Dec 20

Acai affiliates, you suck

Blogs, Can of SPAM, Cardinal Sin, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Techniques, Virtual War 21 Comments »

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Yes, really, you do.

Why? Because you are doing it wrong. For those who are unfamiliar with the acai berry niche, 90% of affiliates do the following:

  1. Go to http://www.laurasweightloss.com/
  2. Register a girlsnameweightloss.com domain
  3. Set up a blog with the exact same pictures and exact same layout as laura’s
  4. Fire up a keyword tool, get approximately the same list as every other affiliate
  5. Set up prosper202 and,
  6. Fire up their adwords campaign
  7. Optimize the keyword list and bids.

What is wrong with that, one might ask. Well, if it happens 10, 12, 30, even 40 times its ok. When every single fucking acai berry affiliate does the exact same thing, then guess what? The niche gets saturated! And then all those affiliates whine about their profit loss, no sales days and google slaps. (update: as this post is written, there has been a report on wickedfire that an adwords account got deleted for promoting acai berries)

“Ok then you smartass, how would you do it?”

How would I dive in an oversaturated niche? Why, with a different angle of approach of course!

  • First of all, I would find a way to use Oprah’s name in my campaign. There is a guy who is already doing that, and the others call him an idiot. He is not, unless he gets caught. By using Russian dont-see-dont-care servers and fake whois (you dont need an amazing domain, even oprah-acai-berry-official.info will work) you can abuse this for a month or two, and then rotate everything to avoid getting caught. This is a downright scam, so newbies should not even attempt it (newbies in fraud, not IM). I did warn you.
  • Second idea. I would resurrect the whole damn history of weight loss supplements, and set up a blog with articles on why acai berry is better than each one. Why? Because I would create a keyword list for every old weight loss niche as if I were to promote it today. (it took me less than a minute to find 5 names http://www.philkaplan.com/thefitnesstruth/update.htm)

Why do that? Because, when you have the keyword lists of OLD weightloss niches, you can set your adgroups on each one, and write ads that say something like “Natural fat burners are a scam. Find out here”.

I would hire a good copywriter to make me articles debunking the INSERT OLD SCAMMY OFFER HERE, and gradually sell acai berry as the new “safe” offer. Rinse and repeat on every old niche. Cheap targetted clicks.

“People don’t look for old products!”

Yes they do.

  • Third idea. Hug and cuddle all the victims of the other acai berry affiliates. People got scammed, and the internet is full of scam reports and complaints and whatnot. Set up a site pointing out the scammy acai berry offers, and subtly suggest the “safe” acai offers. These visitors are interested in weightloss as well, they are just a bit more clever than the rest. If you can convince them, you can sell.

Visitors looking for acai scams can also get foraged for their emails by giving out free pdf reports. You can set up a forum on the site for repeat visits, you can tell them which phone numbers to call for credit cancellations, you can have instant non stop testimonials. You can also “rat out” the sites that are scammy from other affiliates, but of course you will not “rat out” the real ones. Simply ask for slapped abandoned acai blogs in #cakes and you got like a dozen to rat out every month. Make it look like a victory in your site “Another acai scammer taken down by ASR”.

Just play the good guy, find the least scammy acai berry offer, and point the visitors to it. “ASR approved” badge on the banner. (Acai Scam Revealed)

This is not just about acai berry niche, you should use your imagination on everything. This post will either rekindle the whole acai niche or rain a world of hatred on me. Maybe both.

The precious few will get the hint.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: ,

Nov 24

How to fool Akismet

Blogs, Can of SPAM, Feed the Spiders, WebWriMo challenge 6 Comments »

Internet is serious business

Since redditors call me a spammer, I might as well become one.

I discovered a stupidly easy way to bypass Akismet. If for example, I had glowleaf.net blacklisted (which it is), every comment I post to other blogs will get deleted.

I just buy glowleaf.info, redirect it to my blog, and use it in the url box.

I just tested it, it bypasses akismet. Of course, if you are still posting spam nothing prevents the blogger from hiting the report spam link and nullifying your 2nd domain. But it works as a second chance. Or a third, a fourth, a fifth…

Now go spread some havoc and chaos.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: ,

Nov 11

Zerg Rush!

Can of SPAM, Cardinal Sin, Doodling, Fire and Forget, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Noobs, RGBhat, Social abuse, Techniques, WebWriMo challenge 1 Comment »

zerg-rush.jpgzerg_rush.pngzergling-rush-small.jpgzergrush_qjpreviewth.jpg

 

I could not decide which pic to use on this post, so I decided to settle this issue the way I settle all my dilemmas: I just put them all up there.

You decide which is the best one. The demotivational? The in game pwnage? The Starcraft 2 Zerg Rush with cool 3D graphics? Or the real face of Starcraft? I got no poll plugin on this site, so just vote at the comment section.

What does a jergling have to do with affiliate marketing?

Nothing actually, and it would be very weird if I actually had an answer to that… Oh wait, I do.

How can we leverage on the Battlenet system to make sales? Here is a technique that is neither new nor secret, and works fine if you do it right.

The idea is to use your battlenet account to host a game on battlenet, and in the title area put up your url. Simple as that!

But, every hardcore Battlenet player knows that the games need their slots to be refreshed in order to stay visible on the queue. So, download this little script, and there it is, auto refresh!

Here is the to do list:

  • Get a warcraft/starcraft account.
  • Register a free Battlenet account.
  • Download the battlenet refresher.
  • Get a CPA offer, direct link it from a domain name. Something with starcraft/warcraft/game/cheat/maps/patches in it.
  • Run the refresher script.
  • Fire up a game, host it. In the game’s title put up your domain name.
  • Make sure it refreshes and people join and quit.
  • Leave the pc box running till it crashes.
What will happen? People look for games to join, and the refresher script will close and open your gamer slots, maintaining your hosted game in the list. People will join your game, look around, see the link, and leave after they figure out you are never going to start the game. Hopefully somewhere along the way, your url will seem interesting enough for them to Alt+Tab and type it in their browser.

This technique works, but you need some imagination, trial and error, and some intimate knowledge of the online gamer community to make it a killer.

A hint is to use warcraft III maps that have cool thumbnails and look interesting, and are not well known. People will join to check it out and download it. Also, DOTA latest maps work too, people join so they can download the map without getting kicked, and in return they notice your url. If you make it look interesting, they will visit.

Keep in mind that the online gamer crowd is more tech savvy on average, you will need something more than a random CPA to make this work. You might find some idiots to rip off with some crush offers, but in general those kids know how to navigate the net. Think minisites with warcraft maps, think cheats, think mods, think warcraft/starcraft jokes, etc.

So, if you have a copy of Warcraft III, this is a simple method to promote some offers. Depending on your chosen domain name, your chosen map and the traffic at that point in Battlenet, you can easily get 400 uniques in a day with this. I used to leave an old pc running this 24/7. Your promo will stumble on diminishing returns after a few days, so try to refresh the whole presentation a bit.

EDIT: This post had so many spelling and grammatical errors, that it was enough to convince me to go for a walk. C ya tomorrow.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , ,

Nov 08

Amaze her with your hot rod

Can of SPAM, Cardinal Sin, Doodling, Fishbait, Internet Marketing, Milking horny guys, Mind over Pixels, Social abuse, Techniques, Virtual War, WebWriMo challenge 7 Comments »

That is the title from a spam email I got today.

See how intelligently it passes through spam filters, all the while remaining intelligible and eye catching? There are no spam words to raise red flags, and the word “Amaze” is a power word. So is “hot”, because it triggers an emotional reaction.

Power words are words like “Sex”, “Money”, “Rich”, “Happy”, “Buy”, “Bargain”, “Order now”, “Passion” and a bunch of others. Actually, if you write down the keyword cloud of a few telemarketing ads you will instantly have a list of power words that really work.

I have said it before, and I will say it again:

Study the porn biz. These guys are waaay ahead of the curve.

Another place where you can really learn a lot is from spammers. Spammers, like anyone running a ppc ad campaign, get one chance only to grab the reader’s attention. Win = profit, fail = loss. 

The spammers also have the spam filters to consider on top of the marketing pitch. You may not care how to write catchy titles that grab attention AND pass spam inspection at the same time, but if you study those guys, you will learn how to think differently. Slightly shady said it very nicely.

You either fool the bot(or the person submitting the spam report) or you fool the person reviewing your site.

Simply put, PPCers have to fool the human. Spammers have to fool both machine and human. Conclusion: the latter have bigger balls.

So, what can we learn from this?

As always, zap your brain with so much data that it oveloads, and think on the stuff you read. Gather a bunch of spam mails, and write down the titles. Glance casually over them and see which ones grab your attention, and try to find out how they did it. It is usually a single power word that does the trick!

Disclaimer for idiots: Power words are bolded in the list below.

  • Girls mock at your size? (Very good)
  • Barak Obama shot in White House (Yes, power words can be names, and recent words, like terrorism)
  • Instantly boost your website’s traffic (As good as it gets)
  • How would you like to put your ad right to the screens of millions in minutes? (This one FAILS miserably. Why?)
  • Incredible News (This kind of power word as a marketing concept was invented at the time Marvel made their first comic. It is no wonder they used “The Fantastic Four”, “The Amazing Spiderman” etc. This is Seth Godin’s method of integrating marketing inside the product itself. Or in this case, in its name. Learn from this or fail.)
  • Post your ads where people read them! (No power, no naked showers. See how I made my point using a power word?)
  • Beating the high cost (Not powerful enough. Passive is for gays.)
  • Get all or nothing (Not that good, does not give any amount of info)
  • Great bargains here (Oldie but goodie)
  • Unbelievable sale (So is this one. Marvel.)
  • YOUR EMAIL ID HAVE WON (As stupid as it may seem, this one works)
  • Amazing increasing system (Medium, might work but has no info. Marvel.)
  • What Britney hides? (Pop means popular)
  • you’ll get 1000’s of Highly Targeted visitors to your web site or affiliate web site overnight (FAIL again)
  • Better ways to please her (Medium)
  • Never be soft again (Good one. Absoluteness is key. NEVAH!)
  • Male probs are dangerous (“You are in Danger!” doesn’t that work better? Fail.)
  • Big saving for your family (Emotional trigger word)
  • Fail too fast in bed? (It works, that is why I use it too :) )
  • Small size isnt a crime! (Mushy. Too passive. Could be better.)
  • Feed Blaster puts your ad right to the screens of millions in 15 minutes! (FAIL)
  • Quit Your Day Job Within 30 Days (Would rewrite it “within” to “in”. This is not a contract, you are trying to catch clicks here. As I said, be absolute. What the fuck spammer? Man up!)
  • How would you like unlimited hits to your website 15 minutes from now ? (FAIL…At this point, I hope you know why.)
  • Do you suck? (EPIC. Truly. Epic. Pure awesomeness.)

Some douchebag might ask me how I would write the ones I tagged as failed. So here it is:

“GET A GAZILLION HITS NOW!”

Gives no info at all, but it sure makes people click. I dare you not to click that link. Just try to resist the temptation. Is it a dick roll? Is it a java game? A sales pitch? A porn pic? Who knows…

I sincerely hope some people’s minds get a slight nudge in the right direction from this. For actual business mailing, go to Wickedfire’s mailing forum, and snoop around.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , , , ,

Nov 02

Why you always need a splog

Blogs, Can of SPAM, Feed the Spiders, Fire and Forget, Mind over Pixels, Noobs, Techniques, WebWriMo challenge 4 Comments »

What is a splog?

A spam blog, an auto updating blog, setup to scrape feeds at regular intervals and post them.

Why do you need one?

Because if you don’t have one, you are an idiot.

Even for completely whitehat sites, you cannot possibly expect to cover every product in your niche, and every keyword, and every misstype, and every new small thingie that pops up.

Having a splog, that slowly updates, lets say 2 feeds every 1.5 or 2.5 days, makes a secondary site relevant to your niche, filling up with content, linking to you with your preferred anchor text.

I have been using splogs everywhere for 2 years, and I have seen crappy 20 page 5 hours old splogs rank for great terms. Its not only the keyword itself that allows it to rank, its also the relevant keywords and news in the niche that get pulled with every feed.

If you want to keep it completely whitehat, name it NEWS and set it to scrape niche related news with permalinks pointed to the original articles, and keep it clean and similar to your site’s theme.

Or, you can buy a secondary keyword rich domain, and simply splog it, linking back to your main site. If you remove footprints and make it pass casual inspection, it will actually help your rankings and stay up there for a long time.

How to make that splog? It is so easy it hurts.

  • Download the feedwordpress plugin.
  • Install a new Wordpress engine.
  • Name it, remove the silly blogroll etc…
  • Put up a nice theme, do the permalinks hack.
  • Expand the pinglist.
  • Hand pick your feeds.
  • Set up feedwordpress to scrape every 1.5 days from 2 feeds max.
  • Put your links on the blogroll. 

And you are done. Another fire and forget method that works.

I usually add about 5 articles and 10 youtube’s as well. The broad keyword coverage from an aged splog can get you a lot of visitors, from untapped keywords.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , ,

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