Twitter has revolutionized the way people communicate on the internet.  In just 140 characters or less, you can really pass along a lot of information.  People Tweeters are finding better ways to pack more information in those 140 characters than ever before.

In short order, companies can send new coupon codes, product specials and new products becoming available and hundreds, even thousands of potential customers flock to the company’s website for a look and to possible purchase something.

With affiliate marketing becoming a largely common thing online, Twitter just opened a new avenue for marketers to reach their audience faster and in a more popular way.  Like the same companies sending out coupon codes, affiliates get to use short url services to hide affiliate links in their tweets in hopes of making a quick buck, or two.

Sending a tweet is not only seen by your followers, Twitter search has made it possible to find tweets about specific things.  Maybe you want to see a review for a new digital camera or ebook, you can easily go to Twitter and search there.  Links, comments and tweets are all available in this way and make it easier to find information you might have not seen.

The other side of Twitter is simple.  You just want to keep up with friends, meet up somewhere for dinner or just send a quick note to your sister.  In the same ways that texting from your cell phone has “quickened” communication, Twitter has become a common form of communication via cell phones.  Being able to update Facebook and Myspace from your Twitter account has basically tied all the large social networks together.

If you use your Twitter account to keep tabs on your friends, that is one thing and you most likely do NOT have a website attached to said account.  On the other hand you could be using Twitter to post your latest thoughts from your blog in hopes that “followers” come to read it.

In my niche I post to my followers in hopes they will read my post, find something to comment on while hear or sign up for my newsletter.  I do run niche sites that have Twitter accounts that I hope to make money with selling products related to that niche.

So, what is the reason you use Twitter that is NOT about making money?

In my opinion, this was bad for the $75 that I spent to gain traffic to my site.  I really am not sure how to track what clicks came from Myspace through my site to ebay, but on the days the campaign ran, I got a total of 49 clicks to ebay.

At this time, my monthly balance is nothing stellar, but I see almost no return on my investment in Myspace advertising.  I really didn’t know what to expect, but I really thought I was targeting users very well and those that clicked through would have bid for sure.  I really can’t expect that every single click will WIN a bid, it’s not like just clicking through and BUYING.  The user still have to WIN the auction.

With this bad news I wasn’t even going to post screenshots, but I think that before I advertise my own site on Myspace again, I am going to have to find a better way to track the clicks.  This would be just so that I feel comfortable reporting the results.

Myspace advertising is still plenty worth it and the one thing that I would announce to those that follow this blog for advise, make sure you realize what audience you are trying to reach and how LARGE that audience is.  If you are going to get views up the ass, make sure it’s worth what you are paying for clicks.

I am not giving up, I have a couple of other sites AND affiliate offers that I know will still work on Myspace, so stay tuned.  If you have had success with Myspace, why not leave a comment here and let us all know how it went!

Then I went to Google and this is what I found:

8 Reasons to Add a Newsletter to Your Blog by ProBlogger.net

After reading through these 8 reasons, I thought, “boy, I really never looked at it that way, at all!”.  I would like to thank Darren for posting such readable, valuable information on his blog.  And now, let’s get back to the newsletter.

What do I have to offer for a newsletter? 

Well, I could write longer, pointed articles, like tutorials, for the readers willing to sign up.  I would figure that most of my readers are curious due to the name of my blog, but I am not sure what % are actually looking for affiliate information they can get other places.  I try to keep this blog unique, by posting information about my experiments, where I am making the money online and which places I went bust, but occasionally I throw in the typical post you see just about everywhere.  All with my own spin on it of course.

I really like the idea of people coming back to this blog, if they like it or whatever the reason is, but right now that number sits at about 80-90 per month.  I would think that with a newsletter, I would see more return and according to Darren, more loyalty.

On the search for a nice, easy-to-use newsletter packed with tools and tracking, I found 2 that I am happy with.

• Aweber – obviously the most popular choice on the web today
• ConstantContact – another system I found to be as useful and in the price range

I haven’t decided which one to go with, because I am also checking into some open source options that I can run on my server.  I really like the tools and tracking that Aweber offers, so I am leaning towards their service at this point.  We’ll see, I hope by the start of 2009 I will have thought of some valuable content to pass around via newsletter.

Being able to interact with your readers is a huge part of operating a blog.  If you can create some sort of community through a newsletter, you will see traffic go up, as well as, affiliate sales of products you offer, etc.  The overall return is huge compared to the actual commitment.  So, do you need a blog newsletter?  I would say NO, but if you would like to create a nice loyal community of readers, you might want to at least check it out.

Most newsletter services will offer a trial period (try Aweber below) so that you can test how it will go over with your readers, it’s at least worth that.  Good luck and if you already have a newsletter going, leave a comment and let me know how it’s helped (if it has).

There are plenty of other blogs having a contest similar to this one.  I really wanted to see if the readers of my blog were actually into affiliate marketing.  I would like to see if you guys can generate any type of income through affiliate marketing.

The steps are quite easy, but there is some hard work involved.  The prizes will be well worth your time, so don’t worry about that.  If you are into affiliate marketing like me, then a contest like this should be an easy one.

Here is the breakdown:

1. The next 5 readers that join MarketLeverage will be entered.  Make sure you use this link, so that I can track your earnings.
2. Browse the 100’s of offers they have and promote the crap out of it.  If you have more than one website, find the one with the most users and see what happens.  If you are any good at using Adwords, you WILL have a huge advantage, no doubt.
3. Earn as much as you can to be named the winner of the contest.  There will be only ONE winner, so fight until the end.
4. The contest runs from Dec. 15th – Jan. 15th, so make sure you are earning as much as you can every single day.
5. From the date of this post until contest starts, gives you plenty of time to join MarketLeverage and get your plan in place.

I am hoping that we can get new members to Market Leverage.  I know there are plenty of members already making thousands of dollars a month with them, but I wanted to have this contest for beginners.  Affiliate Obsession is geared towards being a beginner at affiliate marketing, so I wanted to keep this contest that way.

I know I know, But What Do I Get?

Well, first, you get to keep all the money that you earned with MarketLeverage, mostly because it’s yours.  And, secondly, you will get a shiny new $100 for winning the contest.  So, not to give away too many hints, like I have on the rest of this blog, but if you set up a $100 Adwords campaign and win the contest, the $100 will add to your profit instead of being subtracted from your revenue.

What are you waiting for?  Hit the link and get crackin’!

DealDotCom is a site that posts ONE deal per day, or until it is sold out, and usually the cost savings is around 50% or more!  It is free to join and you can sign up for updates so that you don’t miss any of the deals.  They also have an affiliate program that is two-tier!  You can read more about that here.  Every single member is also registered for the give away of the day, so sign up today!

Let’s take a look at what you get:

Fluff Free, Right To The Point Info
Results Based Information Only
Easy, Plug and Play Application
The Exact Services to Make This All Work
Easily Understandable Instructions (even for the not so computer
savvy user.)
After Sale Support

The main thing is the price!  Regular price is $37 so you already saving over 50%right off the top.  That helps your numbers look even better at the end of your first ClickBank campaign.  If you are new to ClickBank and haven’t quite figured it out, like me about one year ago, then you might as well get some reading material to get you started.

I wanted to take this free money and make the most I could from it.  So the planning started.  What affiliate network would I use and what type of offer could I peddle to FaceBook?  I know most college students are all over the website so I thought I would pick an offer that might grab the attention of 18-24 year olds.

I choose a couple of different offers because in the past I had a hard time getting an ad approved at Facebook.  If you are thinking of advertising with them, READ the terms and conditions, it will save you TONS of time.

Since you get to choose your audience, I wanted to try and get one that was targeted for a specific offer.  I thought I might be able to get more clicks that way.  Going with a larger audience for a more general ad doesn’t seem to work well.

I went with a GameFly trial offer that I found on RocketProfit.com.  The offer was for $22 on a successful trial sale.  Plans started at $8.95 and it includes a 10 day trial.  With free shipping both ways I thought it might be a good seller for college age Facebook users.

Let’s take a look at the stats:

I targeted men between 18 and 24 in the US that liked computer games, Nintendo Wii, PS3, Video Games or Xbox.  I thought it was a nice chunk of users.

The ad was paid for by my Facebook coupons, so I went all out at $1.00 per click to start.  I realized later the coupons flooded the ad space with outragous per click costs because everyone was getting free clicks, more on that later.

After about 330,000 impressions I have a total of 85 clicks!  I thought it was going pretty well.  I really didn’t think the CTR would be good, but .02 was looking real bad.  Then I looked at my RocketProfit.com account and say a total of $22!  I was shocked, but was glad to see SOMETHING, plus, it was free money so it was $22 profit

So I spent about $72.54 of my coupons on a 3 day ad and I think I will be skipping it as part of my money making experiments, at least for now.  It would be a total loss if I was using real money.  Maybe the target wasn’t good enough or the legnth of the campaign was too short.  Facebook also has a long list of “no-no’s” that really limits what ads you can show, I recommend reading those all the way through.

I will have to look at it a little deeper and see if I come up with any reason to give it a try again, especially with my money.

Have you had any success with Facebook ads?

With Mother’s Day right around the corner, I thought it might be a good way to try it out on a major holiday.  The problem was I was already too late, it was about 2 weeks before Mother’s Day and I had some research and planning to do.  Not to mention I needed a landing page and/or domain name.

I decided on doing a 301 redirect directly to an offer available through NeverBlueAds.com.  It was an offer by DeLaFlowers.com.  The offer paid out $12/sale through the website.  The reason I chose to do a 301 redirect was because I didn’t have time to create a landing page.  The reason I didn’t have time to create one?  Because I have never done it and really wasn’t sure what work went into one and if I could get it done in time.  Lesson learned, read on. :)

So, I registered the domain with GoDaddy.comand setup the easy 301 redirect, permanently.  Once thatwas all set, I was off to set up my campaign.  I chose to do it on Ask.com thinking that I would be able to get some conversions cheaper than if it was with Adwords.  I think I was right and even though less people use Ask.com for search, I think that enough use to make it worth my time.

I set up two ad groups, one with 5 keywords and the other with 2.  Both of them were pointing to my domain name (www.mothers-day-specials.com) that was now permanently redirected to the offer.  With keywords like “flower specials”, mothers day flowers and flower free shipping, I thought I had a pretty good handle on whatever people were searching for around Mother’s Day.

I loaded my account with $50 and turned it on about 1 week before the holiday, figuring people that needed items shipped to far away locations.  Now that we have it turned on we can slowly watch as the clicks start to add up.  The stats are as follows:

The campaign ran from 4/25 to 5/11, my average position for the ads were 1.11, with an average CPC of .42.  The campaign had 119 clicks (23 of which were the day before) at a cost of $50 and ZERO conversions.  Yes, zero conversions.  I have no problem with that and I would have to say the biggest reason was that it may have been sales related.  I am not sure if the 301 directly to the offer made any difference, but you just never know.

The point is that I tried and was able to see results.  From those results I could figure out a couple of things for next time and I guess that is the whole point.  I think the next type of offer I will try is a simple email or zip submit.  Those tend to convert a little better, at the same time, are a little harder to make a lot of money on.  If I can find one that will convert for cheap clicks, that will be the major difference.

My intentions for this blog?

I think that I would really like to help people that are in the same boat as I.  What boat is that?  Well, let’s hope that it is NOT the Titanic.  I have been interested in making money since I sold hot wheels on eBay about 10 years ago.  I started blogging about 8-9 months ago and shortly after that I started reading more about affiliate networks, promoting offers and making money with a blog.

In the meantime I have been trying tricks and tips that I have read online other places, as well as, my own marketing techniques.  I do not, and will NOT, call myself any sort of expert, but I think that if I can teach others based on what I taught myself through experience, I would hope some beginners will learn something for themselves.

What are you going to learn?

I hope that you can learn any little bit of information that helps you in your quest for the holy grail.  Oh wait, what is that again?  Well, it’s whatever makes you happy and I think that if you can do something you love and make some money, you will be just fine.

I want this blog to be a sort of affiliate resource for those of you that are either very intimidated by the thought of affiliate promotion or just not sure if it’s the right thing for you.  By me hanging my head out “there” for everyone else, I hope it makes some decisions of your a bit easier.

What do you think?

Of course I am all for communication, comments, discussion and even some critisism.  If you have a story to tell, by all means, tell it.  If you think what you are reading doesn’t make sense, is wrong or is just plain bogus, tell me, I have NO problem with that

Amazon.com has the largest inventory of products on the internet.  What would you do if you had access to every single product to sell, but didn’thave to carry the inventory?  Do you think you could make money with Amazon.com’s products?

AmazingWebStores.com has teamed up with Amazon.com and they bring you Amazon.com Niche Stores.  I am sure that you have seen or even read about the large amounts of money that people are making on the eBay.com niche stores.  Well, picture the same results, only you can use Amazon’s huge inventory and technology database to power your new niche store!

4 easy steps

1. Setup Your Account
2. Design Your Amazing WebStore – customizable themes and features
3. Select Products to Sell
4. Start Selling!

and you are minutes from a fully functional, custom designed Amazon Niche Store.  You get access to over 66 million products to sell and you do not even need a merchant account.  With your niche store you will also get features including Top Sellers and Customer Reviews already integrated in your store.

What is a Niche Store?
A niche store is a simple, keyword targeted store that sells products that are similar in brand or type.  eBay stores have been popping up for years and they are so easy to set up quickly that many people have 10 or more!  A niche store focuses on one type of brand of product and usually relies heavily on search traffic.  The best part is that if you are getting traffic, it’s almost always targeted.  Visitors finding your site using keywords related to it are more likely to buy.  AmazingWebStores.com does most of the work for you.

Amazon.com Associates
You already know that people are aware of Amazon.com.  Did you know they had a type of affiliate program called Amazon Associates?  The program pays on a tiered commission scale based on the volume of sales.  They have so many tools, widgets, link and banner creators, it puts other programs to shame.  All you have to do is think of some products that you want to sell and you could be earning in not time.  Not having to deal with customer service, inventory and web design, you will have plenty of time to promote your store.

The sign up process is simple and the current offer includes a 7 day free trial with a payment of $1.95 for instant access.

Since I don’t like to promote products that I don’t use myself, I signed up for the 7 day trial and I am going to walk you through what I saw within minutes of signing up.

As soon as I paid the $1.95 I was given a username and password.  On that same screen there was a bunch of information regarding 24 hour customer service and PDF’s to get me the help I needed to get started.

As you can see from above, they do provide some excellent information regarding your new webstore.

From there, I logged in and the dashboard was pretty straight forward with links on the left and basic information in the center.  A step-by-step guide to get you started.  At this point, the only question that I had was whether or not I was able to use my own domain name.  That question was answered right away. 

Here is a screenshot of the links available in your login.  Basically if you follow them from top to bottom, your store will be all set by the time you are done!  So, I cruised through all the links and provided the information they wanted for each one.  Then I go to “Select Products”.  There I entered my Amazon Associates ID and was able to select the categories of products I wanted on my site.  At this point I didn’t see anywhere that I could choose a search term.  I chose a couple of categories to see how everything and moved on. 

The next thing I noticed was the I could enter domain information.  I was able to use an exisiting domain name, but the nameservers had to be changed before it could be associated with my new Amazon Niche Store.  I went through that simple process and within 24 hours I should see my domain pointing to my store. 

Now that I have my own domain name pointed at the webstore, I should have my very own Amazon Niche Store up and running within 12-16 hours.  Packed full of products, a shopping cart and custom logo, my store is ready for the search engines.

Can it be done?

The answer, in short, is yes.  Monetizing traffic can be done whether it’s traffic from a high ranking post in search engine or if it’s a post that ranked high on a social media website.  The tricky part is that it’s not exactly the same traffic, but it’s a boat load of traffic, nonetheless.

How can it be done?

This question is the real deal.  How can you monetize traffic that isn’t going to be around on your site that long?  We all know from experience that social media sites send traffic, but the traffic comes, checks out what the “big deal” is and they are on their way.  Users of Digg.com will NOT be clicking on ads because they know better than that.  StumbleUpon.com traffic is another story.  If you are getting mega traffic from SU or you just created a post that you think will hit “popular” status on SU, then put an add or two on the post that is relevant to the information.  It’s always worth a try as long as it doesn’t get in the way of what the user wants to read or see when they arrive.

Promoting affiliate products, offers or even a top ten list of your posts.  Either way you get paid.  If someone clicks out of your blog from an affiliate offer you can get paid, but if you have a list of posts for them to click, to go deeper in your blog, you might gain a reader that subscribes later.  It is a win/win, but you have to do something!

Have I done it?

Yes I have.  I have traffic to 2 posts that ranked high on StumbleUpon at one point.  Since they have been on SU, they are now ranking a bit higher in the search engines for keywords and the ads are paying off better.  It has been a longer process than it should be, but the traffic is there, and so are the ads.

I also have 2 posts (here and here), for now, that are cruising up the ranks of Yahoo and Google search everyday.  Those are really paying off with adsense and simple text links.  These posts are just regular posts that I did NOT send to social media to get traffic.  Simple posts with keyword related to the topic and over the first month started gaining traffic.  Now I rank #1 and #2 for web address search terms on those posts and they get 200-300 uniques per day.

Summary

Affiliate marketing or promotion can work when you know how to monetize traffic you have coming in.  Social media traffic is HERE, right now!, then gone just like that.  Search engine traffic should be more targeted because they are searching for keywords.  If you have information regarding those terms you will see the traffic.  At least that way you know what they are on your blog to see.  Keep an eye on your blog stats, the answers are all there, you just have to be able to find them.  Once you do, it gets even easier to monetize that traffic!  Good luck!