flyunity.net » Affiliate

Black Hat Affiliate Marketing – Legal? Yes. Ethical? Hmmm…

gooddevi — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:58:28 +0000

There seem to be numerous methods that affiliate marketers use to earn their commissions these days. Adding affiliate links to websites, emails, instant messengers, articles, e-books, pay-per-click ads, banners, and any other form of media are all popular affiliate marketing strategies. Success comes to them when people click those links, get tracked by a cookie uploaded to their computer and then make a purchase from the affiliate program’s website. Then the affiliate gets a check in the mail for all the commissions earned.

Recently though, there have been some new affiliate marketing tactics that are creating a bit of a stir in the affiliate marketing communities. It seems that an elite group of marketers are using some questionable methods to increase their commissions that have been labeled as “black hat” affiliate marketing tactics. So who are these elite, and what are their black hat tactics?

The elite group of black hatters is headed by a sly programmer named John Reel. He’s created a program that cloaks affiliate links like no other link cloaker you’ve ever seen before. That’s right; this one does a few things differently.

- One of the black hat features is that it will create framed links. This means that the link you see in the address bar will not be for the actual website you land on by clicking it. Also, the title bar in your browser will say whatever message the black hatter affiliate wants you to see.

- Another one of the more powerful features of this black hat affiliate tool is the ability to embed affiliate cookies into your links. This allows the affiliate marketer to load their affiliate cookie onto your computer before you even land on the destination URL, and therefore there is no need to use the affiliate code tagged onto the end of the URL. It will appear as though the link is not an affiliate link at all, and yet the black hatter will still secretly earn the commission.

- Taken a step further, this cookie embedding process can also allow the black hat affiliate to embed multiple affiliate cookies into their link for the affiliate program that they’re promoting as well as any competitors cookies. This way, if the customer doesn’t buy from the site you send them to and then later ends up on a competitors’ site, the black hat affiliate still earns the commission.

- Now taking this feature another step further, this black hat affiliate tool can secretly hide rotating affiliate cookies embedded within a webpage. This sneaky tactic allows for cookie after cookie to be added for numerous affiliate programs that are all tracked to the black hat affiliate.

- Going even further upon this feature is the ability to embed any link with multiple rotating affiliate cookies. Again this can load your computer with affiliate cookies for any and all affiliate programs that the black hat affiliate desires to earn commissions from. What’s more, is that this sneaky black hat affiliate link will innocently look like any other link, and can be published anywhere without anyone knowing what it’s capable of when clicked!

Sounds like the invention of a mad scientist trying to take over the affiliate marketing world through the exploitation of ingenious black hat programming loopholes.

So are these black hat affiliate tactics legal? Yes, if the affiliate program doesn’t specify otherwise within their terms of service.

Are these black hat affiliate tactics ethical? That all depends on your personal code of ethics, and whether you would use the tools ethically, or whether you would use them in every way possible to earn as many commissions as you can with no respect for your customers.

Do you want this black hat toolkit? Forget it! There are only 1,500 available, and by the time you read this they’ll probably already be gone. After that, John Reel will be parading as an angel, selling his white hat tools, but don’t be fooled by this wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Google Adsense Vs Affiliate Programs

gooddevi — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:46:03 +0000

Google Adsense is a structured way to earn good money out of what Google makes from its advertisers on Adwords. The way it works is that advertisers pay top dollar to get their ads listed on Google. Google gets paid on every click that happens on the ad. By distributing the ads on your website and mine, they stand to gain more exposure, regain advertising funds quicker and also pay us good money!

Why you benefit?

The reason Adsense has become so popular is because it allows websites like ours to earn good money from the commissions Google receives from advertisers. By just placing a couple of ads on the site, you can earn a good commission percentage. However, there are certain drawbacks that an Adsense program has.

What it can do for your site

One good thing about Adsense is its immediate ability to boost your page ranking and popularity on search engines. That way you tend to receive a lot of traffic to your affiliate site. Also, people with affiliate programs on their site can actually look at Adsense as an alternate way of supplementing their income. Adsense lets you monitor which ads are performing and earning you most income. They do this by placing some Javascript code into your site which monitors the performance. Most of the time the traffic that comes to your site will most likely not find what they are looking for, on your site alone. That’s where Adsense helps you. Even if customers don’t find what they’re looking for on your site, they can still visit the ads sponsored by Adsense and help provide you additional income. It basically provides you an alternate path to earn money online.

The context

In order to make your Adsense program most profitable as part of your affiliate program, you need to ensure you have contextual and relevant ads placed on your site. Else it defeats the very purpose. You want customers to click on these ads if they don’t find something on your site. Hence it needs to be closely related to your website theme and your own products. Most contextual ads are characterized by lots of clicks but poor conversion rates. So make sure to test these ads out before placing them on your site. Pros and cons Both affiliate marketing and Google’s Adsense have their own pitfalls and benefits. Here we explain the pros and cons of each.

Google Adsense:

Pros:

- Good for informational sites which do not have associated affiliate products to sell

- It allows you to create a content page without worrying about updating the content

- Very scalable. Adsense sites are low maintenance which make these good for the upkeep of multiple sites.

Cons:

- Not a good income generator when considering long term opportunities. It’s because mailing lists are best for building customer relations. In Adsense you aren’t asking for a subscription, instead just asking customers to click on ads.

- Search engine dependency. Adsense sites predominantly depend on the search engines to divert traffic. Hence if by chance an algorithm changes on a search engine, you risk losing a lot of income and traffic in the process.

Affiliate marketing:

Pros:

- More long term in nature which allows you to build on assets and customer relations

- Main focus is on creating and building email lists since they are the backbone for all promotional efforts

- Allows you to focus on a niche segment you like. This is unlike an Adsense program which tends to focus on only high paying keywords.

Cons:

- Involves the use and skill over persuasive tactics in order to coax customers to visit the site and buy products. For novices, this can be a difficult aspect.

- Every site needs plenty of effort. You need to spend time in creating product reviews, email list creation as well as web content creation – which can take up considerable time.

Balance it out

Both Adsense as well as affiliate marketing have their own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the best approach would be to balance the two to maximize your income potential online. You could have content on your site which you are interested in, while combining it with Adsense revenues.

3 Top Tips about Affiliate Marketing

gooddevi — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:28:00 +0000

The reality about affiliate marketing is the fact that 90% of affiliates will actually earn less than $100 a month. Consequently, you shouldn’t count on earning full time income unless you can get very good at the following:

1. Creating a good web site that converts.

2. Search engine optimization. You’ll get need lot of traffic, as possibly 1 out of 200 visitors will buy your products. SEO can assist you get your site in the search engines so more people will be able to locate you.

3. The trial and error of picking the suitable merchants and learning the appropriate ways to promote them.

Too many people out there assume that affiliate marketing is positively a get rich quick type of program. These types of people will create a couple of banners, and then wonder why they never make a single sale or any money at all. For more details go to www.ad-tracking-pro.com. How long you’ll need to do it depends on how much money you want to make. If you are a quick study and truly understand affiliate marketing, you may earn as much as $2,000 in 2 years. This is based on the fact that you are beginning at 0 and the fact that you have another full time job, not being able to devote a lot of time working with your affiliate marketing program.

If you decide to give it a try, the hardest challenge will be the first few months. If you check your stats and see that you are only making a couple of bucks, you’ll find yourself wondering if all the hard work is worth it. If you get some sales going and stay committed with your hard work, the commissions should start growing.

One of the crucial factors with affiliate marketing is the traffic that goes through your site. Even though you’ll get a lot of traffic passing through your website, only a fraction of the traffic will be buyers. For more information login to www.affiliate-manager-pro.com. The key here is known your visitors and then being able to determine which affiliate programs you can offer to meet their needs. There is also the concept of pre-sale, which is the ability to put your visitors in the necessary open mind set that’s essential for them to actually click on what you are selling.

By sticking with affiliate marketing, you’ll understand more and more through the years. You can’t expect to be the best when you first start, it’ll take a lot of hard work and perseverance. By putting the time and energy into your programs, you’ll be well on your way to succeeding in the very profitable and exciting world of affiliate marketing.