code on your web site or blog to make the email capture form work. If you have trouble setting it up the company that you use for email marketing can install the code for you at an additional cost. It is well worth the trouble and effort to start building an email list and you will be wondering why you had not done this sooner when the money starts pouring in.

The banning of Google Adwords accounts in December has created a demand for other traffic sources. As many affiliate marketers found  that their account had been banned by Google, a search for traffic was on. Many affiliates have been trying media buys. There are also many PPC networks to try and test. The only way to figure out if a PPC network works is to test it. It is going to cost a bit of money up front and you will have to do some work with your campaigns. If it all works out you found a great traffic source then it’s well worth the cost of testing. If it failed and you just can’t get any conversion then it’s time to move on. Since my ban from Google I would estimate my spending on different traffic sources around $1500 with mixed results. There were a few networks that just did not convert and a few that did convert, but not enough to be profitable. It’s all about the testing. If you can mange to get just one traffic source that converts well at a low cost per click then you will make up for your losses. Keep trying and look for reviews and case studies from other affiliates, but remember that no one is going to reveal a winning PPC network with fear of competition. You will be on your own to test and find networks, but it always pays to have a bit of information before you spend any money.

The classified web site Backpage is very similar to Craigslist. The Backpages web site has been around for less time and has a smaller community. This is not to say that you can not make money with Backpage. The good thing is that there are also less flag reporters. If you have listed on Craigslist you know how annoying it can be to have your ad flagged even tough there is nothing wrong with what you have listed.

If you live in the US then there is a Backpage for almost every major city. The site has also gained a following and is growing in the US market. As for marketers in other parts of the world you will find a very small following as many people are still not aware of this site. As a Canadian I find that Backpage has not gained too many users over the border. At this point it looks like a great site for US users who have something to sell online.

The difference between Backpage and Craigslist is that you have the option of listing for free or adding extra feature to make your listing stand out. You can also pay to have your listing show up in printed newspapers in some areas.

I found Backpage very easy to use and setting up a classified was just like doing it on Craigslist. If you do not need any extra features then this free classified site does a great job. As more people find out about Backpage the community will grow. Those looking for bargains might want to check out Backpages as you have less people competing to buy an item. You have a better chance to buy an item at a barging price.

If want to make money online then Backpage is a good place to offer some affiliate products or to list your old stuff. You need to try Backpages and get familiar with all the options.

Link to Backpages.com

A few days ago I mentioned MIVA PPC Ad Network. Looking around for a bonus credit I found this link which will add $25.00 to any new account. Not sure how long this promo link will work. If you want to try MIVA for your PPC traffic no better way then to use their credit.

Use this link to get $25.00 from MIVA!

Last summer I tried MIVA which is a PPC network like Google Adwords. At the time the campaign I ran did not do much in sales. The MIVA site did send a good number of clicks my way. Since I only spent $50 at MIVA it was not enough to truly validate this traffic source. Just before Christmas I tired a new campaign and added $200 to test the traffic. The new campaign did much better and I was ahead by $124 which is not a bad profit for a short test like this. Following a few tips I read online I played with a few offers that might best match MIVA’s traffic and it worked. If you are looking for traffic and have a bit of money to play with then give MIVA a try.

Make sure your landing pages are optimized and asking for the sale. Most people coming in from MIVA left within seconds the first campaign. With the new campaign I figured out a better ways to engage the traffic and keep them on the site. One thing that really helped was selling the product with more visual content and asking for the sale.

Generate traffic to your website with MIVA PPC. You can learn more about MIVA by clicking here!

It’s been bout a year that I started testing ad spots. The tests were based on a  high traffic blog that I own. What I was looking for was the click  rate. It did not matter if the ad converted into a sale. All I wanted to learn from my test was if people would click on 125 X 125 ad spots. Over the past year I played with different offers. There was even an offer that would have made people a ton of money, but no one clicked. It’s funny how the ad spots were ignored. As a result of my testing I have removed ad spots from most of my blogs and am trying something new.

If you are going to run ad spots on your sites it pays to test. Let an ad run for a few weeks and see if the click rate improves if not replace the ad with another and play with different versions of the ad. Sometimes the first version of the ad spot would not attract clicks then I would replace it with another banner, for the same advertiser and the clicks would go up. If you see results great keep the ad spots. If not then it’s time to figure out other methods to monetize your site.

This week many Google Adwords account got banned. The thing is that many people were running clean campaigns and tried to follow Google rules. Even those with re bill offers had full disclosure on their pages. It kind of a sad way for Google to deal with loyal customers. It’s true that as a Google search user I understand that they are trying to make their search engines less spammy and want to protect consumers, but they must be fair. If an account was at risk of being banned then why did Google not contact the account holder and let the person correct the site so that it meets Googles standards. What they did was ban a great number of account and provided no reason or an appeal process. In my opinion I believe that Google should try to work this out and allow Adwords banned accounts to appeal and resolve any issues. Any other PPC networks would work with the advertiser to make the campaign complient. In the future I hope Google understands that they might be cleaning up their search engine, but they are also playing with peoples income.  Without bad mouthing Google, I am just saying if you want to clean your site then work with those you might affect.

A few days ago I was watching Wall-e and the song Put On Your Sunday Clothes from the musical Hello Dolly just caught my attention. There was something about this song that made me want to find out what it was. This got me thinking how many other people might have felt the same emotion towards this song. With a quick search I found that this song from 1969 was being rediscovered by a new generation.  When the makers of Wall-e add this song to the soundtrack did they know that they would get a new generation to listen to this song and want to watch Hello Dolly, was this a marketing effort. When children watch movies their parent or an older person usually watch the movie at the same time. What a great way to market content to an audience who was expecting to just watch a kids movie, and now want to go out and rent the original movie that the song was featured in. When I went through the comments on YouTube it seems many people found the song from watching Wall-e. It’s funny how a movie from 1969 is now on my list of movies to watch.

Enjoy! It’s a make you feel good song.

Soon after the King of Pop died there were tons of offers online. The networks are also starting to have some new Michael Jackson related offers. If you are creative there is a lot of money to be made. The search term Michael Jackson is getting so many hits each day. The trend bar on Twitter shows MJ as a top trend for almost three weeks now. This is going to grow as new music is released and old concerts play on television. With this type of affiliate marketing you might to rank naturally for the term and save your PPC dollars. If you can create quality content it is going to bring traffic for years to come. There were so many aspects to Michael Jackson’s life that a clever affiliate can mint coin. Now it does seem a little morbid to cash in on dead celebrity, but it’s also a fact that with demand someone has to fill it. Just yesterday I was at Wal-Mart and they had posters with MJ date of death. If Wal-Mart can cash in then you know there is money on the table that you have a right to collect. If you are going to do a PPC campaign then you might want to try Facebook or Bing. The price for Google might be sky high with all the offers out now.

As an online marketer there is an interest as to how Pitch Men at carnivals and fairs DO BUSINESS. Ever since I was a kid I would watch these guys make a ton of money. No matter what was being sold people felt that they needed to get it right there and then. Since I market to people online the same skills that pitch men use can help with my business. It was with sadness that I learned of Billy Mays passing this past weekend. His voice without fail came on during most commercial breaks. His tone and style made him a success pitching products on television. It’s amazing at how many commercials Billy Mays was involved with, and the different products that were promoted. The way he was able to build trust and urgency for the products made a very sought after television personality. The only one who can challenge Billy Mays at the moment is Vince the Sham Wow guy. The lesson to be learned form Billy Mays or other pitch men is that a passion for the product is the key to sales. Next time you see an as seen on TV type commercial pay attention and study the pitch.