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Most of the larger affiliates have run into this problem. Since your ads are so incredibly visible to everyone on the internet, it is very easy for other affiliates to simply copy/paste your landing page onto their own domain and run traffic to it from your traffic sources. Doing this can take as little as 15 minutes and can bring in quite a bit of money. This is, of course, unfortunate for the people who spend hours making/paying for landing pages just to have them jacked, but is it something they should get upset about, and should they take action, or should they just chalk it up as an inevitable loss?
Nickycakes doesn’t want to get into a discussion of the legal side of this issue, mostly because that takes way too long to research, but there are a few points worth mentioning:
First, NEVER trust legal information that you get from a source like…this blog…marketing forums (wickedfire), IRC, etc.
Second, apparently, exact wording is protected by copyright, but “styles” are not. For example, you can’t legally jack the exact text of someones landing page, but nobody can copyright the “blog style” landing page.
Ok, so legal stuff aside, is it morally wrong to take other peoples landing pages and use them as your own? Nicky estimates that most people would say that to a degree, yes, of course it is wrong to steal the work of others. That’s fairly obvious. But it is, on the other hand, easy to see someone in this industry justify it, especially when they are promoting products such as payday loans, weight loss products that don’t work, etc. If misleading kids about ringtones charges is morally WORSE than stealing someones fake testimonial landing page, is it really THAT bad??
And that brings up another point. A lot of the landing page theft is happening to these “flog” (fake blog) landing pages. The testimonials on these pages are rarely real. The Cakes isn’t exactly a legal expert, but something in the back of his mind tells him that there is some department in some government agency somewhere that is tasked with finding and persuing such acts. So is it wrong to steal from someone who’s breaking the law to begin with?
What about the networks? Should they get involved in disputes involving copied landing pages? Often if an affiliate feels someone has stolen his landing page, and the person who stole it is using an offer from the same network, they will contact the network and try to use their traffic as leverage to convince them to drop the affiliate who stole their page. Should the networks take action in these cases, or is this blackmail?
Nicky, has his own opinions, of course.
Stealing is always wrong, but this is an industry that tends to have very flexible morals. Should you steal peoples work? No. Not only because it’s wrong to steal, but because being innovative and making your own stuff will many times produce a much better result than taking someone’s work. Remember that you may be stealing from the biggest idiot in the world, and anything you create on your own could preform 10x better.
But should you get upset when other people take your stuff? No, but you will anyway. It stings less after the first few times it happens, but it will happen inevitably. If people see your campaign popping up day after day, they will assume it works well and copy it. It means you’re doing something right. If you come up with a whole new way of promoting something, such as when people first started using blog landers, you should definitely not get mad when people copy your style. Immitation is the best form of flattery, or something like that. If you feel really butthurt about someone taking a direct copy of your work, hire a lawyer. There are probably millions to be made by lawyers helping affiliates sue other affiliates who copy their pages as it is a clear copyright violation and there is a large quantifiable monetary gain as a direct result of the theft. Basically, either sue them or quit crying about it.
Should people try to blackmail their affiliate network into kicking other affiliates off offers if they steal their pages? No. This is not the networks responsibility, and this puts them in a very uncomfortable position. Not only are you hurting your relationship with the network when you do this, but you will likely be branded as a snitch to everyone in the industry. Your reputation in the industry may seem inconsequential when you consider that you run your own company and you don’t really need to be looked on favorably by other affiliates, but this is a very shortsighted position. Consider how many networks and advertisers are run by former affiliates. How many of these were affiliates just a year ago? Lots.
Basically, even if stealing weren’t morally wrong, it is usually much more profitable to innovate. And, snitches get stitches.
Nickycakes would love to know, what is your opinion on landing page theft? He would especially love to hear from known landing page thieves like Zac Johnson.
Keep it real.
Published by nickycakes //
This is the final part of Nickycakes’ Newbie Affiliate Marketing Guide. If you have not read the other parts, go read them.
So, you did it. You set up tracking, got approved on some networks, picked offers, made landing pages, set up campaigns, and optimized until you started making some profit. Good for you. You might not be mentally challenged after all. But now what?
Hiring
Chances are, if you’re making good money, you’re likely spending a good part of your day testing and optimizing, as well as coming up with new stuff to promote. At some point, you won’t have much time left to do anything else, but may still have a desire to expand. This is when you might consider hiring outside help. You’ll probably need actual office space for this, which can be surprisingly cheap compared to what you’re likely making if you’re having any decent success to the point where you need to hire. There are plenty of places to find employees but your best bet is going to probably be local universities, especially if they have any kind of work study type programs where they can’t afford to quit the job or screw you over because their credits rely on them staying at the job. You may try craigslist too. Be careful, though, because in this industry it’s easy for a newbie to learn enough information to make it on their own and then just jump ship to do just that. Teach them exactly what you need them to do, and nothing more. If you’re hiring them to manage your campaigns, don’t even tell them what an affiliate network is, etc. Just show them exactly how to manage the campaigns, and how to create ads, etc.
Start a Network
What most people don’t know is that a good number of the bigger affiliate networks out there were actually started by affiliates who wanted to expand into other areas. Honestly, it doesn’t take much more than a directtrack license and a list of affiliate friends to get off the ground. It definitely requires hiring though, especially if you get big. You will likely need a full staff after things get rolling. Also, unless you want to give shitty payment terms to your affiliates, you better have a decent bankroll saved up.
A big misconception is that running a network runs almost no risk. Totally untrue. There is so much fraud going on right now it’s crazy, and the network is the one who ends up on the hook for that. Add this to the fact that you’re floating a lot of money while waiting on getting paid by the merchants and things could be disastrous if you’re not extremely careful who you let on your network. If you DO decide to go this route, please read this post if you want to stand out from the other thousands of identical networks out there.
Your Own Offers
You won’t find much info about this out there. Why? Because the barrier to entry is high and the people doing it already don’t want you to have a piece. At Affiliate Summit West this year, there was a table at club XS that ordered 30some bottles of Crystal…acai merchants. Setting up your own offers and doing it right, especially for a physical product rebill type offer can be HARD WORK and VERY RISKY. If theres anything legally wrong with what you’re doing, you get sued. If the customers aren’t staying on your rebill long enough for you to be profitable..you lose your ass. A million things can go wrong, especially the credit card processing, which needs to be rock solid, and even then if you fuck up at all, they can hold your earnings for months and months forcing you to close up shop. High risk for potentially very high reward. If this is something you’re interested in, good luck to you. You’ve got a long road ahead, but there may be lots of lambos and shiny stuff at the end.
Give Back
Don’t be a dick. You know you’re promoting shady diet rebill offers. Please give some money to a worthy cause. Yes, it’s a tax writeoff. No, you shouldn’t be doing it just because it’s a tax writeoff. Cakes has a soft spot in his heart for drug and alcohol treatment centers, and likes to contribute to those, but just pick something that you feel is a worthy cause and contribute some money every year. That is the sign of a true balla in cakes’ opinion. Honestly, which one of these statements sounds like you’re rolling in dough: “Yo I just dropped $100k on a watch.” or “Yo, I just fed thanksgiving and christmas dinner to every poor person in the city.” You got it way better than most people, so don’t forget where you came from.
What NOT to do
Don’t start a blog. Unless you love writing and are doing it because you love helping people and making friends, then just don’t. It’s rarely profitable for anyone.
Don’t share your secrets with anyone. Yeah, you’re excited that you have your first $1k a day campaign, now shut the fuck up about it for as long as possible. Someone will eventually see your ads everywhere and catch on and copy you but you can make plenty of money before that happens if you keep quiet.
Don’t be an asshole to other affiliates. There have been plenty of reports lately of affiliates reporting other peoples ads, or merchants calling the FTC about other merchants offers. If you do this kinda stuff, you’re a total douche who can’t make money in an industry where money pretty much grows on trees. Congrats on that. Be respectful of others or you will get shunned in this industry really damn quick. News travels very fast.
This will likely be the last part of this guide. Hopefully it was helpful.
Keep it real.
Published by nickycakes //
Ok, on Friday, the Texas Attorney General filed charges against Jonathan Eborn of Google Money Tree. For those who don’t know, Google Money Tree was a very popular BizOpp offer running on quite a few networks. It was promoted by a lot of affiliates for a while, and people loved it for having such good conversions. Unfortunately, it was a total scam. Here’s a copy of the article on the Texas AG Page:
Infusion Media Inc.’s ‘GoogleMoneyTree’ uses high profile name to deceive out-of-work Internet users
AUSTIN – Attorney General Greg Abbott today charged two Utah-based defendants with operating a fraudulent work-at-home scheme. The state’s enforcement action names Infusion Media Inc. and Jonathan D. Eborn, whose “GoogleMoneyTree.com” promised six-figure earnings for conducting specialized Google and Yahoo Internet searches.
According to investigators, the defendants promised big payouts in order to convince Web users to spend $3.88 on shipping and handling for a “free kit” that supposedly would show them how to make money from home. Those who purchased the kit were later surprised to discover they were being charged $72 a month by the defendants.
Internet users encountered the defendants’ Google and Facebook advertisements, which linked to blogs that were created to promote their work-at-home offer. The blogs included “testimonials” that touted their products and led viewers to believe that previously unemployed users were earning high salaries conducting Internet searches. According to the blogs, interested parties need only acquire a “free kit,” which was available through GoogleMoneyTree’s “sign-up” page.
Individuals who requested the kit were required to provide substantial personal information, including their name, address, telephone number, email address, and credit card payment information, which was supposed to be used to pay the $3.88 “shipping and handling” fee. Customers believed they were only obligated to pay the “refundable” processing fee and were not aware there would be additional charges to their credit cards.
According to the state’s enforcement action, GoogleMoneyTree failed to clearly inform purchasers that they had been enrolled in monthly memberships and had only seven days to cancel their trial membership. Purchasers who failed to cancel within seven days were automatically charged $72 on their credit card statements each month. In addition to the unexpected credit card charges, customer complaints obtained by state investigators indicate that GoogleMoneyTree failed to actually send the “free kit” and refused to honor customer refunds.
The state is seeking an injunction, civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as restitution for purchasers. Texans who believe they have been misled by similar business practices may file complaints with the Office of the Attorney General toll-free at (800) 252-8011 or file complaints online at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov.
Ok, so after finding out about this, Nickycakes originally took the side of the Merchant. After all, rebill offers have been around for YEARS. Columbia House anyone? They are NOT fraud by any means, if set up properly. Unfortunately, after doing a little reading and digging, this product was definitely out of the boundaries of what can be considered legitimate. You can read the entire official complaint in pdf form here, but here’s a little rundown of why this idiot deserves to be sued:
- Lack of clear terms of service - Alright, at some point there were actually terms of service on the second signup page. Apparently they were wayyyy at the bottom of the page, in 11 point font, in tan text on a white background. Every number that was a price was written out like “seventy two bucks” instead of $72 so that people wouldn’t notice. People simply had no idea it was a rebill, even if they bothered looking.
- No actual product - Ok, there was a product. It was a bunch of shitty worthless e-books and programs. They were given to you when you signed up for the offer as a download, and then the exact same crap was physically mailed to you on cd. After that, you would get rebilled but not get anything further. Even worse, if you didn’t log in immediately after buying the product, you couldn’t log in later. So people couldn’t even access the product.
- No Refunds - Oh, yeah, the landing page claimed that you could easily get a “no hassle refund” if you didn’t like the product. But if you decided to call them, they would only refund the initial shipping and handling charge of like $3 and not the $72 or so that they billed you after a week claiming that the refund policy did not apply to the membership fee. Keep in mind that the membership fee did not actually include anything other than the privilege of calling yourself a member.
Ok, so yes, this makes Mr. Eborn a complete retard, clearly. But, to make matters worse, the Texas AG is thinking of going after the affiliate networks and possibly affiliates on this as well. And to be honest, they probably have legal grounds to do so, but it’s still fucked up. The affiliates were duped just as much as the customers on this one.
Seriously, theres hundreds of bizopp offers out there, and Cakes can easily count the number of rebill offers he’s actually filled out for himself to see if they were a quality product: ZERO. It would seem like common sense to us that the merchant would do their job and, you know, not be a fcking fraud, right? WRONG.
Here’s a suggestion to Eborn and any other morons out there who are running a crappy rebill offer: Call the FTC. Ask them to tell you, in writing, that your offer and what you’re selling is compliant. If it’s not, have them tell you what needs to be fixed so it IS compliant. It’s seriously a trivial thing to do, and it is their freaking job to help you.
But for real, if any affiliates get charged, Nickycakes hopes Jonathan is turned into the Huntsville Prison Sodomy Tree.
Keep it real.
Published by nickycakes //
It’s been a few days since Nickycakes got back from Ad:Tech, and no doubt you’ve already seen the videos of some of the stuff that went down at the Nickycakes.com/PPC.bz party. But what happened at the event itself?
Day 0 (monday):
As many of you know, Nickycakes loves flying Virgin America. They have neat stuff like in-flight wifi and cheap upgrades to first class. Nicky got on his flight and sat down right next to Dave Vankomen from Vankomen Media (same dudes who flew nicky and his friend to utah last month for a jazz game). What are the odds? Pretty uneventful flight to SFO, at which point Dave was nice enough to hook Nicky up with a ride to the hotel in one of those private cars where they stand with your name on a sign at the baggage claim. Ballinnnn.
Cakes got to the Intercontinental hotel and checked in. The thing is, there are two Intercontinental hotels in SF. One is right next to the convention center, and one is on the top of Nob Hill. If you checked into the one at Nob Hill, you were pretty far from the conference, but still staying in a really nice hotel. Anyway, here are a couple pics of the room. Not too bad considering this was like one of their least expensive ones:
After that it was pretty much dinnertime so Nicky went to his favorite sushi place in the world, Sushi Rika. Sushi Rika is a little hole-in-the-wall sushi place in Nob Hill real close to the Mark Hopkins. They barely speak english there and you see lots of actual Japanese people eating there, which generally is a good indication of the quality. Anyway, they have all the normal sushi rolls, but also have a bunch of really awesome creative ones. Nickycakes’ favorite is this tuna roll thats got mango and rasberry sauce on the side. It sounds crazy but its sooooo good. There were a few people on twitter that sent Cakes a reply saying they tried the place out as well and loved it, so hit it up next time you’re in town.
Day 1 (tues):
Tuesday was the first day of the actual conference. Nicky got up early(ish) in hopes of making the opening keynote [fail] and ended up going to get breakfast with Jason and Alonzo from ads4dough, and Charles aka Dr Ngo. Uberaffiliate was supposed to come down for breakfast too, but then realized that he booked at the wrong Intercontinental hotel and was like 2 miles away [fail].
The crew was greeted with some really fun lines to stand in:
Nicky was able to cut in line with Justin Chelf and get to the front only to find out that since he had a press pass, he just had to go up to the 3rd floor press room and pick it up without waiting in any lines. With that taken care of, it was time to go walk around the exhibit hall. Here are some pics from that:
With neverblue
random exhibit hall aisle
Dr_Ngo gettin Ric Flair all over some Force Factor.
For lunch, Nicky got a bunch of friends together to go eat at the W. Somehow they were able to pack everyone into a table on short notice.
Several mil a month in revenue at that table, easy.
For dinner that night, Nickycakes had his traditional dinner with Brit from CPAE. Obligatory nick + brit pic:
Tuesday Night:
Ok, so you’ve seen the vids from the Nickycakes.com / PPC.bz party. Here are a few more pics to go with them:
The party was awesome. Thanks to everyone who came out.
Day 2 (wednesday):
Much less exciting than day 1 for sure. Walked around the exhibit hall mostly, chatted with friends, etc.
Actually, day 2 is when the best part of the conference happened. Nickycakes was standing around chatting with Uberaffiliate and Shoemoney, and these 3 girls from some random new network walked up, turned to Uber, and said “Hey, are you Nickycakes?!” The look on his face was priceless. Poor guy. Here are some pics from Wednesday:
With Ruck from Convert2Media
Jonathan Volk, Cakes, Uberaffiliate
Oh, forgot to mention one small detail. They did a drawing for a 40″ 1080p HDTV at the CX Digital booth and Cakes ended up winning. Instead of keeping it though, he’s gonna have a contest and give it away to somebody on the blog. Stay tuned for that. Here’s a pic of said TV behind Nicky and 3 of his friends from CX:
Winks, Debrani, Cakes, Mirl
Wed Night:
Pretty laid back. Went to Harris’ for the best steak EVER. Highly recommended if you’re ever in SF.
Summary:
If you didn’t go, you’re a retard. You’ll know better next time. Thanks to steve from convert2media for pics and video.
Keep it real.
Published by nickycakes //
Oh snap! Ad:Tech San Fran is only 3 short weeks away! Nickycakes was lucky enough to attend the Ad:Tech in NYC back in November, and it was off the hook, so, of course, he will be attending this one as well.
For those who have not been to an Ad:Tech before, you’re definitely missing out. If you’ve been to Affililiate summit, Ad:Tech is muuch larger, but not just focused on affiliate stuff. It pretty much covers all areas of digital marketing. Which, as an affiliate, is perfect. Affiliate Summit is a great conference, especially because it is so focused, and you will not (at this point anyway) find a conference that is better in terms of networking and getting new ideas. Ad:Tech, however, is unmatched in many ways, especially in giving affiliates the opportunity to meet ad networks and find traffic sources.
Are you making like $1k or so a day and looking to expand into some big media buys? Or maybe you just want to break out of the box of the big 3 search engines? Nickycakes went to the AD:Tech in NYC in november intent on finding new traffic sources. Here’s the stack of traffic source business cards he left with:
Please note: 7search blows. do not use.
As you can see, they have no shortage when it comes to ad networks in the exhibit hall. The exhibit hall, by the way, is enormous. It is really a little bit overwhelming to see so many booths packed into that place. At the NYC show, they even had them lining all of the hallways. Insane.
Of course, all the big affiliate networks will be there as well. And, they will likely be having parties. Advaliant had a party in NYC that was completely off the hook and there were many hilarious and not so hilarious shenanigans.
Basically, the show is going to be awesome and a great opportunity for anyone in the affiliate marketing, or any kind of online marketing space. Well worth it. If you pre-register, you can get an exhibit hall pass for $35. On-site it’s $75. This includes all the keynotes. Don’t bother getting one of the packages that includes sessions. They are a complete waste of time/money and you won’t learn anything. When you go to these shows, you’re basically walking around being advertised to. Don’t pay any more money than you need to for that “privilege”.
Why won’t you learn anything at the panels? They’re mostly a bunch of suits in areas of the industry that you’re not a part of talking about things you have no interest in. They did add some panels by “expert” Danny Sullivan who runs searchengine watch and sphinn, talking about SEO. But anyone with half a brain knows that a retarded monkey could do SEO as well as any “expert”, so that’s obviously a big waste of time. Unless, of course, you’re the kind of mouthbreather who doesn’t know how to get other sites to link to yours with the same anchor text as the keyword you’re trying to rank for. Seriously how do these people convince companies to pay them for their “services”… ok </tangent-rant>
Bottom line is: Go. If you don’t, you’re missing out. You can also write the whole thing off as a business expense, and it’s a great opportunity to visit San Francisco, one of the coolest cities in the country.
Ok, nitty gritty time.
Hotels
Yelp for the win, as usual. Here are the 5 hotels within 4 blocks, rated for you. Cakes is staying at Intercontinental, which is supposed to be ballin on a budget. St. Regis is supposed to be pretty sweet too, especially if you have starwood points. W is apparently sold out but check anyway.
Food
Alright, Nicky is not a huge expert on San Fran, but it is home to his favorite sushi place of all time, Sushi Rika in Nob Hill. The place is madd cheap and has some of the most delicious sushi ever. Also the coolest looking. You’re really screwing yourself over if you don’t check out this place.
Weather
San Fran gets cold. That is all.
Tourist Crap
Go on an Alcatraz tour. Get your tickets NOW because they sell out quick. Skip Fishermans Wharf/Pier 39. That place is worthless. A bunch of chain restaurants and sfo tshirt shops. Chinatown in SF is rad. Get out of the tourist part if you can and hit up some hole-in-the-wall dim sum places that tourists dont find. Use yelp for this if you need to. Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street are each pretty cool and will keep you entertained for about 10 minutes unless you are the type who is extremely enthralled with shiny objects. Union square has some good food and shopping stuff.
Flights
Virgin America has in-flight wifi. Nuff said. Also, buy coach seats, and ask to upgrade when you get to the airport and check in. First class is sometimes like 1/4 the price or less when you upgrade at the airport.
Parties/Staying in Touch
As usual, there will be a ton of parties. Unfortunately, Nickycakes hasn’t had time to make/research a list. There has been talk of some sort of Nickycakes meetup or party or something, possibly co-hosted with another blogger e-celebrity type person, but nothing’s on paper yet.
Here is the best thing to do (which you should already be doing):
- Sign up and follow Nickycakes on twitter. You can even have Nickycakes updates sent via sms to your phone during the conference to find out wtf is going on. Nickycakes promises he will do his best to not send everyone to a gay bar by accident like he did at ASE:Boston, although, San Fran seems like a much more dangerous town to play gay-bar russian roulette.
- Hang out on Nickycakes IRC. This will allow you to not just see what Nickycakes is doing, but also get in touch with other affiliate marketing nerds who may be there as well. Even if you are not attending the conference, #cakes is a great place to ask questions and pray you don’t get flamed or banned. Good luck!
Nickycakes Misconceptions
Apparently some people seem to think that Nickycakes is somehow unapproachable at conferences. Quit being a retard. Cakes is there to hang out so, please don’t be that guy that just walks around and gets business cards and then goes back to the hotel room to refresh stats.
Published by nickycakes //
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