Hey all thought I would give my two cents on what is happening with the whole maple leaf foods thing right now in Canada. I was watching some TV last night, I know weird for me, and I saw this commercial for Maple Leafs Foods.  I have to say … wow I am impressed, this commercial,although we know it is to save face, actually came across to me as quite genuine.  They seem very sincere, which how could they not be after that tragic mishap and there is no flash or crap that makes you want to look at the products or anything.  A simple statement, we messed up, we tried to prevent it, and couldn’t now we have to try and fix it.  I liked this commercial very much, I think it truly speaks to the good nature of the company.  I think for a big company like that it takes a ton of guts to, even when you are wrong, come out and publicly admit your wrong.    Good on them, now if only I could find a maple leaf blog where they were doing something to try and talk right to each of us .. I would be floored!

So as you all know I have been trying to do more affiliate marketing myself lately, its a fun and tricky world to be involved in. I love it so much and am really enjoying learning. I thought I would pass on my latest. I have recently purchased a new domain and am going to get a tracking system setup very soon. I want to be able to track a lot closer what I am doing, so I went over to prosper 202’s site and grabbed there free software. I am having a little difficulty getting it setup, but I am not very good with technical stuff at all … that’s probably why I am still using word press 2.3. ha-ha

So I have got the new software, trying my hardest to install it so I can better understand the traffic I am buying, I have gone by the seat of my pants this far and I noticed something, maybe you have had a similar experience. While not having a good solid tracking system in place I find that once I have more that 5 campaigns running I am lost and tracking things is a nightmare and thats when I lose a ton of money (ok not a ton, I don’t spend that much, but relatively speaking) So I am hoping this new software will help me fix all that. If you do any online marketing and you do any PPC marketing I highly suggest checking it out as a free solution, I have had the pleasure of sitting with the folks from tracking 202 and I have to say they are wicked guys!! I even had the chance to chat with Wes at Affiliate Summit in Vegas

I am so glad I have had the extremly pleasure of having some great people around me, just to name a select few, Trevor Nash Keller, Wes Mahler, Steven Truong and there are many many others that I have not mentioned, but I would say in terms of my own personal company growing these guys have been my biggest help and inspiration, so I take this opportunity to tip my hat to you guys!

So I was poking through my reader this afternoon and trying to get my mind off of Affiliate Marketing for a second and I remembered … oh yeah I have a blog … oh yeah I have been super lazy in posting … oh yeah I have not been a good member of a community I have tried so hard to become a part of. Like most people, I am always particularly hard on myself, my short comings or the times where I don’t do things when I think I should etc etc … all that caused me to do is to start looking at it in the light of .. oh well .. no one remembers my blog anyways … who is really listening .. my as well put it off another day. Holly talk about looking at things from a glass half empty perspective

Truth is I have been out there … networking .. connecting .. reading .. being inspired and trying to inspire others. I have been fortunate enough to make some great connections through MaxBounty. I have some great affiliates, some that don`t even do any business with me, that have really helped me lear, so I thought I would share some of that with you. Now if you are not into Affiliate Marketing then a lot of these blogs may not overly interest you, but I have to tell you, if you dive into Affiliate Marketing for a month and really try to learn it … you will be hooked … broke from spending all your money learning the tricks and the system and how to get cheap clicks .. but happy

I have been trying so hard lately to get a good handle on PPC Marketing through search engines, it is going ok … I have been able to create a handful of campaigns, mostly that break even or get a little profit and one campaign that has really done well, which is now funding the other crappy ones I am going to share with you some of the things that have helped me get up to where I am .. even thought I have a really long long way to go. Firstly, one of y favorite blogs to read (when he posts) is Trevor Nash Kellers blog, guy is unreal, I have had the pleasure of working with him and chatting with him and getting to know him as a good friend and I have to tell you the knowledge this guy has stored in his head about buying traffic, directing traffic and getting some traction in anything he tries to do is wicked!!n Every time I have a conversation with him I go right back over to my ad words editor and my YSM account and figure out how to get at least one keyword for cheaper .. he has been a great inspiration for me I highly suggest you read through his blog and dig deeper into his older posts, there is really valuable info all over the place.

Another great blog I read and who is an affiliate in my list, but I don’t think we have ever really had a chance to connect is CDF Networks. He has some really good posts about how to increase your quality score easily that has really help my person campaigns out a lot, definitely worth a read. He is another guy full of knowledge and can really help you learn a lot about the world of PPC, that ad writing post was a great one that has really helped me sit down and write some targeted ads. Hopefully I do get to connect with them more in the future, I know I can learn a lot from them and I know you can too so go check out the blog now!

Another great on I have been reading lately is bluebobbo.com I like his no BS attitude and the way he gets his points across, I wish he would post more often though, but I am certainly not one to talk about that

So there you have it, a couple new things I have been paying attention to trying to learn and trying to get better not only at my job but at understanding this industry in general.  I mean sometimes I feel like I have so much knowledge about the industry until I sit back and realize … I have only been doing this for a little over a year now?!?!  Wow, seems like so many htings have changed in a year, I love it and I am loving this industry!!!

Hey all, so it’s been a while since I have had a chance to post anything or get involved.  I do it often, I let this slip through my busy life and forget how much i really enjoy it when I do it.  So I took this morning influx of 15 spam comments as a sign … you need to be paying more attention to your blog again.  So whats been going on, what have I been up to.  Well for starters we hired three new employees at MaxBounty, and I am now the senior affiliate manager :)  so it has been pretty cool and scary all at the same time.  I am helping to train three new people in this crazy world of Affiliate Marketing and am now responsible for a good chunk of the companies income on a monthly basis.  Something I know I can definitely handle and improve on, but scary at the same time.  I love these types of crossroads in life, those times where your pumped, excited, scared, want to push on and want to quit all at the same time.  Really helps you learn something new about yourself.  Also I have been setting up some new campaigns here and there on adwords.  I run a few different things, only one is actually making me money though … But I am trying new things often, new ways of setting things up new ads, different words or verbiage, losing a lot of money testing, but I know I can find a winning formula sooner or later, just takes the trial and error step before I can move on to the next level.

I have been reading some great posts across a lot of blogs and forums, so I will have to write something about all the content soon, for now just wanted to  drop back in and let everyone know I am alive and doing extremly well, just got to sort out my new list of priorities … hooray for learning

So here is one of those saying you hear every day … at least I hear it … but have you really stopped to think about what it truly means?? I haven’t ever really … its one of those things you say and we all know what it means right … well stop and think about it for a second. If something big happens to you today, puts a stop to major plans you had, maybe it is something that was supposed to launch tomorrow, a campaign that was going live, whatever it may be, do you have the ability to “roll with the punches” and make the best of the situation. Can you really take a punch on the nose, shake it off and get right back in the game?? How do we make sure we are prepared for that punch on the nose??? I mean if you haven’t learned it by now, life is going to punch you in the nose … daily for a lot of us … and the true test is how many times you can come back from that punch and make your situation better by learning from that punch.

I tried to do a little research on the topic, find out how others roll with their punches or how they prepare for the inevitable punch, or for a lot of us the “Google slap” Now a lot of people would argue, you have to be smart and learn to avoid the punch before it comes time, but i feel a lot of the times we need that punch … that brings us down to reality re focus and then better ourselves. roll with the punches here is the only real post I could find on the subject, what do I take away from the saying? That’s hard to put into words but here goes, the way I view rolling with the punches is this, I step up to take the first punch, if I come in on the wrong angle, with the wrong tools I have to roll with the punch thrown back at me so I can come at it from a new angle. So take a look at that difficult situation you are having, something you could not over come and step up to it and try and throw that first punch, if it doesn’t work, roll with it and try that punch again!

So here I am sitting in front of my computer on a rainy Sunday morning. Looking at the 1 campaign I have running making a good return, wondering, what else should I be promoting? It started to get me to think of all the ways my affiliates have told me they select campaigns to run … and let me tell you I hear a new way to do it every day, but still I find myself struggling to find my own way. So what did I do, did a Google search .. common don’t we all? I found some great posts, mostly older posts but this one in particular caught my eye now he is going through ways you can identify good offers. However, doesn’t give you any great detail … this seems to be a very regular thing in Affiliate Marketing, lots of people will offer advice but never give you any real details. I love how he gave you some code to split test, thats wicked! So what do you do, I mean really how would you start. Well this is what I am going to do, try a ton of different things, sure I am going to lose money I bet, but i will learn. So I am going to treat this next 500 bucks as if it was tuition to the University of Goggle. I am going to set up two offers and create a handful of ad groups with different ads then tweak as I go to see if I can make it profitable. That seems to be the only real way to do it anymore. There are a million and one different things you can get now a days to identify the money makers, but to me it seems like they are offering easy money .. which everyone knows does not really exist. So if your a new or newer affiliate reading this here is what my suggestion to you is, gather as much money as you can afford to throw into the fire in your back yard tomorrow and just start setting up campaigns … who cares if they all bomb, once they do sit down and try to figure out why they bombed, then repeat the process. Here’s hoping we don’t lose too much money

Keep checking back, my suggesting for TAC and how to improve are coming soon!

Alright as you all know I have been getting really into my work and the whole affiliate marketing space, I love it, I love that I can do what I want, from where I want and I can be so creative in how I promote any product I can think of. So I have been very vigilante in finding new and exciting things going on in the space. I came across a post today by ShoeMoney about this new”reality” series called Top Affiliate Challenge you can read his post here Now I thought this would be a great idea at first, a show about affiliate marketing for affiliate marketers. Learn some tricks and tips from some of the “most successful” people in the business. So I tuned in, was I ever disappointed!!! I mean the show was really poorly put together, really bad editing, horrible content, contrived drama, and it EVEN HAD 30 SECOND COMMERCIALS, WTF!!! I mean the entire show was a crappy rip off of survivor, just like most reality shows, and it showed absolutely no creativity or embodied any of the reason why I am getting so excited about this industry. I am really disappointed!

I love the idea of the show, it has soo much potential, you can watch the episode for yourself and see what you think. Personally I think, get rid of the damn commercials, is an absolute must! Let’s get something in there that is worth wild, show some content that would actually interest me and educate me, show me how you are creating things, a little information on the code you put in place to track things, or the way you decided to use certain verbiage to sell certain products .. give me something I can actually use and take away from it. Oh and the controversy of ShoeMoney “calling in a favor” a little over the top.  I mean it really depends, did he ask someone to just add leads for him, without them actually being leads or sale or did he just make sure that the tracking was on par, cookies and pixels all placed properly? I don’t know but either way he used a very common strategy to making money, working at a network I know personally that we eat a lot of lost money to make sure affiliates and merchants are happy, thats the job of being a middle man … keeping the peace. So stop making a big deal about it!

I do have to shout out some congrats to ShoeMoney, John Chow, Ken McArthur and the entire group for getting this together, it is a great idea … but common get the host to stop reading from a piece of paper on the floor and wing it a little .. just have a little more fun with it!!

Alright so I tried to embed the video into this page, but for some reason it made the whole layout of the page go weird … funny how that works. Anyways, this seems to be a weekend thing for me, but here is a great video to help make you smile, and take some of the stress of life off your back … at least for about 6 minutes

Best Laugh ever!

Just a quick update, it is raining outside today here in gorgeous Ottawa, and I can’t paint the car!!  It is too bad I was really looking forward to learning a new skill today.  What did I do instead, I set up a handful of PPC campaigns on Google.  I decided to do them a little quicker than normal, not a ton of research went into keywords, but so far it looks like they will do ok … I say ok cause they are not getting many impressions at the moment.  But we will have to wait and see what happens once they are in full swing!  I will keep you post and see if they do anything for me.

  Alright so I finally figured out what my first new project is going to be … I am going to tackle the rust on my car and re paint it myself.  I have never done this before and I am a little nervous I will make my car look dumb .. but here goes, can’t learn until you try!  So I am excited to make some mistakes and do some hands on learning!!!  I will be sure to post when I am done with before and after pics for all of you!  Anyone have any tips??

What skill are you going to learn this weekend?!?!