According to the new service, Jounce, online advertising will never be the same. Jounce recently opened up in beta to a small number of users and I was sent an invite. Jounce is a search engine for products to promote as an affiliate marketer.

The idea behind Jounce is that, as an affiliate marketer, it takes a long time to search through all the networks to find the best products and services to promote. With Jounce, you search across all affiliate networks for products and all information. You don’t need to be a member of all the affiliate networks in order to search for products, but, as always, you’ll need to join the affiliate netowrk in order to promote the product as an affiliate. We’ll get to how easy Jounce makes that in a minute.

To find a product, you simply type in keywords for products or services and Jounce returns a whole slew of options which may relate to your site. You can flag an offer while you’re searching and then check it later by accessing your account page. This truly is superfast and extremely user-friendly.

Here’s an example search. I typed “cat health” in to the Jounce search bar and received nearly 2,000 results. I have many choices on how I want the results organized, ranging from highest commission and product price to monthly EPC and relevance. Here’s what a single search result looks like:



As you can see, it looks much like the results you’re shown on individual affiliate marketing sites: name, link to product page, price, commission, etc. But you are also shown the network from which this product originated.

Here comes the best part of Jounce. When you click on the little arror after the network name, you can go join the network or, if you are already a member, you can sync your affiliate network account with Jounce. This option makes it uneccessary to ever visit individual affiliate network sites. Ever. Imagine what an amazing timesaver this could be. Currently there are only four networks (Pepperjam, Commission Junction, ClixGalore aand ClickBank) available for syncing, but Jounce plans to add hundreds of networks as it unfolds.

Aside from the obvious brilliance of this idea for all of us affiliate marketers, I think it will also give some of the little networks and individual sellers a better chance, perhaps sort of level the playing field. It will be very interesting to see where Jounce goes from here. When I received a beta invite I also received five beta invites I can send out. So if you are interested in checking out Jounce, just let me know and I’ll send one your way.

Travis (the man who brought you Bum Marketing) and Jeannie Sago have a new resource launching in a few days that you won’t want to miss. Project Mom is a free site that will offer all sorts of internet marketing related how-tos and help. They promise it will always be free.

Though the name might make you think of the many “mommies-make-money” sites, this site was actually created by Travis to help support his mom using Clickbank. Travis plans to document the complete process of making money as an affiliate marketer. He will use a blog to market products and have the checks sent directly to his mother. As a member of Project Mom, you will be able to peek over his shoulder the entire way.

As a member, you will be walked through each step of making money as an affilitae marketer from setting up your Clickbank account to cashing your first check. The exact teaching methods have yet to be revealed, but there has been mention of free webinars, many hours of video and instructions on how to Construct your Own 3-Hour Money Machines. Jeannie, Travis and their friend Ben will also take time to field questions from members.

When you click the link you will either be taken to a video of Travis and Ben discussing Project Mom – it is very sweet how Travis imagines his mom’s excitement and confusion when she starts getting checks every two weeks out of nowhere – or you’ll be redirected to the Project Mom site if you click after it has launched. I’m not an affiliate or anything, I just think this is a really great idea, especially in the current economic atmosphere.

Just check it out and let me know what you think. Or, better yet, let Travis know what you think…

Project Mom

photo credit: nathanmac87

I have a question for you this morning and I hope you’ll help me out. It has to do with JV events and how useful they really are. They are almost always useful for the contributors, but how do you feel as a member? Is it worth you time?


My regular readers know that I love JV events. It was an internet marketing giveaway (Easter JV 2007) that first hooked me three years ago and I still love to go through them and check out all the cool stuff. I don’t mind joining lists because that is one of the best ways to find the systems and teaching styles that work. Lately, though, something has been driving me nuts: everyone is recycling the exact same products and identical bonus pages. Here’s a fictionalized example:

I sign up for Tom’s list in order to download the Best Affiliate Ever ebook. After I receive my confirmation email, I am sent to a page with three bonuses. These are free products, but they each take me to a new page to sign up for another marketer’s list in order to download. I realize that this type of piggybacking really works from some marketers. However, I’m sick of seeing it.

Do you think that traffic and list-building opportunities provided by a giveaway event should be enough incentive for marketers to create their own information products? Even if they simply repackage, reorganize or rewrite PLR, at least they are offering a unique-looking product. Have marketers have just gotten plain lazy about JV events?

On the other hand, should we just stick with the “you get what you pay for” mantra? What can you expect for doing nothing more than signing up for a mailing list? And a mailing list that will most likely help you, at that. Once you sign up for a list are you then offered awesome, original products?

I really want to know what everyone thinks about this. Are you sick of recycled JV products or are you okay with seeing the same thing over and over again? If you use giveaway events to build your list, do you create original products or just use a free download as-is? I’m looking forward to the feedback on this.

photo credit: Mykl Roventine

This is just a quick information post for those of you who use the Build a Niche Store (BANS) application to create Ebay stores. A coding change made by Ebay has created errors for all the redirection links created be BANS. In short, each time a visitor clicks on a link to Ebay from any of your BANS sites (this applies to all countries), they will be directed to an error page.

Translation: unless you correct the code in your index.php file for BANS, your sites are all essentially useless. The good news is, a wonderful coder named Tao has created a fix. He posted it on the Niche Site Building site. Here is the link:

Fixing BANS URL Cloaking Issue

Yes, this fix involves opening two PHP files and changing a bit of code, but Tao’s post shows you exactly what to do – for all countries. Here are the steps I would follow to make these changes, just to be extra sure that you don’t break your BANS sites:

• Use an FTP application to download the index.php and frontcontrol.php files to your desktop. The index.php file is in the main BANS folder and frontcontrol.php is in the cont folder.
• Make copies of the files and save them just in case something goes wrong.
• Alter the PHP files according to Tao’s instructions.
• Upload the files back to the BANS folder on your server.

And you’re done. That’s it. If you have a lot of BANS sites, this could be a bit of a pain, but once you have a correctly altered the PHP files you can use them for all your sites. This will work because – although BANS is all about customization – the primary php files are identical and stay that way for all BANS sites. All you have to do is FTP in to each of your BANS sites, overwrite the index.php and frontcontrol.php files with the ones you’ve already corrected and you’re good to go.

Make sure you check each site after you have overwritten the files to make sure none of the pages are broken and all the links to Ebay are functioning correctly. If you have any major problems, the Niche Site Building forum is always a great reference or you can leave a comment on this post and I’ll help or point you in the right direction.

The bottom line is, this is a huge deal that is – thankfully – easily fixable. So go to it.

photo credit: Orin Optiglot

As part of running this blog, I test out a lot of products and services so I can recommend or warn you away from them. I also sign up for a lot of “free” products, mailing lists, etc. to keep on top of what is being offered. I’m often entertained – and irritated – by the severe level of scam that some of these offers scream. Before you read this, keep in mind that there are definitely resell rights membership sites that are excellent and will help you create income streams. That being said, here’s one of my favorite scam-ish offers from the last week.

The Scam

I recently received a free offer to be a beta tester for a new reseller rights membership site. Apparently for your one-time $97 payment you get a free automated website worth $2000. Basically it’s a pre-populated website filled with reseller rights products. I can’t vouch for the quality of the products, but my guess is they are similar to what you’d get for free in a giveaway. Some of these products are great, but this site screams scam for a few reasons.

First of all, the “free for $97″ issue. In the FAQ, it is explained that the $97 pays for your domain and hosting. What?! A domain can be purchased for less than $10 and hosting for a small reseller product site shouldn’t be more than $5 – $10 a month. Yes, that might be a bit more than $97, but with this set-up you essentially own nothing. You aren’t building a business and your website isn’t even really yours.

According to the squeeze page, this system will soon cost $687. As a “beta tester” you will have the “privelege” to earn 50% commissions on this outrageous figure. Privelege? I honestly couldn’t sleep at night if I sold this “product” to someone for nearly $700.

What you are basically getting with this product – and the many others like it – is a website preprogrammed with various reseller products, ad programs and other monetization methods built in. In other words, a big hot mess of “BUY ME!” from which visitors will quickly run away. You will not – as the site promises – make a six figure income by simply passively setting up a site like this.

Also, the “automated” aspect costs another $14.95 a month. This is recommended because it keeps your website updated with new, “hot” products. Otherwise you will have to manually update your site with the products. If you want to automate your site you’ll need to pay a $27.97 activation fee and then the monthly fee. Don’t forget, you’ve already paid $97 for your “free” site.

The Real Deal

You can absolutely make money with reseller rights products. The best idea is to subscribe to a quality RR product site and learn a solid system. You can find these by researching various options. Most of these sites will give you a free lower-level membership so you can see what the site has to offer. If you like it, then you can upgrade to a higher level with more and better products. If a site wants a bunch of money up front before you even get to check it out, take a pass. There are many membership sites out there that appear to be free (like the one discussed above) but immediately start stacking on fees and extra costs.

To get started with resell rights products, my highest recommendation goes to Edmund Loh’s Resell Rights Mastery. By using the link you will get a free lifetime membership to the Gold membership level. There are three upgrade options, all worth it, but not necessarily critical to your success. If you are new to resell rights product sales, go through the information available to Gold members at Edmund’s Resell Rights Mastery. You will receive free templates, products with resell rights and a getting-started guide.

If you join Edmund Loh’s Resell Rights Mastery let me know what you think in the comments.