Big Brother’s Watching You: Are Search Engines Invading Your Privacy?

You might think that seeing only advertising that you’re actually interested in doesn’t sound all bad, but the way that Google obtains the information they use for targeting their ads has a lot of web users up in arms. It might make more sense to place ads, such as the best women’s golf clubs, that are relevant to that site’s content, but Google doesn’t see it that way… instead, they sniff out your web browsing habits, and use those to show you the ads that they think you’ll want, regardless of what site you’re actually on.

So, what gives? How is Google able to invade your privacy to begin with, and what can you do to protect yourself?

Google and Your Inbox

One of the things that Google does that has privacy experts up in arms is email scanning. The sensible solution might seem to be to simply not use Google’s email service, but that won’t save you- not only is Google capable of scanning the emails of its Gmail users, it scans the emails that their non-Google-using friends send them, too. Emails are scanned for certain keywords, and advertising is placed depending on those keywords. Send an email to your mother about the wonderful juice fountain you just purchased, and chances are your sidebars will be clogged with ads for juice machines.

If you ask Google why they do this, they’ll tell you it’s only to glean information that they can use to integrate their products better, that they don’t store the data beyond a sixty day period, and that they don’t cross reference their information with cookies.

There’s only one problem with this- there’s nothing stopping them from doing any of those things. Google may say that they don’t store or cross reference data, but there’s no reason why they can’t. Do you want to trust the word of a company that’s going through your private emails?

Google Knows Your Friends, Too

Do you remember “Google Buzz?” Google Buzz was a Gmail-integrated social networking service that was supposed to be the next big thing. The trouble was, Google automatically made Google Buzz users’ email contacts visible to the entire internet, by adding them as Google Buzz friends and making them visible to all of your other Google Buzz friends. Google tried to cover their tracks by claiming that users could adjust their privacy settings, but it turned out to be too little, too late. By the time most Google Buzz users knew to make their contacts private, thousands upon thousands of them had already been made visible. The backlash against it was so severe; it prompted Google to shut the service down entirely.

The dismal failure of Google Buzz didn’t spell the end of Google’s social networking involvement, though.

Now, Google has “Google Plus”, a service designed to compete with the likes of Facebook.

One of the features of Google Plus is that it’s fully integrated with Gmail, so Google Plus users may find that they sign up for the service, and all of their email contacts are there, just waiting to be added as friends.

This might seem easy and convenient, but there’s one problem- not all of those email contacts are really Google Plus users. Instead, all Google Plus does is pull the names of the people you chat or email with, and suggest them to you as Google Plus friends. If you go to add people who aren’t signed up for Google Plus, they are sent spam asking them to sign up for the service.

Google’s Terms of Use claim that they record information about your “activity” in order to help improve the way that their products and services work. Some companies would pay top dollar to know what Gmail and Google Plus users are doing. What is Google doing to protect their users’ privacy? If the Google Buzz disaster and early stages of Google Plus are any indication, the answer is “Not much.”

Cookies Sell Your Attention

“Cookies” is a term you come across pretty frequently on the internet. They’re useful little widgets that store things like the usernames and passwords you use on your favorite websites, so you don’t have to re-enter them with every visit.

Deleting cookies means having to go through the hassle of not having this information stored for you, so many people are hesitant to get rid of them entirely. Besides, they expire after a set period of time anyway, so what’s the harm? If you’ve ever gotten a box that’s asked you if you want to save your username and password for a site you’ve visited, you’ve been given the chance to have a cookie saved on your computer.

Cookies are usually not harmful, and are created to help you, not hurt you. The trouble is, there’s one major problem with this- if all cookies stored was simple login data that would be one thing. Unfortunately, some cookies, called “tracking cookies”, store a lot more than that, and never, ever expire.

Some websites have exploited the fact that most cookies are harmless and created things capable of monitoring and recording your web browsing habits over months, or even years. Some of these cookies compile their data into a whole advertising profile that tells companies about the kind of sites you visit, which allows them to target their ads based on the things you do online.

These profiles are worth a lot of money to the right people.

Second Verse, Same as the First

One thing that all of the backlash against Google’s privacy invasion has in common is the company’s response. Every time anyone has gotten up in arms about Google’s actions, they are essentially told that their invaded privacy is their own fault. After all, it isn’t Google’s problem that Google Buzz users didn’t adjust their privacy settings, right? Google also says that they track what you do right in their Terms of Use for services like Google Plus.

While Google could technically make the argument that they haven’t done anything legally wrong, the fact that users were never explicitly warned about these privacy issues makes Google’s excuses look shaky, at best. Nowhere is this more evident than in their actions with Google Maps.

Google Maps is a useful service used by people the world over for navigation and research. The thing is, the information for Google’s “Street View” feature was obtained by unmarked vans that drove around and took pictures. This happened regardless of what was going on at the time. As a result, there were pictures of whatever people happened to be doing outdoors while Google’s vans were driving by… Sunbathing topless, breaking the law, picking your nose, it didn’t matter. It could be preserved for posterity by some stranger in an unmarked van.

When people flipped out about this fact, did Google stop their creepy stalker vans? Of course not. Legally, it was ruled that taking the photographs was an invasion of privacy, but not actually against the law. So, Google simply told their violated users that they always had the option to report content that they felt was objectionable, and went right on snapping photos. So, users have to flag the photos they didn’t like, then sit back and wait until if and when Google felt like deleting it. In the meantime, the photos stay up, and the rest of the world gets to see them.

Keep Big Brother from Watching You

Short of staying off of the internet and never leaving your house when there’s an unmarked van in the neighborhood, the easiest way to get Google off of your back is to avoid using their services. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned above, this is hardly foolproof. No matter where you go on the internet, or what you do, you leave behind electronic traces that companies like Google can use to track you whether you’re subscribed to them or not.

Accessing websites through a proxy can help put another wall between you and the prying eyes of Google. Many websites don’t allow the use of proxies, but it can help keep your visits anonymous to those that do.

Vigilantly clearing your browser history and deleting cookies can help protect you, too. You can manually delete them under “Settings” in your browser, or instruct your browser to never save them to begin with.

What do you do to help protect your online privacy?

Image © Ariwasabi , NatUlrich, Anton Prado Fotolia.com

On Hitting the $1000 Mark

If you asked me years ago on my opinion about making $1000, I would’ve walked out of the conversation because I believe it’s just too good to be true. So if you feel that way right now, don’t worry. I get where you’re coming from because I’ve been there… and for a really long time actually.

Don’t get me wrong though. I tried my best in the MMO niche. From affiliate marketing to selling blog adspace, I’ve tried them all. But long story short, it just didn’t seem to work. I was getting nowhere and the first $1000 seems to be as elusive as ever.

Until my perspective changed.

My Story

I used to be a full-fledged blogger for around 2-3 years (and some people like Hesham still remember me from back then) until I sold my blog about a year-and-a-half ago. Why did I sell it? Because I couldn’t find the time and motivation. Was it the best decision that I made so far? H*ll yes!

Before you even start thinking of selling your blog, I’m just going to clarify that it’s not my point. It’s just part of my story.

Anyway… after selling my blog, I had no idea what to do. I mean, I sold it to get more time, but in the end, I was clueless on how to make the time ‘useful’ so to speak. So for a few months, picture me going on with my daily life with zero idea or means of how to reach my $1000 goal.

This is where my $1000 log journal begins, and hopefully it will inspire you to reach the mark as well.

November 2010:

I’ve been blogless for about 2-3 months now and I don’t have any means of making money online. But I’m still very dedicated to the goal. I realized that if I were to succeed, I needed to do something that I have never tried before because a lot of things that I have read or heard have turned out to be worthless fluff. At the end of the day, it’s important to segregate all the fluff from the real lessons.

I began to brainstorm for ideas. What do I want? Earn a lot. How? By doing something that I utterly enjoy and is profitable. Remember the Batman movie where The Joker says “If you’re good at something, you shouldn’t do it for free”? Well, that’s my motto.

December 2010:

This month, it hit me. I want to create a graphic design business because #1, I love graphic designing and #2, it’s profitable. I am very sure of these two things. However, I had to think realistically for it to work. Graphic designing is a very saturated market and it’s very hard to break into the business. I figured that I have to construct a feasible business plan.

Thanks to the lessons I remembered from great marketing guys, I realized that niche targeting is the key (and it’s also something you learn through blogging!). So since I was a blogger back then (and still am to some extent) I figured that maybe I could target my graphic design business to the blogosphere. Right then and there, I knew it was the right direction.

Since I have a very small amount of capital, I did the work on my own. I built the website, scouted for the team, and did the initial designs. Within a few weeks, I was ready to launch.

January 2011:

I launched the Blog Design Team. I’ll be very honest when I say that I have no idea if it’ll be profitable or not. What I know is that I have a unique service that I could capitalize on. So I did just that.

Launching is a hard thing. Especially if you have zero advertising funds (yes as in zero!).

My only chance was to be creative and resourceful. So how did I initially promote it with no money to shell out? Contacting people. It’s always about finding the right people! Emails are free but it’s invaluable to any business. I built a portfolio from scratch and even worked for free at first just to start the word of mouth buzz. And it worked!

February to March 2011:

I got initial clients within a few days. Money rolled in (and I almost couldn’t believe it!). The trick is to get positive feedback and keep wow-ing people with the quality of the work that I (and my team) provide.

At this point though, I was hungry for more. So I sought a much bigger challenge: to get into a top blog and make BDT’s name more recognizable. It requires effort and a lot of time (which I now have) but I managed to pull off  a quality post and had it published at Problogger (dream come true! And I never even managed this back when I had a decent blog).

After getting a lot of publicity from that single post, more clients rolled in. It was the “ta-da!” moment of my online career.

March to Present (January 2012):

Truth be told, I reached my $1000 even when I was just half-way through year 2011. In fact, for the whole year I have earned roughly around $2500 in net profits including all my freelance work. I know it’s not a big number for some, but it’s a HUGE improvement from the zero profit that I was sitting on a few months back.

Up to this day, I continue with my business and I never looked back again to that day when I sold my blog. This year I hope to grow my profit exponentially!

Conclusion (My No B.S. Lessons):

If you were to suddenly forget all MMO stuff that you’ve learned for free or for a fee, then just remember my great epiphany. If you want to make a lot of money online you only need to know what you can do and if people would be willing to pay you for it.

My $1000 Formula = You + Profitable Business

I may be a good blogger but I’ve acknowledged that I’m not that good at making money out of it. Therefore, if I choose to be a blogger, I do so because I just love the act itself. People used to keep saying the cliche that if you love doing something, then money comes after it. But as far as my reality check is concerned, that’s not the whole truth. Yes money comes after passion, but the passion should be something that you know how to monetize in the first place.

There are things you love doing that won’t get money. Whether or not you want to keep doing this is up to you (because what’s money without happiness right?). But if you’re adamant about pursuing a track that’s both fulfilling and profitable, then you have to dig further… as the golden rule says- take action!

And that’s the decision that led me to my first $1000. Comments? Insights? Share your own experiences!

Image © Mike Kiev – Fotolia.com

A very interesting thing is Google will penalize the entire site if there is too much space used to display ads, especially above the fold.

Matt Cutts actually took two yellow stickies and put them on the top of a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and indicated that even if this space was just one big ad it is too much and could be impacted by Google’s new algorithm change.

Now that you know it’s not about the quantity of advertisements

Take it easy here!

This doesn’t mean you can display a lot of ads on your site, no one will recommend this for you. But, here is something strange… Google contacted me this week and asked me to add more spots on this blog because they indicate I am only showing two ad spots. I am sure many of you are getting the same advice from Google!

So, the question here is, should you go and add more ads on your blog?

Increase your revenue by deciding the best way to display your ads

Focus on content visibility, structure, layout, and navigation of your site or blog, be careful when choosing placement of ads.

Here is a video by Google that may help you increase your revenue by deciding the best way to display your ads on the page.

How you will respond to Google’s Above the Fold update?

Our host Murray Newlands and David discuss the large demand for video content creation, as well as:

• How Works for Business
• Sharing Content
• Relationship Building
• Guest Blogging

For more information about Future Of Engagement, go to adrants.com.

To learn more about host Murray Newlands and his marketing agency, go to murraynewlands.com and influencepeople.com.

To learn more about Spark Media Solutions, go to sparkmediasolutions.com

There are numerous other roles that a comp plan plays and many will argue that the two that I highlight are not the key ones. However, the context is key here, which is: Small Business. Please read on and evaluate for yourself.

When I was at D&B (a medium size business) we had a good comp plan, I believe.  Most reps liked it, some did not, which is a solid indicator that it struck the right balance (hey, if the entire sales force thought their comp plan was the cat’s meow, then I submit it’s probably weighted too much in favor of the rep and not enough for the company). The plan worked. It drove the right behaviours and outcomes.

More recently, I’ve had some significant exposure to a small company that had the following sales comp plan: “We’ll pay you a salary plus 15% for every dollar you sell.” That’s it. No quota. No minimums. No carrot. No stick. Guess what? The reps really liked it and no wonder because they ALWAYS got money for even the most paltry sales performance (they were a mediocre bunch to start with).

Basic Sales Plan for a Small Business

Companies like D&B generally have their act together regarding comp plans. Sadly, some (many?) smaller businesses don’t. But all they need is a basic plan to make things work for their reps and themselves.  I propose the following basic sales plan for a small business who needs to better frame the expectations for a sales rep …and it’s quite simple:

1. A sales rep gets a base salary PLUS the opportunity to earn more money through commissions.
2. A sales rep is assigned a sales target (put a timeframe to it: annual, monthly, etc.).
3. Minimum performance expectation: The rep is expected to generate a certain minimum level of sales and for that they get their salary. Expressed as a % of quota.
4. Commissions: Only after they have reached their minimum, they start to earn commissions. The rep gets a commission for every dollar above their minimum.
5. Commission kicker: Lastly, once the rep hits their full target, they are rewarded with extra commission dollars. This is called the commission accelerator or multiplier. The commission rate is factored up for every dollar above the quota.

Let’s do a few quick examples with the following conditions (if you don’t like numbers, skip to bottom) :

• Rep salary:  $30,000
• Quota:  $500,000
• Minimum performance before commissions:  80% or $400,000
• Commission rate:  15%
• Commission kicker above full quota:  1.5 or 22.5% (15% * 1.5)

Scenario #1: Rep generates $450,000 in revenue:

• (Performance minus minimum) times (commission rate) plus (salary) = total compensation
• ($450,000 – $400,000) * 15% + $30,000 = $37,500 total compensation or 8.3% cost of sales

Scenario #2: Rep generates $600,000 in revenue:

• [(Quota minus minimum) times (commission rate)] plus [(Performance minus quota) times (commission rate after kicker)] plus (salary) = total comp
• [ ($500,000 - $400,000) * 15%] + [($600,000 - $500,000) * 22.5%] + $30,000 = $67,500 total compensation or 11.25% cost of sales.

What is achieved with this plan/approach?

• The rep knows what is expected re: minimum performance
• The rep sees that there is escalating incentives to achieve minimums and quotas
• The company gets minimum performance for a base salary
• The company can correlate costs of sales to revenue
• The company can better performance manage their sales reps.

This approach is simple but effective and while not necessarily suitable to all companies, this can be a starter plan for those that don’t have anything right now and want to improve their sales performance.

The 5 point sales comp schema described above is available as an online tool or as an excel download at Sales Compensation & Commission Calculator.

I hope you found this helpful. Happy selling!

Geoff Vincent

Murray Newlands interviewed Chase McMichael the founder of InfiniGraph.com about how to find out brand’s big challenges when it comes to social media, who our influences are and what’s their interest, and much more.

It’s really useful to have an answer as this will help brands to set their social media goals.

P.S. This video is  part of the Future Of Engagement series by Murray Newlands, which Famousbloggers.net took a media partner place to bring it to its readers.

I hope you enjoy the interview, and till next time!

Why? Because it violates Google’s guidelines against paid links!

So funny!

Do you imagine what could happen if Google the dictator meets Google the marketer?

Ok!

Google Can’t Keep Track of its Own Rules

Some interesting stuff has been going… Danny Sullivan was wondering:

“if Google can’t keep track of its own rules, what hope is there that third parties are supposed to figure it all out?”

Matt Cutts said in response to Danny Sullivan‘s question:

Google was trying to buy video ads about Chrome, and these sponsored posts were an inadvertent result of that. If you investigated the two dozen or so sponsored posts (as the webspam team immediately did), the posts typically showed a Google Chrome video but didn’t actually link to Google Chrome. We double-checked, and the video players weren’t flowing PageRank to Google either.

However, we did find one sponsored post that linked to www.google.com/chrome in a way that flowed PageRank. Even though the intent of the campaign was to get people to watch videos–not link to Google–and even though we only found a single sponsored post that actually linked to Google’s Chrome page and passed PageRank, that’s still a violation of our quality guidelines.

In response, the webspam team has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days. After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would. During the 60 days, the PageRank of www.google.com/chrome will also be lowered to reflect the fact that we also won’t trust outgoing links from that page.

Find more on this Google+ post by Matt.

Google’s Getting More Respect!

Some people said that this action added another layer of respect to Google, they think it’s really cool!

While others have a second opinion, especially SEOs, they see it differently!

And, if you ask me what I personally think about this? My answer would be, mm.. ah.. well, I don’t know! Anyways, my personal opinion is not that important, what’s more important is your opinion!

So, you tell me what you think if you discover that Google itself is buying reviews, backlinks or what ever, then they had to punish their own product “Chrome” not to look guilty, maybe to gain respect,  or to absorb the anger of SEOs, internet marketers and small business owners!

One thing that many company websites have yet to explore is the idea of foreign languages. Although many websites are working hard to generate quality content and grab that number one spot on a Google search results page, many have ignored the possibility of foreign language options on their blog and/or website. This means, then, that this just may be the ticket to everything you hoped for in 2012.

If you are new to the blogging scene or are just starting a small business, it is probably best to learn the ins and outs of the industry before worrying about translation services. However, offering a blog in another language is actually quite simple. If you feel your company has a large presence of non-native English speakers, or your business is well-established and ready for something new, translating a blog is something to consider. Consider a few of the benefits to offering foreign language translations:

5 Benefits to Translating Your Blog into a Foreign Language

1. More people will be reading your content.

Although English is the most used language on the Internet (at 536.6 million users to be exact), many business owners do not realize that many English speakers speak English as a second language. If you allow readers to translate your website to their native tongue, chances are they would return over and over again for convenience. Things can be understood the best in someone’s native language, so you will also avoid any misunderstandings if you give your readers this option.

Furthermore, there are of course people using the Internet who do not speak English. If you allow them to translate your blog easily on your webpage, you will suddenly capture the eyes and ears of all the non-native English speakers around the world.

2. You will be able to rank higher on non-English search engines.

There is significantly less competition to get a website ranked on a search engine in a language other than English. This is, of course, because English is the most widely used language on the Internet; therefore there is more competition. With less competition, those who don’t speak English will be able to find your website easily; thus driving traffic to your site.

3. You will gain new viewpoints about your website and/or blog.

Most websites have a space for visitor feedback and suggestions. Making your content available to a wider group of people will allow for more opinions. This will allow for your website to continue to improve and grow. Furthermore, people who speak different languages and are a part of different cultures may come up with ideas that never would have crossed your mind. If the comments come to you in a different language, simply copy and paste them into Google Translate (although you will be surprised how many will actually comment in English!).

4. Duplicate Content Doesn’t Count Across Languages

You will not need to write special articles in order to get them ranked on a non-English search engine. Duplicate content doesn’t apply across languages, so you will have nothing to worry about from this angle.

5. It’s easy to setup and completely free.

In order to get your website/blog started in another language, you have to download a translation service. One of the easiest and most popular services is Google Translate. All you have to do is copy and paste this code into a Text Widget on WordPress. Once completed, your blog will have a nice drop down menu that allows readers to select a language. Most services offer more than one language (Google Translate offers 52) so you can reach a large number of people. It’s as simple as that!

The whole point of a website is to offer information and advice, so why wouldn’t you want to share that expertise with as many people as possible? Utilizing translation services is something many companies are missing, yet it is so simple to complete. If you’re ready for an improvement on your website, I highly recommend taking a few minutes and setting up Google Translate.

It is obvious that a new algorithm of calculating CPC has been developed by specialists of Pay per Click advertising service in Google.

In fact, there are many factors which influence Cost per Click, and I would like to draw the attention of readers to the most important ones only. First of all, I would like to talk about Smart Pricing. Let’s try to understand what this term means.

Google Ad Sense Smart Pricing

If you have ever used the service of Pay per Click advertising you will probably agree that it is very important for online advertisers to get high quality targeted traffic for the money they pay. This means the following:

• It is necessary to place advertisements on high quality platforms only, which have the authority and a lot of targeted users;
• People generated to a website of an advertiser from Google Ad Sense block, would be interested in the product offered and agree to purchase it in the end;
• Users don’t have to be deceived. They have to understand that they are clicking on an advertisement link;
• An online advertiser doesn’t have to pay just for clicks;
• An online marketer has to optimize an advertising budget and convert paid traffic into sales effectively.

Smart Pricing can be considered as an attempt by Google to help online marketers optimize their budgets effectively and protect them from low quality traffic. The specialists of Google Ad Sense realize the fact that there is a great deal of webmasters who place their advertisement on low quality platforms, which don’t attract targeted audience to an online business. It should be noted that clicks generated by such web pages bring no value to internet advertisers.

Smart Pricing takes into consideration a lot of factors and set Cost per Click for each type of online advertising. Let’s consider these factors.

Factors Influencing Cost per Click

Talking about important factors which have an impact on Cost per Click, special attention of webmasters should be paid to the relevancy of a website. Webmasters will definitely have higher Cost per Click if all pages of their web resource are dedicated to the same topic.

The number of impressions is also a very significant parameter. If, for example, a website is very popular and generates a high amount of targeted traffic it means that this online resource has good authority among its users. Size of a website also matters. The rule is quite simple, the more web pages an online resource contains – the better.

As it is known, Page Rank and the age of a domain is one of the main identifiers of website quality. Therefore, the older the domain name and higher its Page Rank is – the better Cost per Click is. There is another important parameter that determines Cost per Click and it is relevancy of incoming links.

So, it is good if a great deal of topic related online resources refer to your website. It is especially good if the text of incoming links includes keywords which you target. There is an opinion that CTR also has an impact on Cost per Click.

Recommendations to Increase Google Ad Sense Earnings

Content is king!

As you can see, it is a fixed expression of webmasters. It means that the main task of website owners is to provide users with interesting and informative content. Thus, improve content of your websites, attract targeted audience and do the best to provide website visitors with valuable information. Results of your work will not keep you waiting for long. You will see improvements in Google AdSense earnings within a short period of time.

Interesting content is considered to be one of the most effective ways to attract a targeted audience to an online resource and convert it into website revenue. It is not a surprise that CPC in Google AdSense depends on the theme of a website significantly. Thus, if you work in a highly competitive business sector you will have high cost per click. But you should also take into account the fact that the higher level of completion is – the more time and work will be required to achieve SEO improvement. Thus, do the best to find the golden mean between the profitability and competition of a website theme.

Selecting the right theme and key phrases for your MFA (Made for AdSense) website and you will be able to provide it with high cost per click from the very beginning.

If you use your Google AdSense account for several advertising platforms make sure that these platforms are high quality websites. The point is that low quality sites will decrease your average rate in Google AdSense. Therefore, track the efficiency of your online resources and choose the best MFA sites only.

If you enjoyed reading this post, make sure to leave a comment below and share this with your friends and followers.

In His Grip <><

COO in Global Strategic Consultants and Internet Marketing entrepreneur

Why Isn’t Cost Per Action Marketing More Popular?

It is not that easy to get accepted into a CPA network. Unlike joining the Adsense program, you will – probably – face some difficulties when applying. In some cases, you will have to undergo an interview from the CPA managers. This interview is really easy to nail when you know what to say (we will talk about that a bit later).

In a lot of cases, you won’t get contacted by anyone and your application will undergo a review based on what you’ve submitted. If you are a newbie, there is a good chance that you won’t get accepted.

CPA Networks Are “Anti-Newbie?”

Although some networks do not accept rookie marketers, being a beginner is not the main problem. Nowadays, there are a lot of scammers around the internet, who are for the “quick money.” For example, there is a certain type of CPA offers called “email submits”. When a person puts his email address into a form, you earn $1.4 – $2.5. Not bad at all, don’t you think?

But scammers think that they are so smart and start using proxies to submit their own email addresses.  Advertisers pay a lot of money for gaining leads, and it is understandable why CPA Networks filter out newbies or folks who haven’t told enough about themselves and their intentions.

How To Apply To A CPA Network

1. Choose your favorite CPA networks
2. Find the application page
3. Fill out the information:
1. Name, address, email
2. Tax ID number. If you do not have one of those, just put in all zeros and later explain that you are from a different country.
3. Website. If you have a good looking website, put your URL address in the field; if you don’t have one, type in something like www.WillBuildWebsitesForEachOfferSeparately.com, which will indicate that you currently don’t have a website, but are willing to build one.
4. Experience. You can say that you are already working with Clickbank and Amazon Associates. Tell that you have experience in SEO and are ready to spend $10-$50 a day on PPC campaigns.

Know your ABC’s

→ Always

→ Be

→ Calling

As I’ve already mentioned, CPA networks are not big fans of newbies because they don’t know anything about them. When you give your CPA network a call, it will make you look more legit and therefore increase your chances to get accepted.

If you are living outside the U.S., and these calls are too expensive for you, buy some Skype Credits and call them using this (or some other) software application.

How To Nail The Interview

It’s actually quite easy. The guys that are calling you are not experts themselves. Their job is to verify that you are legit and won’t use any shady schemes to make money. CPA Managers usually ask the same questions, so I will just put them all down with the appropriate answers to them (of course, you will have to change them a bit as you go):

How long have you been promoting CPA offers?

I’ve been promoting Clickbank offers for about a year and have seen some success. A month ago I was accepted into PeerFly and Maxbounty (both popular CPA Networks) and I’ve already seen some great results with “Email submit” offers.

How do you plan on promoting our offers?

That is a good question. I will use PPC (pay per click) campaigns to drive traffic to my websites (landing pages or just regular ones). Also, I will do a lot of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to harness the power of Google.

Do you belong to any other networks?

Yes, I have recently been accepted into PeerFly and Maxbounty, but I’m looking to widen the range of CPA offers I can promote. I’ve heard some good things about your network.

How much traffic do you plan to get?

That’s hard to tell. If an offer is popular and the keywords I choose will have a low cost per click, then there will be a lot of traffic flowing into my website.

How much money can you spend on advertisements?

I can spend $10-50 a day. If I find an offer that is profitable, then I will increase my budget.

What kind of offers do you usually promote?

Well, I do like working in the health niche, but recently I discovered that I’m pretty good in promoting technology offers also.

Do You Know Some Great CPA Networks?

Here are some networks that received a lot of positive reviews on Warrior Forum (no affiliate links):

1. CPA Tank
2. EWA Private Network
3. PeerFly
4. Epic Direct Network
5. Neverblue
6. MaxBounty
7. Convert2Media
8. Commission Junction

Out of this list, my personal favorites are Maxbounty and Peerfly. They are great for newbies to get started, and what is most important:  they are relatively easy to get into.

When I applied at Maxbounty, I was called by a very friendly guy named Michael who asked me about my experience and plans to promote their offers. After I’d told him everything he needed to know, I was accepted in a matter of minutes.

It doesn’t take much to get into Peerfly. Just submit a form and wait (it was all that I did).

That’s about everything you need to know. When applying, try to call the CPA networks and I’m sure you will nail the interview.

King regards,

Andrii