The Emails I No Longer Read

When I first joined a safelist, I read practically every email that was sent to me. I found many other sites that are helpful, that I would not have otherwise known about. I spent a lot more time reading then writing. Now there's some emails I just don't look at at all anymore.

Like the ones that tell me I'll make a large amount of money in a short amount of time, with little work needed to accomplish that task. They just have a feeling of unreality to me. Tell me I might make $100.00 and I'll look at your link. But tell me how I'll be making $30,000 or some other outrageous amount, in half an hour, and I'll quickly be hitting the delete key, without reading your email at all.

As I got behind in reading my emails, sometimes I'd sort them by subject. There I could easily see when I had several that had the exact same subject line. Delete, Delete, Delete. I realize these are probably coming from web site owners trying to promote their sites, but after awhile I'm not going to keep reading the same email over and over again. And if I'm not reading it, and I'm new at affiliate marketing, do you really think those more experienced then I am, will keep reading the same old, same old emails?

You need to change things up once in while. You've probably gotten so used to just letting your autoresponder handle things for you automatically, that you forget how boring it can get to me your reader, to see the same email that you just sent me yesterday. If you're not going to change the contents of your email, then maybe you shouldn't send them to me as often. The delete key has now become my best friend.

Then there's the emails that got goofed up. Instead of addressing me as Hi Jan, they address me as Hi Firstname! When did I change my name? Why didn't anyone tell me I did that? And why do I have the same Firstname as everybody else on your list? They provide me with amusement value.

There were also emails, that seemed to be a bit behind the times. They'd say something like now that the holiday season is upon us. I don't think they were referring to Valentines Day. So hello, it's February now! Better pack up your out of date emails about the holidays, so you can start sending them out again next November or December.

Even with another safelist I've joined, I've learned how to work around it. I open my email in Mozilla Firefox, then I open several tabs. As those emails are loading, by the time I get back to the first tab, the 15 or 20 seconds I'm supposed to be staying at that link from that email has passed, and I've collected more credits, for when I send out my once a week promotional email.

I still don't have any kind of list to speak of, but at least I have lots of credits there. They may come in handy some day.

Affiliate Marketers are marketing to other affiliate marketers, which seems to defeat the purpose of those safelists. I don't think too many of them will buy the products I'm trying to promote to them, anymore then I'll be buying from them.

And you have to wonder, if I'm reading less and less of those promotional emails, and I'm relatively new at all of this, then how much is anybody else reading all those emails?

Good Site Recomendation

There are quite a few sites where you can cloak your affiliate links. The reason you want to cloak them, is because your customers may bypass you and buy the products you’re promoting directly from the parent company. Other people could cut off your affiliate links, and substitute their own links. Then you might lose your commissions. In adddition, some people are reluctant to buy products from an affiliate marketer.

One of the sites I like a great deal makes it easy to cloak your links. The site gives you options to add a new link, or to manage the links you’ve already set up. You can also create new ads as well as managing your pre-existing ones. Then you can easily edit things, or change the wording of your ads later.

The screens for creating your cloaked links or your ads are set up well. They’re easy to maneuver through, and self-explanatory as to what information you’ll need. Once you’ve typed in your ad, with your cloaked affiliate link in place, you can then preview what it will look like. You want to make sure it will fit into the space provided. If not go back and make more changes or if you like the way it looks, then after clicking a few links you ad will be saved. Newly created ads need to be approved by the staff first. After approval, your ads will start cycling through.

What I like about this site is that you ads are viewed multiple times. This is beneficial as it increases your possibilities of generating more sales, as opposed to a classified ad site, where the ads are static.

The ads are displayed in a flyin window. Your ads cannot be blocked from being seen. The flyin window will display 3 ads and you earn 10 credits from your ad being displayed. The ads you created will then display on the flyin window when other members' links are clicked! You continue building up credits, when you go back to cloak more links, and continue placing more ads on the site.

You can join the site as a free member, or as a paying member. The amount of credits you earn increases a great deal, if you join as a paying member. You also earn more credits when someone clicks on the ads of your referrals.

You earn 10 credits every time one of your ads is clicked on. You earn an additional 5 credits every time someone clicks on one of the ads of your referrals. Then you get an additional 3 credits for each ad clicked for level two, from the people, that your referrals brought in. You can earn an incredible amount of credits this way.

Paid members have the added advantage of using HTML ads, while non-paying members are limited to black text within their ads. As a paid member, you can use different fonts and colors, have graphics on your ads or create banners. Not only will your credits increase as a paid member, and increase even more through your referrals, but also your affiliate commission is twice as much as those who join for free. But it's a good site for those on a limited budget, as you can also build up a large number of ad credits here.

The site has a very good promotional area, which means you can place your cloaked affiliate links on your blog, your website, in forums, or any number of places where you usually promote your products. The site will track the number of clicks you get on each of your links, as well as tracking conversions, and signups for you. Email support has responded to me quickly. You also have an email inbox on the site.

The only negative I have to say about this site, is about the flyin box. While from an affiliate marketer's standpoint it's a great concept that the box which has 3 different ads appearing on it, doesn't close, can't be blocked and just doesn't go away. But I could see how this might get annoying from a prospective customers viewpoint.

In fact that's how I ended up signing up for this Site. No matter what I did, how I scrolled through the main page I was looking at, or how many times I clicked with my mouse, I just couldn't get the flyin box to move, so I could read the initial page I was on. Finally in frustration, I clicked on the different links, in order to get it off the main page I was viewing. Of course then as I started reading more about it, I could see why this would become a very useful product to have.

There have been times, when I've needed to again look at a site, that I was promoting, that I had cloaked with this program. I needed to double check that the price and the bonuses hadn't changed from the last time I looked at it. At times I've had to reload the page using my original link, instead of the cloaked one so I could again view those details.

However, the area where you manage your links shows both your original link and what it became as a cloaked link. You have the choice of having your ads appear in a viral format, or not. For programs that I’m an affiliate member of, it’s at times been advantageous to not have my ads appear in a viral format, as it does block part of the page that I want people to look at.

So other then that one negative aspect of this site, I’d highly recommend this site for cloaking your affiliate links. It’s easy to use, and your ads get viewed multiple times, which helps increase your traffic and your potential sales. It has a good stats tracking area, email support, and other benefits. Whether you join it as a non-paying member or as a paid member, it's well worth joining this site.

New Marketplace: Benefits for Vendors

There is a new online marketing company with thousands of products and services. They carry both digital and physical products. This company was developed by internet marketers, with benefits for both the vendors and for affiliates.

Some of the benefits for vendors are that the site is Integrated with PayPal. As a vendor you’ll have the choice of being able to mass pay your affiliates each month either through PayPal or by check.

You can sell your own products, ebooks, software or services, or have the companies affiliates sell your products for you, or build up your own team of affiliates. You determine your own suggested retail price for your product, whatever you want that price to be.

There is no pre-approval required for your sales pages or your thank you pages. Your products do not become the property of the merchant. There are detailed fee schedules listed on the site, and tools available to help your affiliates. You can place an affiliate sign up page on your website, track the statistics of your affiliates, as well as tracking your own statistics and your campaigns.

There are vendor discounts as well, where you will get 25% more for your money.

The site shows comparison fees to two other marketing companies, and this company’s fees appear to be much lower then the other two are.

There’s an active forum, and help desk support available.

The Vendor accounts are free. If you want to add multiple product lines, to your Vendor account, they are only charging a onetime lifetime activation fee of $29.00. You’ll then be able to get unlimited product lines to add for life. This price may soon be increasing to $49.00.

To learn more about this company, and the other benefits they offer that I haven’t listed here, please click on the link below.

http://www.virallinktracker.com/vlt/links/7428

The Story of A King, with a Kind and Giving Heart

Sometime back, Cole my male cat was meowing quite insistently at my back door. Cole is an all black cat, with incredible green eyes. He seems to think this should carry some extra weight with me, and that he should have more advantages then my smaller female cat Skitzy does, who has lived here longer.

Now it’s possible since he was previously an outdoor cat, before he came to live with me, that he had this sudden desire to go outside to romp, and play once again. But it was cold and snowing out there! And whether he likes it or not, as long as he’s living with me, he is now an indoor cat. I wasn’t about to put on my coat, hat and gloves to chase after him, by letting him go outside. Nor was I about to be consider the possibility of my having to call the fire department. That wasn't going to be an option, if I had let him out, and then he decided to get himself comfortable on some high up unreachable branch of a tree.

But he was quite insistent with all his meowing. Cole is one of those cats who talks quite a bit. I haven’t yet figured out what all his Cat Speak language is supposed to mean. I can only hope we’ve established some sort of communication where at times we have some understanding of each other.

Then he started in on me, with that pitiful cry. If you’re a cat lover, or even an animal lover, you know what I’m talking about. That pitiful cry is that meow that pulls at your heart. It’s the one that’s hard to resist, and frequently I agree to whatever it is Cole wants when he uses that pitiful meow on me.

It’s definitely not the same meow that says he’s hungry, even though he’s already doubled my cat food chow bill. He’s put on a few pounds, since he's lived here, so needless to say he’s definitely not starving around here. It’s not the cry that says “Hey Person, who is supposed to love and care about me. It’s about my Litter box! Get with it will you already!” It’s not even the meow that plaintively asks, “When are you going to get off of that darn computer and pet me and play with me?”

No this meow was much more insistent. I picked him up, and cautiously opened the inner back door to see if there was something going on onside. Then I heard it. Outside on that cold snowy night was another cat nearby also giving forth with it’s own version of that pitiful and plaintive cry.

While it’s certainly possible Cole, who is neutered, just wanted to go out and chase down that other feline, who was invading his territory. Perhaps he needed to prove once again, that he is indeed the Reigning King Cat of our block. And that he would not look kindly on any other cat invading the territory of his distinguished Cat Kingdom, no matter what the weather might be like outside.

But more I got the feeling that he was saying to me, “Aren’t you going to do something about this? Aren’t you going to let that other cat in from the snow and cold, so it can get warmed up?”

I felt like his pitiful meows were saying “I was once an outdoor cat too! I know what it’s like to have to fend for myself in the cold, and snow, or to have to seek shelter from the rain. I know what it’s like to have to find creative ways to find food for myself, living with the harsh realities of that cold outside world. I’ve been there, remember? I had to do it myself not too long ago before I adopted you, as the person being most suitable for caring for me on the inside.”

His heart wrenching meows had taken on an intensity all their own. Now I was hearing a harmonious duet of pitiful cries from both him, and that cat that found itself outside on that cold and snowy night.

What does any of this have to do with affiliate marketing? Well, sometimes you just have to say NO!

No, Cole, I can’t afford to take on the care and feeding of a third cat right now. No, I can’t read another email, look at another web site, or click on another link right now. No, Cole, you don’t get along with Skitzy that well now. So why would either one of us believe you’ll easily get along with a third cat?

No, I can’t afford to buy your recommended affiliate program for $197.00, $97.00 or even that one, that is “reduced for a limited time” to only $47.00. Yes I know if I don’t pay my $47.00 to you, right this instant, I’ll lose my chance forever, at joining your program that guarantees I’ll make thousands of dollars in a very short amount of time, with very little effort needed on my part.

I guess I’ll just have to take my chances that I’ve missed out on yet another great opportunity that will drastically change my life forever. I’ll just have to say NO to it, right now, though it fills me with much regret.

But I have to tell you. It was much harder for me to have to say no to Cole and his insistent plaintive cries that night. It was much harder for me to have to say no to the desperate meows I was hearing from that other cold Kitty, who somehow found itself outside on that cold and snowy night.

I had much more regret having to say no to both of those cats, then I have had, in having to say no to some of the programs being promoted to me by other affiliate marketers.

My sweet cat Cole, with his beautiful green eyes, and his good, loving and generous heart, who now has my vote, as the Coolest King Cat of our particular Cat Block, taught me that cold and snowy night, that sometimes you just have to say no, whether you want to or not!

And sometimes having to say NO, even when you may not want to, is not an easy thing to do.