..heavy clickers are:

• More representative of lower income households than the average user.
• Less educated than the average user (or from less-educated environments in the case of minors).
• More likely to live outside of the major metro regions.
• More likely to be using SNSs to meet new people than the average user (who is more likely to be using SNSs to maintain connections).

This is also interesting:

Wealthier users are more likely to spend money online, but they are less likely to click on ads. Poorer users are more likely to click on ads, but not likely to spend money online except in a few verticals. Wouldn’t this then mean that Google is more likely to get the eyeballs of those likely to spend money, but statistically less likely to make money off of their clicks?

That means that businesses can actually benefit greatly from using e.g. Google AdWords to advertise their business by using it for branding and not trying to get more direct clicks to their website. If the data the article is referring to is correct then the people that can afford the products might glance over the AdSense banner and while they might not click they might notice the URL or the brand name (product name or company name) and visit the website later on (or Google the brand name) without it costing the advertiser anything. Something to think about for your AdWords strategy…

This is also something affiliate marketers that are you using AdWords have to think about – I’ve seen a lot of affiliates using the product’s URL as the display URL. This is probably not the best strategy if people see the URL but don’t click your ad (with your affiliate link) but just visit the URL directly later on. That’s why you should get a custom domain name for all the most important products you’re promoting as an affiliate.

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As a Text Link Ads affiliate we’re pleased to let you know that we’ve begun using tinyurl.com to shorten and secure our affiliate referral links. We encourage you to update your affiliate links using the following:

Homepage URL…

I thought that was a pretty strange move – to rely on a third-party (free) service that can go down anytime. I sent them an e-mail regarding this and today I got an answer:

We are working on a better solution and will have it available next week. You do not need to make any changes.

So, it looks like TLA affiliates don’t have to go through all their links to update them – which I think is great news. I look forward to seeing what solution they come up with. But things like this happen – companies change their affiliate system, the link format changes… that’s why it’s smart to cloak your affiliate links.

Are you a TLA affiliate? Had you already updated all your links?

Keywords: text link ads, text-link-ads, tla, cloak links, affiliate links, tinyurl

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A large part of my online income is generated through affiliate marketing. These days many affiliate programs (like my own) pay through PayPal – which I think is great because it’s instant and I don’t have to go to the bank to cash the check. But some affiliate programs still use checks so I do have to go to the bank regularly. To save time I usually collect a batch of checks and go to the bank every 2 months or so to cash them.

But a few days ago when I was getting ready to cash some checks I noticed that something was missing – I couldn’t find any checks from a company that usually sends me commissions every month. After checking my records I found out that it had been a few months since I last cashed a check from them. That didn’t look good… This is the opposite of getting surprise affiliate commissions. So I contacted them to see if they knew what was going on and apparently they had a check returned to them recently (for some reason). A new check will be generated on the next commissions cycle so I should get all the commissions I’m owed.

So, if you’re doing any kind of affiliate marketing (and if you’re not – why aren’t you?) you should remember to keep track of your affiliate commissions to make sure you get paid for your hard work. You could keep a record and write down each time you know you have a check coming (or other forms of payment) – write down the name of the company you’re an affiliate for, for what time period it applies, how much you’re supposed to get paid and when you expect to receive the payment (checks might take a few days – or a few weeks if you live in another country).

In case your affiliate commissions don’t arrive you should just contact the company you’re an affiliate for. When contacting support regarding missing affiliate payments you should give as many details as you can – your username or member ID, your mailing address, the last payment you received, information about the missing payment (which time period, the amount…), etc. That will help speed up the process of getting it fixed.

Checking your stats regularly is good – but you don’t want to spend too much time on it. There is no reason to check your ClickBank or AdSense statistics every 5 minutes ;) Once a day or even once a week should make sure you’re on top of everything.

Have you ever had any problems getting your affiliate commissions?

Keywords: online income, affiliate programs, PayPal, checks, commissions, stats, ClickBank, AdSense

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For example, right now school is keeping me quite busy and I can only work on my business a few hours per week. But I have several tools that are working for me on autopilot:

• I still get traffic, subscribers and sales from my AdWords campaigns
• I still get traffic from organic search engine results
• I still get visitors (and subscribers) from traffic exchanges
• My subscribers still get e-mail messages from my autoresponders

It gives you a lot of freedom if you don’t have to work on it 24/7 – it’s alright if I don’t touch my business for a few days. Even if I go on vacation for 2 weeks I might just occasionally check my e-mail…

But it’s not perfect – my business doesn’t grow as fast as it would if I could work on it 24/7 – I also meant to write this post a few days ago but couldn’t find a time to finish it…

A great way to start a part time online business is by promoting products as an affiliate – did you know that I have an affiliate program? ;)

Reminder: The “Top Commentators” that you see in the sidebar is reset every month. February just arrived which means the top spots (with free one-way links) are up for grabs. May the best one win ;)

Keywords: part time, part time business, school, hannes johnson, little time, business, vacation

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If you don’t know Mark Joyner he’s often referred to as the godfather of internet marketing. He’s the innovator of many online marketing techniques and the founder of Simpleology.

I’m pretty sure I got this holiday card because I’m an affiliate for Simpleology. Last year I also got a holiday card:

That one said:

Dear Hannes, Many thanks for your support of Simpleology! …

It was a pleasant surprise – I never thought I would get a personal holiday card from Mark Joyner. That card was handwritten whereas the card I received this month was printed (but personalized). I guess last year (well, 2005) Mark only had a handful of affiliates (Simpleology had just started) but now he probably has hundreds (even thousands) of affiliates promoting Simpleology.

I think it was a very nice gesture of Mark and I definitely want to do something like this for my own affiliates. Like Mark teaches in Simpleology 102 over-delivering is a great way to create buzz and word of mouth.

By the way, Mark just released Simpleology 103 which is a course on how to get healthy and have more energy. You might want to check it out… I’m half-way through 102 (which focuses on money) and I’m definitely going to start on 103 immediately after I finish 102.

Keywords: markjoyner, mark joyner, affiliates, hannes johnson, Simpleology, affiliate program, holiday cards, greeting cards

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A few days ago I got a PayPal payment from “MikeFilsaime.com, Inc” – it was for $25. Nothing special about that, I’ve gotten payments from Mike Filsaime before… But this time I have no idea what this is for.

I’m an affiliate for a few of Mike’s websites – but I don’t know where $25 should come from. I’ve checked the stats for the sites that I thought might be the “source” but I don’t see any records that would match $25. There is no description in the PayPal payment that could explain this commission… I don’t think it can be for Instant Buzz because the commission for the One-Time Offer is $98.50. Plus, the last time I got a payment directly from the member that was upgrading. Well, I’m not complaining :) But maybe I should just e-mail Mike and see if I can find out where this money is coming from?

oh, yeah, I added this link to Traffic Swarm some time ago – looks like I made a sale :)

This is not the first time I’ve gotten surprise affiliate commissions. I once got a check in the mail from some company I had never heard of. So I googled it and then I remembered, “oh, yeah, I added this link to Traffic Swarm some time ago – looks like I made a sale :)”. Not only did I make a sale from a single link that I added to a traffic exchange and thought nothing of after that – this was a monthly service so I was getting a residual commission :)

I’ve also gotten a check from a company that I hadn’t promoted in a long time and almost forgotten about – but it looks like some of the links I have laying out there on the net made some sales + some of my sub-affiliates made a few sales.

This is actually what my site Affiliate Booby Traps is helping people doing – Putting “affiliate landmines” out there that work on auto-pilot to bring you affiliate commissions again and again.

Technorati tags: paypal, Mike Filsaime, trafficswarm, hannes johnson, affiliate commissions, commissions, Instant Buzz, affiliateboobytraps, Affiliate Booby Traps

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