Geo Surf is a tool that is great to use for online marketers that deal with geo targeting (where you target people in specific areas of the world / parts of the united states).

The service allows you to see what users from 80+ countries and locations around the US see using their in house proxy servers. This is a service I could have used when I was testing the EasyAzon WordPress plugin’s geo targeting features but instead I had to get beta testers from around the world to test the geo targeting functionality which took a lot of time, coordination and a bunch of emails back and forth.

I could have done my geo targeting testing myself in less than 15 minutes if I used Geo Surf.

I actually did a video review of Geo Surf so you could see it in action and better determine if it’s something you’d like to use.

Geo Surf Video Review:

Overall Impressions:

If you do anything with geo targetting you have to check out this service. I know it would have saved me a ton of time when I was doing software testing for my Amazon plugin and likewise it will help marketers that are operating outside the US and need to see what their users see. They also have a 5 day free trial. Check it out:

Try GeoSurf For 5 Days

(Note: None of the links to GeoSurf are affiliate links they are just for tracking purposes)

Clickbank is one of the largest marketplaces for selling digital goods online and it’s the marketplace I used to sell my first product – Niche Profit Course as well as two other products I’ve created with Clickbank. It’s relatively easy to set up a product for sale, but one of the biggest drawbacks Clickbank has is the inability to easily track and communicate with the affiliates that promote your product.

Why Is It Important To Communicate With Affiliates?

The answer to this question should be obvious, but in the time I spent looking at various products on Clickbank I found very few merchants actually use additional software to help track affiliate sales. This is somewhat of a shock to me because this is a huge opportunity to do more business with an affiliate in the future. For example, if I saw someone sold a product of mine to 20 people I would want to see where they were promoting my product and how I could help them sell more by doing an interview, webinar or anything else to help drive more sales and with EasyClickMate I can do that. On the flip side, if I were listing my product through Clickbank alone this would be impossible for me to contact them because it’s not possible to easily communicate with affiliates.

I first heard about EasyClickMate from Gideon Shalwick when I saw he was using the software to help communicate with his affiliates and since I knew he’s already done a few different products he’d probably know a thing or two about what the best software to use.

What Does EasyClickMate Do?

EasyClickMate is used in conjunction with Clickbank to better track sales by affiliates and provide you an easy way to communicate with them, but that’s just the primary function that I’m using it for. Here’s a list of my favorite features:

Easily Integrate with ANY autoresponder- easyClickMate will automatically capture your customers’ data and forward them to your optin/squeeze page. Works with Aweber, Getresponse, 1stShoppingCart or any other auto responder that accepts subscription via email.
I use Aweber to communicate with my affiliates via this affiliate sign up form and having an email list of affiliates is just as important as having an email list of potential customers.

Advance Affiliate Linking allows affiliates to drive traffic to any page and still receive credit
I have a sales page for my product, but I also have a page where people can download a free eBook which gives potential customers a better idea of what I teach in the product. So if an affiliate wanted to drive traffic to the free eBook download they could do that instead. You could also create unique personalized landing pages for specific affiliates if you wanted to as well.

Great Support
Now this isn’t on the official list of it’s feature set, but I sent several emails to the creator of the software Adrian Ling for help on a couple things and he was very quick to respond. Even after I realized the questions were answered in his support document he didn’t reply back and point out I was an idiot and that I should read the directions, he just helped answer my questions.

If You Want To Sell Anything On ClickBank Buy This Software

Overall I love this software and highly recommend you buy it if you plan to sell anything on ClickBank. As I’ve said before, communicating with affiliates is crucial and when you combine that functionality with the ability to sell multiple products from just one ClickBank account you can save a lot of money if you plan to create more ClickBank products in the future.

See more information about EasyClickmate Here

T3 Leads has been around for a while (in fact I did a review of them way back in March 2009) and a lot has changed since then. I wasn’t a big fan of their site then, but this latest version has improved it a lot. Before I get to what has changed let me give you some more information on what they’re about:

T3 Leads is a Pay Per Lead affiliate company that pays out affiliates for sending qualified leads. They operate in a wide range of markets from pay day loans, home mortgages and insurance.

How It Works:

One of the new features T3 Leads has put together is the ability for affiliates to create Javascript forms for capturing leads. You can then take their forms and easily put them into your site to be tracked automatically. Then you drive traffic to your website and get paid by the people that fill out the form. This is overly simplified of course but check out this graphic that sums it up easily:

They also have a presentation you can watch in case you’re a n00b (like me) when it comes to pay per lead affiliate networks. (find it here)

I personally haven’t used their network to drive traffic but one of the things on my unofficial goal list is to actually start experimenting a lot more with paid traffic. I feel like I’ve got the organic traffic thing down pretty well, but at times I feel like it’s difficult to scale whereas paid traffic is all about the ability to scale (and that’s how you can make good money). I’ve talked back and forth with the people at T3 Leads and they were very responsive. One of the things they listed as a new feature is their 24/7 customer support so I actually called their Toll Free number 1-877-77T3LEADS and it rang only a couple times before being picked up by Brittany who I talked to briefly before getting back to writing this review.

New Features:

As I mentioned before, T3 Leads is not a new network instead they’re just trying to let as many people know about the updates they put in place and here they are:

New features for affiliates:

More than a dozen, fully customizable JavaScript forms
Sophisticated tracking system where Affiliates can monitor their leads, track referral links, and more
Strong conversion rates
Affiliate referral program that pays 3% of the gross revenue
24/7 Customer Support
Customized payment options

New features for merchants:

Access to an interface with the ability to view and print invoices
Access to view pertinent information, such as how many leads they have purchased, current filters, and the redirect and accept rates of their leads
High quality leads
24/7 Customer Support

Overall Impression:

I love the upgrades and although I’m speaking from a position of limited experience, the most important thing to me as someone that’s new to pay per lead is strong support and ease of use. I already confirmed via a random (unplanned) phone call that it’s easy to get in touch with them and after seeing the old version and the new version it looks even easier to implement the code on a website and start making money faster. That being said I think it’s worth your while to at least check them out even if you’re new to affiliate marketing.

I’ll be sure to write a follow up blog post if I start driving traffic through them.

Check out T3 Leads Here

Background Info: Delivering Happiness is written by Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos.com which was acquired for just over $1 billion dollars by Amazon.com in 2009. Prior to that Tony co founded and sold the company LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 Million in 1999.

Full Review:

The book covers his early life growing up along with some of his entrepreneurial ventures many of which were pretty amusing (earth worm seller). He also discussed his decision to leave his high paying job at Oracle just 5 months after graduating from Harvard because he wanted to be in control of his own destiny and build his own company (awesome). The first company he co founded was LinkExchange and he explained that as the company grew beyond the small group of 15 employees and they had hired as many friends and friends of friends as possible that the culture started to become an environment he wasn’t excited working in anymore. In fact, he was given a 20% earn out on the condition that he stayed with Microsoft for 12 months after the sale was completed (which would give him an additional 8 million dollars) but he opted to quit instead. This was just one of many examples where he illustrated that material possessions don’t matter much to him and that it’s more about creating and building something he enjoys doing everyday.

The stories he shares throughout the book are excellent. I really loved the section where he discussed his passion for Poker and how it’s related to the business world. These two stuck ideas out to me the most:

Evaluating Market Opportunities: Table Selection is the most important decision you can make.
Strategy: Differentiate yourself. Do the opposite of what the rest of your table is doing.

When they started on Zappos back in 1999 5% of shoe sales were already done through catalog and the business was seeing annual sales of $50 billion a year. This would be a great market to get into and by striving to be the best at customer service it was a great way to differentiate themselves from the other competitors.

The later stages of the book cover the mistakes and challenges in growing Zappos and the constant struggle to keep afloat. I was very surprised to see that over the course of it’s early growth Tony had literally risked all of the money he had and even going so far as selling his loft unit for 40% under what he payed for it. I love the fact that he was so passionate about the business to know it was worth risking everything for it.

Overall I really enjoyed the book and suggest you pick it up as there are numerous lessons worth learning for aspiring entrepreneurs. The later half of the book is almost like a huge PR fest for Zappos which I got a little tired of, but he showed how because they took such a different approach to customer service than their competitors that it resulted in them not needing to spend money on a traditional marketing budget. The book was just released Monday, but I received a couple advance copies which I read while I was on the plane coming back from Hawaii.

Delivering Happiness is available for $13.19 on Amazon.com

Free Book Giveaway:

I got an advance copy of the book to review along with another to give away. But because I almost never re read books I’ll be giving away both copies. All you need to do is follow me on Twitter and/or sign up for my newsletter to double your chances. You’ll already get a few bonuses for signing up for the newsletter including my top 10 ways to make money online and 3 free WordPress themes. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll also receive sage advice from me in 140 character form (lol). I’ll be giving away one copy to someone randomly on Twitter and another in the Newsletter. Both winners will be contacted via their respective channels in 5 days so sign up below and follow me now for great additional content and the chance to win a free book.

Upcoming: I have a wrap up post of the SMX Advanced conference here in Seattle that will go up on Friday and I have a couple interesting ideas to share on email marketing later next week.

Best WordPress Plugins:

OIOPublisher
With the OIOpublisher plugin you can create ad zones and rotate various different types of advertisements for display on your blog. You can even sell ads on your blog direct to advertisers and cut out the middle man. I currently use this plugin on every single WordPress blog I own so that I can test which ad units perform best. When it comes to ad management plugins I believe this is the best one around.

Price is $47 $37: See more about OIOpublisher here

Bonus: Save $10 with coupon code BLOOM-MMOTI
(You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied)

More of the best premium WordPress plugins are listed after the break (click below to continue)

WP Review Site
In my portfolio I have a few review websites and on those websites I use the WP Review Site plugin to provide star ratings that I can customize for each individual product. It’s a great way to expand the typical WordPress blog format with information that is easy for readers to tell which products or services are most highly rated.

Price starts at $97 $77: See more info about WP Review Site here

Bonus: Save $20 off by clicking through this promo link
You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied

phpZon Pro:
This plugin allows you to easily insert products from Amazon.com into your blog and earn commissions on the sales. I use this plugin in conjunction with specific tactics to earn thousands of dollars per month with Amazon Associates. The best part about this plugin is that you can display star ratings, the normal price, the sale price and an image thumbnail of the product and make these all be clickable Amazon affiliate links. Then you can display a short description of the product as well so you don’t have to rewrite it yourself. (Want more details? See my phpZon pro review).

Price is $79 $63.20: See more info about phpZon pro here

Bonus: Use coupon code E907DB07EB for 20% off
You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied

phpBay Pro
PHPbay is another plugin also made by the same company that does PHPzon. The plugin allows you to easily insert products from eBay within your posts or via a sidebar ad display. It takes advantage of the eBay partner network and is an excellent supplemental income stream for the various blogs that I run. I use this on almost every single product oriented blog that I own because it’s an easy way to supplement an income stream. I’ve found that using more than one Adsense unit per page leads to lower earnings via Adsense so I like to use this plugin and get additional earnings from the eBay partner network.

Price is $79 $63.20: See more info about phpBay Pro here

Bonus: Use coupon code E907DB07EB for 20% off
You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied

Wishlist Member
Wishlist Member is a membership plugin for WordPress that allows you to control the content that is displayed on your blog to free readers or premium readers. I’m using this plugin on a site I’m developing right now and the feature set is huge (see the full list). You can control how fast the content is delivered which is great, because I’m putting together a 1 month training program and it allows me to schedule posts to become available slowly as members go through the program. This is the best membership software for WordPress I’ve ever used.

Price starts at $97: See more info about WishList Member here

WP Robot
WP Robot allows you to automatically post products from Amazon, Articles, items from eBay, Clickbank products, Yahoo Answers, Flickr and more to a WordPress blog. You can download the plugin and try out the Clickbank module for free. You can then either add the modules you want individually or pay for the full plugin to get them all. I’ve tried the Clickbank version out recently on a small niche site and I’m going to try expanding this out on the mini sites I’m building as part of my niche five figure network case study. I’ve tried a few of the other auto blogging plugins but I found this one worked out the best for me.

Price is $169 $139: See more info about WP Robot here

Bonus: Use coupon code makemoneyspecial for $30 off the full version
You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied

WP Auctions
WP Auctions is a WordPress plugin which enables you to auction anything on your Blog or WordPress powered website. An example is if you were an artist and running a blog to display your artwork you could put some of your pieces up on auction on your blog where people could bid on them. The possibilities are endless for creating your own auctions and around the web I’ve seen some pretty creative uses of this plugin. (Want more details? See my WP Auctions review)

Price is $39.99 $29.99: See more info about WP Auctions here

Bonus: Price is currently on sale with $10 off. Click through this link for pricing to be automatically discounted.
You must click through the link above for the coupon code to be applied

MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate
The MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate plugin allows you to turn your ugly looking affiliate links into something like this: http://www.makemoneyontheinternet.com/go/maxblogpress.php you an also set it up to automatically convert keywords to affiliate links for you. I’m using it on this blog now and love it especially so that I can keep track of the clicks on my links as well. (Want more details? See my MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate review)

Price is $97: See more about MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate here

Wrap Up

I will update this list as I find more WordPress plugins that help me in my business, but for now these are the ones I believe are the best. What do you think of the list? These are the ones I use on my WordPress blogs how about you?

Earnings Disclaimer: I do get a small commission if you purchase these WordPress plugins through the links above, but I did spend a lot of time acquiring coupon codes from these companies to save you money. If you think the work I put in to save you money was valuable please reward my efforts by purchasing the WordPress plugins through the links above. Thanks!

How it works:


(click to see full size)

Simply put in the destination of the affiliate link and how you want it to look like. Using the Shoemoney System as an example I chose to make the link look like this: http://www.makemoneyontheinternet.com/go/shoemoney.php but you could change the destination URL to look like http://www.makemoneyontheinternet.com/shoemoney if you really wanted to.

There is also the ability to automatically convert keywords into affiliate links which is the best part of this plugin. So whenever the text Shoemoney System (or any keyword I choose to convert for a specific affiliate link) is read by the plugin it automatically converts the keyword to an affiliate link. The beauty of this is now you have affiliate links automatically populated in your past posts that are still receiving traffic via Social Media, SEO etc. and this can help you earn more money from your blog.

Every link on my resources page was created using this plugin and I can also track the number of clicks on the links I’ve created as well. Yes I could find this information by going to each individual affiliate program and logging in to check the stats, but this is so much easier to do from a single reporting screen from within my blog.

Overall Impression:

This is another one of those must own WordPress plugins if you’re interested in both saving time and making money. If you are looking for an affiliate link management system or had considered buying the plugin before but never got around to it this is one of the best plugins on the market (if not the best):

Buy the MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plugin

I Love Twitter is a custom twitter background services company. They charge $65 for a custom background and you get up to 5 revisions. I only needed to use 1 revision on my custom background because I was very loose on my restrictions for the overall design. I believe I simply said “Make it pretty”

Their order form is very detailed and allows you to provide as little or as much information to achieve your desired design. You can provide input on your preferred color scheme, list examples of profiles you like, information you want to display in the “badge” are on the left side along with any other additional comments.

Overall Impressions:

I think the price is great based on what I saw in my final design (above) along with their portfolio of past projects. I also think they hit a sweet spot in the market when it comes to price because based on my research I found other companies offering the same service for over $100. If you want to look more legitimate and professional on Twitter than one of the easiest ways to do that is with a unique custom background and at $65 you can get that at a bargain price.

Head on over to ilovetwitter.com to get a custom Twitter background. Then follow me on Twitter.

This is Part 3 in my case study on in text advertising. Be sure to InfoLinks Review for Part 1 and my Vibrant Media Review from Part 2.

Kontera is the third in text advertising solution I’ve tested out with InfoLinks and Vibrant Media being the previous two. Kontera is a company I covered way back in 2008 but I was running the ads on a different website. A lot can change in 2 years so I wanted to try them out again. The data below is from the same website that I ran InfoLinks and Vibrant Media on in the previous two case studies so that I could show an apples to apples data comparison between the in text advertising solutions.

Income Results for 10 Days:

Yes you read that heading right. I ran the ads from Kontera for only 10 days and you can see why below:

Yah, that isn’t a misprint. From 177 clicks I earned only $4.38! It’s laughable how bad that is. After discovering how well Vibrant Media was performing on my test technology blog I had to stop the test short with only 10 days of data and switch back to them. Funny enough when I switched the ad code back to Vibrant Media in the afternoon on April 12th I still earned $5.48! I earned more money from an afternoon with Vibrant Media than I did over a 10 day period with Kontera. Of the three in text advertising solutions I’ve tested out Kontera has performed the worst.

Kontera Ad Targeting:

Kontera’s ad targeting is very similar to InfoLinks – terrible. Although I never found any missing images (I couldn’t find any with images either) I saw numerous completely irrelevant ads. Just look at the one above where ‘Call of Duty’ serves an advertisement for used Honda Civic Coupes – wtf? This was just one of many perfect examples of terrible ad results.

Wrap Up:

Kontera is so bad I’m not even going to suggest you try them out. It’s astonishing just how bad they are. I don’t know how else I can convey how terrible they are than by restating how bad they are three times in a row. Of the three in text advertising solutions I’ve tested out so far Kontera earned the least which is the most important factor in my mind. The next key factor is ad relevance / targeting which they are about on par with Infolinks, but meanwhile Vibrant Media is way ahead of the other two providers in this area and income earning potential.

In my past reviews I suggested that you test out each provider to see what works best for you, but with Kontera I suggest you don’t waste the time. If you do try them only run their ads for a week at most. Perhaps they’ll work better for you, but in my case they were the worst of all. No wonder they have the best affiliate program of the three solutions.

If after reading this review you still want to try out their in text advertising solution you can do so by visiting Kontera.com to sign up.
(Yah, I’m going to make you type that into the browser yourself)

UPDATE 5/2/2010: A Kontera rep contacted me and he’s told me that the results I’ve seen below are skewed because my website was not receiving ads from their premium partners due to a technical error. I’ve agreed to retest their solution and in the past few days I’m seeing much higher revenues (better than Infolinks but still lower than Vibrant). There is not enough data for a conclusive decision but I will post an updated review at a later date.

I’ve got data from another network I want to share as the fourth and final part of this case study, but their code is causing issues with the free WordPress theme I’m using on my test technology blog so there is a chance I may have to leave them out. If you like seeing more real life case studies from someone earning a living online than you should subscribe to my blog.

Has anyone had better luck with Kontera than me? Are there any other in text advertising solutions I should document on this blog that I may have missed?