Some really priceless guidance for making money w/affiliate programs (Kris Jones from PepperJam)

It took me about two years to actually give Webmaster Radio a try, but when I did I was really impressed by some of the shows–particularly Shoemoney’s show (Net Income) and SEO Rockstars.

As far as I can tell from the archives, I’ve listened to every single episode of Net Income several times (it’s good commuting material :)). The other day I was on a plane with my iPod and didn’t feel like listening to music, so I started up an old episode of Net Income; more specifically, the July 18th show with Kris Jones, CEO of Pepperjamsearch.com. Shoemoney and Kris discuss PPC and affiliate strategies.

While this is the second installment of a two part-series, you should be able to understand everything without listening to the preceding episode (although if you have time, I’d definitely recommend it). Kris really puts forward some quality, fundamental advice that applies to everyone from the total newbie to the super affiliate. My favorite segment is one I agree with wholeheartedly and that really screams to me “This guy GETS IT!” When asked about starting out on a limited budget (as an affiliate), Kris responds:

You know how I got started? I had ZERO web development experience, and I was able to get my hands on a copy of Microsoft FrontPage. Now, clearly, here at Pepperjam we’re using more sophisticated web development programs and most of my developers and programmers are writing in HTML, but Microsoft FrontPage is really a good start. So if you can, get your hands on a copy of that. Another, a free, way is to sign up to blogger.com or wordpress.com… one of the free blogging softwares[sic] that are out there and you can create jump pages that way and you can also build content around the offers that you’re pushing out there through the search engines, through either blogger or Word Press. So… that’s really where you want to get started. And then you want to test. You want to test, and then, once you feel comfortable you want to test some more, and you want to build up that $1,000 so that you know you’re in a position you know 30 days from now or so where you’re working on a budget of $2,000 and then $5,000. Honestly, that’s how I got my start. I remember my first one of my first commission checks being literally $100. But, here’s what I thought: I thought WOW, if I could make a $100… I knew at that time this was back you know 5 or 6 years ago I knew at that time there were more than 1,000 merchants who had affiliate programs, so I figured if I could make $50 or $100 per merchant program, per month, you know, you’re talking about a lot of money. So by late 2000, 2001 I was doing that, and in many cases I was making thousands of dollars per merchant… in other cases I wasn’t quite hitting that $50 or $100 target…t but you need to, you know I started from that small budget. So you have to do it, and you have to do it methodical… do the due diligence. One thing I don’t think anyone can say I don’t do is my research. Doing your research and testing is what my recommendation would be if you have a fixed budget.

This is IT! This is all there is to it, and Kris does a great job laying it out. I really love and passionately relate to / support his thought process when he remembers his reaction to his first paycheck: “WOW, if I could make a $100… I knew at that time this was back you know 5 or 6 years ago I knew at that time there were more than 1,000 merchants who had affiliate programs, so I figured if I could make $50 or $100 per merchant program, per month, you know, you’re talking about a lot of money.”

Later Kris reiterates this concept:

Once you could perfect a concept that makes you money…. You know, take it back to my initial philosophy. If you could figure out how to make $100 doing one thing, why not try to replicate that 500 or 1,000 times? Right?

Anyway, I won’t repeat the whole thing here, and I know it’s an old episode, but I just listened to it again and was really struck by how good Kris’ advice is. I’m really looking forward to hearing him speak at Affiliate Summit West.

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5 Comments »

Comment by Kris
2006-12-30 18:31:01

Thanks for reviving my interview with Shoemoney from Webmaster Radio. I’ve been reading your blog on a pretty regular basis and was honored to see you post about the PPC Arbitrage show I did with Jeremy.

The story you pulled out about the idea of finding something that pays you $50 or so on a monthly basis and scaling it through replication has made me a lot of money as an affiliate marketer. It is how I generated enough captial to launch my own full-service internet marketing company - Pepperjam. By the way, I’ve used similar philosophies to grow that business into one of the fastest growing companies in the United States (Inc. Magazine, 2006) so it must be a pretty time-tested way of making big money!

Thanks again,

By the way - I dugg the post.

Kris

Comment by SEOLoser
2007-01-17 23:02:43

No problem! Sorry I didn’t reply to this comment until now, I thought I had. Thanks for the great interview.

 
 
2006-12-30 19:01:48

[…] SEO Loser dusted off and blogged in detail about one of my (personal) highlights of 2006 - me being interviewed on Shoemoney’s Net Income Webmaster Radio Show. Actually, Shoemoney interviewed me twice (First Interview Here / Second Interview Here) about making money with affiliate marketing using search arbitrage and other tricks. Anyway, SEO Loser definitely impressed me with his ability to extract some key money making moments of the interview’s - specifically, he focuses on my tip to find an affiliate marketing method that pays you $50 or so on a monthly basis and scaling it through replication. In a reply, I admit to him that this is the exact strategy I’ve used to make me a lot of money as an affiliate marketer - therefore, I thought it was worth noting here for other internet entrepreneurs to consider. […]

 
Comment by Konrad Braun
2007-01-22 16:22:06

wow… I have never hear of SEO Loser before but I’m curious now!

Konrad Braun
www.PowerHits.ca.tt

 
Comment by Dan
2007-02-10 23:00:54

Great thoughts. When one thinks of affiliate marketing, and how one can easily duplicate some simple results in multiple niches, the numbers really add up!

 
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