Wow, another Affiliate Summit has came and gone.  These shows seem to creep up so quick and go by just as fast.  Next thing you know Ad-Tech will be knocking at our door.  The ECM team flew in on Saturday to spend the day hanging out, meeting up with pubs, and of course, doing the NYC thing.

We got a suite on the 49th floor of The London, which led to a great view and a great stay.  As you can see the pictures above, that was our view around our suite.  If you haven’t stayed at The London in NYC, it is a must.  Between seeing Michael Jordan, TI, Molly Shannon , and screaming little girls waiting for the Jonas Brothers, The London also serves a great spot for late night entertainment.  Every night of the show we were able to hold some private parties which led to great networking and meeting up with publishers and clients we don’t get to see all that often.

The team started out Sunday at the meet market which was nuts as usual.  Although the meet market compares to a bunch of sardines in a can, a lot of connections and networking was done.  It usually proves to be one of the best days on the floor for us and this show was no different.  Later that night we were able to have a team dinner which is always nice to get everyone together.  After dinner, some of our team went to the parties as advertised, while others headed up to the suite and held a great get together with pubs, networks, and advertisers alike.

Monday was the first day of the actual show and the ECM was up early to discuss things beforehand.  We came with a new look for this years show and it consisted of MLB quality team baseball jerseys.  Those lucky enough to get one appreciate them as much as we did.  The show started out with a bang and business was being done as usual.  After a long day at the show we all split off and went to our own separate dinner meetings, including the ASE Dinner which our very own Mike Delacruz and Thy Lam attended.

After dinner some of us went to the industry parties, which all ended up leading to the private ECM Suite Party, which everyone agreed was better than any of the other parties they attended.  After meeting and having a good time in the suite, we hopped over to the famous Faces & Names.  Here we took many of the suite attendees and met up with other industry folks to finish off a great night in NYC.

Tuesday, the team headed out to the show once again, and also held some private meetings in the suite and other venues around NYC.  This was one of our most productive days, wrapping up the show and making deals to set the future of affiliate marketing.  Instead of taking off late Tuesday night, we decided to stay an extra night, pack in a couple more meetings an take off Wednesday.  Overall, this was one of ECM’s best show and you will see some great things come out of it.

We would like to thank everyone who stopped by the suite to get to know us and have a good time.  A special shout out goes to our friends including Ian Fernando, Kris Trujillo, Nicky Papers, Prosper Guys, Reenev Guys, Victor, Jason Venters, Zac McGrath, AdHustler, Jon Fischer, Ben Louie, all pubs, and everyone else who we might have missed. We enjoyed seeing everyone again as well as forming new connections.  We will see you all at the next show!

We have once again invited Tommie Powers for another webinar, who is widely considered a top expert on buying Content-Based Internet Traffic and he is going to share the complete blueprint to the Aftershock Method that was developed by one of his former coaching students. The webinar will be this Wednesday, August 11 at 9 PM Eastern Time.

Tommie’s former student originally took one of his training courses and was able to take those strategies and techniques to a completely new level by applying the concepts he learned with affiliate offers.

Here is what you will discover:

• Proven Techniques To Find Niches Based Around In-Demand Products Where People Are Already Spending Money.

• Why You Need Content-Rich Blogs And How To Set Them Up In No Time Flat.

• Surefire List Building Techniques That Make The Aftershock Method Highly Effective.

• Low Cost, Low Barrier To Entry Method To Start Driving Traffic Almost Immediately For Your List Building Campaigns.

There will also be time available to take some questions live. Be sure to register now and attend live in case you need your questions answered.

To register, contact your AM for the link!

P.S. Tommie’s former student has given him full permission to share this highly-valuable information and has given him the complete blueprint to share with you that can be implemented immediately after the webinar!

With Affiliate Summit East 2010 coming up on us quickly, we wanted to give a quick shout out to our fans and followers. Affiliate Summit is from August 15-17th. The majority of the ECM team will be in attendance. Most of us will be coming in Saturday and will be available for meetings before the convention and throughout.

We’re grabbing a rock star suite for NYC at The London, so if you would like to brainstorm with a member of the team, grab a few drinks, let us know and reserve a spot. If you would like to personally meet with any ECM team member during the show please let us know so we can allocate time for you.  Please contact your success manager directly or send an email to Network@eliteclicksmedia.com and we will plan a meeting to help you increase your profits with us. Your business is our business. Let’s grow it. We look forward to meeting everyone and if you see any of the team walking around in ECM gear, be sure to stop us and introduce yourself!

This is what the people who aren’t making any money are screaming from the rooftops.  Is it true? Well has the real estate market crashed for real estate investors? No, people that had bad business plans lost millions and went under. If your business plan was flip-this-house, right now you’re probably waiting for the next seminar so you can punch one of those real estate Guru’s in the eye.  But, the people that bought based on solid investment principles and had a solid long-term business plan are by in large doing just fine.  It is the same with internet marketing.

The people that jumped in with no business plan and were looking to get rich quick have been sorely disappointed. Why?  They have no business plan. Let’s get down to brass tacks.  You get paid to sell products to customers or generate leads for advertisers, period. That is it. Whether you do it through ppv, ppc, media buys or running butt naked down the highway with your website painted on your back same thing. Don’t get caught up in traffic methods. It does not matter how you get the traffic to your site, what matters is the ability to get conversions.

The question of hot offers. Does it matter what offer is hot? Yes of course it does. But, only if you have traffic that converts. Having a killer billboard on a street that no one drives down does not bring in thousands of sales.  Once you have the traffic.. which means a converting ad, a good landing page, the offers on the backend become interchangeable.

How do you get to the money? Testing. The tools will change. The marketing methods may change but the principles remain the same.  We’re in the business of sales not software.  Getting the new this or the new that is cool, but if you don’t know how to get conversions you need to change your traffic source, your ad copy, your landing page, or the offer. That is it. No bells no whistles.  Getting better tools can increase your conversion rate, but all the software in the world does not guarantee you more conversions.  The goal is selling, period!

It sucked when we were children, it sucked when we were teenagers, and guess what it still sucks. Do you know what Kobe Bryant, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Greg Davis have in common? They are students of the games they play. They study and they research.  They make mistakes and get back at it. They hate losing. Don’t get the affiliate game twisted. It is not a lifetime of partying all day and popping Champaign bottles. It’s work.

The only thing sure in life is that you are at the mercy of your choices. Either you choose to sacrifice and put in the work to get good at what you do or you look for short cuts and suffer. Are there short cuts to get to the money? Yes, but only after you have the principles down. What are the principles? What is my cost per customer acqusition? How do I optemize?How to choose offers? What are the metrics? What is my target conversion rate? Where are my customers? What do my customers like? What do they watch? How do they think? Did they graduate from college? Where do they live? How do they talk? How can I target them better? What gets them emotional?

Abraham Lincoln once said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Rather than throwing traffic and money at a page you’re direct linking too, how about throwing all those test clicks at a presell page. Use those test clicks to optimize a good lander. If you know that for the product you’re trying to market news style landers are working grab one and put your own twist on it.

Now one of the things I wanted to address was the questions that I’ve been getting from some of my affiliates about ppv marketing. Does it work? Yes. But, only if you know what you’re doing. Ask your account managers at your traffic source(traffic vance, directcpv, media traffic, etc..). They know what’s hot on their platform. PPV marketing is like the penny slot machines in Vegas. If you don’t know what you’re doing you‘re still going to lose money it’s just a slower bleed. The basic questions still apply. Does that ppv platform have your target demographic? What url’s will your ads be shown on? How do they target? If they have no way of targeting and you have no way of tracking then you might as well go to the bathroom, open up your wallet, dump your cash and credit cards into the toilet, and flush.

The most successful affiliates understand the business aspect of the industry. They ask the important questions. They do things by the numbers. They have systems in place. They have people who build their landing pages; they have specialists who they hire to assist in different aspects of their business. They follow trends and know what people are looking for. They stay up to date on what is going on in the news and factor it into their marketing. They watch Oprah and Rachel Ray if that is what their target demographic is watching. Remember no matter how many bottles of Champaign you pop, how many lambo’s you buy, how many watches you have, this is still a business. If you want to be number one then you outwork, out hustle, and out grind the competition.

We have invited Tommie Powers, who is an expert on buying content-based advertising. Tommie is widely considered a top expert on the Google Adwords Content Network (now the Display Network) and he is going to share some highly valuable and actionable strategies you can use instantly. The webinar will be held on July14th at 9 PM Eastern Time.

Here is what you will discover:

• At least 6 strategies that will get you moving in the right direction with any form of paid traffic.
• Secrets that will boost your content-based campaigns by at least 25% by the time the webinar is over.
• Advanced methods he uses for not only his Content Network campaigns on Google, but also for all of his other Paid traffic campaigns on other platforms.
• The #1 reason why most of your campaigns are not as profitable as they should be.
• Other proven methods that have been thoroughly tested by Tommie and many of his peers.

Tommie will also take some questions live. If you have some questions you need answered on the topic, be sure not to miss this one!

To register, contact your AM for the link!

P.S. Come prepared to take notes. This one will be loaded with actionable information you can start using immediately!

The past couple of weeks, Elite Clicks Media has added another team member to our all-star team. Our new addition is Mike Delacruz. Mike has been in the internet marketing business for several years and has worked in many different roles, with his most recent role being a Network Manager at yMultimedia. We have provided a quick intro to welcome him onto the team.

Mike is originally from Los Angeles, Ca.  He is a single father of an 8 year old boy.  In 1998 Mike joined the United States Navy and was honorably discharged in 2006.  While in the military he earned a BS in Information Systems from the University of Phoenix.  After discharge, he worked as a Network Engineer at the Space and Naval Warefare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego, CA.  While in the military, Mike was introduced to affiliate marketing by a friend he met, Jose Rivera, aka Jay Styles.  As a side job he ran CPA campaigns with Jose for fun and some extra income.  In 2009 Jose Rivera partnered up with Amish Shah and opened yMultimedia to the public and had Mike manage the network.  He officially left SPAWAR in 2009 to manage yMultimedia full time.

We would now like to welcome Mike to the ECM team as the network manager.

Below we have provided Mike’s contact information :

Mike Delacruz

Mike Delacruz – Network Manager Office : 800-496-4067 x116 Cell: 213-422-0046 Email: mike.delacruz@eliteclicksmedia.com AIM: ECMDelacruz

Again, we are excited to welcome Mike to team and will see him as a valuable asset moving forward.

With Ad-Tech San Fran coming up on us quickly, we wanted to give a quick shout out to our fans and followers. Ad-Tech San Fran is from April 19th through April 21st. The majority of the ECM team will be in attendance. Most of us will be coming in Saturday and will be available for meetings before the convention and throughout.

If you would like to meet with any of us, please let us know as soon as possible so we can allocate time for you. Please contact your affiliate manager directly or send an email to Network@EliteClicksMedia.com and we will plan a meeting to see how we can grow business together in the coming months.  We look forward to meeting everyone and if you see any of the team walking around in ECM gear, be sure to stop us and introduce yourself!

There is constantly new articles and information being added and new questions from publishers have been being posted constantly.  We continue to encourage publishers to keep posting questions.  Typically if you have a question,  nine times out of ten, someone will have the exact same question.

The more you ask, the more it will benefit you as well as other users.  Our coaches are seasoned veterans and are willing to help with any type of marketing technique or issue.  They know this industry very well, however we can not read minds, so keep on asking the questions.