Jeremiah Cooper dot com My Path to Financial Freedom

RSS
Subscribe now via RSS →
Katemiah Creations Incorporated

Lately I’ve been trying to find business books to broaden my knowledge of finances.  I’ve read a few books that I will talk about in future posts – however I am reading Rich Dad Poor Dad right now and I felt the need to make this post.

So far I have just gotten to the third lesson in the book.  It’s split up into six major lessons that it takes to acquire wealth.  There’s been a lot of very interesting opinions thru the book.  His definition of assets vs. liabilities makes a lot more sense to me than even the financial “experts” definition.

According to the book, by Robert Kiyosaki, the six major lessons you need to learn to become financially literate are as follows:

  1. The Rich Don’t Work for Money
  2. Why Teach Financial Literacy?
  3. Mind Your Own Business
  4. The History of Taxes and the Power of Corporations
  5. The Rich Invent Money
  6. Work to Learn – Don’t Work for Money

The first three chapters have shown my some very powerful thought processes that I am glad to have seen at a young age.  The problem with today’s society as a whole is that our entire life is spent learning how to work for everyone else.  We work for employees, the government, and the banks.

It’s time that we started working for ourselves, you should never work for money – money should work for you.  These are a few of the lessons that I have learned thanks to Robert.

Anyone that is working for themselves full time, or wants to do so, I really suggest you check out this book.

There is a new kid in town stirring things up in the affiliate network technology space. Live for only a few months and already boasting more than 700 activated networks, HasOffers is challenging the industry like never before with fast and accurate technology that will be difficult to match. Whether all these new networks is a good thing or a bad thing is really up to you to decide.

The latest benchmark testing on July 3, 2009 showed HasOffers to be more than twice as efficient as other competing technologies. Testing was conducted on one HasOffers Enterprise setup using three independent servers located in LA, NYC, and Chicago. The results show that the Enterprise setup processed 3000 clicks in only 28.964 seconds. That put HasOffers at a speed of 118 clicks per second, and all while the servers remained at 5% CPU usage throughout the tests, twice as fast as competition. The core technology currently supports nearly 150 million impressions per day (4.5 billion impression per month).

image001

HasOffers also provides some features that are new to network tracking. For example, browser targeting allows networks to choose which browsers should display certain offers. If a user clicks an offer designed for a desktop computer from an iPhone, browser targeting can redirect the user to an offer that is designed for smart phones, increasing conversion rates. The application also gives an option to redirect users that have already converted once for an offer to a new offer. Features like these provide networks with the tools they need to maximize conversion rates.

Impressed so far? You won’t believe the price. Anything under 250K clicks per month is free on the HasOffers system. Up to 500K clicks is only $99 per month, and the Enterprise Edition allows unlimited click volume for only $799 per month. The prices for Directtrack, LinkTrust, or even HitPath cannot even compare. The starting costs on systems like these usually range in the thousands, so how can HasOffers provide their technology for such a low cost?

According to them, the answer is in the technology itself. Because the system is so much more efficient than the competition, far less hardware is required to run extreme volume. Beyond that, Adapp Solutions, the company behind HasOffers, is in the process of developing more tools for affiliates as well as a new marketplace for offers. It appears that HasOffers is only the tip of the iceberg for this already successful start-up.

Take a look at the system for yourself and run your own benchmark testing. It would be great to know if others come up with similar results. As it stands, it looks like HasOffers has quickly joined the space as a major contender and has set a pretty high bar for fast and efficient affiliate network software.

Lately I’ve been really busy with my girlfriend moving in and getting ready for this months classes.  However I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten about the blog.  I’ve been working on the 27 Days to Quitting Your Day Job posts and I just want to know if there are any topics you would like to see covered?

The plan for it is to cover as many aspects of affiliate marketing as I can – and give you a basic understanding of everything so you can learn more if you need to.  After 27 days you should be profiting from what I’m going to tell you – but you have to test test test.  So what is it you guys would like to hear about?

Just post comments here on what you want to learn and I will try to include it all into the guide.

I’ve been working with Clickbooth on some stuff for the blog, and they just released a great new contest that I thought you guys should know about.  It’s an interesting contest – open to anyone to talk about as opposed to one blog like a lot of contests usually are.  Anyone that reaches a tier will be given the prize for that tier.

The lower tiers are really easy to get to – requiring only 500 conversions on some top health and beauty products.

july_contest_v10

If you want to earn some great prizes just click the banner and in the comments of your application input “Makeover” so they know you are there for the contest!  Check it out, you guys will love working with Clickbooth.

This week there’s been a lot of pressure on Facebook to fix the fraudulent clicks that have been occurring.  Tech Crunch has been reporting on it for the past week, and Facebook was supposed to finally take action.  In case you haven’t been paying much attention to the latest news on Facebook, I’ll summarize it for you.

For weeks affiliates have been complaining about clicks that were instantly bouncing off their pages, and some clicks that weren’t even occuring at all.  People were checking their server logs and seeing up to 50% less clicks actually coming in than Facebook was reporting.  It’s been an ever growing problem and some of the major forums like Wickedfire have seen a lot of posts about it.

Facebook finally admitted to the problem and has said that changes have been made and according to some the fraud is decreasing.  Another thing Facebook wanted to do was credit affiliates.  Well that has been happening, a lot of affiliates have started to receive credits on their accounts.  Although I personally haven’t received anything yet.

Everyone started to get their credits and a lot of people were happy, and then they got hit from left field.  After receiving their credits, a large amount of affiliates(at least that I have talked to) have started to get their accounts banned right after they received their credits.  So what is Facebook doing now?  Are they ever going to make affiliates happy?

As most of you know I’ve always been an advocate of Will’s program, PPC-Coach.  We just recently ran a contest here with his own network, Wotogepa.  It’s been a long time coming and he is releasing a new month 1 technique tomorrow, Friday June 26th.  Now is one of the best times for you to signup for PPC-Coach because you will have THREE month 1 techniques as soon as you join.

I joined PPC-Coach back in August of last year and it’s the site that helped bring me where I am today.  From his front page talking about how if you don’t have the money to spend, don’t join, to his ever relentless telling his members that it isn’t easy, and that you have to keep asking questions.

I’ve never really done a formal review on PPC-Coach and there just isn’t enough space for me to talk about everything I’ve learned from there.  I don’t know what the new month 1 technique is, and even if I did we can’t give out information that’s within the site.  I’m a moderator at PPC-Coach now so take this as a biased post if you want.

I’m not going to bore you by telling you over and over why you should join, it’s pretty simple, really.  PPC-Coach is the best site for a beginning affiliate to get into PPC.  There is no community better to help you along your way, all you have to do is TRY.  You have to ask questions constantly, no matter how stupid you may think they are.

You also have to test things on your own, you can’t base anything off what other forums, or even what the members at PPC-Coach say.  This game is all about testing it yourself because what doesn’t work for others might work for you and vice versa.  While you shouldn’t listen to what others say all the time, the PPC-Coach techniques and strategies do work, even if you have to put your own twist on them to make them work for you.

Overall I highly suggest the program, the cost is negligible for the tools, techniques and sense of community that you receive.  If you have any questions about the program, don’t hesitate to contact me and I will answer anything that I am allowed to answer.  Sign up for PPC-Coach here.

Like thousands of users right now, I’m also trying to update my iPhone to the new 3.0 software.  However I continue to receive a message saying that the activation server is down.  I know that plenty of people have updated so far today and the new update is getting lots of great reviews.  Apparently Apple is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it.

You may wonder why something like this is being posted by me, since this blog is about making money online.  I actually do have a reason for doing this, don’t fret!  Basically it brings me to the point of launches..and launches are definitely prevalent in our industry.

If your going to hype up a product like Apple has been with this new update, you need to make sure that your servers are going to be able to handle it.  Launching a product and having your website breakdown midway thru the day really doesn’t help your bottomline.  Apple is lucky in the fact that their product is already sold, this is just an update.  However it certainly isn’t helping their PR any.

As a lot of you know I’m planning a membership site launch soon, for a tool that affiliates will love.  I’ll be posting more information on that soon but this Apple collapse has really had me making sure that my servers WILL be ready to handle the traffic we’re getting on launch day and past that.

So as simple as a suggestion as this is to you guys – apparently even major companies don’t think hard enough about it.  It’s crucial to make sure that your websites are up and running at all times.  Theres several services I’ll be posting about soon that can help you make sure that happens by pinging your sites every so often etc.

More on topic with this in our own industry is networks.  We’ve been seeing a lot of networks go down for one reason or another lately, mainly on the Direct Track platform but some others have been hit as well.  You’d think that with the millions of dollars going thru these companies they would make SURE that they stayed up.

Just some food for thought for any of you planning to launch a service or product, just make sure it’s going to be there when they need it.

I received an email a few days ago with a link to take a survey about Facebooks Ad Quality.  I wanted to post about it then however the first set of links they set out were auto expiring after you took it.  Well they’ve sent out another email and now I can post.  Heres what our lovely purveyors at Facebook have sent us.

Dear Advertiser,
If you have already responded to this survey, thank you and please disregard this email. If not, please take approx. 5 mins to complete this survey regarding your experience with Account Management at Facebook. Also, please note that you will be receiving the Facebook bi-annual Advertiser Satisfaction Survey in the next 2-3 weeks. Please do take a few minutes to complete that survey when you receive it.

Please visit https://affiliates.questionpro.com to take our survey. As always, your information will be used for research purposes only. We will not share your personally identifiable information with anyone outside of Facebook as stated in our privacy policy: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Your candid feedback is greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

The Facebook Research Team

So you can see the link there to take this survey.  The reason that I want you to take it is so you can give them horrible scores on everything.  Maybe if we all tell them how bad they are on they survey they will realize whats going on.  First off, they are overcounting clicks anywhere from 10%-30%.  You’ll also notice a lot of bot clicks in your logs that are driving up CPCs with fake clicks.

Facebook is charging you for those clicks and stealing money from you, so go TELL them about it in their survey.  Also – wheres the tools to make Facebook Ad Manager easier that my reps been promising me for months?

So to review if you didn’t already know what to complain about.

  • Overpriced clicks due to fake clicks.
  • Over Reporting on the clicks you receive.
  • Bad Practices – No responses from reps about any of this.
  • Stealing your money.

Show Facebook who pays their bills.

I actually went into reviewing Campaign Sniper WANTING to like it. To be honest — let’s be real here! What warm, red-blooded, American male wouldn’t want to take something called the “Campaign Sniper” for an incredibly prolonged and wondrous spin? I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but I sure as heck did!

Right from the get-go, I found myself on the same page with the people who are behind the product. They eventually realized that instead of focusing on trying to bring affiliates and Internet marketers things that, you know, they might actually need, the affiliate product industry was instead much more content with bringing as mediocre a C average type product that they could muster.

And upon seeing this, I’m sure they saw just a mix of blood and dollar signs. Thusly, Campaign Sniper was born. Maybe!

In the interests of actually making this an actual review that is both helpful AND informative about things that DON’T have to do with the product’s name anymore, let’s delve into some of my favorite things about Campaign Sniper. Of which there were certainly a lot of!

For starters, I absolutely LOVE that they focused a lot on the content network because that was just a vast amount of land waiting to be conquered. Many of us may have tried to put together what we thought was a respectable list of placement URL’s for our content network campaigns before, but the kind of stuff that Campaign Sniper spits out? Let’s just put it this way: The product may very well change everything about the way that you used to look at content network campaigns.

Had enough yet? Of course not! Continuing onward…

Hands down, Campaign Sniper was made for the affiliates who earn their living on the tough streets of the PPC game. Their keyword intelligence feature is well built, finely crafted and an absolute dream of an asset. The people who made this tool GET IT. They get what’s wanted out of these products that are released and they’ve apparently even noticed what WASN’T being offered by a whole lot of product t providers — because the Campaign Sniper product as a whole is just stacked.

It’s just chalk full of useful, “makes sense” type stuff and has also got one of the coolest names out of any and all products spanning the entire long and crowded history of product name calling.

All in all, this product’s deserved an A if I’ve ever seen one — as well as successfully winning me over for the future with future products for sure. Very well done and highly recommended!

As you all know, I always do my best to hook it up for all of my loyal readers, and good ol’ Coop has come through YET AGAIN!! I’m proud to announce that anyone one of my blog readers will be given 5 free credits towards the purchase of Campaign Sniper.

Enjoy! I know I sure did!

And the gold rush begins.  For the last few days Facebook’s site has said the following up top:

Starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you’ll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/. You’ll also see a notice on your home page with instructions for obtaining your username at that time.

You were able to claim trademarks before hand and most major companies did so.  Personally I just waited until midnight and grabbed my name.  I know a lot of people were grabbing names to squat on.  From what I can tell a lot of the common nouns go straight to the homepage and they aren’t able to be used.

I got my URL – shoot me a freind request at http://www.facebook.com/jeremiahcooper.  Heading to bed now, I’ve been working a lot on my new membership site thats going to be a huge help to a lot of you guys.  It’s not a coaching site but rather a tool that should really come in handy for every affiliate.  Stay tuned, more information will be released soon.