SFI AFFILIATE TEAM-BUILDING ON STEROIDS!
13th May 2012- I've promised to give away 15 affiliates to 3 members of my team in June.
- I've given away 4 affiliates to 4 member of my team so far in May.
- I've gave away 60 affiliates to 12 members of my team in April.
- I gave away 101 affiliates in December 2011. (A Record!)
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Reviews
Insider’s View Of The Adzly Viral Ad Network
Every Internet marketer is constantly searching for quick and easy ways to get their ads seen and the Adzly website offers a quick and easy, free (or low cost) advertising solution.
The Adzly Widget
Adzly is an online advertising service that allows you to post a simple ad widget on one or more of your websites and earn credits for the number of unique page views it receives. The more websites that have the widget, the more credits you are likely to receive.
The widget has some basic configuration options, such as size and background colour, but that’s about it. You can’t change the font parameters. On the plus side, it is very quick and easy to set up.
Two-Tier Referral Program
The power of Adzly as a viral ad network lies in the two-tier referral program. It allows you to receive ad credits on the page views of widgets on your referrals’ websites, and on the websites of those whom they refer.
By posting an Adzly ad widget on three or four of your sites and referring just a handful of people, you position yourself to receive hundreds or even thousands of credits a day, depending on the amount of unique traffic that each web page receives where one of “your” widgets is showing.
Start Earning Credits Fast
I tested Adzly’s claim that you can start generating ad credits in less than 5 minutes from sign-up and found that it can be done quite easily.
The sign up process is very straightforward. After you sign up you will be presented with a one-time-offer, but whether you take it or leave it, you will quickly arrive on your admin page.
The admin page is very clearly laid out and easy to navigate.
Once there, it takes about a minute to set up a widget, leaving you with four minutes to get the widget on your website and earning credits. On a couple of my websites I had generated 8 credits within a couple of minutes of posting the widget. (Free members earn 2 credits per page view, upgraded members earn 6 credits per view.)
Easy Set Up
Next, I created a text ad. It was simply a matter of typing in a short headline (up to 25 characters), the main body of the ad (up to 75 characters) and the website URL, rather like creating an Adsense ad. If you have already prepared an ad or are good at creating them on the fly, everything else is very easy to do.
Upgraded members also have the option of creating image ads. Clickbank marketers also have the option of using pre-written ClickBank ads. It takes a while to get your ad approved by admin, but as soon as it is approved it is added to the Adzly network.
Free Or Upgrade – Pros & Cons
As I mentioned, you can join Adzly as a free member. Free members can post up to 5 text ads and get 2 credits each time one of their widgets is viewed, and a credit each time widgets two referral levels deep are viewed. However, to qualify for the referral credits free members need to achieve a minimum total of 50 unique widget loads per day, something that is not required of upgraded members.
There are two upgrade levels to choose from, “Plus” ($14.95 per month) and “Pro” ($29.95 per month). Many of the upgraded benefits are similar, but one huge advantage for Pro members, which is that they get 40,000 credits applied to their account each month.
Upgraded members get to post more ads and can also post image ads. They earn 6 credits each time one of their widgets is viewed and a credit each time a widget up to two referral levels deep is viewed. Upgraded members also get to choose whether or not they want image ads on widgets that they place on their own websites and they can also block specific ads from appearing on their widgets.
Another cool upgrade feature is that you can set your own widgets to show your own ads only, but you won’t earn credits from your page views for those widgets.
Upgraded members also earn 30% commissions on direct referrals and can buy credits at discounted rates.
The widgets you place on your websites are branded with your Adzly referral link and the best thing is that you will generate ad credits from your free as well as upgraded referrals.
There is a lot to be said in favour of Adzly. I’m very pleased that I decided to join Adzly as a Pro member, taking advantage of the OTO. It is certainly a much cheaper option than Google Adwords and well suited to the Internet business niche. With a small amount of promotional effort you could easily generate a constant stream of traffic to your web pages.
David Hurley
Six Ways To Avoid Negative Online Product Reviews
The Buxify Paid-To-Click Test: Can I Cover My Ad Fees Up Front With Buxify?
I’m constantly looking for ways to help my SFI affiliate team to promote their websites and affiliate pages without having to dip into their earnings or savings. I like the idea of using front-end payments to cover advertising fees and making money from your affiliate program on the back end.
That’s why I decided to look at Buxify, a pay-to-view site where advertisers can get their web pages seen and viewers can get paid-to-view the offers…
Would it give us a viable way to cover our upfront marketing expenses as SFI affiliates?
Read on!
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Buxify
Buxify is a “paid-to-click” profit-sharing site that promises up to 130% return on investment for upgraded members who click on ads. The site has been online since May 2008, which is a good sign.
The Buxify website and forum place a lot of emphasis on proof-of-payment data supplied by members. However, before signing up for an account, I checked Buxify on IMReportCard where it received generally favourable reviews.
Another place to look for information about Buxify is:
Criticism of the Buxify Model
Another useful website for reviewing paid-to-view sites is http://ptc-investigation.com and this website is critical of sites like Buxify that force you to invest in them in order to qualify for a payout:
We believe that members should have the choice to upgrade when they feel comfortable to do so. Whether or not you want to invest is your choice. That is the difference between these forced investment sites and the sites that do not require investment. You can either work hard and refer people, or take the quick route and invest. The difference is choice. These forced investments sites do not give you that choice. It is either invest or get out. http://ptc-investigation.com/buxify.aspx
Opening A Buxify Account
I’ve been running a free account for a while now. You get $5 for opening the account and I have accumulated another $1.70 or so for clicking ads.
You get quite a lot of ads to click on and “earn” $0.01 per click after twenty seconds.
Buxify has several investment levels. “Iron” is the lowest upgrade level, and costs $10, so you’d be looking for between $10 and $13 back after 200 clicks, plus the $5 bonus for opening an account. Solo emails can also be checked for three cents a view.
For affiliates who don’t want to pay $10 to upgrade to the next level, there is the s-l-o-w option of staying free until you accumulate $25 in credits, at which point you will be able to get “free” upgrade to “iron” level. From that point on you should be able to earn a bit of cash for your clicks.
Buxify points out that you can speed things up by referring some other people and earning cash on their upgrades and clicks.
So, is it actually possible to use Buxify to cover your advertising expenses?
It costs $6.99 to post an ad, which gets you a “guaranteed” 700 member visits. Each visit will last at least 20 seconds, or at least, the timer will count down for 20 seconds irrespective of what the member does during that time short of closing the browser window!
The Buxify Paid-to-Click Test
So, what happened when I tried to invest $10 in an “Iron” upgrade?
The idea was that if I got any mula back I would invest the profit in one or two Buxify ads and track the ads to see what, if anything happens…
IF all goes well, I reasoned, Buxify would at least give affiliate marketers a way to earn a few dollars to cover their ad expenses up front, and if we don’t like the results of advertising with Buxify, we can always invest them elsewhere…
However, I ran into an immediate problem when I tried to “invest” my $10 in the programme.
Paypal Suspended… AlertPay Credit Card Problems…
When you go to the upgrade page you are presented with two payment options…
Unfortunately, I was unable to upgrade with either of these payment processors even though they are displayed as such on Buxify…
Buxify appears to give you the choice of paying to upgrade by Paypal or Alertpay. Both buttons are displayd on the upgrade page, as you can see in the graphic, above. Given a choice of using Paypal or Alertpay I always opt for Paypal simply because I use it much more and there are usually some funds in my account.
However, when I clicked on the Paypal button I was taken to a page that showed all the upgrade options had been “suspended”.
When I went back and attempted to use Alertpay to process my order I quickly ran into the “Alertpay credit card processing problem”. The only option for me to upgrade on Buxify appears to be payment through Alertpay using American Express!
Buxify Paid-to-Click Test Status: On Hold!
So, the “Buxify Paid-to-Click” test is now “on hold”. I don’t recommend it to affiliates looking for a viable way to cover promotional expenses.
IF Buxify can resolve their payment processing difficulties (which are actually Alertpay’s credit card processing difficulties, to be fair to Buxify), I will come back and resume the test. Buxify does appear to be legitimate and has a loyal following and proof of payout. But for my purposes, I want to be able to pay, and receive money, through Paypal or Alertpay.
In the meantime, I will be looking at some of the options on the PTC-Investigation.com “elite” list of “paid-to-click” sites that do not force you to invest in order to qualify for profit sharing. The site should also offer advertisers a good deal and enable affiliate marketers on shoestring budgets to cover our upfront expenses without too much toil and effort.
David Hurley
Get Paid Just To View Web PagesThen Earn More Cash Using This Page To Refer Others!
TEToolbox Offers A Quick And Easy Way To Make A Traffic Exchange Splash Page
Here’s a quick and easy traffic exchange splash page I made to promote the SFI Internet business program on several manual traffic exchanges. It took me less than 10 minutes to do using the “free splash page maker” on the excellent TEToolbox link tracking site that’s run by Tim Linden and Jon Olsen.
http://content.tetoolbox.com/splash/46975.html
The splash page links out to my SFI page, which opens in a separate window, so TE surfers can click the link and check out the page without having to leave the traffic exchange they are surfing on.
The beauty of a simple, branded splash page is that even if TE surfers don’t click on your page, at least they see your photo and name and that helps you to “build your brand” and become a recognised “name” for business you are promoting.
Also, TE surfers see a lot of generic affiliate pages again and again, so placing a uniquely designed splash page in front of them is much more likely to attract their attention, no matter how crude the splash page design may be!
I use TEToolbox to make and track my splash pages. Actually, I think the boys sold themselves short by calling TEToolbox “TE” Toolbox because it is really a very powerful tracking tool that you can use for many other campaigns as well. For example, most of the links I place on this website are tracked through TEToolbox.
I use TEToolbox every day. The beauty of it is that it’s free to join and very easy to use. Check out TEToolbox via this link.
David Hurley
P. S. You can now start earning cash just by surfing on your favorite traffic exchanges thanks to a brand new program called MySurfBiz!
Infinity Downline Review
Infinity Downline review score, by David Hurley
Peter Wolfing, the owner and designer of Infinity Downline, recently made a video in Central Park, NY, to give his personal “Infinity downline review” and to show you the face behind the program.
In the video, Peter Wolfing explains that a lot of people say Infinity Downline is a scam because they look at the 100% payout” and ask, “How can they possibly do that? How can they possibly do a 100% payout?”
Check out the video to hear Peter Wolfing’s explanation, then read my Infinity Downline review below:
“We are already spending money on advertising so we thought, ‘why not take that money and put it into Infinity Downline and have that program be the advertising budget?’”
Pay Plan
By putting their advertising revenue into developing Infinity Downline they were able to build a program and give the members 100% of the revenue. Nor are there any admin fees. 100% of the referral money goes to the promoters.
The pay plan is certainly attractive. You get instant payouts per sale plus residual income and you break even on your investment on your first referral because they pay you directly 100% of the $25 subscription fee when they sign up. Don’t forget, though, that you will be paying a monthly membership fee as well so you will need to make at least one sale per month to stay even.
Another nice point about the pay plan is that you can choose how you want your referrals to pay you.
Marketing Tools
So where is the benefit for Peter Wolfing and his team if they are not there to make money on the upfront part of the program? What his company, Multiplex Systems, are looking for is a pool of clients likely to be interested in exposure to their products.
They are quite open about that, but I think that is the weak point of the business from the point of recommending it to newbie affiliates. In the ID back office they have products that such as keyword-based lead-generation tools, autoresponders, telephone broadcasting, predictive dialling, postcard mailing systems and questionable products such as information “scrapers” that “scrape” (i.e. steal) information from other websites and reuse it in some form or another.
While Infinity Downline affiliates are not under any obligation to subscribe or purchase these services, it seems likely that when inexperienced marketers struggle to sell the Infinity Downline package some of them will be tempted to buy some of Multiplex’s marketing products.
Yet, there is no guarantee that any of those products will bring them any better results and many seem likely to push them further into the red. But, because they are inexperienced and frustrated, newbie marketers are the most vulnerable to the “quick fix” appeal of whatever instant marketing solutions they are presented with. I know, because when I was a newbie affiliate marketer I fell for a similar kind of sales practice and ended up wasting a lot of money – or buying an expensive education, if you prefer.
I don’t know about you, but personally, I don’t want to sell a business that is loaded with a minefield of “quick fix” solutions for unwary newbie marketers, especially as I neither use nor endorse several of the products on offer, or know of better alternatives elsewhere.
The Product
Another problem I found with the site was that the product, the “extensive library of audio and video training products” that you get as part of your membership did not meet my expectations. Sure, there were some interesting titles there, but in the audio section, a large number of the links to the recordings were broken, which suggested a lack of concern by the business designers for the core product.
If I am to pay a monthly fee, I want all the links to work and I also want to see the site regularly updated with new and compelling material yet I got the feeling that that wasn’t going to happen with Infinity Downline. So why should I pay a monthly fee for a static product with a large number of broken links? Also, much of the training is available free of charge on YouTube, via Google, or through Internet forums and other online resources.
Infinity Downline Scam?
Essentially, Infinity Downline marketers are pushing a pay-out plan, which is why some people think Infinity Downline is a scam. Personally, I wouldn’t call it a scam as there is a product, but nor would I recommend this business because the product has been thrown together to legitimize the pay plan, which in turn works as bait to attract a lot of minnows into the Multiplex net.
For my money, I would prefer to pay a little more per month and get really top class training in the form of a mentoring group with a proven track record for quality service, such as the Affiliate Power Group (which also has a generous affiliate program, by the way).
Affiliate Website & Tools
One more thing that I don’t like about Infinity downline is the affiliate promotional materials. Some banners would have been nice. Also, the website is brash and when I tested it on several traffic exchanges it was rejected by most of them on the first check as a “frame breaker”. Of those that accepted it, several of them soon banned it.
My verdict
Good pay plan. Pity about the rest of it. Not recommended.
David Hurley
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