Suggestion What do you want to see on the NEW AffiliateFix?

[K]

So guys, we're working hard on improving the platform and will be releasing a new version in the coming months.

I want to know what YOU'D like to see on the NEW version.

• Is there anything you'd change?
• What needs improving?
• What would you like added?

Please leave your feedback below.

 

[Marc]

@K: I noticed that some newbies ask for network recommendations for special categories.

So my question / suggestion: Is there a plugin for XenForo, which would allow a structuring of our networks into the different categories they offer?!?

Long story short:
All our networks Affiliate Marketing Networks | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix
also broken down according to their types of traffic and offers, e.g. SEO, Social, Mobile, PPC, PPV, Email, Incentive etc., like e.g. Affiliate Marketing | Affiliate Programs | CPA Offers | OfferVault has it divided into the different categories

I know, a lot of work at the beginning to sort all our 424 networks, but from then on easy to do and clear

 

[Delyte]

I'd like to see maybe a little more content added in the (Start Here) section. The section is already a great start and succinctly presents almost all the important basics of affiliate marketing, but game333's promotion of ogads by coaching newbies to their first dollar really gave me a good idea (or rather copied his good idea!) for really jump starting the newbie's knowledge, which is earning that first dollar!

Getting started is one of the biggest barriers to entry. Deciding on where to start can be a bit overwhelming, and lead to over studying / inaction when action and getting some form of experience might be the best course of action. So what I propose is a step-by-step guide for earning that first dollar. It doesn't have to bring them the minimum payment for the network even necessarily, but just having a dollar somewhere that you earned does a lot for the psyche when getting started.

So things I could see something like that including / requiring:

• an affiliate network that is willing to accept newbies who are following this guide, ideally worked out previously so that all they need is to be a part of this guide program. Since a lot of them will go on to earn for those networks being the first that they apply to (and the only in some cases), it could even bring in commissions for each affiliate referred.
• a specified offer to promote, ideally one with the highest conversion rates possible and likely with low payout.
  
• a free (but not necessarily attractive) domain & hosting solution (something like a subdomain of wordpress.com)
• a free template / landing page to put on their domain
• methods for driving free traffic to their site (e.g. social media promotion)

Another suggestion would be to add more promotional material for the Dojo. Ideally a limited version of content that can be found inside The Dojo. It could be outdated material, or it could be articles / guides where the important information is censored. I could foresee a "spotlight article of the week" type of thing that shows what kind of content is in The Dojo so that free members can start to understand the value of a Dojo membership.

Just ideas from my perspective as a newbie to the site!

 

[K]

Keep them coming guys, thanks.

 

[Delyte]

Keep them coming guys, thanks.

Once again, a suggestion of more information for beginners, this time regarding Funnels.

This is a topic of affilliate marketing I'm starting to look at now, and I don't really know where to begin. I searched the forum for "funnel" and found someone asking the same question in this post: Sales funnel guide/tutorial/course | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

He was looking for a general guide, and I guess his experience was similar to mine, he's looking for information about funnels and doesn't really know where to start, hence why he asks for a guide on the subject. He's met by moderators (appropriately) responding that they can answer specific questions but since the common policy is to not direct people off-site, nobody gives him a guide he can go read and is instead suggested to ask specific questions. A good Samaritan offers to give advice over email, and was scolded for bringing people offsite, presumably to sell his $10000 course, which I totally understand scolding him for, yet nonetheless, no answers were really given.

Funnels are a very complicated subject, so there's lots to ask about. Some things I'd consider approaching are:

• How adding an email opt-in page can help or hurt various offers & re-targeting via email
• Advantages of shorter vs longer funnels
• Using funnels to promote other products
• Importance of funnels for tracking
• When certain stages of a funnel are appropriate/inappropriate based on the type of offer
• Use of funnels in optimization of a campaign
• Some example funnels

And once again, I'm new to this whole thing, so I'm looking for the information myself, so I'm sure there's lots more to cover regarding funnels. Knowing these types of details is pretty important for starting your first campaign, especially for starting your first successful campaign. There is some material on this subject using Funnel Flux, but it'd be nice to have information independent of a promoted product for those who don't have it and/or can't purchase it. This topic is briefly touched upon in the "What is affiliate Marketing (START HERE)" guide under "Landing Pages and Funnels", but the explanation is limited to an example text funnel, a few short statements, and then mostly covering terminology regarding landing pages and funnels without applying it.

Which leads me to my second possible suggestion. Since I know there's some importance to keeping the (START HERE) guide succinct and easy to read, making it longer may not be desirable, so you may instead consider making a part 2, which explores these topics (in addition to others, one of which could be the "Make your first $1 guide" I previously suggested) in more depth.

 

[Delyte]

Again, going through the forums I came up with an idea. This time based on my own question posted here: A Place to decide on networks by offers? | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

So I was asking if offervault.com (or similar sites) are accurate, up to date, and include all or at least most offers and networks. (edit: I just realized Marc referenced this same site for his suggestion haha, so must be a popular suggestion)

Which leads me to my next suggestion for a new resource:

So far in resources we have:

• Affiliate Networks (Large networks that provide a large number of offers)
• Affiliate Programs (Affiliate offers that are, for the most part, independent of any Affiliate Network)

Before I delve into my idea, I just wanted to add that it would ALSO be nice to sort Affiliate Programs / Networks by various categories. Similar to Marc's suggestion, as is my idea.

So my idea is to add a third category:

• Affiliate Offers (included is which network the offer is under and the general information about it, similar to what you'd find if you went to that offer on that network given you had an account)

Like I was mentioning in my question thread, I'm at a point to where I have a targeted audience, haven't yet applied to a CPA network, and I'm looking into which offers are best to promote through my campaign. I did actually look through every single Affiliate Program in the resources since most of them effectively cut out the middle man (Affiliate Network), which should (in theory) increase payouts. The only problem with that is that the Affiliate Programs are very limited compared to the total # of offers available under all affiliate networks. I think there's lots of value added by having each individual offer shown, especially when people are deciding on CPA networks, or have been with just a handful of CPA networks forever and don't know what other better offers might be out there.

However, this is an understandably large undertaking as putting it together would be a lot of work. You'd have to get the permission of the networks, add new offers, remove old ones, and update out of date offers. To include a ton of networks would be a ton of work. However, if you could get the cooperation of a few affiliate networks, it could be a mutually beneficial relationship. You could probably even build some account for them on affiliate fix so that they can update the "Affiliate Offers" under their network on their own, and then put something like a "last updated" marker next to each affiliate network. They could then decide what they want to advertise and what they want to keep to themselves. Alternatively you could set up some system that automatically reads their sites offers through an affiliate fix account on their network with their permission. They could even feasibly add a flag on each offer that tells you whether to list each offer "Affiliate Offers," or might even already have a similar flag. Personally, I think something declaring that what is listed is ~25%/50%/75%/100% of their total offers available would be nice to know, but certainly not a requirement. Even if you just had the cooperation of a few affiliate networks (especially Peerfly and Maxbounty, which are often recommended, such as in the (START HERE) guide), I think it could be very valuable. It is quite a large feature, but is feasible with cooperation between Affiliate Fix and associated Affiliate Networks.

Another suggestion for a new Resource, once again based on one of my own threads questions: Science, Statistics and Psychology of Advertising | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

would be to add:

• Scientific Resources

As a programmer and scientist, the science behind marketing is really interesting to me, and absolutely applicable to the process. Things like the effects of word length / colors / specific words / size of words / size ratio of words to background / shapes / patters / re-targeted ads. The process of optimizing an ad campaign is basically the same as running the scientific method over and over in an effort to maximize profits, so while some of this type of stuff only comes with experience, and isn't true of every ad campaign, surely there are official resources and published studies out there that discuss these types of things. Case Studies are one thing, and very helpful, but are typically focused on the larger picture, rather than extensive testing on one specific split test, or multiple split tests of the same subject (e.g. text size)

TLDR: In Resources, sort Affiliate Programs and Networks and add Affiliate Offers (like offervault) / Scientific Resources.

Sorry for the double post, hopefully the difference in topic and length of posts justifies it, otherwise it'd just be a book worth of text haha.

 

[Marc]

Keep them coming guys, thanks.

@K + @T J Tutor: A strict limitation for the Buy, Sell and Trade Forum:

Buy, Sell or Trade | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

Only QUALITY OFFERS allowed, no hogwash and eyewash offers à la WSO.

Maybe a max. 10 min video proof with instructions mandatory for the acceptance into this forum.

Or only accept offers that have been previously accepted by PayPal, since PayPal eg doesn't accept MLM or pyramid schemes offers, ie no illegal deals

Pls note also my post further down ↓↓ (post #9) ↓↓

 

[Delyte]

@K + @T J Tutor:
Maybe a max. 10 min video proof with instructions mandatory for the acceptance into this forum.

I like this idea too. As a newbie affiliate, I love that I'm able to be a part of this community for free compared to the paid (some as much as $100/mo) forums out there. At the same time, there is some value in making sure everyone who joins is serious about affiliate marketing, but costing hundreds of dollars in repeated payments is extreme in my opinion. You could make the (START HERE) portion of the guide (or even a smaller part if you want) mandatory and have a quiz that people need to pass before joining. This eliminates the payment barrier for newbie affiliates, but still helps make sure everyone is serious about affiliate marketing, and anyone who is already experienced enough should be able to skip the guide and pass the test.

Even still, there may be some value in keeping the forum very easily accessible to newbies (I'm not sure if I would have found it or joined it if I didn't see that it had valuable content, so perhaps keep the content viewable for non-members, or at least see the forums/subforums and post/topic numbers), but I think something like this is still worth considering. You may lose out on some people not willing to put forth the effort to learn the material and join, but those who do will probably be more likely to stay and make more significant contributions and not feel like their contributions will be leeched by any newbie surfing google. It definitely would not have dissuaded me, and on the contrary probably would have encouraged me further as it would seem a bit more of a valuable community. Most obviously, it'd reduce spam and repeating of questions that are answered in the intro material.

 

[K]

Thanks guys, keep them coming.

 

[Marc]

Thanks guys, keep them coming.

My summary: I want a clean and high quality AffiliateFix
which is the world's top address for Internet Marketing,
not because of quantity or mass, but because of HQ

 

[Delyte]

Ooops, I see this could be misunderstood.
The idea of a short video demonstration was only meant for the acceptance in the Buy, Sell or Trade | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix,
just to make sure that the offers on AffiliateFix are true and work really and are no hogwash...

Ah yeah, I misunderstood what you meant, but my suggestion stands nonetheless and yours just inspired mine, and is also a good one on its own

 

[Marc]

Oh, before I forget it to say:

Would be helpful, if every link automatically opens in a new tab!!

***

+ maybe a (sub-)forum (eg subforum Business Center) for traffic buying / selling (or maybe only in The Dojo, with resource list ? )

 

[shivendra]

What about a small chat box..where everyone can directly come and chat ??

 

[T J Tutor]

@K + @T J Tutor: My next 2 suggestions:

1) I think, a kind of Intro-video as a 'Please-watch-first', as short as possible and containing all important information for new members, i.e. first please write a brief intro in the introduction forum, for companies please register your resource here..., a brief walkthrough through all the different forums with short explanations, and finally the hint to The Dojo --> would be very helpful for all the new members [professionals were also newcomers at some point] and would be a kind of Must for me

2) Additional to the What is Affiliate Marketing? (START HERE) | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix manuals all the video guides for beginners about 'How to set up a website', 'How to make landers', 'How to post pics at AFix' etc.
Some newbies ask sometimes for that stuff, and thus they would have these resources also listed here

Looking forward to AF 4.0

I like it. I can get on board making vid's!

 

[T J Tutor]

What about a small chat box..where everyone can directly come and chat ??

This has been discussed many times and we put out a few threads asking for feedback and had few responses.

 

[Delyte]

gotta chime in and say a chat system would be absolutely fantastic, as well as more videos produced specifically for AffiliateFix.

For more feedback regarding a chat system, I think the simpler the better, but generally speaking here is how I would like it to work:
>Have a contact list which requires mutual acceptance.
>Anybody can chat anybody, but You can turn off public chat if you don't want people outside your contact list to message you
>Chat status (online/busy/offline depending on settings and who's reading) ideally next to/below avatar in forum posts, or just replace the current status marker
>Appear offline option, or just opt-out for people who don't want to be on chat.