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Is the Affiliate Dream Real?

posted on January 9, 2012

A friend of mine recently said she was disheartened by the promotion of the affiliate lifestyle as an easy way for anyone to make serious cash. She pointed out that most affiliates fall flat on their face making little to no money. This got me thinking…. is the affiliate dream real?

To answer this question, I decided to pick up the phone and fire up my email to reach out to a few successful affiliate marketers to get their thoughts on the reality of the affiliate dream.

Nick Reese

Nick Reese is the author of “How to Turn Traffic and Trust into Sales” and has been promoting affiliate offers since 2007. Nick is a powerful force in affiliate marketing and has made a ton of money promoting affiliate offers across a wide range of industries.

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The Cure for Your PubCon Hangover

posted on November 16, 2011

There’s no better way to test your resolution than braving a four day conference like PubCon and returning to a pile of emails and backed-up projects. Whether you’re still recovering from PubCon Vegas 2011 (Nov 7-10th) or you just want to prepare for your next post-conference hangover, I have a recipe that might just do the trick.

If you’re one of those people who diligently keep up with your work while you’re at a conference, I would like to remind you that you don’t actually exist.

Answer emails first

Every emergency starts and stops with an email. Take Matt Cutts, who mentioned to an eager crowd gathered for his keynote address, that Google Webmaster tools is going to email you if your WordPress is not the latest version (they do for me now). Ignoring that email could get your site hacked! Check your email first to avoid a major problem.

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10 Things I learned at Affiliate Summit East

posted on September 22, 2011

Amid metropolis shaking earthquakes and looming hurricanes, I survived Affiliate Summit East in New York not long ago. I staggered from NYC with tattered remains of notebook paper littered with choice bits I picked up to bring to you, the Pilgrim readers.

While the actual experience was more like an earthquake I didn’t feel and a hurricane I narrowly missed, I am glad to have survived ASE to bring you these highlights.

1. Coupon Poaching

A merchant’s pain and an affiliate’s worst nightmare is coupon poaching. Basically, a visitor lands on your checkout page staring at a coupon code field mocking them with the promise of additional discounts.

Whipping out Google faster than a New York hot dog vendor can ask for your order, these already converted visitors search for your brand name plus the word “coupon code”.

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Getting the Most From Affiliate Summit East – An Interview with Shawn Collins

posted on July 27, 2011

Editor’s Note: Occasionally we will give our readers a look at various events that one of our writers will be attending. We have no connection to this event other than this post to inform you about the opportunity that exists for futher online marketing education and networking.

Affiliate Summit East is just around the corner (August 21-23) in New York and there’s no time like the present to plan your conference strategy. Who better to give you tips on getting the most out of Affiliate Summit than co-founder and conference organizer, Shawn Collins?

Shawn agreed to answer a few of my questions about how to maximize your time at ASE so I could share them with you, our awesome Marketing Pilgrim readers. Enjoy :)

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8 Chrome Extensions Every Online Marketer Should Use

posted on July 12, 2011

I’m an efficiency nut. I change little things about my processes and tools just to shave a few seconds off of tasks I repeat over and over again each day. I even use a square monitor because I feel I lose too much time moving my mouse across a wide screen. All these little savings add up and there’s no better way to increase your work efficiency than with some juicy browser extensions.

Since Chrome is my browser of choice these days, I decided to write this post about Google’s browser. There are similar extensions for Firefox and maybe IE (who knows?) so if you see an extension you like, try searching for a similar extension for your browser. I purposely skipped over most of the SEO tools because those lists have been done over and over again. My goal here is to help all online marketers get more work done in less time.

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The Changing Face of Local Search

posted on June 24, 2011

I remember the first ad buy I ever made. The year was 1996 and I was purchasing a 3”x2” ad in the independent newspaper the Houston Press. I had never bought an ad before and the experience was exciting knowing that my ad would be read by thousands of people who just might purchase the services of my employer, a local ISP in Houston. Now you might ask why I wasn’t buying ads for that campaign online. Well, the answer is simple. That’s not where the local customers were. Oh how times have changed.

The Evolution

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Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter

posted on May 4, 2011

If you’re looking to expand your Twitter universe, you’ve found the right post. While opinions will vary on any list of this sort, I’ve picked out and reviewed my choices for the top 25 online marketers you should be following on Twitter. They are not presented in any particular order so as to prevent any in-fighting with those listed :-) .

I tried to dig in and give you a little more depth provided in most of these kinds of lists and I suspect these folks would love for you to follow them if you are not already.

I hope you enjoy and feel free to add your own favorite online marketers to follow in the comments!