I received a ‘telling’ notice from Pepperjam today which alerted me to changes in their list of publisher promotional methods.
Take a look…
Today, we have updated the publisher promotional methods. Going forward, the categories will be:
- Blog
- Comparison Shopping
- Coupon/Value Proposition
- CPA/Sub-Affiliate Network
- Direct Link
- eBay
- Email Marketing
- Incentive
- Loyalty
- Merchant/Product Review
- Mobile Traffic
- Mobile/Tablet Application
- Paid Search
- Pay-Per-Call
- Product Feed
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Shopping
- Toolbar
- Video
- Web Site/Content
The following categories will be removed:
- Co-Registration
- International Traffic
- Online Mall
- Pop Up/Pop Under
- Search Engine Marketing
- Software
- Squidoo
- US Traffic Only
If any of the above promotional methods are listed in your account, they will automatically be removed.
See the differences between the current list and those that are being removed?
Other than the geographic distinctions, I’d call the list items that are being removed ‘useless marketing tools’, i.e. Squidoo pages.
I’d add WordPress.com and Blogspot blogs likewise — which Pepperjam fortunately never listed as affiliate promotion methods – thank goodness.
Seriously, if you are still using Squidoo and do NOT have your own domain to market affiliate products – don’t even pretend to be an affiliate marketer.
Get your domain hosting at Bluehost and they include the domain registration for free.
As for online malls – I’ve covered the downside of those since 2003, when the Super Affiliate Handbook was first released — and now discuss on Affiliate Blogger PRO.
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
About Rosalind Gardner
Lots of people use both regular websites and squidoo, including me.
I don’t use pepperjam, so no big deal to me.
Rosalind,
Always appreciate your insights and the training you have shared over the last year or two that I have been subscribed to your list. Today’s insights are received with interest as there are definite trends emerging as we head into 2013. What would be really interesting is if you can share how you intend (how you use) the publisher promotional methods in the “good” list. It is always good to know what is going to work moving forward but I think the “how to use them” would be even more valuable. Any chance you will do that…. or maybe you already share that kind of stuff in some of your ‘secrets’ in your academy training. For those of us who have purchased your handbook…. will you provide updates to that so we all can stay in-sink with the latest and prosper together? Whatever you answer on those questions I will be pouring over your blog in anycase to dig out the nuggets.
Hi Graham,
Because I primarily work with folks who want to start an online business on a budget, I focus on blogging, email marketing, product reviews, SEO and content. While I used to be heavily into paid advertising and still do cover it, I find social media marketing is just as effective. In other words, the basic tools of the trade (quality content and good relationships) aren’t going out of style anytime soon.
As for the Super Affiliate Handbook, it still gets updated about once a year (or whenever necessary) but we haven’t offered free updates to buyers since 2010 when Affiliate Blogger PRO http://AffiliateBloggerPRO.com was launched.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Ros
Great post Ros. But, is SEM really “worthless marketing” ? I can see why it is to affiliate marketers but what about those who market their own stuff via paid advertising? Would luv to hear your thoughts on this.
Paul
Hey Paul,
I really was talking only to the ‘free site’ point. I actually found it interesting that they would have removed SEM yet left SEO, the latter of which is included in SEM. As to using paid advertising to market your own good – ALWAYS worthwhile to consider if the ROI works.
Cheers,
Ros
What bout still using Squidoo to create content for the purpose of back linking. Its one of the last Web 2.0 sites that still allow links in articles and i’m surprise at the trafficI do still get from it.
Hi Debbie,
If you are getting traffic from your existing Squidoo lenses – great. But I would urge you to create content for your blog as opposed to building new lenses. You are better off getting links from authority sites on which people engage with each other.
Cheers,
Ros
Like Debbie, I would probably use Squidoo for backlinking, and I kind of like Squidoo as a additional tool.
I don’t normally comment but I can see two sides to this.
Firstly there’s an explosion of people on Squidoo right now who are cranking out hundreds of lenses per month and all of them are the equivalent of very, very poor thin-affiliate sites. Unfortunately Squidoo is being touted as “the easy way to rank” which is anything but the truth – Google still loves backlinks so you best have some.
The sad part is that the domain authority which Squidoo etc do have is very useful in a climate where it is literally impossible to rank a new domain for anything – unless you have a large budget to create “authority” with.
Unfortunately if affiliate vendors are being forced to drop web 2.0 sites like Squidoo it’s yet another nail in the coffin of the SEO/affiliate buisness model – especially for people who can’t afford to work an organic SEO site for 12 months to see income worth anything.
It’ll be interesting to see what Squidoo does now as a result of this but I’m assuming they’re going to start removing Lenses that are causing the problems with low quality traffic going to vendors.
Hi Niall,
Squidoo has had crackdowns on junk lenses before – seemingly to little or no avail.
To your comment about working a site for 12 months to see income – how long do you think it should take to build a business?
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Ros,
I know it takes time to do this stuff but put yourself in the shoes of people who have been slammed by various Google updates and don’t rely on PPC – people like me. It’s not fun and even being 100% white hat you can forget about seeing SEO results worth a damn for at least 12 months – if not longer. A
When people do anything they need to be rewarded with some element of “early success” otherwise they lose interest and call it quits. That’s from a training background and if you were to introduce any franchise model to somebody and said “you can forget about earning a cent for the first year or two”…well… you wouldn’t sell many franchises.
I’m just sad to see places like Squidoo being dumped by affiliate marketplaces like Pepperjam because it’s a knee-jerk reflex to Squidoo having better quality control.
Being successful online isn’t so much about who has the best ideas or the best content these days – it’s about having a big advertising budget/SEO budget and the beginners are being squozen (had to use it lol) out because of that. It’s not a level playing field anymore.
It would be interesting to see a case study of a brand new site and domain being used to create a successful affiliate business – without spending more than say $200 on it. I’ve seen the results of my tests but it would be interesting to see the results of others
Have a great day
Niall
I never used Squidoo and my website is hosted with Bluehost. Was about to start with Squidoo to get traffic to my website when I received your email about this update. Maybe I will just stay away from Squidoo.
Hi Adrian,
Using Squidoo to direct traffic to your own site can be valuable provided the lens becomes reasonably popular. That said, I’d rather invest the same amount of time in building my own domain’s popularity.
Cheers,
Ros
This is so spot on because one of my friends just asked me if I had used them, then I got your newsletter.
I used to get traffic from the few pages I posted years ago but haven’t for quite some time now. I like branding my site and putting my energy into that. With google penguin updates, forced linking just isn’t the way to go.
Many thanks Ros! Cheers!
Carolyn
Thanks for the info. I am days into my internet affiliate marketing and that would have been a considerable amount of time wasted creating “lenses.” Also going into this I knew that in order to get, and stay ahead, of the curve i would need a sort of “iconic mentor”. To make a long request short, i am asking for your assistance in my proper start up.
Thanks,
Breyon
Hey Breyon,
Glad to hear that my message came through on a timely basis to save you some trouble.
When I’m at my home office in the summer, I’m able to take on students, but as for mentoring – the best I can offer right now is http://AffiliateBloggerPRO.com
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Ros,
I was interested to see Ebay creep into the above list as a method for promotion because I sell a few of my own things on Ebay and know that they are very picky about affiliate links virtually to the point of banning them all anywhere on an Ebay listing or even the Ebay AboutMe page … in fact I don’t know anywhere that it is legitimate to place an affiliate link?.
So although Pepperjam have quoted Ebay as a valid promotional method where exactly can affiliate links be placed without the threat of getting banned from Ebay ? Do you or anyone reading this know?
And I can imagine some will quote Classified Ads but even they are open to interpretation as far as Ebay rules are concerned and even Ebay staff change the tune on that depending when or who you speak to … and which way the wind is blowing?
Hi Gary,
re eBay – so was I! I’m shocked that it was there in the first place, to be honest.
As far as I’m concerned, for an affiliate to market on eBay, you need to sell a product which contains the links back to your site. Even then, it better be a quality product that generates a lot of positive feedback… i.e. stand on its own merits and not just be put out there for the sake of garnering traffic.
Cheers,
Ros
Great post. Thanks. It’s been some time since I used Squidoo for backlinking. Would Pinterest be a better way?
Hi Jerry,
I’m not particularly keen on any of these methods. They are fadish… you can get traffic if you are an early adopter of the system, but it requires a lot of effort – most of which is almost always better invested into building out your own site and really connecting with people.
Cheers,
Ros