PayPerPost referrals

Some of you might recall me talking about affiliate programs and how they don't really work for me in my post about the launch of the Pepperjam affiliate network.

Anyway, a few days back I happened to look under ppp tools after logging into PayPerPost and discovered that I had been paid $15/ for referring a Collin DeRuyck. Thanks Collin.

Better still, I also found out that I have seven more pending referrals. I get paid $15.00 for every successful referral. the whole process works like this: The blogger takes an opportunity on PayPerPost and posts it up, the posting is then reviewed by the PPP people, approved and then finally accepted 30 days later. Then I get paid.

Here are the guys with pending referrals along with their joining date:

Ron H. - 02-25-2007
Raja Ainun Shaira - 03-21-2007
Jason H. - 08-04-2007
Anthony J. - 10-01-2007
Larry C. - 10-12-2007
Enbarani R. - 11-27-2007
Reena H. - 12-11-2007

I am not sure why but the first on the list joined in February 2007 but still haven't been accepted.

If you are one of the guys listed above, go to the PayPerPost.com site, login and see whether your membership has been approved. Once you are accepted, you can start taking opportunities and writing sponsored posts on your blog.

Pepperjam launches new affiliate network

Over the years, I have joined and unjoined a number of affiliate networks. And it is quite obvious that they haven't made me a millionaire of me yet. The reason I left most of the affiliates was that they were not really transparent with the way they calculated my earnings. Most of the time I was left with the feeling that they were somehow cheating us. And from my converstions with fellow bloggers and webmasters, I gathered that I was not the only one who that felt this way.

Anyway, Pepperjam, one of the biggest online marketing companies in the US has recently announced the launch of a new "revolutionary" affiliate network. According to Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam, their new
Affiliate Marketing program will address two of the main shortcomings of other networks, namely, communication and transparency.

Read the whole press release below:

Pepperjam Announces Launch of Next Generation Affiliate Marketing Network

Pepperjam, a two-time Inc. Magazine fastest growing company and industry leading full-service internet marketing agency, today announced the launch of Pepperjam Network, a proprietary next generation affiliate marketing network.

If you are an advertiser or affiliate and would like to sign-up for Pepperjam Network please visit www.pepperjamnetwork.com.

“Pepperjam Network represents an evolution in affiliate marketing. The creation of Pepperjam Network represents eight years of research and development and the combined ideas, feedback, and intelligence of hundreds of affiliate marketers and advertisers. Pepperjam Network will forever change the face of affiliate marketing by putting power back in the hands of affiliates and advertisers to build long-term, profitable partnerships through better communication tools and transparency,” said Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam.

Among a variety of affiliate marketing enhancements, Pepperjam Network addresses the two primary shortcomings of other existing affiliate networks, namely (1) poor, unreliable communication tools and (2) lack of affiliate transparency. With Pepperjam Network, affiliates and advertisers can communicate in real-time via Pepperjam Chat™, thereby providing a reliable communication system to build stronger, more profitable partnerships. Pepperjam Network also provides advertisers with an unprecedented measure of affiliate transparency, which helps to establish trust, protect brand integrity, and lays the groundwork for open, long-term, profitable relationships.

Pepperjam Network also introduces pepperjamADS, which is a first-ever affiliate marketing widget that affiliates can use to serve customized contextual ads from one or multiple Pepperjam Network advertisers at the same time.

Pepperjam Network was designed to make the experience of affiliate marketing profitable and educational, with the goal of allowing affiliates and advertisers to truly understand and maximize the critical affiliate marketing channel.

Unlike the traditional networks, Pepperjam Network uses Web 2.0 technology to provide affiliates and advertisers with an easy-to-use, cutting-edge interface designed to facilitate and optimize the affiliate marketing process. For instance, Pepperjam Network offers industry leading source-level tracking and reporting - this robust technology is especially beneficial to search marketing and sophisticated super affiliates that want to take advantage of the most up-to-date technology available to track commissions at the keyword level.

Here is just a sample of what many industry experts are saying about Pepperjam Network:

“Even after all these years using Commission Junction on the merchant and affiliate side, I still find it terribly clumsy to find what I want. With Pepperjam Network it is quick and easy. Pepperjam Network is what an affiliate network would look like if it were built from a wish list from both the affiliate and merchant perspective,” said Shawn Collins, Cofounder of Affiliate Summit.

“As both an advertiser and a affiliate, I am on the lookout for affiliate marketing systems that meet all our company’s needs. Pepperjam Network is without a doubt the most comprehensive, practical and useful affiliate marketing system I have seen to date. Pepperjam Network demonstrates that it is possible to combine style with substance in a network that provides site owners and advertisers with tools and resources to increase their bottom line,” said Joel Comm, New York Times Best-Selling author and CEO, InfoMedia, Inc.

About Pepperjam:

Pepperjam is an industry leading full-service internet marketing agency offering marketing services and advanced technology in the areas of pay-per-click, search-engine optimization, affiliate marketing, and online media planning and buying. The company was founded in 1999 by internet marketing expert, accomplished speaker, and published author Kristopher B. Jones. Pepperjam has received numerous awards and achievements, including recognition by Inc. Magazine for two consecutive years as one of the fastest growing privately-held businesses in the United States. Learn more at www.pepperjam.com.

Introduction to TNX.net

There has been a proliferation of link farms - a group of websites/ blogs that link to each other, all over the net. This was a very common search engine optimization (SEO) technique. It was hoped that increasing the number of sites that link to yours would lead to higher Google page rank. It did work for a while until the search engines started penalizing an banning sites on such link farms. I have to admit that I am also guilty of joining a few of them. After I learnt of that these SEO techniques were frowned upon by Google and other search engines, I deleted the links from my sites.

TNX.net is a new online advertising company that combines the benefits of contextual advertising, text links exchange as well as permanent non-reciprocal text links. They avoid the above problem by not placing many links on each page by default. Their link ads don’t have any unique HTML coding that would enable search engines to identify the links. If you do happen to buy links, they allow you have full control over the link ads placement speed. Having too many links to your site suddenly appear on the web may be considered suspicious, if you know what I mean.

Their system has over 30 thousand webmasters worldwide and a database of more than 33,500,000 pages, out of which more then 500,000 have PR>0. Anyone who's interested in increasing the volume of targeted visitors to their sites can join in. That was for advertisers. Besides earning money by putting up ads on their sites and from referrals, publishers can take advantage of TNX.net to promote own websites as well. Unlike other companies, a publisher is also an an advertiser automatically.

Registering was really fast and easy. After registering, you can then add your sites to the system. However, before your site can be recognised, you need to put up the TNX code on your site. It should be noted that the TNX code does not work on pages or websites that are hosted on servers without PHP and/or Perl support. Ad-links will show up as soon as your site is approved. Unfortunately sites not indexed by Google or with PR 0 are not accepted.

After your site is approved, you'll receive 5000 points as a bonus that can be used to buy links from up to 5,000 websites.

By now you are probably wondering how much it would cost you to join in. Well, it is totally free for webmasters who install the TNX code on their websites. In case you are interested in advertising, check out the advertising costs here: http://www.tnx.net/price.php

A lot of bloggers have a problem deciding how much to charge for putting up ads on the blog. Well the Income Calculator on the TNX home page should come in handy.

For a limited period they are also giving away 2,000 points to people who join in now. This would enable you to buy up to 2,000 links for a month. So, what are you waiting for. Give them a test run as you have nothing to lose.

Help with starting a business

Starting a business is not an easy task and often it is better to get some help from the professionals. If you plan to start a business in the states, you might want to take a look at IncParadise.com. It is part of EastBiz.com, Inc., which was started by John Vanhara, owner and president and is based in Las Vegas. They have experience with incorporation of businesses since 1996.

Their website offers online filing service to start a corporation in all 50 states. I noted that the top 5 most popular places for incorporation were Nevada, Florida, Texas, Arizona and Illinois.

One of the pages that I really found interesting was that on suggested business structures. They explain differences between different business entities, namely, Limited Liability Company - LLC, S-Corporation and C-Corporation.

Found the charges to be quite reasonable - only $89 + state fees for doing all necessary paperwork to start a corporation in any state. For example, for Delaware corporations, the total cost for incorporation is only $178.00. The incorporation fee includes filing Articles, forms for shareholders, directors meetings and stock certificates.

If you have a website (or blog) you can also join their affiliate program and earn a commission on incorporation services. For more information, click here.