Category Archives: Wasting Time

The Case of the Mysterious “J”

Posted on by
15

Have you ever received an email from someone with a capital letter “J” at the end of it?  I don’t know if this happens much outside of the Affiliate industry, but I have received a ton of them.  I couldn’t figure out what it meant, so I looked into the issue.

mysterious J

Here is the J in an actual email I got

Apparently, it is caused by people that type a smiley face “:)” into their email while using Microsoft Outlook.  Outlook tries to make it look like a real smiley face by replacing it with “J” character in the Wingdings font, which is a smiley face.  The problem is, that only works if the recipient is using Outlook or another desktop email client that can read the Webdings font.

If you are primarily using Gmail like I do, then you will only see the “J” in a default font like Times New Roman.  So, just in case any of you have ever seen this “J”, now you know what it means.  Heck, maybe it will catch on and people will just start typing “J” instead of “:)” on purpose.

Or not.

Ads Are Pending, What Now?

Posted on by
7

There can be a lot of downtime in Affiliate Marketing. All of the social platforms, PPV networks, and many other traffic sources require manual approval of ads. This means that after you submit an ad you can be waiting anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days before you can see if all your hard work paid off. This can be frustrating, so what is a bored marketer to do when his ads are pending? Let’s look at some options…

Clock

Create More Ads

Ah yes, the old standard. We could certainly spend our time creating more ads. The problem with this is it leads to a downward spiral of waiting for ads to be approved. For me, it’s like for every campaign that has a group of ads pending takes up about 10% of my available brain power. So I’ve got five campaigns pending, then I’m seriously impaired. I can’t think of anything except whether or not the ads are approved, has my budget already been blown through, was the CTR any good, etc. So yes, I do create more ads in my downtime, but only up to a certain point.

Go to the Gym

This is a good idea that I had recently. Maybe I could take my downtime and start working off those internet marketer pounds that creep on so easily! I have yet to successfully pull it off, but in theory it works good. Working out relieves stress and takes your mind off of the ads that are pending. Come home, take a shower, have a bite to eat and then log back in and hit F5. I’ll have to try that…

Play Video Games

There is a self-destructive part of my brain that likes to think that after I’ve completed two hours of work for the day, I have earned the right to screw around for the remaining daylight hours. This is not true. This is one of those situations where you have to ask yourself, what would Ryan Eagle do? Love him or hate him, the guy is motivated. He knows what he wants, and he goes out there and gets it.

Write a Blog Post

Now we’re talking. What better thing to do with your downtime then write about your downtime in a blog post? It’s a great way to feel like you are doing something productive, while keeping your mind on the goal at hand. This is going to be my new go-to method for passing time. I made a mid-new-year’s resolution to try and blog every day. It’s harder than it looks.

Ok I think that’s all for now. Time to go check and see if my ads are approved yet.

Does Reading Blogs Cause Blindness?

Posted on by
5

I apologize in advance for the linkbait title. Now that you are here though, fine reader, I need your help. Since the start of this blog I have always had a reverse-type theme. This means a light font on a dark background. I chose this look because I wanted to stand out from all the other make money online blogs that all looked like copies of each other (black font on white background, typically blue header and theme).

Recently though, I was reading Ca$hvertising, an excellent book on marketing by Drew Eric Whitman (check it out if you haven’t already), and in one section he goes off about the evils of reverse-type fonts and how they are much harder to read and cause more eye strain on people. I know this blog isn’t an advertisement, but now that a few of you are actually reading this blog on a regular basis I thought I would leave it up to you.

So here’s a little poll… The future of Inside Affiliate’s theme is in your hands.

[poll id=”2″]

Affiliate.com T-Shirts for Haiti

Posted on by
1

Affiliate.com is doing a blogging contest to raise money for Haiti (and for the winning blogger). To enter the contest you are supposed to take a picture of yourself wearing their latest t-shirt.  I figured, why do that when we could have a showdown of all the other guys that have posed for the contest!  Unfortunately, it appears that the only people that have actually taken a picture of themselves for this contest were Shoemoney and Ian Fernando.  Take your pick*:

Shoemoney rocks the Affiliate.com shirtIan fernando rocks an affiliate.com t-shirt

*There’s not a poll or anything, because polls are lame.

There were also blog posts by a number of the usual crew like Zac Johnson, John “I’m Gonna Lick His Neck” Chow, and Murray Newlands.  Instead of being creative, however, they simply chose to grab the image from the email that Affiliate.com sent out and post it on their blog.  Real creative guys.  If you don’t want to immortalize yourself by doing a gangster pose in an affiliate tee, at least come up with a nifty way to get around it…

On a serious note, if you haven’t donated anything to the relief efforts in Haiti, it only takes a second and you can do it by going to StillerStrong.org or texting “Haiti” to 90999 and charging $10 to your phone bill.  Every little bit counts.  We all make tons of money compared to people living in third world countries, let’s share the wealth a little bit.

Fun With Frauders: AIM Style

Posted on by
4

The following is a transcription from a recent affiliate applicant to my network, TriFoxMedia (I believe he was referred from Digital Point):

hualiwei: Hello
hualiwei: Nice to meet you..
trifoxmedia: hello
hualiwei: Please review and approval of my account
hualiwei: 😉
trifoxmedia: are you fraud?
hualiwei: NO
trifoxmedia: quality traffic?
hualiwei: Absolutely not right. .
trifoxmedia: great!
trifoxmedia: first and last name of account?
hualiwei: 😛
hualiwei: Huali Wei
trifoxmedia: great, i’ll look at your application
hualiwei: ok,thank you.
hualiwei: Immediately over the weekend, and where to leave ah?
trifoxmedia: come again?
hualiwei: sorry..
hualiwei:  My English is not very good.
hualiwei:  Language you would it?
hualiwei: You are busy with work, I am still waiting for your news quiet is better, otherwise you will think that my trouble
hualiwei: 😛
trifoxmedia: i couldnt understand your last question
hualiwei:  When I think about how to say better.
hualiwei: Where to go Sunday Holiday
hualiwei: That this will get it?
trifoxmedia: congratulations! You are approved for denial.

hualiwei: Hello
hualiwei: Nice to meet you..
TFXBoone: hello
hualiwei: Please review and approval of my account
hualiwei: 😉
TFXBoone: are you fraud?
hualiwei: NO
TFXBoone: quality traffic?
hualiwei: Absolutely not right. .
TFXBoone: great!
TFXBoone: 🙂
TFXBoone: first and last name of account?
hualiwei: 😛
hualiwei: Huali Wei
TFXBoone: great, i’ll look at your application
hualiwei: ok,thank you.
hualiwei: Immediately over the weekend, and where to leave ah?
TFXBoone: come again?
hualiwei: sorry..
hualiwei:  My English is not very good.
TFXBoone: that’s ok!
hualiwei:  Language you would it?
hualiwei: You are busy with work, I am still waiting for your news quiet is better, otherwise you will think that my trouble
hualiwei: 😛
TFXBoone: well i couldnt understand your last question
hualiwei:  When I think about how to say better. .
hualiwei: Where to go Sunday Holiday
hualiwei: That this will get it?;-)
TFXBoone: congratulations! You are approved for denial.

The Paralysis of Analysis

Posted on by
2

There are many pitfalls that one must overcome when trying to make a living as a self-employed affiliate.  One of the toughest is conquering the little voice in your head.  You know, the one that says, “What’s the point of designing that new website, it’s just going to fail anyway.”  It is very good at talking you out of each and every good idea that you come up with before you even get started.  To be successful in business, not just Affiliate Marketing but any business, you must conquer the paralysis of analysis.

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat and stared at my LCD screen just waiting for something to magically happen.  It’s not that I think I can’t pull off the idea that I have cranking in my head, it’s that I worry that it won’t work and the time I spent will be wasted.  This is only reinforced each time an idea doesn’t pan out.  We’ve all heard the story about how it took Edison over 1,000 different tries to invent the light bulb, but Edison I’m not.  One failure can set me back days or even weeks.

One of the main reasons that this is fresh in my mind is because it happened to me just recently.  I had put a bunch of work into a website that I thought had a lot of viral potential, and I was using eBay Partner Network to monetize it.  It was fully designed, and I was just beginning to promote it and start doing the SEO work of link building and all that when I realized my mistake.  Like an idiot, I had forgotten to read the Terms & Conditions for EPN to see if they were ok with an affiliate using a website with “ebay” in the domain.  Little surprise, they are NOT ok with it…

Not a big deal right?  Wrong.  Mentally, it is a big deal because now I can’t get rid of that nagging feeling that it’s all pointless and that I’ll never recreate the success I have had with other similar sites.  This is where I kill myself every time.  I try to think about every possible way that it could fail, instead of thinking about every possible way that it could succeed.  I visualize Cease & Desist letters instead of Commission Checks.  It is almost impossible to turn everything around once you have dragged yourself through the mud like that.

However, one day you will wake up and lo and behold, there it is!  The burn.  The spark.  The hunger.  The idea.  When that happens, don’t fold your arms and start picking it apart, fire up your favorite web design program (or good ‘ol Notepad) and get cracking!  You’ll be glad you did.

5 Things I Love This Week

Posted on by
3

1.)  Watchmen (the Graphic Novel).  I did it backwards.  I saw the movie, and loved it so much that I wanted more.  I quickly ordered the book from Amazon (nice $10 sale price for brand new book) and couldn’t wait for it to arrive.  When it did, I devoured it in 2 days.  One of the best books I have ever read, graphic or non.  The back of the sleeve says it all, “If you’ve never read a Graphic Novel, start with Watchmen.  If you’ve read it, it’s time to read it again.”

2.)  Tweetdeck.  When I installed this sweet little app on my desktop, suddenly Twitter made sense to me.  I’ve had an account for almost a year now, but it never clicked with me until I got Tweetdeck.  For better or for worse, I’m hooked.  Install this at your own peril.

3.)  Freeloaders.  Gary Simon’s free how-to design videos for Photoshop and WordPress are excellent!  This guy is sharp, and he has a sense of humor.  If you have Photoshop or Illustrator installed, gathering virtual dust on your hard drive, do yourself a favor and get the design juices flowing again with these videos.

4.)  Castle.  Hot on the heels of the new-media success story Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Nathan Fillion returns to television with one of the best pilots I’ve seen in a while.  I’m a huge fan, so that helped, but the show is actually good.  It’s funny, suspenseful, and I can’t wait for episode 2, airing later this evening…

5.)  Morning Sci-Fi by Hybrid.  Found this little gem on Pandora.  It’s been a couple years since it was released, but it still sounds relevant.  More importantly, this is the kind of album that I love to listen to while spending 8 hours coding up a WordPress theme.  Not too harsh or annoying, but keeps it moving enough to keep you interested.

The Best Way To Unwind

Posted on by
1

Being in Internet Marketing can be grueling.  Sometimes you will sit in front of the computer monitor for 8-12 hours a day and sparcely get up for a drink or a bathroom break.  I strongly feel that in order to enjoy the freedom that you possess as someone who works at home, you need to get out of the office every now and then and enjoy some entertainment!

The problem is, you need to make sure whatever you are doing does not get too addicting, or else you will actually be hurting your business in the long run.  As a recovering MMORPG addict, I know this just as well as anyone.  There was a time when I would spend 8-12 hours a day playing World of Warcraft instead of working or doing anything productive.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy video games, I just make sure that they aren’t of the life-stealing variety.  Some of the best games to take your mind off of things are the most mindless entertainment out there, but it is very relaxing to not worry about anything for an hour or two, or even 30 minutes.  For example, Braid, Assault Heroes, or any of the other Xbox Live Arcade games are excellent.  They are cheap, and they are easy to pick up and easy to put down.  Another series that’s good is the Lego series, like Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and Lego Indiana Jones.  These might seem childish on the surface, but they are actually quite fun, and you can play with a friend as well.  More importantly, you won’t wake up at 3pm the next day and realize that you spent the entire night trying to kill a raid boss with your pick-up group.

If you are looking for a cheap alternative to buying games, which can be $30-$60 a pop, I highly recommend GameFly.  It is an excellent service that works just like Netflix, but for games.  You can even buy the games that you rent at a discounted price if you decide it’s a keeper.

Also, movies are a great way to kill some time.  I cannot recommend Netflix enough as a service.  It’s more than just the ease of renting from home, it’s the insane selection that they have and the matching system.  If you devote a couple of hours to it when you first sign up, and go through and rate the movies that you have already seen with their 5-star rating system, it will get a pretty good idea of what you are into and will recommend some really great movies that you have probably never seen.  I know it has for me.

This might sound a bit off-topic for a blog about Affiliate Marketing, but I want to make sure that you are in this for the long run, and the quickest way to burn yourself out on any business is to work work work and forget to have some fun along the way.  Also, these services have affiliate programs as well that you can promote once you become a believer.  Don’t worry, I didn’t drop any affiliate links in this post, it’s purely informational, as always.  I’ll leave that to you guys.