The following is a paid review in my honest opinion. Being paid is good but it does not influence the review. If you’re interested in a review of your site or product, please visit my advertising page.

Let me just start off by saying that I’m extremely impressed by CPATrend because this relatively new affiliate network has a few things that stand out that I have never seen any other company do. Honestly, I’m not just saying that and if you work your cards right, it will only help you make more money. But we’ll get into that in just one second.

CPATrend.com is definitely the newest affiliate company that I have seen. I believe they went live as of this year and they already have close to 50 campaigns you can run. For those of you guys that don’t know, that’s actually quite a lot for a company that is this new. That basically means they are good at getting new campaigns for you guys to promote to make money quickly.

So, What Makes CPATrend So Great?

Let’s just jump straight into it because there are a few things that just stand out to me. You guys can feel free to agree or disagree with me but I have never seen some of these things done from an affiliate network before.

Prompt Payments – I know this doesn’t seem like anything new because almost all affiliate networks pay on time. And yes other companies pay every 15 days or biweekly as well but does any other affiliate network offer anything other than an excuse and apology if your payment is late? Probably not. But this CPA Network offers $10 every single day your payment is late.

In my eyes, that shows just how confident they are with paying on time. And if anything does happen for whatever reason, they are willing to compensate you every single day that your payment is late.

Highest Paying Offers – Okay, every affiliate company say they have the “highest” payouts for their campaigns but if you happen to see another campaign at another company with a higher payout, CPATrend is willing to match it and or beat it.

Of course, more than likely their campaigns already have others beat so no need to go through this hassle.

Great Customer Service – Hey, I’m a true believer of good customer service and getting to know who you’re dealing with and that’s all I’ve gotten from Phil, who is one of the account managers there. I’ve had numerous e-mail exchanges with him and I believe he has always responded back to me in the same day.

Of course, you should be able to get the same great customer support through telephone or instant messenger if that’s easier for you guys.

Stats Displayed Conveniently – Of course, they have the standard live tracking stats that I have seen from almost every affiliate company but the thing that kind of stuck out to me was the fact that if you search for campaigns to promote, your stats are also displayed there. That is handy when you’re searching for campaigns because it’ll let you know right from the get go that you have promoted that offer before… or not.

Suggestions

I’m just one person but we all like things a certain way, right? Well, I have just a couple of quick suggestions because I’m just a picky person and hopefully it’ll be helpful for a brand new affiliate network to know.

Banners for Campaigns – I was going through a couple of different campaigns and noticed there wasn’t a place to get banners to promote. I would prefer they host the images because we all know bandwidth kills!

Help or FAQ Section – I know they are brand new but I always like to browse through the entire site to check out if they have some sort of help feature or FAQ section just incase I’m stuck on anything. They have a contact area in which people can respond to your inquires but if you’re a non-contact type person then you might look for something indirectly.

Conclusion

I definitely see a lot more perks to join CPATrend than most affiliate networks currently out there. They don’t guarantee things and not back it up. And based on all the incentives, ability to payout higher than any other company and personal experience with their customer service, I am definitely impressed.

And since they are a brand new company, it should be a lot easier referring new affiliates to get commission on that too! Hey, just a helpful suggestion!

Is anyone attending the Affiliate Summit 2010 that is taking place in Las Vegas? Well, it starts this weekend and I heard it’s going to be a blast. Unfortunately, I will not be attending (again) because I have other responsibilities. Though, who wouldn’t want to go to Sin City?

I’ve had plenty of chances to go to previous Affiliate Summits particularly the one that was held in Boston, where I currently live. The unfortunate part is I don’t plan ahead too often and there’s a reason behind that. Most of the time when I plan far in advance, those same plans just collapse and nothing goes right.

On top of that, I have a busy schedule to begin with. Remember I still work full-time at my day job as well as try to keep up with all my online stuff. And of course, I try to balance that out with somewhat of a social life to keep myself sane.

But if you have never been to an Affiliate Summit, such as myself, then I heard you’re missing out. Every single time a new summit comes around the number of attendees just continue to increase. And since this time around it’s going to be held at Las Vegas, I would assume that they will have even more people attending.

I heard they have a lot of events that sound interesting enough to join. This year, in particular, they are going to have a charity poker event on top of the expo halls, interviews, dinners, etc. I’m sure you guys know that I’m a big poker fan and I’ll play when I have a chance. Unfortunately, I haven’t had as much time to go dedicate myself to playing poker as of late.

Besides going to Las Vegas, enjoying the scenery and events, the other primary reason why I would go is the simple fact of networking and finally getting a chance to meet a bunch of other online entrepreneurs. I’ve been networking more and more and it’s always nice meeting people, learning new things as well as teaching.

Plus, meeting people in person is completely different from meeting online. They will actually get a chance to see who you are, talk to you and get to know you. I’m a goofy/funny guy who almost always has a smile on my face and if there are some people like me, it’s always good to see who that person is behind the computer screen.

Anyways, are any of you guys attending the Affiliate Summit West 2010 or have you ever attended one before? Let me know and I’d be interested in your experience with it.

The following is a paid review in my honest opinion. Being paid is good but it does not influence the review. If you’re interested in a review of your site or product, please visit my advertising page.

So, recently I was approached by a brand new affiliate marketing company, AwigaMedia, and they wanted to step it up and get people involved and try to beat out some existing companies. Well, maybe not beat out but definitely give a few more benefits and incentives for joining them to product affiliate products instead.  And when I was checking it out, they do have some very good benefits compared to any other affiliate marketing company I have joined.

Before I go on with the review, feel free to give AwigaMedia a try today.  But if you need more information, keep reading!

Quick Background on AwigaMedia

You guys might not have heard of AwigaMedia before but that’s because they literally opened up in October. That’s less than two months ago! They are located in the Big Apple, New York City and their plan is to become of the biggest companies out there.

Notice how I didn’t just say affiliate companies?

It seems as though they’re in stage one which is always a major step. But so far, they seem to be doing just fine.

Now that we got a quick background, let’s jump straight into the pros and cons, shall we?

Why AwigaMedia is Better Than Other Affiliate Companies I’ve Seen

Every affiliate company tries to better or separate themselves for the pack. Some people offer a slightly higher payouts. Some offer a better referral percentage. Some are just known for having great customer service to help you.

Bi-weekly Payouts - Well, right out of the gates, I see a few perks and benefits that I haven’t seen from other companies that I have worked with before. The first one is the fact that they payout bi-weekly with a minimum of $50 USD. Most affiliate companies I know only payout on a monthly basis so getting paid every other week is definitely a little better.

Personally, I was never a big fan of waiting a month or a month and a half for a check. If I did, I would’ve tried to become a professor at some big name university!

Great Stat Tracking – Now the other factor that stands out to me that I like is their tracking system. They use a hasoffers platform and if you do a simple search for it, you would see a lot of great reviews for it.

But that’s just the platform… when I logged into the site, they have various stat tracking options that include hourly, daily, conversation source reports, etc. (Check out the screenshot below)

I know you guys are thinking “So what? What’s the big deal? Everyone has stat tracking available” I guess the difference is the fact that its easily there for you without you needing to put additional codes at the end of your affiliate URLs. And we all know analyzing your stats is needed to cross out what doesn’t work and focus on what does. Since its easily there for you, analyzing your stats can even save you time.

I haven’t had a chance to actually test it out for myself because I have been somewhat MIA from AM for a while. But you guys can test it out and let me know your results, I’ll post it on here as a testimonial.

Best Converting Offers Available - As I was writing this review, I also noticed something else. The offers that are provided are supposedly the best ones out there so you get the most out of your time and money. When I say “best” I mean the best converting offers.

But again, I’m not a super duper uber pro affiliate marketer so I’m probably not the best person to ask on what the best converting offers are. But that’s what I have been reading.

Contests – Who doesn’t want to win things? Well, it seems they had a contest to kick start their opening of the website with some good prizes such as iPods and Flip Minos. Though, that particular contest ended at the end of November, I’m sure they will have more contests to come.

My Suggestions

Since this is a full review in my honest opinion, I figured I would toss out some helpful suggestions in my own eyes. They aren’t necessarily negatives but just my opinions on what I’m not too fond of or things I think would help affiliates with using the system.

The Homepage is Missing Something – I’m not sure exactly what it is but I almost feel like there needs to be more content, links, FAQs or something. Before people commit to signing up, I’m sure they want to go through the entire site to read about the perks, benefits, the FAQs and so on.

Not Many Offers… Yet – The downfall to a brand new company is the fact that its new. With that said, they have to start from somewhere and right now they have somewhere around 30 offers available for affiliate to promote.

See, I wouldn’t say that’s a “con” but personally, I like a wide variety of offers to choose from.

And lastly…

Banners/Ads for the Offers – I’m wondering where are they? I know a lot of people simply do PPC search marketing but there are a lot of people who also need the banners or creatives to display on their own sites too.

Maybe I’m just blind but I only could find the affiliate links, previews, info and tracking but I didn’t see where the images are.

Conclusion

They are a brand new company and if you’re willing to give them a chance and they do become of the biggest things out there, then wouldn’t it be cool to say you’ve been with them since the beginning? I mean, a lot of people are still saying that with Facebook and Myspace.

So, I went through the pros and cons on what I have seen, you can feel free to give AwigaMedia a try today. And if you have any questions, they provide 24/7 support and I’m sure they will answer any questions you may have.

As some of you guys know, I’ve been playing around with affiliate marketing off and on this past year and I’ve had some good results and bad. I actually took an extended break from it only because there was so much to learn and I kept breaking even or slightly losing some money from the PPC marketing aspects. I decided that I would jump in it again but this post isn’t about that. It’s about some of the worst affiliated marketing networks and companies.

Before I continue, I’m not going to put any company or network on blast and bad mouth them. Although, I really want to for a couple of these companies, I rather not face the consequences that would arise from it.

Rather, I’m going to just list a few reasons why I think an affiliate marketing company/network is bad and you guys can feel free to point fingers at whoever you want.

So, what makes an affiliate marketing company bad exactly?

Lack/No Communication with Company

Well, as someone that would be working with them, you need some sort of communication, right? Well, what if I told you there are some companies that would never even e-mail, phone or instant message you at all? Why would I want to work with someone that won’t even be there to answer a simple question, if needed?

Last month, I applied for a new affiliate marketing company to work with them and all I got from them was a rejection e-mail saying I was declined. The e-mail was obviously just a generic notification because it never even told me why I was rejected and what I could do to fix that issues.

I took it like they just didn’t want random people applying so I replied to their e-mail asking why I was declined and what I could do to fix the problem. Of course, till this very day I have yet to receive a response.

Someone told me this company rejects people who don’t confirm on the telephone but based on my answering machine, it looks like I never received a message from them. Matter of fact, I probably never even received a phone call. I mean, what kind of company rep calls to confirm with you, yet, doesn’t want to leave a message?

My point exactly.

Customer Service Reps/Affiliate Managers Have No Idea What They Are Doing

I worked with a company in which my affiliate manager just had no clue. No offense, but if they are supposed to be there to try to help me and answer questions, I’m not exactly looking for a response like “I’m not sure. I’ll have to get back to you.” I can see once in a while but if it happens quite a lot of times, that’s a little strange to me.

If they are new and learning the ropes, fine. If I ask an extremely difficult question, fine. But if they don’t know what they are doing, that’s a representative for the company and I’m not sure if that’s going to help me much in the long run.

Terrible Payouts

A lot of companies run the same offers, some are higher payouts than others. But if the payouts are extremely low, that means the affiliate company is taking a larger percentage from it.

Some people don’t know this but you can actually ask your affiliate manager to increase the payouts on certain offers. Most of the time they will do it for you. And if they don’t, you can always just let them know another affiliate company is running the same offer and has a higher payout.

Then, I bet they’re change their mind about increasing your payouts.

They Rip You Off

Believe it or not but there are some who rip you off. That has never happened to me, personally, but I’ve heard stories. We all know the more money you make, the more money they make as well. What if they taking a little more from you than you’re realizing? Um, that’s call ripping you off and if you find out, I believe you can do something about it.

Just make sure you show proof to back yourself up or else you’re just be assuming. And you know what they say when people assume.

That’s all I can say without putting companies out there. I would like to warn you guys but at the same time, I can’t bad mouth big companies based on my personal experiences. But you guys can feel free to say anything you’d like in the comments!

I’ve been extremely busy as of late, especially with taxes, personal issues and working on other projects to test new things out. One of the things that I’m in the process of testing is automated blogs with strictly Adsense ads (or pay-per-click ads) versus ones with strictly affiliate products.

Now, I’m not exactly comparing the two because when it comes down to it, I’ll probably have both running and I’ll just be tweaking each one to see how much money I can possibly make with very little work.

How Do You Set Up An Automated Blog?

Well, setting up an automated blog isn’t very hard; it just takes a little work just like any other way of building traffic, making money online, etc. You are basically setting up a Wordpress blog with key plugins, taking content from RSS Feeds of your choice and submitting to various sites and directories to build links and get traffic.

I would explain how to do it but it’ll be easier if you guys just read the controversial post on setting up an automated blog written by Jason.

Some Key Things to Keep in Mind

A few things you want to keep in mind based on things I have read from comments and forums are:

- Make sure the content you’re taking is not copyrighted. Some sites bluntly say you cannot republish content from them without permission, and it should usually be easy to see because they should have a copyright on their footer.

- After setting your Wordpress blog up, you basically want to get and save lists that include: keyword-based RSS Feeds, sites to submit your RSS Feeds to and a ping list.

Like I said, once you get these lists, you obviously want to submit to all of them but you also want to save them. You will need them again, especially if you decide to rinse and repeat the process.

- Don’t give up! Supposedly, the worst thing that can happen is you make no money but you gain a Pagerank of some sort. You could always sell links or even just sell the entire site for profit. I mean, you’re not doing much work besides the initial setup. After that, everything should be smooth sailing… for the most part.

Conclusion and Additional Notes

I forgot to reply to some of your comments on previous posts but a lot of people mention the “duplicate content” myth and getting in trouble from the Big G or whatever. Well, there are only a couple of things you have to keep in mind about that.

First, you won’t be penalized by Google if you don’t have duplicate content within your own site. There are codes to avoid that anyways but I’ll try to make a separate post for more information.

Secondly, if you avoid copyrighted material, you should be fine as well. Getting your website banned from search engines is a very, very long process and it’s not even guaranteed.

Below are reasons I found in which they would potentially remove your content from the search engines:

- If the site is a spam site.
- If a webmaster believes the site is engaged in buying or selling links that pass PageRank.
- If the content posted constitutes copyright infringement, which will require a DMCA takedown request.
- If the site is believed to house malware (viruses, malicious software, phishing, etc.).
- If a webpage contains personal, private information, request for removal can be made via the URL removal tool.
- The site owner has modified a page so that it no longer contains the information or image that concerns me.
- The site owner has removed a page/image or blocked it from being indexed by using robots.txt or meta tags.
- You’ve been unable to work with the site owner, but the information appearing in the search results is one of the following:
- Your social security or government ID number
- Your bank account or credit card number
- Your image of my handwritten signature
- Your full name or the name of your business appearing on an site that’s spamming Google’s search results.

So, I’ll try to keep you guys updated. I’m sure some of you guys will ask for URLs of the some of the sites, I’ll consider sharing one or two but strictly with password protected posts, which are only for my e-mail subscribers.

But would you try it out too?  Questions?