Dustin Christensen of Blue Global Media knows that smart affiliates are killing it in international markets. Blue Global has some high converting international and here are Dustin's tips for taking your affiliate campaigns international for massive profits:

International affiliate marketing programs have been around for years now, but few affiliates have dared tread into international markets, where tax laws, uncertain markets and low quality traffic seem to be common obstacles. But for those affiliates brave enough to test the waters, there are plenty of opportunities emerging.

If you start now, you’ll be riding a wave that isn’t expected to crest anytime soon. In fact, things are just now starting to heat up overseas, and countries like the BRICI group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia – offer a glimpse into what could be the future of performance marketing, where tech-savvy countries finally start to see widespread Internet use. Below are some ways you can start approaching international affiliate marketing.

International Success Factor #1: Know the Market and its Culture

If you have a number of potential foreign markets you’d like to enter, take the time to really get to know
their cultures. This doesn’t mean scanning the Wikipedia page for India or Indonesia, it means really
getting down to what drives the country.

Find out what the economic behaviors of the country are. Does the country seem to be in a decline,
or are prospects looking up? Financially, how has the country fared in the past few years, when many
countries have taken significant economic downturns?

Learning About the Culture

Aside from economic and financial aspects, you’ll want to learn more about the cultural side of the
country and its people. What values and belief systems do they have? What are typical work schedules
like? Where do they spend their disposable income? Is there much disposable income to go around?

Learn the country’s business etiquette. Does the country operate like the United States, where most
business dealings are explicit, or like China, where business etiquette is based on long-held customs,
traditions and other formal rituals?

Learning about the culture of the country you want to enter may seem a lofty and time-consuming goal,
but it will give you a better understanding of the driving forces behind the country. And when it comes
down to it, knowing consumer behavior is a huge part of success in affiliate marketing.

International Success Factor #2: Discover the Trends

Once you have a better grasp of the culture, you’ll want to discover the trends that are driving online
use. Some of the important stats to look at:

• - Internet penetration rates
• - Mobile penetration rates
• - Percent of homes with access to Internet
• - Social media penetration rates
• - Tablet use, if any

With this starting point, dig deeper into the online trends that are happening in the country. Look at
Brazil, for instance. With about 79 million Internet users, the country has an Internet penetration rate
of about 39%, and this is expected to reach 70% - 80% by 2015. That could translate into millions of new
potential consumers in just a few years.

Now look at Brazil’s Facebook penetration rate of 17.3%. This might not seem like much, but it shows
that nearly half of all Brazil’s Internet users are on Facebook – and many more on Twitter and other
social networks. With just this basic stat, it’s clear that social media is more popular in Brazil than other
emerging countries, and this is reflective of their lively, sociable culture.

On the other hand, China, with a similar Internet penetration rate – 38.5% - has less than 600,000
Facebook users because of the strict Internet regulations. Clearly, social media marketing would not be
the best route to take in this market.

The Importance of E-Commerce

One of the biggest trends you’ll want to check out is the state of e-commerce in the country. Thanks
to a strong economy and growing middle class, for example, Brazil is expected to see its e-commerce
grow 25% in 2012 and 22% in 2013 – just one of the reasons Brazil is such a hot market. In fact, Brazil
overtook the UK as the sixth biggest economy in the world, and is expected to become the fourth
biggest by 2015.

You can also use tools like Google Insights for Search to see the most commonly searched keywords
and phrases throughout the world. Break it down by industry to get an even better idea of what other
countries are searching for.

Trends like this should point you in the right direction. If the international market you’re looking at is
showing signs of life and vitality, chances are, affiliate marketing will thrive there in the near future.

International Success Factor #3: Find the Best Partners

Though international networks and merchants are few and far between, it’s important to find reputable
partners you can trust. The affiliate networks that operate overseas often have to deal with a host of
issues that domestic networks don’t deal with, so for that reason, it may be hard to find an affiliate
network working in the market you’re interested in.

When looking for networks and merchants to join, look for companies that have a solid grasp of
international affiliate marketing – those with international presences and clients – not just those
companies that run a few small, inconsistent offers in other countries.

Blue Global Media, for instance, conducts thorough market research before entering a new country.
This finance-focused affiliate network optimizes, tests and retests international campaigns to make sure
they are sustainable for affiliates. They know the local tax laws and regulations, and know how to create

campaigns that are effective and compliant. It’s this type of commitment that will help you succeed and
get past the issues of fraud that are often common overseas.

International Success Factor #4: Focus on the Testing

You’ve found and researched the country you want to deal in, you’re working with a network that
knows how to approach international markets – time to start testing. In general, some of the issues
facing international affiliates include fraud, low quality traffic and offers that disappear as quickly as
they arrived.

So you’ll be doing testing. And a lot of it. Fortunately, international markets aren’t saturated the way
US e-commerce is, so you’ll be able to continuously test new offers and approaches for a fraction of the
cost of testing in the US market.

Test Based on Your Research

This is also where your research and knowledge of the culture will come in handy. You’ll know, if you’re
getting into the China market, that Baidu is the most popular search engine, and you’ll tailor your paid
and organic search campaigns to meet their standards.

You’ll know that Google is used for 90% of searches in Brazil, despite a recent survey by Experian that
revealed Bing to be the most effective search engine in the country. If mobile marketing is your thing,
you’ll know that India has nearly 900 million mobile phone users, and expects to add an additional 200
million in 2012.

When you’re testing, consider the needs of the consumers that are new to you. They aren’t always
motivated by the same things as US consumers, and much depends on the economic classes you’re
targeting. The middle classes of many emerging countries are growing, and affiliate offers that cater to
this class will likely have the best chances of profitability. In the end, it’s about testing to find a long-
term, sustainable international strategy.

Weighing the Risks and Rewards of International Markets

For many affiliates, the risks of international affiliate marketing may outweigh the potential rewards.
With so much work up front, it’s an investment of time, money and personal resources that some
marketers might not be comfortable making.

But for those who do, the potential for massive profits is limitless. The keys to success abroad are
understanding, focus, connection and patience: understanding countries, focusing on their needs and
connecting with local trends. And doing so patiently, knowing that you’re in a marathon, not a sprint.

In 2015, there will be more than 1.2 billion Internet users in the BRICI countries alone. By 2016, there’s
expected to be more mobile devices than living humans. Inside this massive growth is the chance for
international affiliate marketing to flourish. The future of affiliate marketing is abroad, and for affiliates
willing to take the leap, a world of opportunity awaits.

Dustin Christensen is the Content Director for Blue Global Media, an affiliate network specializing in the consumer finance vertical.

As promised, all of you who participated in our survey were entered in to a drawing to win $107.00 cash. The first 25 submissions got 2 entries into the drawing. Watch below to witness the winner being selected from our high tech raffle machine:

And we have a winner! Since we used your emails as your entries into the drawing we won't violate the winners privacy and publish their email for all to see. We've reached out to them to notify them of their prize. Stay tuned as we update this page with their first name and a brief message (if they so choose).

Hint: The winning email ended in: *********@yahoo.com

Best,

The oDigger Team

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While in New York for Ad Tech last week we met with Brian Schwartz who works with a fast growing chat service that has a notable affiliate program. The product is called LivePerson.com/Experts and it’s a high converter, offers fat payouts and boasts infinite scalability.

What Is LivePerson?

LivePerson.com/Experts is a chatting platform where you can go to meet and learn from experts on a variety of subjects. Think of it as a real-time forum except instead of throwing a thread out into the community, you hand pick an expert to answer your questions and educate you. You can get instant medical advice from real Doctors, tech support from freelance geeks, legal advice from those who know the law, tutoring from professors and much more.

The experts on LivePerson are carefully selected and must be manually vetted to earn the label of "expert". In particular, doctors and mental health practitioners must pass thorough background checks (MDs verified etc) to ensure that they are qualified to give advice.

LivePerson is a paid chat service and each expert sets their own rates. Rates range from a 10 cents per minute to up to $20 per minute (must be some good advice!). Most experts allow you to ask your questions off the clock so they can assess your issues and charge you only for their answers and discussion.

What does this mean for affiliates?

So, what does this have to do with affiliate marketing? Well LivePerson is growing exponentially and, like Groupon, it is largely due to their strong affiliate program. They want to keep up the fat growth and are offering affiliates $25 for every new client who signs up to chat with an expert (regardless of how much they spend). The more clients you refer to LivePerson, the more they shell out. They'll even pay up to $100 per client if you refer over 100 clients in a month to their Spirituality section.

That's great and all, but is LivePerson profitable to promote?

Yes! I have 3 words for you: Scalable High Converter.

People are signing up to LivePerson by the bucket load because they can get real answers, training and counseling from real people. And they don't even have to leave their house. It's a strong product and it converts.
The payouts are solid and, because LivePerson works directly with their affiliates, you can easily negotiate better terms if you start to run some volume with them.

The angles to promote LivePerson are endless and it's a program that thrives with PPC, SEO and social media campaigns. There are many subjects of expertise on LivePerson but I would recommend promoting to people looking for medical answers. There are many medical conditions, which could make up your keyword or site list, and people with health issues are usually highly motivated to get answers. Same could be said for people seeking legal and tech advice.

And You Can Make Your Own Coupon!

To help drive conversions, LivePerson lets you create your own coupon, for example $15 off the first session for new clients. Simply ask your affiliate manager for a coupon and, depending on the volume you can produce, they give you your own custom coupon. This is a powerful client creating tool that increases conversion % that much more and helps send your campaigns way into the black.

LivePerson's affiliate program is doing everything right. So get in there before it gets saturated!

Join LivePerson's Affiliate Program

or

Send requests and questions to Affiliates@LivePerson.com

From earning his first $50 commission selling Chicago Symphony Orchestra subscriptions to running a multi-million dollar affiliate operation Vito Glazers, founder of CPAtank, tells us the story of his road to success. It involves ambition, drive and a knack for getting work done while constantly being surrounded by hot girls.

Thanks for being with us today Vito. You're a young multimillionaire and you are self-made. Tell us the story of how you first got started including your journey before starting CPAtank.

Thank you Mark, I am not going to sit here and mislead anybody by talking about how easy or fast it is to make money in the Internet marketing industry today. A lot of people think that I suddenly became successful overnight just because I started putting my face out there recently, but the reality is that the fundamentals I follow have allowed me to make a name for myself in different industries throughout the years.

I got my start in finance at a young age because money has always been a passion of mine. Some people are passionate about sports; some people are passionate about cars or music. My passion has always been Making Money, spelled with capitals out of respect for the subject. To me it is not even the money itself that I care about; I just genuinely enjoy the creation process. From plotting an idea, putting it into action, projecting and overcoming challenges along the way, working alongside great people and finally getting the big financial reward, the entire cycle is a source of positive energy for me.

I tend to jump to where the big revenues are. I started in commodities and securities because it did not require any formal education. The price of college was a huge burden on my conscience that never made business sense to me when I was younger and in a position where I had to watch every penny, so I tended to lean towards sales jobs. I taught myself the finance game by reading books and working closely with mentors who helped me capitalize on mortgage banking and development in my late teens and early 20s. When that was coming to an inevitable end, I followed the budgets into adult merchant processing 5 years ago, and most recently transitioned into mainstream advertising in November of 2009. I thrive on the competitive environment online and genuinely cherish all the amazing people I have become friends with over the past few years from this tightly knit industry. To the dismay of my competitors, it will take an industry with a very large checkbook to get me to move into something new anytime soon.

What was the first commission you ever earned?

The first commission I ever earned EVER was, to my recollection, $50 for selling a subscription package to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I was completely broke and had to take the first sales job I could get. They would let pretty much anybody who showed up work for 100% commission and you were literally calling out of the phone book trying to get people to buy tickets, packages or at least donate. This was one of the jobs that actually helped me get back on my feet when times got tough because it was do or die to the extreme. I remember it was the last day I had to make a sale before I was cut off and I finally got a sweet elderly woman on the phone. The unspoken rule was to not waste your time talking to the elderly because they could talk for hours and never buy. I figured I was screwed anyways so I sat there talking to her because she was actually a pretty charming, interesting character. It must have been the fact that I completely dropped the whole telemarketer/sales man front and started being myself because she began being very receptive to me. She made a comment about someone close to her having a birthday and I jumped on the opportunity to close the sale. I actually went on to work there for a few months and it was a great experience, the first commission I ever remember earning.

Our industry is known for overnight success. Was there a defining moment when you thought to yourself "Holy crap, I can't believe how much money I'm making right now!"?

Well as you may or may not know, "it can take a lifetime to become an overnight success." I really started completely at the bottom, living on $200-500 a week as income while I was figuring out how to get anything stable going. I made a lot of money in bursts when I was younger, and then I would have long droughts. I only mention that because whenever I could get something going for a little while I would say "I can't believe how much money I'm making right now!" but I never lied to myself, and when I factored the slow months in I knew I was not making nearly as much as I thought I was. That's what kept me conservative when it came to spending and helped me outlast all my competitors over the years.
To be honest though, while checking my stats halfway through last year I can remember starting to feel like I was winning the lottery every single day. The numbers have not slowed down at all since then and there is so many places we can improve as a company that I know the surface is barely scratched.

How old are you and where are you from?

A year ago I did an interview with Jonathan Volk where I said I was 25 but I felt like I was 47. Now I'm 26 but I feel younger than I did last year, I would say around 35 now. I attribute that mostly to having a lot more "enjoyable" stress and a lot less "critical" stress. I have stress and burdens still like anybody else, but they are not life threatening and the reality is not much can really affect my life negatively at this point. Even losses and lawsuits are still just on paper. The things I was stressed about when I was younger were a lot more serious, so I am glad to be at a point in my life where I can pick and choose what stress I have.

I was born and have spent the majority of my life living in Chicago. Speaking of stress, it is considered the 2nd most stressful city in the United States, but I love it. Even the cold weather is great for me because it keeps me inside printing money off of my computer. Something about Chicago breeds incredible people and after traveling all of the country and many parts of the world, I am really proud to call Chicago my home.

Take us on a tour of the average day in your life.

The truth is I do not have average days. It is my goal to make every day extraordinary. Obviously, I am very committed to work and maintaining an active support role in the day to day operations of my network. My day typically starts with a flurry of phone calls and instant messages before I'm even able to get into the shower. I have 3 phones and I sleep with the phone that my biggest affiliates call me on in my hand every night. I don't set an alarm because someone will wake me up every morning with some life destroying fire that has to be put out or some opportunity that has to be capitalized on. Once I have things rolling for the day and all immediate tasks have been governed, I like to eat at Gibson's Steakhouse a lot. I pretty much eat there every other day. If you want to assassinate me, just wait over by Gibson's on Rush Street. Besides eating and working, I'm trying to replicate the fundamental characteristics of all the world's self-made billionaires so I have added hitting the gym every day to my routine as well. Every self-made billionaire sets aside 30-45 minutes a day to exercise. You're too busy to hit the gym? Are you really busier than Bill Gates?

The other thing I do that is different than a lot of people who work online, is that I go to and attend a lot of meetings. Usually I will attend about 5 meetings a week, sometimes more. You may have heard the concept "never have boring lunches." I take that to the maximum. I keep my assistant calling as many interesting people whose contact information we come across setting up appointments. The nice thing about this is that I don't actually need anything from them, and I'm not trying to sell them anything, I just like to build interesting relationships. This has been one of the things that helped me become successful because years down the road you never know what kind of opportunities have randomly been opened by having a large network.

In almost every picture I see of you you're surrounded by hot women. How do you get any work done?!

Haha, I will share the magic secret with you and your readers. The trick to being able to balance working hard enough to earn that 7-8 figure bankroll and simultaneously have a lot of fun, is as simple to me as not drinking alcohol. I have no problem going to dinner or to clubs in Hollywood or Chicago and buying Champaign bottles all night and drinking half a glass and sticking to RedBulls for the rest of the evening. I can stay out all night and work early in the morning without any issues. If you want to make money, you have to be on point at all times. If you want to meet girls, you have to go out. Even if wild party girls don't think you're cool, you don't need those types of people in your life anyways, and you will see pretty quickly that people around you will start imitating your behavior.

A lot of affiliates give up if their first campaign is a bust. How many times did you fail before you succeeded?

I've never failed by the dictionary definition. I've lost money, I've had terrible experiences I had to crawl my way out of, but I have never failed. You only fail if you let something beat you. You also fail in my opinion by making a bad judgment call that affects other people's lives negatively. A lot of unqualified individuals try to start networks, and that has caused a lot of affiliates to become cynical about affiliate marketing. I know networks with 0 assets and no experience in managing cash flow or receivables who put thousands of dollars of affiliates budgets at risk. When they don't get paid once, the whole network goes up in smoke. That is a failure in my opinion. Affiliates get stiffed, those budgets that could have been used to build good campaigns with a quality network are damaged, and next thing you know those affiliates who trusted that failed network are in the unemployment line.

When I approach risk, I approach it objectively and intelligently. I never take on more risk than I can afford to pay from out of my pocket. Sometimes that means passing up on what seems like a good opportunity which is always hard to do. When I started CPATank, domestic advertiser compliance was light-years away from anything I had ever dealt with on the adult side, so we lost thousands every month. The fact that I never took a risk that I couldn't afford to pay was the difference between CPATank going on to become a multimillion dollar company and just being another failed Hasoffers network. By planning intelligently up front and being ready for anything, I was able to turn losses into lessons and maintain a Titanium reputation in Affiliate Marketing.

If you could sit your 16 year-old self down today and have a chat with him, what would you say?

Stop going for the quick easy money. Above all, stay honest. You will feel like it is not paying off, but it does. Don't worry about who you think is cool and what is popular, life goes by really fast and all that matters is what makes you happy and who in your life can help you reach your own personal heaven. And ask out that nerdy girl you actually like instead of that really hot girl who is a total flake, she doesn't look so good 10 years from now.

Do you have a secretary?

Yes! I have a really amazing personal assistant who pretty much keeps my real life running. I tell people all the time they need to get assistants. The little things in life will devour you and completely drain your productivity, especially if you work long hours like I do. I hired an assistant the first time I got a six figure paycheck and realized I was out of toilet paper. Some people say act your age. I say act your wage. If you can afford to hire someone to take over your personal life, do it. Your bankroll will thank you.

You're the only network we know that swears an oath to your affiliates. Tell us about that.

One of my favorite things about internet marketing is the fact that I can conduct seven and eight figure deals on a handshake. Everything online is on the honor system, and in my world, you're only as good as your last transaction. That being said, there's also a tremendous amount of risk involved. If you run $10,000 in traffic a week with us and I am paying you weekly on it, I'm in essence giving a $40,000 pay day loan to someone who lives thousands of miles away, who I have never met, and who I have no real way of confirming identity except maybe a Wickedfire Username! I think there is a lot more to an oath than a contract. Contracts slow down business and only benefit lawyers. If you break an oath, you're basically just admitting you are a terrorist vulture whose name is only worth whatever measly dollar amount you broke the oath over. My word, integrity, and name have no price tag on them, so when you enter into an agreement with me, you can set the rotation of the Earth to it.

You're intimately involved with the operations of your network and strive to give your affiliates exactly what they need to succeed. Tell us a story about an affiliate(s) who went from broke to baller with the Tank.

I could write a book on affiliates who I have helped go from $100 a day to $100,000 a month. That seems to be my signature move these days. I can't take too much credit for it, because the truth is the people really putting up big numbers are extremely creative and talented people who deserve to make that kind of money. They just needed me to line up a few things for them and believe in their projects. We had a programmer from Europe who was one of our very first affiliates. He was working a corporate job but clearly had some serious skills. He said his goal was to make $50-100 or so a day and honestly seemed skeptical it was possible online. I gave him the outline of a method that was not easy, but I knew was possible for his skill level. He quickly became an advocate for his own income, put in serious research and work and scaled that up to over $10,000 a month by his 3rd month with us. Fast forward a year later, he has become a close friend and bouncing ideas around and sharing resources, we were able to work together to set him up with a method that has been pulling him over 100k per paycheck. The great thing is he's not the only one. If you're a super affiliate, you can pretty much work your way up to a partnership level in CPATank where we donate some of our manpower, location and resources to helping you scale your operation as big as it can possibly be.

Your offer payouts are among the highest in the business. How can you afford it?

I'll tell you exactly how. We relied 100% on social media and word of mouth to grow CPATank as a Cash Backed affiliate network so our on time payments were basically our best advertising. We didn't have any snags in the road because when advertisers didn't pay up, we paid anyways and that just helped us grow bigger and bigger without any slowdown in our growth. Now we are at a point where we can run offers at nearly no margin just to earn the business because like I said above, there's no loss that can negatively affect us at this point. We are so well diversified that any deadbeat advertisers we have to deal with are merely a mosquito bite to an aircraft carrier.

We've noticed that your affiliate managers get a lot of love for being responsive, diligent and insightful. What are the criteria for becoming an AM at CPA Tank?

This is something that I personally really am proud of, my amazing Affiliate Managers. The job is demanding. Excessively demanding. You have to pay a lot of dues to roll with CPATank, and it shows in the work ethic. The biggest challenges my managers face, is dealing with a lot of people who only want to talk to me. We only promote from within, so we do not hire people just to be affiliate managers. All our AM's started working for free as an intern to prove themselves. That is the kind of self-sustainable, secure, and committed to the brand people that we are looking for. We are adding some creative, experienced new talent to CPATank this month. It is really going to change our whole dynamic all over again and should contribute to us helping affiliates putting up some even more ridiculous numbers in the last quarter.

Which niches at CPA Tank are hot right now and where would you recommend affiliates to focus their efforts?

Right now the best niches for us as always have been Dating and Biz Ops. The budgets on these offers go up and down fast and most networks can't keep up with the best offers. If you've been promoting the same Biz Op more than 2 months in a row, you're probably not promoting the best one, the competition in these niches by advertisers is intense and CPATank stays on top of where you are going to get the absolute best EPC's. If you are running biz ops, no matter what the traffic source, we have something that you haven't tried that you should be, and we will stalk you when new offers come out to make sure you're split testing the best. The same principles apply with Dating. Dating performs best when you target niches, and we literally have hundreds of domestic and international niche landing pages that can give you the upper hand and competitive edge.

EMail submits is a really unique Niche that we have been pioneering for over a year now with a lot of success. The great thing about Email Submits is that there is a huge variety of Landing Pages, everything from Free iPads, phones and laptops, to branded deals like Wal Mart, Starbucks, Groupon and even UnEmployment Surveys which I don't have to tell you convert amazing in this economy. The best thing is our relationship and partnership with all the major advertisers in this niche, which gives us the ability to crank out custom pages, and take any traffic on these offers.

There has been a lot of talk about massive emerging opportunities in mobile marketing for affiliates. Thoughts?

There is still an incredible amount of opportunity in Mobile marketing despite what a lot of critics might say. I think as far as domestically it is pretty burnt out, but the opportunity lies in the wide range of international deals and very little regulation. That is just currently. I predict that over the next decade mobile has the ability to surpass the internet as far as total users because countries in the emerging world like Central America and Africa are going to get cell phones before they get internet and credit cards. Also worth mentioning are some of the statistics on how many people now use the internet exclusively on smart phones and tablets. The combination of more accessible devices and new emerging markets are going to be the driving forces behind international mobile’s unprecedented growth.

The field of performance marketing is constantly changing and successful affiliates are always on top of the newest trends and strategies. How to do your affiliates ahead of the curve?

CPATank affiliates have been staying ahead of the curve for almost 2 years now, and doing so is easier than you think. All you have to do is subscribe for Free to my newsletter, The General's Address, which has come out every Sunday since November 2009. This newsletter, which was once exclusive to only CPATank affiliates, is now open to anybody who is interested in subscribing by visiting the CPATank Blog. Leave your socialist reading materials at home; The General's Address will update you on all the major trends from offers to traffic sources and more.

For the affiliates that haven't joined the CPA Tank army yet, what would you like to say to them?

I would like to first of all say that when you're dealing with CPATank, whether you think the name and our ads are edgy or a complete joke, you are doing business with me. I will always take care of you personally no matter who your AM is, as much as time allows. I have the resources and volume to take just about any campaign and make it work.
The name of the network doesn't matter, what matters is having the best and newest offers, the highest payouts possible without shaving, a reputation for paying on time, and the patience to deal with a large volume of affiliates professionally.
I would personally love to work with any serious, drama free affiliates here that are interested in working with a network owner who lives by the above qualifications. No peasants welcome.

Anything else you want to tell the users and the industry?

If you hear anybody saying Internet Marketing is dead, it's just their ideas that are. Also, I would like to thank you personally Mark from all of us at CPATank Inc in Chicago, Illinois for the service you provide with oDigger and your contributions to the industry. Thank you for the opportunity to interview, Salute Success.

Ok, I want to tell you guys about a new site I can’t go 57 minutes without checking. I hit this site up at the crack of dawn while I sip my morning coffee and let it sit open in a browser all day as I oversee the operations of my business (clearly I'm a functioning addict :) ). The stimulant I'm talking about is called IMTODAY.COM and it's a Digg.com-esque aggregator of affiliate marketing news, info, training and quirks.

I'm a huge fan of content aggregator sites but I prefer IM Today as my substance of choice because it's chronological, curated, clean and delivers information from more sources (hundreds of sites!) than any other aggregator. That means my brain is instantly alerted of breaking affiliate marketing intel and only the most important and relevant information gets shared since each post much earn a stamp of approval from the super-affiliates who run IM Today. Oh, and it’s free. Did I mention that?

As you can see when you visit IM Today, they aggregate their posts in a list (newest first) with time stamps. I find it much easier to digest this way. Other content aggregator sites tend to organize their posts in blocks separated by which publication produced the post. It's really easy to miss new, fat and juicy posts this way because they could be published in the 37th block 11 feet below the fold.

The founder of IM Today, Patrick Kennedy, is a super-affiliate and he, along with a team of handpicked pros, curates all posts that make the IM Today front page. This way you know you're getting the goods every time you log on. Plus, if auto aggregators are left to their own devices they're prone to train wrecks so it's good to know that a set of mammalian eyes are overseeing the content.

As for the content, I was surprised to find that IM Today not only brings you news from internet marketing blogs and news publications, they also tune you in to valuable forum posts! Affiliate marketing forums incubate some of the most powerful information in the industry. But with so many forums and so much activity on most of them it's easy to miss the heavy hitting threads. That's where IM Today comes in. If there's a post with some great info being thrown around, they're on it and they're letting you in!

To tap into the IM Today info well simply go there and start clicking. I would also recommend creating an account though it is not required. With an account you can quickly custom configure which info you want in your feed. With hundreds of sites and topics (SEO, PPV, Facebook, Email, CPA etc) it pays to dial in your info to the juice that's important to you. Plus, you can bookmark outstanding posts and they'll always be right there when you need them.

Ready to become an IM Today addict? See the latest news!

Amid all the fluff and hot air that comes steaming out of many affiliate network marketing vents it’s truly refreshing to discover a network that backs up their talk. We've been working recently with a new network called Bucksense and they have all the tools and prospects to be a major player in our industry and to make a lot of affiliates very rich.

BuckSense is an international performance-based network with a focus on mobile, casual gaming and online dating cpa offers. They are headquartered in the USA and have offices (and offers) in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

BuckSense also has a sugar daddy. Rumors of networks with cash flow problems not being able to pay affiliates have been swirling recently. BuckSense won't ever have that problem. They are financially backed by Acotel Group, a leading wireless services company publicly traded on the Milan Stock Exchange (MIL: ACO), which apparently has pockets deeper than the mariana trench.

We got to know the guys over at BuckSense over the past week and they are smart, loaded and hungry to become a power player in the affiliate world. So if you haven’t registered an account with them to see what they’re all about, you should do so today.

3 Simple Reasons To Join Bucksense

1. Sky high payouts – almost all BuckSense's relationships with advertisers are first tier which means they work with them directly. Bucksense has great personal relationships with their advertisers and therefore has negotiated some ludicrously high payouts. You won’t find higher in their categories.
2. They pay on time – Ok, so a lot of networks say this but Bucksense backs it up. If payments are not submitted on time, they will credit your account with a $100 BONUS for every day your payment is delayed! Bet you never thought you would be hoping your commissions come in a day late.
3. They WILL pay you – As I mentioned earlier, Bucksense is backed by a big company (the Acotel Group) which means they have cash and they’re serious about growing their business. Acotel Group publically guarantees that they will deliver the funds to every single one of their affiliates.

Those are 3 solid reasons if I’ve ever seen them! Bucksense is also the EXCLUSIVE agency of record of Flycell and Yabox and because they are the AOR for Flycell, they can offer the following payouts for their PIN submit offers:

US - $12.00
CA - $4.50
AR - $0.25
BR - $0.85
ES - $10.50
IT - $9.50
JO - $0.90
MX - $1.50
TR - $0.90
ZA - $4.50

These guys are really serious about business. As I mentioned above, they offer a Payment Guarantee that pays affiliates a BONUS of $100 for every day their payment is delayed. We’ve never seen this in our industry so we think this is one thing that really sets this network apart from the rest. Plus with fat cat parent company Acotel Group footing the bill, you know they'll deliver.

This network is treating their affiliates extremely well, so get in on it and join BuckSense today!

Join BuckSense Today

CPAtrend is a network you need to have in your quiver.

They are industry experts, they know how to keep their affiliates happy ("We pay our affiliate early" said CPAtrend CEO Phil Shapiro when we interviewed him last month), they know how to keep advertisers happy (which is becoming a rarity these days), and, for reasons I'll explain later, the same offers seem to convert better with them. CPAtrend knows what their strengths are and they do them very well:

3 Good Reasons To Work With CPAtrend

1. The Best Dating, Gaming, Credit Reports and Lead Gen Offers - if you're in any of these niches (or thinking about breaking in) you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not a CPAtrend affiliate. CPAtrend specializes in the aforementioned niches and they make it their priority to have the best converting offers and a wide variety to choose from.

2. Top tier network (aka highest payouts available) - CPAtrend has an excellent relationship with their advertisers and they get all their offers strait from the source. There are no middlemen or refurbished offers to take away from your payouts. Plus, since CPAtrend is tight with their advertisers, there is virtually 0 scrub. This is why their offers seem to convert better. The leads you make are the leads you get paid for.

3. Clockwork Payments and Lightening Fast Payment Terms - and if you're a quality affiliate they have been known to pay out even if they themselves don't get paid by the advertiser (for whatever reason, it's happened to us before). Now THAT'S putting affiliates first and I'm all about working with affiliate networks like CPAtrend that take care of their affiliates.

Bonus - CPAtrend operates on the Cake Marketing tracking platform, which is the Ferrari of tracking solutions. This means that your leads ALWAYS get tracked and none slip through the cracks.

So, as I mentioned above CPAtrend always supplies powerful offers and frequently carries offers and deals you won't find anywhere else. You'll get paid on time every time for all the traffic you run and, since they are workaholics, they provide round the clock support via phone, IM, Skype, email, carrier pigeon you name it.

Want To Start With Bi-Monthly Payments?

Since CPAtrend has a thing for us they have made a very special offer: publishers who reference this oDigger network review will start on bi-weekly payment terms upon acceptance into our network (as opposed to the initial monthly net-15 terms). See? They just can't wait to pay you!

Meet The CPAtrend Team In The Flesh At Affiliate Summit West

Meet the CPAtrend team at Affiliate Summit West in Vega over the weekend of January 8th 2012. They'll be rocking table #71 in the Meet Market

Join CPAtrend Today

If you're not already a CPAtrend join CPAtrend today. You'll thank us later!

ps. If you've worked with CPATrend before and like what they're doing leave them a friendly review! http://odigger.com/cpatrend/

Hey Peter, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

Thanks for having me.

So HasOffers has been one of the fastest growing and most successful tracking platforms in our industry. What opportunity did you recognize that made you decide to start HasOffers?

Affiliate tracking software was really expensive and not very reliable in 2007, and so we started building our own tracking technologies to support our own businesses. Forced to work with limited resources, we created a really efficient ad server (or tracking engine) in basic C, and it wasn’t long before we realized this technology could be white labeled and used by others to track their own affiliate programs. We launched with a free model in 2009 to see how interested people would be and it really took off. From there we created a subscription model that pretty dramatically undercut competition with no setup fees or contracts. Out of the fundamental belief that better technology in more peoples’ hands will only grow the number of players in our industry, we’ve made it our mission to provide the best possible solution while scaling up or down for any budget or business model.

How many people and how much money do you need to start a network on HasOffers?

This is an extremely broad question because there are so many different types of “networks.” We have full scale affiliate networks with hundreds of advertisers and thousands of affiliates, but we also have networks with a single advertiser or product that manage their program with one person and do very well. As far as tracking costs, it starts all the way down at $99 per month with a one month free trial. That gets you in the door with 250,000 clicks. From there, the click volumes and feature sets increase from $279 on Pro to $799 on Enterprise which gives you up to 2 million clicks, per month. Our larger customers pay anywhere from $2k per month to $20k, depending on how extreme their volume is.

So to directly answer your question, you can get started for $99 and just one devoted person to manage your program, but you need at least one solid offer or access to some great affiliates/traffic. The main area you need to be careful about is making affiliate payments, and I highly recommend working with your book keeper to make sure you’ve got a solid process in place.

If you could identify one thing that HasOffers does better than your competitors, what would it be?

Technologically speaking, our API is far superior to any competitor. Every function in our application can be accessed through a complete 2-way API. This means our clients can pull any data out to other systems, pass information in from other systems, build new unique tools, and even create completely new interfaces to meet their needs.

I’m going to cheat and say one more thing that falls on the ideological side. We are innovating on our technologies constantly. Not only do we pump out new features every month for HasOffers, but we’ve been building the next iterations of our technology for the past 7 months. We’re working hard to move the industry forward in some really interesting ways:
MobileAppTracking.com
Adtribution.com

HasOffers has some of the best fraud prevention features in the business. Tell us how HasOffers protects network owners from shady fraudsters.

Detecting fraud is all about studying the numbers. When numbers are doing funny things, the probability of fraud goes up. In HasOffers we have a set of fraud criteria that we associate with new affiliate profiles as well as criteria that applies to affiliate activity. This criteria can be uniquely weighted by each affiliate program depending on the type of affiliates and traffic they tend to work with. Aside from these features we have a list of preferences and tweaks you can make to each offer to prevent different types of fraud. For example, you can enforce that the IP on a click must match the IP on a conversion or you can not allow multiple conversions from the same user. Even beyond that, our open API has made it possible for other affiliate fraud systems to integrate with us very easily.

Some pretty serious companies use HasOffers as their platform. Who is your biggest client?

Ha! Unfortunately I must respect the privacy of our clients and can’t give out that information, but I can tell you that you won’t even find some of our largest clients on our website. We’re certainly excited about clients that are large advertisers with affiliate programs like Zynga, LivingSocial, FlyCell and Saveology, and we work with some incredible affiliate networks like Adsimilis, Users2Cash, SponsorPay, Tapjoy, KissMyAds, Adjal and others.

Let's say I'm a network running on a different platform. Is it a hassle to switch over to HasOffers?

We’ve definitely worked hard on our migration processes to HasOffers since that is how we get a lot of our business. We have simple ways to upload affiliate and offer information using CSVs, but we also have onboarding engineers to help with the process for enterprise clients and above. We’ve also developed some great processes for migrating the actual traffic to make a seamless transition. I think you’ll find that it’s easier to get going on HasOffers than any other platform.

If I'm a network running on a different platform and I'm mulling over the thought of switching, what would you say to me?

It would really depend on your business, but I would tell you that HasOffers is the only tracking solution on the cloud, capable of scaling for any business. Then I would ask you how much you’re spending currently and what you’re getting for it. You would give me a huge number and I would tell you the fraction you’d be paying on HasOffers for the same volume. It’s time to move past the old “enterprise solution” because the fact is; reliable affiliate tracking software doesn’t have to be expensive. There’s a reason we have the types of clients that we do.
Plus, check out any edition that you want for a month for free with no setup fees and cancel any time you want. That’s how confident we are of our product.

What are some important features you have added to HasOffers and what do they mean for network owners?

- Offer goals is a great feature that allows you to track and/or payout for additional actions a user commits. This means you can pay affiliates for several different types of conversions but track it all through a single tracking URL.
- We finally completed a pay-per-call integration with RingRevenue. It took us a little while because we wanted to make sure the integration was valuable, not just a linking to each other in our apps. With this integration you can actually view pay-per-call conversions in your HasOffers reports. Pretty cool.
- Tracking Mobile Apps: You can now track just about anything on mobile, including mobile app installs as conversions. You can even add on additional events in mobile apps as offer goals. This has become so popular that we built a standalone product for tracking app installs called MobileAppTracking.com which fully integrates with your HasOffers affiliate program.

If it's 3am on a Saturday night. is HasOffers there to offer support if needed?

For the average customers, we’re answering email support at all hours, but we have emergency lines for tracking issues that require immediate assistance as well as dedicated account managers for enterprise and dedicated customers that can be reached at any time. For general inquiries, we also have a dedicated customer support team for chat, email, and phone on week days. One thing that will astound you about HasOffers is the amount of support documentation available to the public. You can check it out at http://www.hasoffers.com/wiki

What is in the future for HasOffers? How are you going to help network owners run more successful businesses?

Our industry is rapidly changing and there are some major forces that we are giving a lot of attention. Privacy and security are high interest areas where we’ve spent a great deal of time mapping out how to best comply with future regulations while still giving our clients what they need to be successful. I can tell you that we’ve already developed some pretty incredible solutions.

Another major shift is in tracking itself. Cookie tracking may grow to be obsolete, and we have already enlisted a host of alternate technologies to connect conversions back to click events. You can see some of these already employed when you choose to combine cookie-less and cookie based tracking in HasOffers or when tracking actions on Mobile App Tracking.

We have a few other really big ideas up our sleeve that you’ll see in the coming year, and though I don’t want to give away the farm too early, I can tell you that everything innovative we are tackling has come directly from our customers. We are extremely fortunate to be working with some of the best minds in performance marketing.

Anything else you would like to tell the community?

Keep the feedback coming. If you are a new HasOffers customer, please do not hesitate to let us know how we can make HasOffers better for your business.

I also want to encourage you to take HasOffers and make it your own. We’ve created a complete API so that HasOffers can be a platform you can build on, giving you the true scalability of a tracking solution on the cloud with the flexibility to bake in the secret ingredients that make your network successful. It’s like developing your own proprietary solution at a fraction of the cost with none of the maintenance.

If you stuffed the entire affiliate marketing community into an auditorium and asked them to identify the one resource they couldn't live without, you would collectively hear them holler back:

"TRACKING!"

Tracking your conversions is the beating heart of all your affiliate marketing campaigns and CPV Lab has quickly become the go-to tracking choice amongst performance marketers. I bought my copy of CPV Lab 2 months ago and have been overly impressed. Here’s why.

What is CPV Lab?

First things first. CPV Lab is a software suite that you install on your server. This means you can turn any domain of yours into a tracking url and all data is stored securely on your machine. Right off the bat this has many valuable benefits for PPC. This means that your tracking analytics are 100% private and, if you are direct linking, means you don’t have to use the tracking urls of your affiliate network as your destination URLs. This is especially important since Facebook and some other traffic sources have been using MyWOT to judge the quality of destination sites and some network tracking urls have been getting low scores.

How Can CPV Lab Boost Your Sales?

You Can Track Any Traffic Source
Though it’s called CPV Lab, the software tracks ANY and ALL traffic sources (facebook, pof, ppv etc) and allows you pass to pass sub ids and tokens as well. Passing information is extremely useful (for matching up info in your ad with info on your landing page) and Imrat has a great tutorial (http://imrat.com/2011/03/track-multiple-ppv-networks-single-cpvlab-campaign/ ) on how to set up tokens in CPV Lab.

Easily and Quickly Identify Winning Ads and Landing Pages
CPV Lab gives you a lot of power and control over the elements you would like to track. You can easily rotate in landing page variations and or offers to your split tests. Want to split test 3 offers in a direct linking campaign? Easy. Want to split test a direct linking campaign vs 2 landing pages? Easy. Want to split test a direct linking campaign with 2 offers vs a 2 landing pages with 2 offers? Easy!

CPV Lab is super flexible and lets you track just about anything you want. Their reporting is tight and lets you drill down to the exact variables that are making or losing you money.

Quickly create new campaigns.
If you’ve used Tracking202 before, you know that setting up multiple campaigns can be tedious. With CPV Lab you paste in the URL to you landing page and you’re done. You can even clone campaigns which make setting up new or similar campaigns even faster.

Easy To Use
Newbies may have gotten a little anxious when I mentioned that CPV Lab is self hosted but in all honesty it’s super simple to use. They have a comprehensive support section as well as detailed videos explaining how to set CPV Lab up and get campaigns started. I’m no tech genius and was able to install and set up my first campaigns with 0 problems.

Change Landing Pages Without Changing Your Ads
Once you create a campaign CPV Lab will give you a tracking url for it (ie http://yourwebsite.com/tracking/bunchoftrackingjibberishhere.php ) and you can make ALL changes to where your tracking URL points in the CPV Lab interface. This is hugely important because if your ads are approved (on facebook, plenty of fish, adwords etc) it means you can easily change up your landing pages and offers without having to get your ads reapproved!

Set Up Alerts To Save Money
Ever wake up in the morning to see that your campaigns have been running full throttle all night and that your budget is pegged? Me too. Fortunately CPV Lab let’s you create alerts so you can monitor your ad spend and give underperforming ads and landing pages the axe.

Bottom Line

CPV Lab is the tracking solution that I’m using for my own campaigns and I’ve been very happy with it. It makes tracking campaigns super fast, easy, and their support is top notch.

The one knock against CPV Lab is the price: it costs $297 (a onetime fee) for a license. The way I look at it is that the $297 is chump change compared with the amount of moolah CPV Lab will enable me to earn.

None-the-less any 3 digit price tag can be daunting which is why we struck a special deal with CPV Lab. Until October 5th 2011 you can save 40% on CPV Lab. If you need tracking take advantage of this deal today because this deal won’t be coming back any time soon.