The Melissa Project
Don't worry, it's not a virus, just
viral marketing at work!
Want a step-by-step plan for
making a profit with an AffiliateShowcase Executive site? This is the
place! No, it's not THE way, it's just an actual case study of
ONE way to do it.
If you start at the top and read all the way down, you will see exactly where this case study is right now. This page will be a record of an actual experiment and just like any good experiment, we will report the good, the bad and the ugly!
This plan will assume that you can find your way around a computer and the Internet, but it does NOT expect you to be an Internet marketing guru. It does assume that you are serious about making some money on the Internet and have an Executive Membership at AffiliateShowcase. If you don't, then click here and get one right now!
If you want to, you can follow this plan, exactly step-by-step, choosing the same programs, trying the same promotions and hopefully doing as well or better than our example. But ... this really is just ONE way to do it and you want to make your own choices, so feel free to experiment and let us know what works for you!
So,
the first step is to find someone to be the guinea pig. In the
quest for the perfect victim, (oops, I mean example) we searched near and far,
(Ok, so I only got as far as the dining room table!) before selecting a very
sweet young lady as our first test case. After promising her that I would
give her a free Executive level site AND let her keep all the profits, my
daughter finally gave in.
Meet
Melissa
Melissa has some of the same qualities as many of our best customers. She's bright, friendly and very nice to be around. She has never been a member of any affiliate program and as a matter of fact, this will be her first web site. She does have a working knowledge of AffiliateShowcase though because she works in the customer support department here at AffiliateShowcase. If you have been the recipient of one of her helpful emails, it may be nice to put a face with the writer.
Getting Started ...
1. If you don't have an Executive site - Click Here and get one right now!
2. Next check out all of the following pages if you haven't done so already!
Now on to the fun stuff ...
Melissa has seen all of those pages more times than she probably wants to count, so right after signup we jumped into customizing her new site. Just to make life easy we did a little stealing from her Dad's site for the custom HTML. Here is the custom HTML that we added to the center of Melissa's site.
Wow! What's with all the hieroglyphics ...
I admit that this looks a little tricky if you don't know HTML, but Melissa doesn't know HTML either. All that she had to do was to copy the code from the box above and find the spots where it had my name and change them to her name. The only other catch was that her picture looks much better than mine and a bearded Melissa had limited appeal, so we substituted a picture of her for my ugly mug. All that you have to do is to contact us at http://MyHelpDesk.com and they will add the image to our servers. Then you just replace melissa.jpg in the above example with your own filename.
If you want
to know more about HTML codes, click here to
check out our tutorial.
We could have added a custom logo, a custom domain name, but we just decided to keep it simple.
You can
click
here for all the details about customizing your site.
The next step was to join a program. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and join a program that would help us drive some traffic to Melissa's new site, so we did a search on traffic with our AffiliateShowcase search engine. A quick search turned up 106 different programs and after looking at a few, we decided to start with ad-CLiX Viral Web Traffic Generation.
We picked Ad-CLiX because Sid Hale who runs Ad-CLiX is an Executive Member at AffiliateShowcase.com. He's a regular in the AffiliateShowcase Forums in his "spare" time. He is also the author of "The Insider's Guide to AffiliateShowcase" in which Sid gives an his unique perspective on how to make money with an AffiliateShowcase site.
ad-CLiX insists that all members either ...
This means that the surfers to those "hosting" pages are exposed to the members advertising. The ad-CLiX Exchange Network is a 5-tier program (you and 4 levels below you)
With AffiliateShowcase you could just enter the link in your system, and promote the ad-CLiX network that way, but we opted to add a banner ad to the center section of our site for an extra boost in traffic.
When you join the ad-CLiX program, you will supply them with your email address so they can confirm your membership, and you will be allowed to select your own User ID and Password. You will be able to use these to access your account so that you can control your ad campaign.
From there, you can setup to promote your AffiliateShowcase site using either Banner Ad Exchange, Exit Page Visits, or both.
You will have to enter the URL of the web site that you want to promote and a Category you want to be listed in.
From there, the information you enter will differ depending on whether you are requesting Banner Ad impressions, Exit Page traffic, or both. This information is used to generate links to your site.
Once you have entered all the information for each ad type in your campaign, ad-CLiX can generate code unique to your membership, that you can insert in your custom and begin to earn additional credits immediately.
Your web page or banner is then displayed all over the
ad-CLiX
member network, in your target category. Every 5 credits you earn
results in another targeted link to your site.
If you have chosen to implement Exit Page code, your web
page will be displayed when visitors to other members websites leave those
websites. If you opt for Banner Ad Placement, THEIR visitors will see YOUR
banner.
You
can get banners for your AffiliateShowcase site by
clicking here!
The number of times your links are shown is based on a simple "credit" system.
You earn traffic credits in 3 ways, and every 5 credits will
result in another targeted link to your site ...
Number 3 causes your site's traffic to increase exponentially and automatically, because it's "viral".
Here's the code that ad-CLiX provided Melissa to display a banner ad.
All of my traffic problems are solved right?
Sorry, but no. Note that in order to get any traffic from ad-CLiX you have to already have some traffic going to your site. Otherwise, you will never get any credits. Ahh, you say, "Back to the same old story. If you don't have visitors then you can't get any!"
Well, not quite. This is just one little piece in our project to drive traffic and sales to Melissa's AffiliateShowcase site. We have many more tricks up our sleeve, but we had to start somewhere and ad-CLiX seemed as good a place as any.
How do I know if I even get any visitors?
The next issue is, how do I know if I get any visitors at all? Well, there are all kinds of tracking programs available. Adminder and NameStick come immediately to mind and there a lots more, but Melissa is definitely on a budget, so let's start out with a free counter from BraveNet.
BraveNet has an affiliate program and offers a wide range of free and paid services, so Melissa decided that she might as well join that program and add it to her listings. She also decided to rank it with five stars, so that it would come up high on the search results on all of the free sites that she gives away.
You can
click here for all the details
if you don't remember how to add links.
At the same time Melissa decided to add BraveNet to her "Showcase" ad spot.
You can
click here for all the
details if you don't remember how to use Feature and Showcase.
Back to our counter ...
BraveNet offers a number of free counters and Melissa opted for one that simply shows a stats box on the site and requires a login to get the actual stats. Here's the code that they send for that.
Don't use
Melissa's code! You need to get your own code to be of any use to you.
By now, Melissa is a real whiz at copy and pasting code into her custom HTML section.
What does all this look like?
If you already have a site by now (Click Here and get one right now!) you need to make sure that you are logged out of your own site before you look at another AffiliateShowcase site. Otherwise, you see your own site. (There's a pretty smart system that knows you at work here!) So, go to your site and log out. then click here to see Melissa's site.
Which programs do I add first?
With over 2,000 programs to choose from picking the right ones to join can be a daunting task! Melissa has never joined an affiliate program, so I pointed her to the AffiliateShowcase Alert! for some advice. The first issue of the Alert listed a number of five star programs and if they are working for other members, maybe they will work for Melissa.
Five Star Programs
Melissa is now going to take a little time and join all of the following programs. Remember when you are going through all of this, take your time. You don't have to join all of the programs to be a success and this is a building process. You can always join programs later, so space it out a little, stop and smell the roses and if it gets frustrating, take a break for a while! Here are the programs mentioned in the AffiliateShowcase Alert!
Ad MinderWhat's next?
While Melissa plugs away at joining programs you can click here and get an Executive Membership right now! Then follow along as we build Melissa's site and join in the profits! The next installment of this case study will be added soon. In the meantime, take your time and go through the steps on this page if you want to follow along with Melissa as she learns her way through the maze of affiliate programs and reaches her goals.
If you want to add a link to the Melissa Project on a personal site, we think that it will be a great money maker for you. Just get an Executive Membership and then link to this page using the following format:
http://www.affiliateshowcase.com/casestudy.asp?id=XXXXX
Just make sure to replace the XXXXX with your own member ID. That way, you will get credit for any signups from any of the programs that you join. Just one more way to make money with AffiliateShowcase.
Next report soon!
Report 2 - Some Results are in!
Good News!
First the good news, Melissa managed to sell three Executive memberships from her site! That means that AffiliateShowcase has now had to write Melissa two checks, and Dad has to twice explain to his wife why Melissa is getting paid every month without much effort on her part. Remember, AffiliateShowcase membership sales paid recurring income, in this case as an Executive member, Melissa is earning 25% on these sales every month which means $44.25 each month on these three members for as long as they are active members of AffiliateShowcase.
but ...
Bad News!
She is doing it with very little traffic.
Here are the stats from Melissa's BraveNet counter ...
| January 14, 2003 | 6 |
| January 13, 2003 | 2 |
| January 12, 2003 | 6 |
| January 11, 2003 | 8 |
| January 10, 2003 | 2 |
| January 09, 2003 | 6 |
| January 08, 2003 | 16 |
| January 07, 2003 | 18 |
| January 06, 2003 | 12 |
| January 05, 2003 | 12 |
| January 04, 2003 | 20 |
| January 03, 2003 | 23 |
| January 02, 2003 | 25 |
| January 01, 2003 | 13 |
| December 31, 2002 | 14 |
| December 30, 2002 | 16 |
| December 29, 2002 | 9 |
| December 28, 2002 | 8 |
| December 27, 2002 | 6 |
| December 26, 2002 | 8 |
| December 25, 2002 | 2 |
| December 24, 2002 | 4 |
| December 23, 2002 | 5 |
| December 22, 2002 | 5 |
| December 21, 2002 | 7 |
| December 20, 2002 | 2 |
| December 19, 2002 | 5 |
| December 18, 2002 | 3 |
| December 17, 2002 | 7 |
| December 16, 2002 | 7 |
| December 15, 2002 | 6 |
| Total | 283 |
Melissa has gotten only 283 visitors to her site in the past month and we really need to get that number up! So, for the next step, let's concentrate on traffic building programs. Melissa doesn't have much cash and she really doesn't have much time, so we will try to focus on programs that are free and hopefully easy.
25 Traffic Generating Affiliate Programs
I've been
working on putting together a free, brandable
AffiliateShowcase e-book, "25 Traffic Generating Affiliate Programs." and
that is what we are going to use to get Melissa started.
This is an e-book with a twist, because as an AffiliateShowcase member, you can brand this book with your own Member ID and make it available to all of your potential customers. Each link in the book takes them straight to the listing for that program in your affiliate showcase site. That means that if you have signed up for that program, that you get the referral.
All of these programs offer free traffic and some even cash for each referral that you make. Your e-book, along with your AffiliateShowcase will generate referrals, which will generate more traffic and more referrals in a hopefully never ending cycle!
In addition, there are MANY other ways to generate traffic
through these programs, including building a downline (through your referrals,
surfing for traffic, banners that you can display etc., etc.) You get to
choose which ones you want to do, but you can't hurt your traffic levels by
joining all of them. Even if you never do any of the other activities, you
can earn traffic from referrals through your AffiliateShowcase site, so you have
nothing to lose and lots of traffic to gain!.
If you aren't a member of AffiliateShowcase, make sure you join before you brand
this book, otherwise branding it won't be of any benefit. Don't worry it's
free!
Just click here to join now!
Then, click here to download your own copy so you can personalize it with your AffiliateShowcase Member ID. You can give this e-book away as a bonus from a website, to newsletter subscribers, from a pop-up, pop-under, or any other creative way that you can think of to get this in front of your potential customers.
As an AffiliateShowcase member you will receive commissions on two levels for all paid memberships from your own affiliate program search engine and directory site. This is in addition to the traffic that this e-book will drive to your best affiliate programs.
Melissa's next assignment is to download the ebook, join all 25 programs (plus two bonus programs) and then try some surfing for traffic in some of the programs. Naturally, we will let you know how it goes!
Report 3 - Melissa takes advantage of a new feature
Sid Hale who runs ad-CLiX is an Executive Member at AffiliateShowcase.com. He's a regular in the Executive Forums in his "spare" time. He is also the author of "The Insider's Guide to AffiliateShowcase" in which Sid gives an his unique perspective on how to make money with an AffiliateShowcase site. Now Sid has come up with a special way that ONLY AffiliateShowcase members can take advantage of. The explanation below is a bit technical, but using it is easy.
1. Sign up with ad-CLiX.
2. Send people to http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/affiliate.asp?id=YourASMemberID&ref=YourAd-ClixID
Note: Be sure to replace YourASMemberID with your AffiliateShowcase Member ID and YourAd-ClixID with your ad-CLiX ID.
For those that want to know more here is how Sid describes it ...
|
First, I created 2 promotional
pages for Affiliate Showcase, that automatically earn you
ad-CLiX
advertising credits. Both of these pages require you supply both your
Affiliate Showcase site ID and your
ad-CLiX
User ID when you link to them. The first page is a knockoff of the "1 minute intro" page from your Affiliate Showcase site. It is very short and contains only one link in it: http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/affiliate.asp This page differs from the original, in that rather than that one link taking you to the standard Affiliate Showcase sales page, it takes you to another knockoff page (we'll cover that in a minute) and it contains ad-CLiX Exit pop-under code. Let's look at the way you benefit from this page (with no work). All of you should be familiar with the Melissa Project ... so I am going to use Melissa for my examples from here on out. Melissa's Affiliate Showcase site ID is #23996. If Melissa were to use my "1 minute intro" page, above - she appends ?id=23996 to the URL, so she would code her link with her Affiliate Showcase site ID as follows: http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/affilate.asp?id=23996 BUT... That only "brands" the link with her AS site ID. How does she get ad-CLiX credit for the pop-under page? Simple. As long as a web page is coded to handle it, multiple parameters can be strung together (using an & followed by the parameter) and passed to it through the link. Melissa's ad-CLiX User ID is MelProject, so she appends &ref=MelProject to the link we previously built and codes her link to my "1 minute intro" page like this: http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/affiliate.asp?id=23996&ref=MelProject every time someone clicks on the link, my "1 minute intro" page will show, but the "Click Here" link on that page will be coded to go to my 2nd page and to carry both of the parameters with it. In addition, another ad-CLiX member's page will be brought up in a pop-under page, and Melissa will earn a credit on ad-CLiX. All she did was use the above link to promote her Affiliate Showcase site. When someone clicks on the link in my "1 minute intro" page, they are taken to a knockoff of the Affiliate Showcase sales page, but they take the 2 parameters (in this case Melissa's) for Affiliate Showcase and ad-CLiX along with them. That link would look like this: http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/getasite.asp?id=23996&ref=MelProject The only reason I show you this is because if you wanted you could promote that page directly (but if you don't go through the 1st page, you won't get the Exit Page credit). This page differs from the standard Affiliate Showcase sales page in that it contains the ad-CLiX banner code at the very end, so that Melissa will immediately get the 2 banner credits just for taking someone to that page. To recap, we promoted Melissa's "1 minute intro" page (that's the primary objective), and earned her an Exit Page credit in the process. If the viewer clicks on the link in that page, Melissa's Affiliate Showcase sales page will show with a banner ad at the bottom, and besides having taken her prospect one step further in the sales cycle, she will immediately earn 2 additional banner ad credits from ad-CLiX. Here's the link again. http://ad-CLiX.com/go/AS/affiliate.asp?id=23996&ref=MelProject Copy that into notepad and replace Melissa's site ID (the 23996) with your own Affiliate Showcase site ID #, and Melissa's ad-CLiX User ID with your own, and then start using it. Anyone can use this, but it will be especially helpful to any who don't have their own web site and are constantly struggling to find alternative methods of promotion. |
Thanks Sid for a great
idea. If you have ideas of your own. Let us know and we will try
them out!
More soon!
Ken
Kenneth A. McArthur
AffiliateShowcase
Report 4 - Melissa building slowly AND earning cash!
Melissa is starting to slowly build her traffic even though she really hasn't done much to really jump start it and her time on line has been extremely limited. Add to that the fact that she hasn't invested a penny in her site and she isn't doing too badly. Here are the traffic figures for March. Notice that it is about double January and February traffic combined! If she could keep doubling the traffic at this rate, she would have a large base in pretty quick order.
| March 31, 2003 | 4 |
| March 30, 2003 | 8 |
| March 29, 2003 | 8 |
| March 28, 2003 | 8 |
| March 27, 2003 | 10 |
| March 26, 2003 | 12 |
| March 25, 2003 | 4 |
| March 24, 2003 | 12 |
| March 23, 2003 | 16 |
| March 22, 2003 | 28 |
| March 21, 2003 | 34 |
| March 20, 2003 | 20 |
| March 19, 2003 | 10 |
| March 18, 2003 | 16 |
| March 17, 2003 | 22 |
| March 16, 2003 | 8 |
| March 15, 2003 | 14 |
| March 14, 2003 | 12 |
| March 13, 2003 | 16 |
| March 12, 2003 | 10 |
| March 11, 2003 | 16 |
| March 10, 2003 | 18 |
| March 09, 2003 | 12 |
| March 08, 2003 | 12 |
| March 07, 2003 | 14 |
| March 06, 2003 | 16 |
| March 05, 2003 | 14 |
| March 04, 2003 | 10 |
| March 03, 2003 | 8 |
| March 02, 2003 | 2 |
| March 01, 2003 | 20 |
| Total | 414 |
| Average Hits Per Day | 13.35 |
Now for the important part ... What is she doing in terms of profits?
For starters she is continuing to earn cash from AffiliateShowcase membership sales, but now she has also added commission checks from three programs that she joined.
January 2003:
Affiliate Showcase - $29.50
February 2003:
Affiliate Showcase - $56.50
Affiliate Mistakes - $18.50
Adminder - $10.89
The Newbie Club - $10.48
More soon!
Ken
Report 5 - Melissa goofs off but still building slowly AND earning cash!
Melissa's focus these days has much more to do with her social life than working on this project. But she certainly is enjoying the commission checks. Her profits in April were $161.87, which doesn't seem like all that much until you factor in the fact that she hasn't done a thing on this for months.
But, it's not all her fault. Her Dad hasn't gotten around to giving her a new list of things to do. So what are the results of all this inactivity? First take a look at the traffic levels for April and early May. (pretty pitiful really) The traffic to the site hasn't grown at all (and that is the member's only real job with an AffiliateShowcase site.)
| May 12, 2003 | 4 |
| May 11, 2003 | 12 |
| May 10, 2003 | 8 |
| May 09, 2003 | 16 |
| May 08, 2003 | 10 |
| May 07, 2003 | 16 |
| May 06, 2003 | 8 |
| May 05, 2003 | 14 |
| May 04, 2003 | 6 |
| May 03, 2003 | 8 |
| May 02, 2003 | 18 |
| May 01, 2003 | 24 |
| April 30, 2003 | 16 |
| April 29, 2003 | 4 |
| April 28, 2003 | 4 |
| April 27, 2003 | 8 |
| April 26, 2003 | 6 |
| April 25, 2003 | 18 |
| April 24, 2003 | 22 |
| April 23, 2003 | 18 |
| April 22, 2003 | 8 |
| April 21, 2003 | 8 |
| April 20, 2003 | 6 |
| April 19, 2003 | 2 |
| April 18, 2003 | 8 |
| April 17, 2003 | 8 |
| April 16, 2003 | 6 |
| April 15, 2003 | 14 |
| April 14, 2003 | 18 |
| April 13, 2003 | 28 |
| April 12, 2003 | 8 |
| Total | 354 |
| Average Hits Per Day | 11.42 |
Despite all this, here are the profits for March and April. Notice that nice bonus from selling just one copy of Jim Daniels Make a Living On-Line package. Melissa could easily put more time into this and boost these figures way up. So why doesn't Melissa really work at this? Well, you can ask that of any of the bottom 90%. The key to success in affiliate marketing is to actually DO SOMETHING! It's not all that hard to get into that top ten percent.
March 2003
April 2003
Affiliate Showcase - $91.90
Affiliate Showcase - $86.00
Affiliate Mistakes - $18.50
Adminder - $1.99
Adminder - $1.99
Sure Fire Marketing - $2.75
Total: $112.39
Make a Living Online - $59.60
Ad-Clix - $11.53
Total: $161.87
Report 6 - Melissa STILL goofs off but still building slowly AND earning cash!
Melissa's focus these is on having fun and starting college in the fall. So, yet again she hasn't done anything, but she continues to bring in sales. June is her biggest month yet and she hasn't done a thing since last March.
Affiliate Showcase $100.75 Affiliate Showcase $117.75
Adminder - $1.99 Adminder - $1.99
Affiliate Mistakes - $3.70 Make A Living Online - $59.60
Total: $106.44 ClickBank - $8.75
Total: $188.09
Report 7 - Melissa is NOT goofing off, (just not working at this at all) - but STILL earning cash!
Melissa is now a full-time architecture student and holds down two part-time jobs so she hasn't done anything for this project in al most a year , but she continues to bring in sales. Not bad for not doing a thing since last March.
Affiliate Showcase $73.75 Affiliate Showcase $29.50
Affiliate Mistakes $2.70 Total: $29.50
Total: $76.45
November 2003
August 2003 Newbie Club $1.50
Affiliate Showcase - $73.75 Affiliate Mistakes $33.50
Setting Up Affiliate Showcase - $6.90 Setting Up Affiliate Showcase - $13.00
Total: $80.65 Affiliate Showcase - $59.00
Total: $107.00
September 2003
Affiliate Showcase $14.75
December 2003Setting Up Affiliate Showcase $6.90 Affiliate Showcase - $59.00
Total: $21.65 Total: $59.00
Well now it's almost 2006 and Melissa is in college, studying architecture and doing nothing on this project. And ...
I still write her checks every month and she gets checks from the affiliate programs that she joined almost three years ago.
There is no end in sight.
Not bad for a project that she hasn't worked on since early in 2003.