Affiliate Marketing - Thinking Outside the Box
At the recent Elite Retreat Conference in San Francisco I had the opportunity to listen and learn from some of the top search and affiliate marketing experts in the world (both speakers and attendees). After the conference I was thinking about one of the differentiating characteristics between an average affiliate marketer and a super affiliate. For the purposes of this post I consider any affiliate who makes over $10,000 profit per month a super affiliate. However, from my experience top super affiliates can make over $100,000 per month profit and several make in excess $1,000,000 per month.
Several affiliate marketing blogs exist including this one that provide real world money making tips. However, what we tend to talk about are ways that we have made the money (in effect, we let the cat out of the bag) - by the time you go ahead and reproduce those ideas the market becomes saturated. Therefore, while money can be made quite easily by following our recipes the truth is that true super affiliates make lots of money because they are able to think outside the box, not just reproduce the same ideas over and over.
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - EXAMPLE #1
For instance, at the Elite Retreat I talked about how I created a paid search campaign for UGG Australia Boots in November 2006 - I noticed in previous years that UGG Boots sell like hot cakes in the winter and there always seems to be a supply demand issue whenever I walk through a department store; however, I figured online there are multiple vendors who sell UGG Boots and have affiliate marketing programs (i.e., Zappos, Shoes.com, UGG Australia.) Using competitive research software called KeyCompete I was able to download a list of about 190 keywords and create a campaign on Google that I set LIVE within about 15 minutes of the original idea - that one campaign netted about $30K per month in commission (about $15K profit) since November - not bad for 15 minutes of work.
Why did I choose UGG Australia?
Easy. I am a big believer that playing seasonality, holidays, and reality TV provides huge opportunities for affiliate marketers. For instance, you should be thinking about how you can promote affiliate offers for summer (i.e., Life is Good t-shirts), Easter (organic honey hams), and American Idol (top 24 contestants). The idea is to think outside the box - unlike the average affiliate marketer who is more interested in doing what everyone else is doing. If you are able to start bidding on keywords like “Lakisha Jones” before she is deemed by Simon the front runner on American Idol or if you are able to get in on the ground floor of an innovative idea you can make serious money.
By the way, my UGG Australia idea has probably been remanufactured a couple of dozen times, which is OK by me - GO FOR IT! However, that’s not the point - the point is to think of shit like that (before I do!) as a strategy for building your affiliate marketing business.
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - EXAMPLE #2
Here’s another example of thinking outside the box by someone who has defined himself as an industry leading affiliate by setting the standard and doing things differently.
Jeremy Palmer is a well-known entrepreneur within the affiliate marketing community - he has a popular blog called QuitYourDayJob.com and an e-book where he discloses how he made over $1,000,000 in commission in 1-year - it’s my understanding that in the early days of his career Jeremy made most of his income through affiliate marketing search arbitrage (PPC & SEO). However, since the early days Jeremy has steadily re-defined his approach to make what I would guess is a few more million in affiliate commissions and e-book sales.
Most recently I stumbled upon one of Jeremy’s newest money making methods that is clearly outside the box and in my opinion is brilliant.
Jeremy recently launched an affiliate marketing campaign to promote MSN Adcenter - he titles the name of the project “Discover Powerful Microsoft® AdCenter Secrets that Will Help You Explode Your Online Income.” His campaign pitch is located HERE.
Jeremy very creatively (and professionally) presents his visitors with the ability to learn more about MSN AdCenter through an educational video he himself produced, while also providing his visitors with the ability to save money by signing up as a new MSN AdCenter advertiser.
Note that Jeremy has at least two clear goals for his AdCenter campaign. However, both goals have the same outcome, which = make more money!
First, Jeremy wants to get his user to sign-up for a video tutorial that shows them “how to significantly increase their search advertising ROI and master Microsoft AdCenter.” Second, and most importantly, Jeremy includes an affiliate link on the page for his visitors to get a $50 CREDIT for opening a new account on Microsoft AdCenter.
Note that in order to get the video you have to supply Jeremy with your contact information (name / e-mail). Once you sign-up he immediately sends you an e-mail that includes a link to the video, another [affiliate] link to the MSN AdCenter $50 Coupon, and a link to his website where he sells his e-book.
Now this is what I call outside the box affiliate marketing.
Clearly, MSN AdCenter has agreed to pay Jeremy a nice commission for every visitor to his website that he can convert into an AdCenter advertiser. To make this happen Jeremy has gone to great lengths…including producing his own educational video, creating a professional “newsletter,” and capturing the user’s contact information so he can re-market to them in the future. For instance, he may promote his e-book or just simply use the contact info to continue promoting the original MSN Adcenter coupon…or any future videos he may put out (if he hasn’t already), including a Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing educational video, along with a masterfully embedded series of affiliate links.
Do I think Jeremy is making money off this idea - absolutely!
Do I think you can do the same? Of course, but that’s not the point of this post.
The purpose of this post is to encourage you to think ouside the box so that you can become a super affiliate or conversely, if you are already a super affiliate ($10K+ per month) I want to to think outside the box about how you can make even more money.
Trust me, I personally have friends who are generating millions in profit per month through affiliate marketing - as long as that’s the case I will continue to think outside the box so that I can (or teach others) to make more than they do.
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March 27th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Great post. With the UGG campaign were you sending straight to the merchant?
March 27th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Sorry for the double post but wanted to also comment on how it’s really interesting that 15 minutes of work really can make a ton of money online. I had a buddy mention a small niche to me about two years ago and I couldn’t believe he was making anything off it but he suggested I try it. I through together a 1 page site in literally 10 to 15 minutes, put some ClickBank affiliate links on the page and this site is still making me money today–in all I’d estimate it’s made at least 15k. No maintenance whatsoever, literally just 15 minutes of work and adding some links to the site… all organic.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I think this is about as close as we’re going to get as far as you blogging your own presentation. This is a GREAT post!! Well done, friend!
March 27th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
[…] And sadly, Kris didn’t blog his own presentation.But he should have, because it was phenomenal. Actually, he put up a post this week that wonderfully summarizes and adds to his Elite Retreat presentation. But keep an eye on his site for the Guy Kawasaki Elite Retreat finale, which was completely flipping awesome! Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
March 27th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
[…] Kris summarizes his own presentation […]
March 27th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
[…] Kris, though clearly a brilliant marketer, couldn’t blog his own presentation while talking. I feared he would simply not report on his own wisdom, but he threw up a phenomenal post today that really is the next best thing to having been there to hear him speak. […]
March 27th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Yikes, that’s a lot of trackbacks.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
SEOLOSER - in the case of the UGG Campaign it was a combo of direct linking and landing page driven traffic depending on how well the keywords were converting - we use SID tracking at the keyword level for ALL affiliate marketing search arbitrage - the UGG campaign was just a sampling.
WENDY - thanks for all the trackbacks and the post! You are great!
March 28th, 2007 at 12:22 am
[…] In his latest post “Affiliate Marketing - Thinking Outside the Box“, Kris dishes out the dirt on how he recently executed a campaign grossing $30,000 in sales, netting $15,000 in profit. And while some Super Affiliates may net six or seven figures in income per month, consider that Kris spent 15 minutes setting up this campaign. […]
March 28th, 2007 at 8:43 am
[…] Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home pointed me in the direction of an affiliate marketing post on PepperJam. I have to agree with Wendy - Kris pulled together a great presentation of how affiliate marketing REALLY works. It took me months to see there was a “system” to making money with affiliate programs. The book that helped me the most was Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook but the concept of “niche” simply eluded me for a long time because I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. With Kris’ “Thinking Outside the Box” post - you don’t have to be thinking niche - instead, focused and creative. Using the tools the super affiliates use - find something with a strong market, unique keywords that searchers use and pay per click then test, refine, test again while staying focused. That is the key! […]
March 28th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Great post Kris. Keycompete is an incredible useful tool to have. I have already started a couple of campaigns based our conversation in San Francisco.
David
March 28th, 2007 at 11:50 am
[…] There are better ways to make money in affiliate marketing than to follow the Uncovered Profits methods. Yes, if you do buy the product you can make enough to at least pay the $291 monthly fee for it. But besides that monthly cost, you need to also take into account the opportunity cost of the time you spend on it. Think outside the box and you’ll be much better off. […]
March 28th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Great post Kris. The market is really saturated, so hard to find a good niche these days, but they are deff out there and ready to be capitalized.
speaking at any conferences soon?
March 28th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
ppalatnik - thanks!
I’ll be speaking on two panels at SES - New York in two weeks…one panel is entitled, “Search Arbitrage” and the other is called, “Dealing with Affiliates.”
I’m also confirmed to speak at Affiliate Summit - East in Miami in July on “the confluence of search-engine and affiliate marketing.”
Also, I’m expecting to speak at the remaining 2007 Elite Retreat - eliteretreat.info - conferences (Orlando, May; Chicago, July; Phoenix, September; and Dallas, Texas in November).
I’ve also been asked to speak again at ecomXpo later this year, but I haven’t agreed to that one yet.
These are the oly confirmed ones I have for now.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Since we’re on the topic of KeyCompete–I’m assuming you have a “Super User Subscription” and I noticed that gives you “access to all Long Tail Adwords Reports.” When I signed up at KeyCompete I just did the one month subscription and I’m not sure if this includes what they define as long tail. I’m getting 1- 3 or 4 word keywords and usually a few thousand keywords per export… do you recommend the “Super User” subscription to get the long tail reports or is the normal user subscription pretty much the same? Thought I’d ask before paying 1k for it.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Kris - we have the super user subscription but don’t really use the long-tail tool - all they do is take the basic list of keywords and tag them with other similar keywords - in my opinion it doesn’t have all that much value. However, if you’re using MSN AdCenter or any other 3rd tier PPC engine it might make sense to use the tool; however, it will kill you on Google since you are likely to get hit with a poor Google Quality score if your approach (on Adwords) is to just submit as many keywords as possible.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Kris - When you started the UGG campaign, wasn’t it pretty saturated already? Weren’t there a lot of other people in the market? Did it matter if there were or not?
March 29th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Jason - the market was competitive (still is) but not saturated.
The reason UGG worked so well is because it is niche that is very hot during a particular season (winter).
The idea is to get in when others aren’t doing something - in my case, at the time, there wasn’t too much competition among affiliates bidding for UGG keywords - yeas, there were other merchants, but I was able to bid as high as 75 cents per click or more and still see a rough 2 to 1 return on investment.
Because the space was competitive it cost me about $30K per month. Now I realize that not everyone has the same risk tolerance I have; however, conceptually speaking the same opportunity can present itself on much smaller levels and in many cases much larger levels.
Thanks for your comment!
March 29th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Hey Kris, just wanted to say thanks for the reply. Keep posting man, love this blog.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Kris, thanks for the post. The concepts are obviously sound, but I’m having trouble connecting the dots on the #s for the Ugg campaign. In your post you said that you netted about $30K per month in commission (about $15K profit). So it sounds like your media cost was around $15K/month? But in that last reply you said your costs were $30K?
In any case, great post and thanks for the motivation.
On a side note, it is funny how we tend to gauge risk in this industry relative to others. Granted, you’re experienced in the ppc/affiliate world and can pull this off with a better success ratio than someone new to the game. But doubling your money in 60 days (guessing there is a lag for commision payout) in nearly any other industry would not be viewed as risky..
March 29th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Jamie, totally true about our screwy view of a ‘good return’ in this crazy internet world. I love Shoemoney’s post at http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/12/31/i-hate-gambling-money-in-the-stock-market/ so much just because it shows the contrast/mindset so clearly
March 29th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
[…] There are better ways to make money in affiliate marketing than to follow the Uncovered Profits methods. Yes, if you do buy the product you can make enough to at least pay the $291 monthly fee for it. But besides that monthly cost, you need to also take into account the opportunity cost of the time you spend on it. Think outside the box and you’ll be much better off. […]
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Jamie,
The UGG example highlights my idea of thinking outside the box - since Pepperjam has been in the industry for about 8-years you can imagine we have a few hundred stories like UGG.
The main thing I wanted to highlight was how playing seasonality and “buzz” can make affiliates a ton of money.
In terms of ROI - the $30K a month in commission on about $15K in profit was an example of an average month with UGG over the winter months.
We’ve promoted UGG for several years but it wasn’t until last year that I identified a trend that I knew was capable of exploit.
Specifically, I was at a mall in King of Prussia, PA - I was in a Macy’s and later that day in a Neiman Marcus (they both have large shoe stores) and noticed that the most popular (and prominent) section of the shoe store was UGGS….what I also noticed was that most colors and sizes of UGG Australia were Out-of-Stock. At that point I made a mental note that as the winter season kicked into gear there would be similar offline inventory issues and that that would present an affiliate marketing opportunity since many of the women looking for UGG boots at Macy’s, Neiman, etc. would go online to purchase the shoes.
I also knew that UGG Australia, Zappos, Shoes.com, and others offered a large selection of UGG Boots and also had affiliate programs - that in and of itself presented a nice opportunity.
Furthermore, I guessed that if my team followed it closely we would be able to determine at any given time online where UGG’s were in-stock and out-of-stock - I concluded that that would present an additional affiliate marketing opportunity.
Well…my analysis worked very well and we’ve enjoyed about $15K per month in profit throughout the winter.
There are tons of ideas like this if affiliate marketes are just willing to think outside the box.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
[…] As for me, I don’t keep up with popular culture because I don’t watch television (I don’t even own a tv) and I stay away from any kind of news that isn’t tech or internet marketing related, including politics. But Brent — along with Kris Jones and his past successes — motivates me to take a dip into this type of opportunistic affiliate marketing. So, if you’re like me and live in a box closed off from the real world, here’s how to keep up with pop culture by taking a shortcut. […]
August 27th, 2007 at 10:40 am
[…] pepperjamBlog » Blog Archive » Affiliate Marketing - Thinking Outside the Box […]
September 13th, 2007 at 7:09 am
[…] Affiliate Marketing - Thinking outside the box […]
October 6th, 2007 at 3:25 am
Kris Jones: Hey Kris the question is though what sites did you scrape from? Or should I ask how do you usually go about scraping keywords do you just start scraping from numerous websites and then use all the low paying keywords?
February 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I just found this post by accident… I’m glad I did! This was well worth the read. I liked the Jeremy Palmer example. I knew he had to be making some money with it, but just wasn’t sure how much.
Was he collecting optins at this time, too? I know when I first ran across the site (and still…), he had the optin form up.
Great post, Kris!