Internet Business Daily

Jon Volk has recently released his long awaited Facebook Ads Guide product. Basically, it’s an ebook + bonus materials going over everything a beginner/intermediate needs to know to run successful affiliate marketing campaigns on Facebook. Jon is not some random guy writing an ebook, he is a successful affiliate marketer and has been killing Facebook ads for a while, making almost $3,700/day using the same methods he teaches in this ebook. Facebook has become the highest trafficked website on the internet and because of this, it is a great place to start affiliate marketing. It is much more simple and now has more volume that Google Adwords.

I’ve purchased a few ebooks in my time, but Jon was kind enough to give me a review copy for free. After reading the entire thing, reviewing the methods he describes, and studying the bonus materials, I can easily say that I would pay for this ebook. I would say that the book is geared more towards beginners however it contains a lot of useful information for more advanced affiliate marketers as well. I have been using Facebook ads for quite some time now and I still found some new information from this book.

What else do you get?

• Facebook Affiliate Offers Guide – This is a guide written by Ryan Eagle, the owner of EWA, a great affiliate network. This hasn’t been released yet, but looks like it can be very powerful.
• Facebook Ads Guide Newsletter – Occationally you will receive a newsletter with all the top offers that you can run on Facebook with tips and tricks on how you can run the offers.
• Top Fan Page List / Guide – Learn how to utilize fan pages to better target your advertising! Includes a list of the top fan pages in numerous categories.
• Keyword Targeting List – Special facebook keyword list formulated to help you target specific people groups that you normally cannot target. This was one of my favorite things that came with the ebook.

There were a few things missing from the facebook ads guide though. Recently, facebook made some changes to its bidding systems. They sent out an email saying that CPM bidding was going to start getting less clicks because it should be used for “brands that need views rather than clicks.” CPC bidding prices went way up because of this because a lot of people switched to CPC bidding. I tried CPM bidding on ads that I know had good CTRs, and got literally zero clicks. This is because with CPM bidding, they mostly show your ads to people who are known to not click on advertisements. I would have liked to see Jon’s guide address this new issue.

I would have also liked to see Jon go into bidding strategy a little more. One last thing I think could have been covered better is exactly how to start testing a big campaign. Knowing how to go about testing a large demo and gradually splitting the successful demo’s out and pausing the unsuccessful ones is a big part of facebook ads strategy.

Other than those few additions I would like to see, the facebook ads guide product is excellent. I am sure Jon will be updating his ad guide with more information regularly, so the facebook ads guide is a great investment for affiliates. I suggest if you are new or even decently familiar with facebook ads that you purchase this ebook.

I have seen 4 separate cases this weekend of my friends on facebook “liking” something that was clearly not intended. The links that are “liked” always have very catchy titles such as the image below. I clicked on the link and it took me to a page which just said “click here to continue.” I was smart enough not to click that link but I’m sure it would have installed malware on my computer. The image below is what the phishing attempt looked like (definition: phishing):

Five minutes later another friend of mine posted something to my wall saying something along the lines of “OH MY GOD I cannot believe how much MONEY I made in just 1 month.” The link sent me to an affiliate marketing play, one that is very obvious to an affiliate marketer. It was a page meant to look like a news website that promoted a “make money” offer.

I told all of my friends to change their passwords and delete the links. If you see any of these shady links on your profile page or see things you “like” that you don’t remember clicking, delete the link and change your password immediately. Be careful online!

2nd UPDATE: The page has been removed and the writer has been deleted.
UPDATE: I looked through all of this writer’s articles and they all contain shady affiliate links. Yahoo, you are stupid.

This must be the most ridiculous thing I have seen in a while. Either a writer at Yahoo! Shine’s account got hacked by an affiliate or someone at Yahoo got tricked into posting this article with affiliate links.

Using 50′s images (shown here) and a story about how 50 cent lost a bunch of weight for a movie, an affiliate marketer was able to get 2 of his affiliate links to weight loss products to the Yahoo homepage. Someone is definitely making a lot of money on this. Someone at Yahoo really messed up on this one. This is one of the shadiest (and funniest) affiliate marketing plays I’ve seen in my time.

Finally, after years with the Adsense product, Google finally reveals how much it takes from the revenue. The secret number: 32% worldwide. This means that publishers keep 68% of revenue generated from running Google Adsense on their site. You can read more about this from the Google Adsense blog post here.

Google has always been a black box when it comes to their cash cows: Adsense and Adwords (the two sides of their advertising product). I think this a great step towards transparency for Google, since for years they held the idea that as long as their stock price keeps going up, investors should be happy even if they had no idea how Google actually calculates revenue.

The 68% revenue is for Adsense for content publishers. Google’s search partners get less coming in at 51%. Google does go on to say that revenue from different products they offer differ because of costs to operate those products, which is understandable. Hopefully over time they will be even more transparant with their products since without partners (content publishers), Google would lose a lot of business.

I love when people get creative like this. A group of improv actors got together and did a funny Ghost Busters tribute in New York’s public library. Although it looks distracting to people trying to get work done, it was all done in good fun and people seemed to enjoy it. Check it out:

As you can see, I have added a simple Facebook “like” button to my blog on article pages. It’s a very easy way for people to share articles they like and also helps drive more traffic to your sites. Since it seems most people have Facebook accounts now-a-days, there should be plenty of users on blogs liking things. Best part is, it’s really easy to add to your blog too. Here is the code:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php the_permalink()?>&layout=standard&show_faces=true&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:530px; height:60px"></iframe>

Simply add this on your single.php page anywhere you like. You can change the parameters to customize the link button however you want. I think this is an awesome little trick and will drive more traffic than any of those “share” buttons on most blogs (including mine).

I just did a Google search and a different look came up. This is the most significant change I’ve seen Google do at one time. I’m not sure if this new page has been rolled out to everyone, or is just being tested. The Google logo is now bigger and crisper. The search bar seems to be more 3D. Even the fonts look different. Check it out (click image to see bigger size):

I have launched a new site called GettingTheWin.com. It is all about tips to save money, being frugal, avoiding fees, finding free stuff, reducing bills, and everything else you need to know to have more money at the end of the month. I am writing all the articles myself but will eventually ask people to guest post on the blog. I am very proud of the site so far even though it is very new. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

This is one of the best new SNL skits there is. So funny. What up with that features Kenan Thompson from old school shows like All That. He plays a hilarious show host who can’t seem to start the show without singing his introduction music. The skit has an ’90s feel to it because of the dancers in the background and Kenny G look a like. Check it out:

John Chow wrote a post recently about how he made $1,399.90 just by using the cash back program with his credit card. Well, I just did the same thing.

All of my affiliate marketing spending gets charged to my business credit card I have through WellsFargo. One of the benefits of this card is that I earn rewards points for every dollar I spend on the card. Over the past year, I have spent a ton of money on this card buying traffic. I recently decided to check how many rewards points I have and found that I have well over 100,000. WellsFargo provides an entire store of things I can buy with these points, but in the end all I wanted was cash in my pocket. For every 50,000 points I have I get $500 cash. So having over 100,000 points means I just ordered 2 checks from WellsFargo totaling $1,000. This is basically free money for me, which I will then reinvest into affiliate marketing to make more money from it!

WellsFargo is not the only bank that has programs like this. Almost every bank has some type of rewards program or cash back program when you spend money on a credit card. I suggest anyone in the affiliate marketing game (or anyone with a business) sign up with their bank’s program.

One very important thing to note is that I always paid off my credit card in full every month. If you spend a lot of money on your credit card and don’t pay it off you will be paying ridiculous interest rates, which will make your cash back rewards moot. Be responsible with your credit and pay it off in full every month and you will reap the benefits of rewards points or cash back.