Hospitalera's Blog » Miscellaneous http://hospitalera.com Making Money Online the Friendly Way! Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:23:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Woothemes You Must be Kidding! http://hospitalera.com/woothemes-you-must-be-kidding/ http://hospitalera.com/woothemes-you-must-be-kidding/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:38:31 +0000 hospitalera http://hospitalera.com/?p=1650 Woothemes, you are kidding! Right?

Honestly a plush toy as a Woothemes deal??? ROFl, I hardly could believe it when I read the email that landed today in my inbox The little guy in the photo at the right is available for the bargain price of ‘only’ $20, hurry now, the price will increase [...]]]>

Woothemes, you are kidding! Right?

Honestly a plush toy as a Woothemes deal??? ROFl, I hardly could believe it when I read the email that landed today in my inbox ;-) The little guy in the photo at the right is available for the bargain price of ‘only’ $20, hurry now, the price will increase soon to a whooping $30. Or better said, don’t hurry at all, because I don’t think that will be money well spend that helps to improve your internet business. Whilst I understand why they are doing it, the keyword here is ‘branding’, I really doubt that Woothemes merchandise, stay tuned for WooTees coming soon (I guess that will be t-shirts?), will be a big hit. I mean, would you run around with a Woothemes T-shirt or have a Woothemes Plush Ninja setting on your office desk? There is a counter on their website counting down from 100 (the number produced for the first edition), last time I looked it was still at 100…

Opinions? Do you think it is a smart move of Woothemes to brand themselves in this way? Would you buy this kind of ‘fan merchandise’? Anything else you want to say? Just leave a comment! To see the rest of the upcoming Woothemes Coupons for this Christmas’ deal please refer to my previous blog post >here<. Lets hope the next ones are a bit more useful ;-)

]]> http://hospitalera.com/woothemes-you-must-be-kidding/feed/ 1 Aweber has been hacked again! http://hospitalera.com/aweber-has-been-hacked-again/ http://hospitalera.com/aweber-has-been-hacked-again/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:02:59 +0000 hospitalera http://hospitalera.com/?p=1410 Remember December last year, when a bunch of people complained about having received medical and replica spam from a-list internet gurus and bloggers? Turned out that Aweber, the email list provider most gurus and a-list bloggers use, had been compromised (see this post on Awebers own blog from December last year) So, for once, the [...]]]> Remember December last year, when a bunch of people complained about having received medical and replica spam from a-list internet gurus and bloggers? Turned out that Aweber, the email list provider most gurus and a-list bloggers use, had been compromised (see this post on Awebers own blog from December last year) So, for once, the gurus were innocent, they didn’t send out the scam, they got their email list data stolen through a security hole in the Aweber website. BTW, only Darren Rowse wrote then about it, here is the blog post on Problogger. As far as I know none of the other a-listers mentioned it and everybody continued to promote Aweber as the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to email marketing. In the end, Aweber had promised:

“We’re very sorry this occurred and may have affected you. We have taken extra steps beyond fixing the problem to ensure that such a breach cannot occur again.”

Now, what was the title of this old James Bond movie again? Right, ‘Never say never again!‘ Because, less than a year later, it happened again. This time it didn’t take an a-lister to call them out, Aweber admits it right on their blog here. This time with an apology to the email list owners, and instead of claiming that it will never happen again, they state this time round:

“We continue to invest significant resources into enhancing our current security and implementing new security measures to combat future attacks. We are also working with other ESPs who have been similarly attacked to share knowledge and better secure the email marketing industry as a whole.”

But what really gets my back up is, that neither this year, nor last year, has Aweber ever apologized to those that were the real victims: The ones that get inundated by spammers and will get so in future because spammers have now gotten their dirty little fingers on our email addresses. In my case this is so bad that I am receiving spam emails at a rate of 20-30 / hour and I know it will get worse, because these spammers sell the email adresses they have on and on to others. And Aweber apologized only to the ‘email list owners’, but not to the ones that now have to fight the email spam in their inbox even harder.

And the other thing I can promise you is, that the A-listers and bloggers will continue to flog Aweber as the best email list marketing tool available, simply because they have such a terrific affiliate program.

Don’t get me wrong, Aweber is a legit company and the real bad guys are the hackers and spammers that broke through their security and mined the data and are now using this data to send even more email scams around the globe. Aweber is so big, that they have become a first class target for hackers.

So, if you like to keep your email list subscribers happy and subscribed, you might want to switch to one of the smaller providers like Mailchimp or even host your own email list with PHPList. Small is beautiful and sometimes even securer than big. And now excuse me, I have to install a few more email filters in order to trash the spam more easily *sigh*

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On a more cheerful note: My word counter for Fall Frenzy is now at 21,774 (not counting this post) not too bad for less than four days. If you wonder about what Fall Frenzy is, read my last blog post before this on ;-) SY

]]> http://hospitalera.com/aweber-has-been-hacked-again/feed/ 26 Make Money with the Market Samurai Affiliate Program http://hospitalera.com/make-money-with-the-market-samurai-affiliate-program/ http://hospitalera.com/make-money-with-the-market-samurai-affiliate-program/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:36:40 +0000 hospitalera http://hospitalera.com/?p=1363 If you sat on the fence until today and have asked yourself if you should purchase Market Samurai or not, than here is another reason to do so now:

Market Samurai will open its affiliate program to everybody in 72h! Ok, everybody that is an owner of the full version.

Why that? Because they believe [...]]]> If you sat on the fence until today and have asked yourself if you should purchase Market Samurai or not, than here is another reason to do so now:

  • Market Samurai will open its affiliate program to everybody in 72h! Ok, everybody that is an owner of the full version.

Why that? Because they believe in a) rewarding loyal customers and b) want honest, review-style promotion approaches that are delivered by real users of the software.

How to get into the Market Samurai Affiliate Program

  • Download Market Samurai for free. You will be able to test drive the full version for 12 days.
  • If you like what you see, buy Market Samurai (Hint: The earlier in your trial period you buy it, the cheaper you get it.)
  • You will receive your affiliate code on Monday 14th June 2010.
  • Start promoting a great piece of software and get paid a great commission on every sale you refer.

That was the summary, here a bit more of background information, my personal experience as a Market Samurai Affiliate (before you ask, I got in last year by invitation) and a bit about the attractive affiliate contest the run. Can you say “Yummy Apple Prices”?

How much money can you make being a Market Samurai Affiliate?

Market Samurai is one of the highest paying programs in the market, you get a whooping 48% commission per sale. Depending on when somebody buys Market Samurai (early in/ late in/ after the trial period) the commission results in being between $46.56 and $71.52 for a single sale. As Market Samurai offers a full, no questions asked, 30 days money back warranty, you will get paid your commission after this time frame is over. At the start of each month, the nice people at Market Samurai, also known as Noble Samurais, count up all of the sales generated by you that are 30 days old or older (and exclude any refunds), and pay you the resulting amount in commissions via Paypal. Any sales that are less than 30 days old (and therefor still inside the refund period) will be paid in the following month.

My personal experience as a Market Samurai Affiliate

No, I will not tell you how much I made exactly with this program (but I am making good money, so much I can say, plus I own now one of the best niche and SEO tools on the market). Here a bit of my experience with them:

I bought Market Samurai last year after doing a long and thorough research on niche, keyword and seo tools. I decided on Market Samurai, because it was simply the best, it was available in both Mac and Windows editions and was sold for one, low, price that includes lifetime updates. Many other, similar, tools out there require monthly payments and are only available for Windows. Now, I am using a Mac as my desktop computer and a Windows laptop, guess what? For one price I could download, install and activate the two different versions of Market Samurai for my machines. That I call great customer service. Soon after having test driven the software, I started to spread the word about it, yes, I admit, I was a Market Samurai fan girl from the very beginning – and I am still one. After a while, it occurred to me to check if they actually did have an affiliate program ;-)

Until now, joining the Market Samurai affiliate program was only possible by invitation. An invitation that I received in August 2009. Since then I have promoted Market Samurai, both on this blog and elsewhere on the internet. And yes, the links here in this blog post are also affiliate links ;-) My experience in these few months has been so far:

  • Market Samurai practically sells itself due to the attractive free trial they offer.
  • The support of the guys that call themselves the Noble Samurais is superior, both from a user as from a affiliate marketer perspective. You always get a real answer from real people that actually care about what they -and you- are doing.
  • And, last but not least, they pay in time!


Why is it such a great affiliate program?

A lot of things on the internet are sold with the help of affiliate programs. Meaning that the companies do little to no direct advertisement, but instead share the money they earn per sale with the person that referred the buyer to them. Market Samurai is not only sold with a “30 days money back, no questions asked” warranty, but also with a free trial period of twelve days. And that is the big selling point! People are more inclined to download and test drive a program for free, than paying for it and hoping to get their money back if they don’t like it. If you join the happy crew of Market Samurai affiliates, the one most important tip I can give you from my experience is to promote the free trial heavily. People need only to provide a valid email address, nothing else and can then try the software for free for 12 days. Plus, even if they don’t buy the full version, the keyword research tool, stays available for life. “Only” the seo, content, promotion and other exciting tools turn automatically off after the trial period is over.

The next reason you should know is that Market Samurai does the whole follow up for you. Means they send people additional emails with tips on how to use the software more effectively etc. They don’t spam, that is important to note, they don’t spam people into buying their product, they add so much value to it, with training material, videos, blog posts etc that being on their email list is beneficial for everybody, users and not users of Market Samurai. If you have your own email list, membership site etc they are happy to either help you promoting the product or to even tailor a campaign just for you (if your list has a certain size).

If you are just a normal, starting out affiliate marketer like me, the best thing you can do to be successful is to use their banners, links, custom links etc to promote the free software trial and let them do the rest.

Oh, you wonder why I didn’t mention how long their cookie lasts? Here comes the surprise, their cookie is of the “hard-coded for lifetime” variety, providing you with a true passive income possibility. I explain, lets say somebody signs up for a free trial via your affiliate link, than the email used to sign up and to download the software is linked to your affiliate account as long as you both shall live ;-) Even if the person in question decides only a year later to buy the full version, your account will still be credit with a nice 48% commission! Sounds better than the 24 hour cookie Amazon uses for their referral program, doesn’t it?

Conversion Rate

Market Samurai states, and I have no reason to doubt it, that an average of 20-25% of the people that download the free trial end up buying the product. If you have been longer then a few days dabbling in affiliate marketing than you know that is a superb ratio! And none of the people I recommended Market Samurai to came ever back to me and regretted buying it, because they could test everything in advance, before parting with their hard earned cash!

Where do the Noble Samurais actually live?

For support and other questions it is good to know that the developers of the software and their support team are living down-under, in Australia. Bear that in mind when you contact them!

A little tip, apparently there are only few people in the UK, Continental Europe, South America, and Asia that know about Market Samurai, if you have contacts and / or website visitors from these parts of the world you will have a very low competition and a nearly untapped market on your fingertips. Especially if you are from Asia, one of THE growing internet marketing markets, you are in luck.

Just to repeat it, this affiliate program is EXCLUSIVE to Market Samurai owners, you have to be an owner and user of the full version to promote it and get commission for it. If you sign up for your free trial now, you have time until Monday to decide if you want to be part of the team or not. If you do, just submit your details after you bought the full version and you are good to go. Not only can you make money with promoting the software, you also have a great tool for lifetime to do your keyword, niche and seo research. Oh, you can join the affiliate program obviously also later, after next Monday, but than you might miss out on:

The Affiliate Contest

Eugene, the head samurai and his team start this really off in style. The contest runs from Monday the 14th June to Sunday the 27th June and look at the prices they offer:

iPads, the sparkling new, just announced iPhone 4G and more. Prizes will “unlock” for you as you refer buyers, the more you refer, the better the prizes. Full details will be revealed on Monday, when the contest starts officially, but the big, fat, first, grand price is already announced, it is:

A collection of Apple products worth US$4,400 including:

A MacBook Pro, the newest iPhone 4G, an iPad 3G, an Apple TV (160GB), a set of Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Mini-Speakers, a wireless Apple Keyboard with Bluetooth and, drumroll please: A Magic Mouse, also wireless ;-)

How is that as first price for the one that refers the most new Market Samurai owners? And don’t forget the 48% sales commission you get each time!

Now, don’t go crazy now, there are a few things that the Noble Samurais don’t tolerate and that is “crash car” advertising. If you use one of the following approaches, chances are 100% that you loose your affiliate account, so:

  • Don’t use spam, black hat techniques like cookie-stuffing, lies, other dirty coding tricks, scams or similar.
  • Don’t use ads or promos that start with “Market Samurai is a scam” or similar.
  • Don’t use anything you wouldn’t tell your mother -or Google- about.

Do play clean and fair and you will be rewarded, try to deceive people and you will be quicker out of the program than you can say “Oops”. Seriously, the following is a literal quote from the Market Samurai crew:

“We’re willing to make less money – and refuse or reject affiliates – if it means we get the RIGHT affiliates. Our reputation is worth far more to us than a few extra sales. (That’s why we’re “Noble Samurai” – not “Evil Ninjas”.)”

They want to protect their good names, and that of their product, understandable, isn’t it? They are into this long term and not just an overnight super-duper offer. And that warranties that the affiliates, us, also have a lasting income opportunity that we can be proud to promote. Any questions? Leave a comment and I am happy to help as good as I can, SY

Get a great niche, keyword and SEO research tool plus the possibility to refer it for a 48% sales commission by signing up here: Download Market Samurai now for free.



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