Shoemoney System Review & Overview

Monday 8th February, 2010

Ahhh, OK! Now I understand a little on what AzoogleAds are about — or at least one aspect of them anyway. The problem is that I’m not sure I can use my micro-niche sites for banners, links etc. because there probably won’t be much on offer that relates to them. Not that it matters at this stage anyway, as I might have a site or two that WILL be suitable.

Only trouble is that I don’t actually have an account with Azoogle just yet (I hope I filled the form in OK? There were a couple of things that I had to do that were a bit different from the video). Anyway, as soon as I’m able to I’ll check Azoogle out and see what I can find.

So, the video for today… Basically Jeremy and Jamie signed into her Azoogle account and did a search for something that she was interested in — car insurance. She found a company, clicked on the link, typed in her email and postcode and they sent her a quote (I assume). For that action she received something like $4.40. Not bad for 30 seconds of work (or however long it took to fill out the form. There was a bit of editing here). She think she can also post a link to the company’s page on her website or blog (when she sets one up) and, for every person who clicks on that link and fills out the form, Jamie will receive $4.40 each time. Couldn’t be more simple.

Now obviously I would assume that Azoogle have pretty good anti-fraud software, so it’s not as if you can just do hundreds or thousands of these signups or whatever. That would stick out like the proverbial and you’d soon find yourself banned from the network. If you’re genuinely looking for services, products or whatever then I would think that you could probably do a few of these every so often. I don’t know that for sure of course but if, or when, I get inside I can read more about the terms etc. and start to understand the system a little better.

Also you would have to be careful with spam etc. but I would think that some of the more foolish people out there would push the boundaries a bit. And I’m starting to understand why I get so many spam emails every week now!

So I’m not able to do anything with Azoogle just yet, but I might go back to Clickbank and have a look around there for stuff that I can implement now and get cracking on things.

End of Week Two!

Sunday 7th February, 2010

I guess it’s the same for most people but I find the more I learn about something the more questions I have about it. I mean if I wasn’t interested in something I probably wouldn’t ask any questions at all because I simply wouldn’t care enough about it. One of the big questions as I watched this video was “If these guys at Azoogle, AdSense etc. know so much about the industry and what it takes to make good money on the internet, then are they publishers themselves? Do they make a killing on the net and, if so, why do they still work 9 to 5 jobs?”

I’m not saying that working a 9 to 5 is a bad thing of course, but the people who handle the accounts at these places must know soooooo much about how it all works. Like, does someone at the Googleplex (or whatever it’s called) who works on search engine stuff know enough about what it takes to grab a number one rank for a competitive keyword and just build a site to rake in the cash or what? Or are they under some sort of disclosure thingy that prevents them from getting their own Google AdSense account?

Likewise if someone at Azoogle advises Shoe about how to bring in more cash, then what’s to stop them from setting up a site to do the very same thing? One day I might find out the answer.

Not that it has any real bearing on what I’m doing, but I’m just curious about it. I mean it’s not like an account manager at AT&T advising a client on how to save money on their account or anything — because the AT&T manager is not in a position to start up a billion dollar multinational company the very next day to benefit from what they’ve learnt at the company, whereas basically anyone can start up a blog or a website with very little effort and start making money with it. And if you’re already in the industry and advising big clients on how to better monetize their websites then you’re already miles ahead of the crowd.

Which leads me to another related question — is there a big turnover of staff at these places, simply for the reasons outlined above? I’m sure somebody out there knows the answers.

But I digress! What about today’s video? Well, put simply, I found it fascinating.

Jeremy takes us through the offices of Epic Advertising (Azoogle) and introduces us to some of the people there. The introduction though raised another confusing question though. First Jeremy says that he’s been doing business with AzoogleAds for about 7 years then, not 10 seconds later, he says “I first started working with Azoogle 5 years ago”. Huh?

Now in the end it doesn’t actually matter at all. The only thing that matters is that Jeremy has been working with Azoogle for some time and it appears to be a great and successful relationship. That’s all that matters. It just threw me a bit when I first heard it, that’s all.

We’re introduced to Erin, who is Jeremy’s affiliate manager, who gives us a brief history of AzoogleAds and explains what section of the office does what as well as what some of the affiliate managers do (new account setups etc.). We’re also introduced to Matt, who is a senior manager at Azoogle. At first I thought “Hey, he looks a bit like Matt Parkman from Heroes”, but then when I looked closer he didn’t really look like him. I don’t know what I was thinking there?

Matt, Erin & Jeremy talked for a while about what sort of advice would you give new affiliates and the importance of being as original as possible in your approach to affiliate marketing. Later on we’re joined by Maggie, who is also a senior affiliate manager, and she offers some good advice as well, such as knowing your statistics and analytics and not mismanaging your expectations.

I don’t really want to say too much about what sort of tips were talked about so I’ll leave it there for now. All I will say is that the people at Azoogle seem committed to helping their affiliates to the best of their capabilities and they appear to be very approachable — which I think is unique in this industry. I mean I’m not a big marketer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t even tell you who to contact at eBay Partner Network or Google AdSense if you wanted to know something in particular. I just don’t know? Maybe if I was a big affiliate then I would have my own manager to talk to but, as it is at the moment, I don’t. Azoogle seem to be much more approachable from the get go.

It’s kinda daunting with all this “new stuff” to learn and implement, but it’s also exciting as well.

Till tomorrow…

p.s. Actually I’ve changed my mind again. He does look a little like Matt Parkman.

Saturday 6th February, 2010

Jeremy discusses some of the books which have helped him with his online businesses over the years, or that have given him the reasons why some of the things that he has discovered on his own have worked as well as they did. Books such as Donald Trump’s “The Art Of The Deal” and “Think Like A Billionaire”, Robert T. Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Seth Godin’s “The Dip” and “Purple Cow”.

“The Dip” deals with knowing when to continue with something or whether it’s better to just let it go and concentrate your efforts in other areas. In “Purple Cow” Seth expresses the importance on doing something that is remarkable or that will stand out — just as a purple cow would in a field of ordinary looking cows. Jeremy said that his own “purple cow” was AuctionAds (launched in 2007), as well as the “Elite Retreats” that he organized.

Jeremy also spoke about another of Seth Godin’s books, “Tribes”, which deals with leadership and authority figures and how to apply that knowledge to build up a community.

The next book was “The Tipping Point”, by Malcolm Gladwell, which talks about how little things can make a big difference.

Finally “The 4-Hour Workweek”, by Timothy Ferriss, which deals with how to improve productivity in your life — something which I need to do big time!

I think I might check out some of these books myself in the next day or so. Till tomorrow…

Friday 5th February, 2010

I was thinking about the Clickbank video that I wrote about the other day. In it Jeremy checks out the marketplace with Jamie and briefly talks about promoting various products — one of them being the Shoemoney System. Well, what I can’t quite work out is if the Shoemoney System is closed for applications for the time being, then how is it that you can earn 50% for selling it when it’s not even on sale? I think I must be missing something there and I might ask about it sometime. I don’t really want to bother Shoe or the admins with it for the time being though so I might ask in a chat room session or on the forum if they organize one.

Having said that I did create a hoplink and posted it on one of my Twitter accounts so I’ll see what happens with that. Apparently one member turned over a few hundred bucks or so from referring it to her friends (again I’m not sure if that was pre-launch or post-launch?) As you can see from my widget in the side bar I’ve made absolutely nada so far, though I’m not worried because……. well I’ve only posted the one hoplink. What can you expect? If you don’t set up anything or post anything then you can’t hope to get anywhere, can you?

It’s early days yet and I’m not concerned at all. It’ll make money because I’m already making money from other sources, so I do know a thing or two about making at least a bit of money online.

I am getting more and more intrigued about Clickbank though, I must say. I should’ve got into it sooner than now, but I was preoccupied with other methods of creating income.

Speaking of which, while Clickbank was great in not closing down my account the same can’t be said for Commission Junction. I’d been with CJ since 2005 because of eBay primarily. When eBay moved from CJ to the EPN (eBay Partner Network) I made sure I signed up with EPN on the very first day I could. Since then I’ve only had a couple of sites still selling things via CJ — not that there’s been any actual sales that I can remember as most of the sales were through eBay.

When I went to CJ the other day and tried to login I found that they’re deleted my account due to, I suppose, inactivity. I can’t recall every getting an email about it though? I should do a check of my email account and see if I can spot anything. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to sign up with Commission Junction again, as I expect that Jeremy will be doing a video on that sometime in the future.

So for the moment it’s two thumbs up for Clickbank and a “yeah, whatever” for CJ.

Stay tuned…

Thursday 4rd February, 2010

Now this is a company that I’ve had no dealings with whatsoever, so I decided to sign up for an account at the same time as Jeremy and Jamie were demonstrating it on the video. Once again it seemed like an easy step-by-step process so there should be no dramas for a newbie to follow. There was one section of the sign-up process that I didn’t quite understand though and that was the “Indicate your experience” section. I didn’t know if it referred to experience in buying ads/traffic or experience in have, say for example, Google AdSense on your site? Because I wasn’t so sure I just put down “0-6 months” for all 3 (CPA, CPM & CPC).

The fact that I didn’t actually know what Azoogle do didn’t help. I should have stopped to read the front page of the Azoogle site before I signed up.

After a fairly lengthy process in which I read a few of the agreements and needed to provide additional information I was all signed up and ready to go (I hope).

Wednesday 3rd February, 2010

Jeremy wanted some feedback on the Shoemoney System so he got his guys to set up a simple survey which only took a few minutes to complete. It basically just asked what you liked or disliked about the System so far, whether the videos were being rolled out fast enough, or too fast or perfect. Stuff like that. There was also mention on maybe getting a forum organised which would probably be good. Anyhow I filled out the survey so we’ll see what happens?

Today I basically just went over some of the videos again and checked out a few links in the “Resources” section. It was pretty laid back.

I also did some article writing for a couple of my existing niche websites. Not sure if I will include them in what I do with the Shoemoney System but we’ll see. I might just start some more “mainstream” sites for this instead.

Tuesday 2nd February, 2010

In this video Jeremy gives an overview of Clickbank and how to sign up for it, going through each step just as he and Jamie did with the earlier Gmail account sign-up video. Now I have to say at this point that I signed up with Clickbank as an affiliate way back in December 2005, but I never ever ever used it for anything except for buying a few books here and there (and paying for the Shoemoney System as well). I can’t quite remember why I didn’t go through and use it as an affiliate though? Maybe I was just too busy with AdSense and eBay?

Interestingly when I went to Clickbank.com just before I was surprised to see that my account was still active and valid — even after 4 years of virtual inactivity! Incredible!

Once Jamie had signed up, Jeremy showed her how to look for products in the marketplace and what to do about getting a link to promote products on your blog, website or Twitter account. There’s a TON of stuff to promote by the way, and later on I’ll have a look around the marketplace and see if there’s anything there that I can promote on my own “micro-niche” sites.

Till tomorrow!