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Many people start their online business as affiliates. And many of those people use a Clickbank product initially. And many of those people have never been paid by Clickbank even though they’ve made a sale!

I’ve often been asked “why hasn’t Clickbank paid me yet even though I’ve made several sales”

Doing some research online today it appears that something like 90% of all Clickbank affiliates are officially dormant!

That in itself is not good for them because any commissions earned but not yet paid by Clickbank are getting eroded by Clickbank fees. You can read more about that at Why You May Never Make Anything From Clickbank

Now let me briefly explain the main problem most new affiliates encounter…

Clickbank rules (read small print) state that before they will issue their first cheque for commissions generated payment has to be made by 5 different credit cards. That means that you have to have generated 5 sales as an absolute minimum before you are paid.

By default, there is a threshold of $100, which means that until that amount has been generated a cheque will not be released, even if 5 different cards have been used. That one is easy to overcome – the threshold can be over-ridden but you need to be careful not to go too low since Clickbank deduct $2.50 from each payment they make.

Now there is a tidy way to get the first 5 sales. For a free report – no opt-in required – and there is no catch just take a look at Clickbank for Newbies. There’s some really useful information in their too and a way to make a few of your own affiliate sales.

If you have some funds with Clickbank right now that haven’t been released this could be the answer.

The Epic Traffic Systems  training (or should I say pre-launch fest?) has just started.

Now, I cannot profess to knowing anything about the product these guys are promoting but having just watched the first video I have to say if you are looking for more traffic to your site (and if you’re not let me know what you are doing to generate what you need) then the free giveaways will be well worth giving out your email address for.

Of course, you’ll get follow ups etc (you may actually be interested in the Epic Traffic System) but the purpose of giving you this link (yes it is an affiliate link) is that you’ll benefit from the free videos that teach about a load of different ways of driving traffic to your sites

Starting this week, Joey Smith, Jon Shugart, and Keith Baxter will be giving you so much information on how to drive traffic to your site that you will be stunned…

Not only are they giving you the training, but they have some KILLER software and WordPress plugins that they are giving you as well.

They’ll be covering social media, media buying and total search engine domination!

In the first videoJoey Smith will share with you how to make money TODAY using the power of Twitter.

Regular readers will know that I’m not really convinced about Twitter – just a whole bunch of people building lists of followers who they can promote to. With everyone doing the same thing but not reading anything anybody else Twitters about I don’t see how it can add to your income. Or at least I didn’t until now!

So if you’re looking for some epic traffic to your sites take a look at the Epic Traffic system videos as soon as possible.

EPIC TRAFFIC SYSTEM VIDEOS

Read the headlines “Affiliate Marketers Crippled By Taxes”.

More hype in the internet marketing arena or a warning of what is lurking just around the corner?

Cash poor authorities will of course be looking to increase revenues as much as possible and it seems that affiliate marketers – both those running affiliate programs and the affiliates themselves are being targeted by several US States.

I ran across this artcle “Beware the affiliate nexus tax” at Quansite and think you should read it and take note if you are involved in affiliate marketing in any way.

Seemingly the idea behind the tax is to remove the need to be physically present in a particular state before you are taxed. So, wherever you run your business from you could be taxed if you sell to people in the state affect by the tax. That’s regardless of whether you just put up a link and have no idea of who has bought through the link.

Can you see the difficulties here?

Potentially there will be businesses running affiliate programs who simply decide they don’t want to take the risk and simply close down their affiliate programs. Where would that leave you if you whole business is built around promoting affiliate products?

I strongly recommend you do your own research into this if you think you’ll be affected. I’m not in the US so whether I will be impacted I don’t know. But I’m sure not just going to sit back and wait and see!

I didn’t start this blog to do this but sometimes things get me so mad and mobile phone marketing has done just that and I need to get this off my chest.

Well to be fair it’s not exactly mobile phone marketing itself but the actions of some marketers who frankly I think should know better.

The latest bandwagon has just rolled into town and we are all expected to ride out on the wave of euphoria that is marketing using people’s mobile phones.

Get the headlines:

5 billion people use mobile phones

There’s a 97% open rate

Sounds good until you really think about it: -

How targeted is the message?

Why are people opening the messages?

Answer 1 - it cannot possibly be targeted

Answer 2 – because people think messages on their phones are from people they want to hear from!

And there’s the bigger problem and what I would call this method of marketing:

How to piss off 97% (that’s not 100% because there’ll always be some people brain dead enough not to mind such a blatant intrusion into their life) of mobile phone users.

SIDENOTE – sorry about the language but I really am mad at this!

So who will make out of this?

The guys telling you how to make money from mobile phone marketing that’s who!

Let me state this loud and clear here and now: -

If anyone, and I mean anyone, ever sends me a marketing message on my mobile phone I’ll throw every possible resource at you to get you closed down. That means Data Protection issues, that means spam rules, that means cold calling rules, that means some obscure rule laid down by some government department. I’ll find something and there WILL be something to find rest assured. It’s bad enough getting cold calls on the landline. Don’t start on my mobile as well!

Let me say it very loud –

I do not want to receive marketing messages on my mobile when I’m:

With my kids;

When I’m at a football match;

When I’m driving my car;

When I’m at a restaurant;

In the middle of the night (I live in a different part of the world to some people!);

When I’m working;

When I’m not;

At anytime, night or day, Spring Summer, Autumn or Winter

In fact I don’t ever want to hear from you

Now I’m actually a student of marketing. I love the innovation and the tactics and I’m happy to receive emails pitching me for products when I’ve agreed to receive them. I’m even happy with the emails I get on my mobile (those I’ve subscribed to) but don’t start texting and / or calling me. Perhaps you guys should go back to door to door selling?

A mobile phone is for keeping in contact with people you want to keep in contact with. End of story.

So not only has the whole idea of mobile phone marketing – the so called Gold Rush, seriously hacked me off it has also caused me to unsubscribe from several email lists already today alone. How many more will get the chop by the end of the week?

Come on guys, have your say, am I right or wrong on this?

By the way, ever had the mobile in your pocket or bag when taking a visit to the bathroom? Be great to get a sales pitch then wouldn’t it!

Many of our members have asked for recommended plugins to add slide shows of multiple photos / images to their blogs.

I’ve tried most of the plugins at some time and have found most to need either a lot of care, a lot of technical knowledge or a lot of patience. In most cases all three!

Recently I decided to do some more research and came up with a solution that I think is fantastic. No only do you not need a plugin, you can expect more traffic and the results are just superb. You end up with your Flickr photos showing up on a really cool 3D Photo Wall provided free by Cooliris

Watch this video to see exactly what I mean.

You’ll need to sign up for Flickr and use Cooliris (if you haven’t downloaded the Cooliris plugin for Firefox yet you are really missing out)

I’d love to see what you’ve done with this so leave me a message on the Contact page.