If I make X by Y I get Z. So If I make $50,000 in a week, I get a holiday for example. It gives you something to work for and towards. Make sure your target is achievable though, don’t try and set $1m a day, because the chances are you won’t see that and when you don’t it will demotivate you. I like to set a long and short term goal, then write out objectives to meet the goals and targets. $50,000 a week short term, with $500,000 a month or $125,000 a week longterm. The little prizes and rewards for your self go a long way - trust me. Make sure you have a nice big reward for when you hit your long term, and splash out once in a while. What use is ALL that money if your not gonna spend it ey? Make sure you save some for emergencies and always 1-2 years worth of living set aside never to touch incase Code Red.

Another thing I’ve found that really helps me stay focused (besides coffee) is writing stuff down / taking notes on paper rather than the screen (which you prefer is up to you). I have paper lying around everywhere, and when you see it - you remember it and do it. I also like to have a To-Do list of the day, week etc and that really keeps me in drive. I have the occasional breaks through-out the day, but the work still gets done faster. A To-do list is something I’ve only recently started using, and hell it’s useful. If you’ve not got one - get one. There are online ones too, that integrate with iGoogle and stuff so get what works for you.

The year is almost over, and what a year its been. It’s been good for me atleast, and I hope  it has been a good year for you too. I’ve met a lot of new people online (Wickedfire + IRC mainly) and hell spending that time getting to know people is probably the best thing I’ve done this year. Just want to Give a shout out to a lot of people here: foucist, Bofu, Ricdes, Harrison, Eagle, Yaxxx, Norman, Proxyhub, Cracka, d03boy, gigidawg, digga, circa2k, Eli, JustAIMe, HyperionXL, Yubrew, MatthewK, Mattaw, taky, Jon, Zigroo, BB_Wolfe and Invisible. These guys and girls have made my year great and have been an absolute pleasure to work with. I’m looking forward to a crushing 09 with you guys

Now not to forget the networks I’ve been working with which are: Advaliant, Ads4Dough, Convert2Media and Affiliate.com. These networks have been the talk of the year and have moved the industry to a new level. 2009 is gonna be imense for these guys, and let me say - if your not with them, join now! Shout outs to Ruck, Yubrew, Kaveman, Steve , Josh Todd, Smaxor, Geoff Marcy for helping me through out the year and helping me learn the industry, I owe a big thanks to these boys!

Christmas is right round the corner, and it’s gonna be a great one! This christmas, don’t be trying to whore sales and what not. Set some lower daily limits and log on maybe once or, not at all and enjoy it. Have some wine, and relax. It’s one of the few holidays your gonna get with your family and every one you know and love around you. New years eve is gonna be hottt and a good start for every one.

I hope every one has a good christmas, a good end to the year and a brilliant new year! Good luck to you all! I’ll be back in the new year! Let’s get em!

So what Wes from P202 says is if your doing 5,000 clicks a day or so (not hard with social traffic) then your going to need it. MySQL has some horizontal partitioning or something like that (correct me if I’m wrong - I’m not sure lol) and that helps it bring the data up faster. The current version most of us are on is 5.0.* and most hosts won’t upgrade it for you unless you pay $75-150/hr for their time. That’s enough to get you spanking server right? Yep, and that’s what you should do.

Right now I’m with the Planet and they have some specials on nice Dual Xeon dual processor servers. $115-135 will get you:

• 2 Processors with 2 cores (shows up as 4 in cPanel etc)
• 2Gb of ram
• 2x 73GB SCSI Hard drive (FASTER)
• 2.5Tb Bandwidth

The price goes up in $10s for every processor upgrade you want. 2.4Ghz is $115, and the 3.2Ghz per processor is $135 a month. Now that’s a bargain, believe me.

Another good competitor for something to host a dedicated P202 installation on is The grid layer from the Layeredtech. The best option starts from $59 and gets you 20% of the CPU power, 512 ram and 2Tb bandwidth. The beauty of this is that you can SCALE. Which you know is going to be key if you want to grow big (who doesn’t?) So you can upgrade to some very big shit.

Lastly there is Softlayer which is more of a premium but have more to offer. They start from $159 and start with Single proc Dual core stuff. They have a private network with unlimited bandwidth FOR FREE. You’ll see where this plays in, in a moment. They do automated OS reloads etc and have very good hardware and a good team behind them. As well as multiple DCs to choose from.

Now you have the hosting covered, you need to think about the software / OS side of it. Personally I like CentOS but The planet give you free RHEL 5.2 which usually costs I understand. Just stick with Cent OS 5.x and you won’t go wrong.

As for a control panel, there are a few major contenders:

• cPanel
• Plesk
• DirectAdmin
• Interworx

Now personally I prefer Interworx because its easy and you can CLUSTER. So if your load becomes high around  4, 5, 6 constantly then you can just buy another server and install interworx on the 2nd box (Easy btw) and just setup the master with the secondary and bang! We have a cluster! Now the traffic will be spread accross the two servers. Easy to setup and cheap at $25 a licence. Only problem? Doesn’t support MySQL 5.1 or have an upgrade option until MySQL 5.1 goes stable.

The most popular option is probably cPanel. cPanel is just well known and widely used. Nothing fancy and has a big footprint. Doesn’t support MySQL 5.1 either. Avoid it to be honest, expensive and waste of resources.

Plesk - just don’t. This is a nice option for windows but really, don’t go there. It won’t be for you, and it’s pricey!

Now DirectAdmin is a big cPanel contender. It hasn’t going anything fancy but does what cPanel does with a lower footprint and faster panel. Best of all IT SUPPORTS MySQL 5.1! The install process is easy and its VERY cheap. From what I understand is, you just run a script (custombuild) and it will upgrade it for you.

Personally, I’m going to run with The grid layer or The planet with a Direct Admin licence till Interworx get MySQL 5.1 then I’ll migrate out (easy process too) as I really like Interworx.

So when (not if) you plan ahead, keep scaling in mind. And plan it out sooner, rather than later. Slow LPs, redirects etc will put the customer off. It’s fucking ANNOYING. You hate it when sites are slow, and so do they. I suggest you get tracking on a seperate server (good for uptime too) then you won’t have to hassle with it again until you get some REALLY big size put on.

If you get stuff managed or have a team, then just get them to do it - simple. They’ll just upgrade it on your current system, but it will take time (few hours) I suppose.

So it’s Sunday night and Google have me in the dog house (manual review) and I’m bored. So I decided to check out Convert 2 Media’s website. While I was checking it out, I came across their blog.

Ruck is a well known established affiliate, so he knows his stuff. What’s ever better is that he shares his wealth of knowledge on his blog. Today, I came accross 3 brilliant posts that you should read. If your fairly new to affiliate marketing or established and can’t break your income barrier, I’m sure this will help:

1. Government Grants - A Lesson In Targeted Conversions
2. Acai Craze - Break Into Weightloss Without Breaking The Bank
3. Do You Take Your Business Seriously?

Now after reading that, don’t be like 95% of the people out there who don’t put it into action. Because you WILL lose out.

In regards to the grants post, it is well worth getting into at this time (Nov / Dec) because January shows a HUGE rise in the traffic, according to Google Trends that is. As you can see, the pattern is consistent every year. So take the advise and get into it NOW.

They had the official launch at AdTech I believe. Good time to start it in my opinion. Things are looking good for them litrally ;). They’ve redesigned the whole site and the Direct Track control panel.

If your not with them yet, JOIN. Put in the comments:

Josh Todd as Affiliate Manager

You won’t regret it. He’s a solid AM and gets stuff done. He’s a good guy and I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with him. He’s the second Affiliate Manager I’ve met that knows affiliate marketing properly - the first being Smaxor at Ads4Dough. It’s good to have AMs that understand the concept of Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate.com have a variety of offers to choose from and if there’s something they haven’t got - they’ll get it. You can sure as shit bet on that. They also own Ringtone.net and are very flexible and can get custom stuff done if you push enough volume. Being one of the largest CPA Networks out, your barking mad if you don’t join.

So then it got me thinking about their new bullshit quality score. How do they know it all? Then I remembered the Analytics tab at the top. I was thinking if it’s linked to the account and they know the domain for campaigns AND collect full stats on your pages - do they use that towards your campaigns?

Do things like bounce rate, return users etc affect your QS and how Google will send you traffic / volume and do they adjust bid prices with it? Well the answer is I’m not sure :). But I need to find out now that it’s playing on my mind. So when I have some free time (always, but I gotta sound busy) I will test this on a few zip submits for sure (yeah, when I can be bothered).

Well a while back now, MySpace launched their self serve ads platform (to compete with Facebook most likely). The platform is still new and lacks a lot of features, but the potential is still there - that’s for sure. Not only that, MySpace have actually taken time out to contact big spenders and get feedback over the phone. This is a sign of the good stuff to come. I’m not going to get into what needs fixing, but there’s a lot - you’ll see this WHEN you join.

The key to MySpace just like Facebook is a good CTR and making a good eCPM for MySpace. High bid + Good CTR = High volume and Low Bid + Very High CTR = High volume. I’d say the CTRs should be around the same as Facebook, but the bid has to be 25c+ obviously. If you do manage to get a good CTR I suggest bidding 26c to top all of the people who are paying 25c. Easy.

I personally strongly recommend targeting with the groups if you have a product that is niche. If your product applies to the general public, then no targeting should be fine as long as the ad is appealing. I strongly suggest you test to get the best results and ROI. What better to test it than Prosper202? The tool is still going strong and is just as handy. Plus with this high volume, the spy tab comes in handy. It’ll keep ya occupied for sure.

I’ve also been playing around with Google Adwords’ content network a lot. I’ve setup campaigns with targeted demographics and timing and all I can say is the results are amazing. The volume just blasts in. The key with this again is CTR and good decent bids. I’ve broken numerous personal records with the content network, and would have broken other peoples to (I’m fucking around lol) if Google just kept my traffic constant. They love to review my campaign every few hours and stop the traffic at peak times. Other than that it’s GREAT.

What I’ve found with the Content network is, a good ad copy is a must. Now I’m not very creative myself, so I do like to ‘borrow’ ideas. So what I usually do is, search my keyword in a Search engine (yes any) and find a site with AdSense. Then see if there are any sites similar to mine in goal and purpose and see what they are doing and applying to their ads. Then I just apply that to mine and the CTR goes up. A lot of work for one ad hey? Well I’ve recently found a tool I could sex. That tool is PPC fucking BULLY.

This tool isn’t the cheapest, but it does fucking work - that’s for sure. But it does work and it does do all the hard work for you saving you A LOT of time. You just add your project, then you add keywords to the project. PPC Bully will then go out and search google for those keywords and take a note of the ads, and produce all the information related to the ad (see the video on their homepage). Then it checks those ads once a day (more if your gold) and sees if the ad is still there. If it is, then we can assume it’s profitable and worth learning from.

I really do suggest checking that tool out. If you don’t like it, get your money back. It’s that simple!

The AdWords editor is something I use often too. It saves so much time, you just wouldn’t believe it. Combined with PPC Coach’s tools it’s a lethal imo. You can launch campaigns in minutes, make mass changes in minutes and add new stuff in minutes. This tool is great. It lacks a few features like an EASY way to add multiple ads across adgroups, but if you follow the format they give you - it’s not too hard. If your not using this (I doubt this) then you should start learning it now.

AdCenter is catching my eye again too. I’ve had quiet a few emails from the in the past few months. All about updates and new features. They really are pushing the boat out and I think they’re gonna be very successful if they can get their hands on some nice volume. That’s the ONLY thing they lack. I’m a huge fan of this platform, more than any other. Their support is fucking GREAT, the platform is EASY and there’s not much competition. It’s as if they’re giving away free money. If your not on AdCenter you can get yourself a £50 (Yes, Pounds) coupon from www.tryadcenternow.co.uk. It’s well worth joining and getting campaigns running there too. The quality of their traffic is far higher than AdWords and Yahoo Marketing Solutions. They are the under dog and people don’t use them because of it. Don’t make the same MISTAKE.

Oh and if your not, get on Ads 4 Dough - You’ll make money I can PROMISE you. They are the kings at the moment for Acai berries, Tea and cleansing. They’ve generated over 70,000 leads for Acai berries in one campaign alone. With network EPCs of over $2 on numerous campaigns, get on it NOW.

My AM at CPA Empire is Josh Todd. One of the absolute best AMs in the industry imo. If your new to CPA Empire, get him as your AM. The guy delivers.

Your AM is responsible for setting your rates, making sure everythings in order and there to help you find new campaings. The more you know them, the more they will help you. Yesterday, I was looking for a new campaign, and Josh suggested me a campaign. When I searched for it in DT, nada - nothing. Couldn’t find it! Then Josh told me the offer was private and had to be enabled on every account individually before you could even see it.

So keeping a good relationship with your AMs can help vastly, especially in finding new campaigns. Your AM is your portal to that network. They will sort out advertisers, get things in and help you grow. After all, your growth is their growth. Your best interest is always their best interest.

I got 2,500 for just taking a survey, with roughly 6 questions all boxes - no writing. So that was just easy. The other 20,000 came from joining their BMI Credit card. I HAVE to spend £250 in 3 months to get the 20,000 airmiles. This isn’t going to be a problem I’ll earn 375 extra miles from just spending the £250. The card was approved within minutes and has no annual fee.

Now for those of you who spend 4-5 figures a month on PPC, this can add up to a VERY nice life style; that’s if you like traveling of course. If you spent £10,000 a month on PPC you could have 20,000 miles a month or 240,000 a year. With 20,000 taking you to zone 1, and 24,000 taking you to Zone 2 you could get your self some pretty nice exotic holidays.

When bidding, I generally like to get position number 1. On Adcenter position #1 converts FAR higher than position #3 for me, and has a brilliant click through rate. Don’t be afraid to pay $1-5 if you have to, just make sure it’s profitable. Quickly the price will drop. I bid $2, and pay half on average and it’s still going down.

Once you’ve got some conversions going through (with company name you’ll get 1 a day ATLEAST) then you ask for a bump. Easy as. Be good to your AMs, and they’ll be good to you. Luckily I’ve got great AMs (Minus Adam if he’s proven guilty). Check my Resources page to see what AMs I’ve got. Right now I’d highly suggest Josh Todd from CPA Empire - he is my favorite right now. Delivers all the time.

As for any campaign, tracking is key. I cannot recommend P202 enough. This stuff has delivered and saved me money numerous times. I’ve dropped expensive keywords that have not delivered once, which I probably wouldn’t of been able to do well or easily without P202. The stuff is free and secure, and usually updated every so often. The graphs can help get a quick overview if you want to see and go. The visitors tab lets you spy as well on visitors live. If your not using it, I suggest you try it. There are 2 versions, Hosted and Self hosted. I personally recommend self hosted and make sure you can keep it up 100% of the time.

If your not on AdCenter, use this £50 ($100ish) coupon to get started. The conversions with MSN are stellar. https://www.tryadcenternow.co.uk/ just fill it in and you’ll get emailed. I strongly suggest trying it. The support compared to AdWords will blow you away. I love their platform over YSM and Adwords. I generally start campaigns with MSN for testing (some lack of volume) then scale to YSM etc. MSN for me have had the highest conversions without doubt. On some days, 100% Conversion rate on some campaigns. So give them a go.

So now Google are releasing software like CRAZY. With Anroid (not my alien) which is a unix based OS (I think) for mobile phones. Now they want to compete head on with Microsoft’s Internet explorer and Mozilla’s wonderful Firefox. Well personally, I don’t think this is a good move for me (because Google do hate me, and this might show in the post) because it’s going to help them keep an eye on me. Google are heading towards a big brother style organisation now. They know your health, address, emails, the works.

I think Googles all great and groovy for search and provide that side of things extremely well. After all, they are a search based company. However, now they are moving into other fields trying to dominate the web. I think that’s a bad move, especially with Google’s atittude and dicipline system. Strike 1 - your out for good, and don’t come back! No second chances, as almost 99.99% if you can have an investigation or appeal it’s rejected. They don’t value customers who send volume either. When I was banned from the AdWords platorm, I did some research and found out people spending $xx,xxx a month were also being suspended for no reason too.

The chrome browser to me looks like a mix between Firefox and Safari from Apple. There are some minor changes, such as the placement of tabs. Another change from the two is the input boxes are coming up in another colour instead of the blue one which shows in Safari. I must admit though, the browser was pretty fast it’s self. I don’t mean in terms of processing pages etc, I mean how it works and feels. The browser doesn’t feel slugish or slow at all. It feels pretty lite and clean - however I haven’t tested anything extensively. However, as it is Google their trust and reputation follows all of their products. Any one who uses Google, or their services have already switched to this browser. Within the week they will already have a share of the market that is substantial!

Personally, I think my own view is biased, and I will NOT support a big brother company or anything that has the potential to grow into one, especially if they are a monopoly. However, I suggest you try it yourself and really compare THEN try it yourself. Personally, it’s not for me and I’ve read about errors and bugs already.