Last week Pepperjam unleashed their new Store Builder™ and a few days later announced that it had been optimized for bloggers using WordPress.

I gave it a whirl and it’s darned easy to use as implied by the 1-2-3-4 steps indicated on the main Store Builder™ page (shown in the screenshot to the left).

Just log in, choose the merchant or merchants that you want to promote, filter results by keyword, do a little color customization and grab the code.

Important note for WordPress bloggers – click the “WordPress Optimized” box located beside the “Select Code” button before you copy your code, otherwise the code won’t work.

Here’s an example of how I used the Pepperjam Store Builder™ to place BackCountryEdge products (filtered by the keyword ‘tents’) on the Roamsters travel blog — using the default color settings. The actual page is located here.

With a little more tweaking, someone with good color sense could make that look MUCH nicer and more integrated with the page.

I don’t know that building product feeds gets any easier than using the Pepperjam Store Builder™. If you do, please tell us about it by leaving a comment below!

I love July.

Not only does it mean warm weather, playing outside and celebrating our independence here in Canada and the U.S… it also marks the halfway point to the year which is a great opportunity to review where we’re at with this year’s goals.

However, instead of talking about revised goals, I’m just gonna suggest that you ‘eat that frog‘.

At NPT this week I also blogged about:

• Google Adsense Referals to Retire in August
• Music downloads, leatherbound journals and parenting…
• Pepperjam Network Introduces Blogger Incentive Program

As promised, I blogged and posted pics from our Canada Day Eve party (the man in red serge showed up!!).

At Roamsters, you’ll also find an account of the inaugural trip in our new kayaks and a an account of my recent experience with sunburn and heat exhaustion.

Duh me.

That’s all for this week. I hope our Canadian friends have recuperated from their Canada Day celebrations and that our friends south of the border have a fabulous 4th of July and manage to avoid heat exhaustion.

Until next time… eat that frog!!

Do you market to Internet marketers or affiliate marketers?

If so, here’s an easy way to make some extra cash with the Pepperjam Network (PJN).

The PJN publisher referral program will pay any PJN blogger ten bucks ($10.00) for each post that promotes Pepperjam Network or any Pepperjam Network tool. You’re allowed to make up to 5 posts a month. But you can’t just post about Pepperjam willy nilly.

You have to let the good folks at PJN know what you’re planning to write about and gain approval for the post. They’re doing that to avoid the plague of spammers that such an incentive would otherwise incur.

Not only that, but during the month of July, when you refer a new affiliate to PJN and you’ll make an easy $7 – a 40% increase in their usual referral fee.

Last but certainly not least, each new affiliate / publisher that you refer to the Pepperjam Network will get a $10 sign-up bonus.

If you haven’t yet signed up with Pepperjam Network, it’s time to join the Affiliate Revolution.

OK, that ‘tells all’ subject line is a little hyped up – I haven’t written my autobiography yet.

But if you want to learn a little more about who I am and what I do, check out the “Pepperjam Network “Meet the Affiliates” Interview #3: Introducing Rosalind Gardner” blog today where I’ve answered the following questions posed by PJN’s CEO Kris Jones:

1. Where do you live? Are you married? Any children? Animals?
2. When and how did you first get involved in affiliate marketing. Please share your story…
3. What are some of your favorite online resources for learning more about affiliate marketing?
4. What are your top two (2) favorite books of all time and top three (3) favorite musical groups?
5. What is a day-in-the-life of Rosalind Gardner like?
6. Among other regular contributions to the affiliate marketing industry, you are a regular columnist for Revenue Magazine (BTW – I always look forward to reading your piece every issue!). Can you share with our readers what you feel is the best advice you’ve ever given as part of your column in Revenue Magazine?
7. You authored the book “Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online.” Can you share with us a few tips from that book? Wait…you’re not done yet. You’ve also authored one of the best-selling and successful e-books of all time called “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.” Is there an additional tip or two from that book that you can share?
8. My guess is that as an accomplished author, international speaker, and uber successful affiliate marketer you’ve traveled the world many times. Tell us about the most amazing place you’ve ever been to around the world. Tell us about your experience there…
9. Name one person in the affiliate industry you admire and tell us why?

And just in case you haven’t yet signed for Pepperjam, check out “Pepperjam Network Review: Real Change or Just Hype?” here on the NPT blog.

In a comment on the Pepperjam Network Review: Real Change or Just Hype? post, J. Anthony asked the following question about PepperjamAds:

…does this [PepperjamAds] conflict with Google Adsense? Before I add these to my sites, I want to make sure it doesn’t get me kicked out of adsense…

I understand your concern, J., especially if you are already making good coin with Google Adsense. To answer your question, here are the guidelines for Competitive Ads and Services taken directly from the Google Adsense Policy page.

In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

Here is an example of a pepperjamAds block:

Just so my readers won’t mistake these for Google Adsense ads, I’ve changed the color of the Heading to a dark red.

Too, as you can see, the default Pepperjamads layout is distinguished by a thick, solid black line at the bottom and clearly marked with the word Pepperjam in the lower right hand corner. I’d recommend that you leave that as the default, unless you want to choose another color that makes it look entirely unlike your Google Adsense display.

I see that you are typically running 2 instances of Adsense on your pages (including the homepage… ugh!). What I suggest you might try – if you decide to try the Pepperjam widget – is to replace one of those instances with relevant Pepperjam merchants embedded in your PepperjamAds display and monitor the revenue from both closely.

Hope that helps!

David asked me the following question:

Do you have any knowledge of or experience with Pepperjam’s Affiliate Network? Just wondered, since I didn’t see them mentioned in your book.

Thanks for the question, David… and here’s a review of my findings about the Pepperjam Network.

Amidst much fanfare from Super Affiliates (which seemed to get a tad overblown and hypey by the ReviewMe and ‘make money’ blogger types), Internet marketing agency Pepperjam launched its own affiliate network 2 and a half months ago, on January 15th, 2008… which is why it isn’t mentioned in the latest version of the Super Affiliate Handbook, released in December 2007.

Having missed the opportunity for a ‘sneak peek’ and without enough merchants listed under ‘Featured Advertisers’ in my verticals to pique my interest sufficiently to join ‘yet another’ affiliate network, I postponed signing up until yesterday when I learned that WebmasterRadio.FM had started their affiliate program with the Pepperjam Network.

What I discovered was surprisingly refreshing.

The affiliate signup process is quick and easy, and unlike Commission Junction, the form doesn’t require that you state your site’s monthly traffic figures – which is nothing more than a convenient way for CJ merchants to auto-reject applications from publishers who are ‘too small’ to be bothered with.

My affiliate application approval arrived shortly after my email address was confirmed. On logging into the interface, one of the first things I noticed was the “transparency rating” in the upper right-hand corner.

Pepperjam prides itself on making its affiliates’ promotional methods more transparent to advertisers, and affiliates with higher transparency ratings – a 4 or 5 – automatically qualify for higher payouts with various advertisers on PJN. In order to achieve higher ratings, all you have to do as an affiliate is state which of the following marketing methods you use:

• Comparison Shopping
• Coupon / Value Proposition
• CPA / Subaffiliate Network
• Direct Link
• Email Marketing
• Incentive
• Loyalty
• Merchant / Product Review
• Online Mall
• Product Feed
• Search Engine Marketing
• Search-Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Software
• Video
• Web Site/Content

When you click on ‘More Details’ for a particular program, no time is wasted on taking you to a new page. Instead, a dropdown box appears below the basic information with commission amount info, cookie duration, commission incentives, EPC’s and links to banner and text link creatives.

Tracking and reporting are slick, allowing sub ID tracking to track sales on any criteria you choose. The main reporting interface shows Account at Glance (totals) and Account Quick-View (broken out by program), as well as pie charts, bar graphs and the ability to run reports by date range. Reports include SID reports, Transaction Summary, Sale Transaction Details, Lead Transaction Details, Commission Summary and Payment History. What more could you possibly need to know about your stats?

BTW, I logged my first Pepperjam Network commissions within hours (maybe minutes… I didn’t check that soon).

Link generation is swift and easy, but what I appreciate most about program list is that beside each merchant partner with whom you’ve associated, Pepperjam lists the name, phone number, web address and program terms – a great testament to their stated commitment to open communication with a view to relationship building.

The ability to communicate with program managers gets even better than that, though. There are clickable ‘Chat Now’ buttons that show blue when the account manager is available online.

Oh but wait… it gets better still. Shortly after I joined and had signed up for a couple of programs, I received an email from my personal account representative for the Pepperjam Network, inviting me to contact her directly at anytime.

I decided to take her up on the offer and immediately wrote back to inquire about approval for a program to which I’d applied an hour or so earlier and for which I was awaiting approval. Less than a minute later, I received approval into the program, which was then followed by a ‘sorry for the delay‘ email from the account rep.

Sorry for the delay, indeed. I’ve waited WEEKS for account managers at Commission Junction, Performics and Linkshare to even review my program applications — even after a little prompting email!

I have only one complaint about my experience with Pepperjam to date. I HATE the white on black interface, which is a complete design no-no from a usability perspective.

Other than that, I give the network a big 2 thumbs up and highly recommend that you sign up for a Pepperjam Network publisher account and check out the 200+ offers currently available.

About Pepperjam: Comprised of a team of industry experts and veterans who are lead by Kris Jones, the company was recognized by Inc. Magazine for two years in a row as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States.

Building an affiliate web site that sells between 5 and 20 products is relatively quick and easy to do. An experienced webmaster could build a site like 101Date.com in a weekend. If it took a week or even a month to build, that’s a minor investment in a site that will reap rewards for years to come. But how long would it take to build a site that promotes THOUSANDS of products such as magazines, garden items, posters, t-shirts or lingerie?

Or, what if you want to promote multiple merchants that carry products in the same niche?

The answer is simple – incorporate merchant product datafeeds.

DataFeed Format and Content

Merchants provide datafeeds to affiliates either as ‘flat file’ spreadsheet downloads or via FTP. Datafeed spreadsheets are typically available free of charge to affiliates. FTP access however often requires approval from the merchant as it often costs them money for the network to activate each affiliate’s access. Therefore, be specific as to how and where you plan to use the datafeed when you apply for access.

A product datafeed typically lists product names along with their categories and subcategories, descriptions, coded affiliate links, product graphic image URL’s, prices and even applicable keywords or tags.

Here is a screenshot of the Nature Hills Nursery datafeed (text file) that I downloaded from Shareasale.

Looks pretty ugly, eh?

So, how do you turn THAT ugliness into something that looks as good as the first screenshot of my Travel Magazines page above?

You need a datafeed processing service or software.

These services range from javascript snippet generation, to software loaded on your computer, to software you upload to your site and completely third-party solutions. Some require constant feed maintenance (keep downloading / uploading the new feed or regenerating the script. They also range in price from free (not really — you give up commissions with some of them) to paid services for as little as $5.99 per month.

Read more about Affiliate Datafeed Integration Software and Services now to find out which I MOST highly recommend. Hint: It’s the easiest one to use.