Screencast Review of Proxy Superstar GeoSurf
January 26, 2012 Posted by Tyler CruzAs I have been getting back into affiliate marketing lately, there have been many times when I’ve tried to view the landing page of an offer that is targeted to a particular country, only to see the dreaded "Sorry, but this offer is not available in your country" message.
Viewing the exact landing page of an offer is extremely important, vital really, and so I went searching for a proxy service that would allow me to visit sites as if I was coming from a particular country.
After trying many free ones (let me just say that you get what you pay for) and looking through a few paid ones, I finally found a premium proxy service that did exactly what I wanted, and then some.
GeoSurf is a premium proxy service that allows you to surf the web as if you were coming from another country (it currently offers 63 countries plus 25 major US cities). It does much more than that, but that is the gist of it.
There are many uses for such a service, but for most of you, its best suited for advertising research and analysis.
Screencast Review
Below is a 16-minute screencast review I made to show you how GeoSurf works and why it is useful for online marketers and advertisers.
When I made the screencast, I forgot to record the footage in a widescreen 16:9 ratio, so I highly recommend setting it to HD and then watching in full-screen mode (lower right hand button):
(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see it.)
Mobile, Tablet, & Browser Emulator
In the screencast, I forgot to mention a few things I had planned on talking about.
The first is that in addition to surfing the web and seeing it as if you were in another country, GeoSurf also acts as a smartphone, tablet, and browser emulator.
As can be seen from the screenshot of the GeoSurf toolbar below, you can simply choose what other device you want to emulate viewing from:
You can emulate from over 20 of the most popular browsers and devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Blackberry devices, HTC, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, etc.
This is a very useful feature, and really easy to use to – simply select the device from the dropdown menu and – voila – you’re viewing the webpage as if you were viewing it from that particular device.
Proxy on a Smartphone or Tablet
GeoSurf is also available to work on a smartphone or tablet, although I believe you need to set up a custom package with them if you want that capability.
If this is a feature you’d like on your account, you should contact them prior to ordering.
Special Discount for TylerCruz.com Readers
I spoke to GeoSurf and was able to set up a special discount for you guys.
By using the special coupon code below, you will receive 50% off your trial and first month (Expires December 31st, 2016).
Simply use the following coupon code when ordering: Tyler
The coupon code area will be available on the 3rd step of ordering (it’s easily seen).
Affiliate Marketing Update: $1,500 in 1 Day
January 2, 2012 Posted by Tyler CruzIt’s been exactly 2 weeks since my last affiliate marketing update, so here’s an overview on what has happened over the past 14 days.
I had mentioned in that post how the next day was "Judgement Day". Unfortunately, Judgement Day turned out really bad for me. Basically, about half of my traffic, made up from one particular traffic source, turned out to be of not high enough quality for me to be able to continue pushing it, at least not at the bumped payout I was receiving.
In addition, since that traffic was ‘mixed in’ with my main traffic sources, I would have to wait a while before the quality on my main traffic could be properly assessed, which meant that I wasn’t given the $0.25 payout increase I had been hoping and waiting for.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) is another Judgement Day, in which I should know if I can get a bump on my main traffic. It’s also possible that I get a pay decrease on the offer, but I’m not expecting that to happen as the traffic on my main source should be really good, and I am pushing volume. I’d most likely just scrap everything altogether if a pay decrease occurred anyway, as I never like to run anything that doesn’t have any future potential.
New Record #1: 916 Leads in 1 Day
On December 23rd, my campaigns brought in a total of 916 leads.
It’s crazy to think that I pushed almost 1,000 leads in a single day… it just sounds so ludicrous to me. I’m sure that at least some of those conversions will pay off big for the advertiser, so everybody wins.
However, now that one of my traffic sources has essentially disappeared, I highly doubt that I will break this personal record anytime soon.
New Record #2: $1,500 in 1 Day
On the same day, December 23rd, those 916 leads worked out to a total of $1,500 for the day. That’s $1,500 exactly, too, which is funny considering that I’m running numerous offers with different payouts.
Now, that IS gross. My ROI for the day was 35%, netting me a profit of $389.64 (which is not a new record).
At a cost of $1,100 a day, that works out to $33,000 a month in expenses (just on my affiliate marketing campaigns). Fortunately, my request for a credit increase on my Visa was approved within 48 hours of requesting it online. My limit is now $30,000 (from $15,000), but perhaps I should have asked for more…
I should be okay for now though, since my traffic took that hit.
What’s crazy though is that if that one traffic source wasn’t paused, I probably would have hit $2,000 today.
22 Day Total
Some of you have requested that I give a monthly total of my affiliate campaigns instead of just posting a particular day’s or series of day’s numbers.
Below is a very simple table of my daily results from December 10th, 2011 to December 31st, 2011:
I didn’t include December 1st to the 9th as it actually takes me a really long time to calculate each daily’s numbers exactly, and I hadn’t calculated those days individually. I believe I averaged around $75 net profit for each day up to the 10th though, so you could estimate close to $4,000 net profit for the month.
That makes December 2011 my best month of affiliate marketing ever, so I’m quite pleased with myself.
I’m also amazed to have hit such high numbers such as on December 17th ($590.72 net profit) and December 23rd ($1,500 gross).
My 22-day daily average worked out to $155.32 net profit per day.
Is it Over?
As you can see from the results above, my campaigns seem to have tanked on Christmas Eve. Is my little streak of affiliate marketing luck over?
It’s too soon to tell.
Yesterday (January 1st) already brought me into the red with –$43.73. That’s certainly not a good way to start off the new year.
But I suspect that today will fare quite a bit better than yesterday, and then there’s the fact that tomorrow is another "Judgement Day", which could mean a possible bump for me, which would most certainly turn things around.
I’m also trying to find the time to experiment more with Facebook, as well as return to AdWords with an old campaign I used to run. I’m just so behind with other work that I don’t seem to be able to find the time to get cracking on those traffic sources.
Anyway, here’s hoping that tomorrow brings good news.
I’ll have another affiliate marketing update for you when there is something else noteworthy to tell.
Merry Christmas from PeerFly
December 30, 2011 Posted by Tyler CruzIn my post from a few days ago, I wrote about the gift and cards I received from several ad and affiliate networks.
One of the affiliate networks missing in that post was PeerFly. I hadn’t received anything from them, nor did I really expect to, as they had already given me some pretty crazy stuff when I met up with them in Orlando, Florida a couple of months ago.
But after I published my previous post, Corey from PeerFly sent me a message on AIM asking "Hmm… you didn’t receive the gift we sent?".
Apparently, they did send me something, but it was just a little late in arriving here. That isn’t too surprising, considering that things can get held up in customs coming across the border, not to mention the crazy busy Christmas season.
But I picked it up yesterday, and here it is:
A big tin container with a silkscreened PeerFly logo on the lid…
As soon as I opened the lid, an overwhelming and wonderful sweet smell smacked me in the face.
Inside were a lot of sweets. Cookies, brownies, gourmet candies, and all sorts of good stuff.
I actually haven’t had any yet as I wanted to take photos and put this blog post up first, but I do eagerly await to try some of them. They look really good… as if from a small little bakery or homemade by some little old grandmother.
Thanks PeerFly!
I’ll be posting on the big gifts they got me in Orlando, Florida in an upcoming post. Sorry, I’m really late with that one, but it’ll be up soon, I promise!
Merry Christmas from the Affiliate Networks
December 26, 2011 Posted by Tyler CruzI hope everyone had a good Christmas, and there’s still the New Year celebrations to look forward to!
Every year at Christmas, I receive gifts and cards from some of the various advertising and affiliate networks that I do business with. It’s always nice to receive something, and it’s well worth any cost and/or effort on their end as it does remind the receiver that the company acknowledges you.
I’ve said this many times before, but receiving something physical, no matter how small, is a hundred times more meaningful and effective in this era of electronic mail and social networking.
For example, take this very blog post. I am going to be mentioning and linking to the 3 networks that sent me something for Christmas this year. How much does a card cost to buy, send out, and mail? $2-$3? Oftentimes, sending a simple gift can be far more effective than purchasing advertising.
Anyhow, below is my little collection from the networks for this Christmas:
From left to right:
AmpedMedia
AmpedMedia, a network which you guys should all know by now, sent me the nice gift basket. I guess they know I like to eat 
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out my post I published some weeks back from when I met up with AmpedMedia in Florida. They never fail to impress me with their level of generosity. They definitely like to take care of their publishers.
If you’re looking for e-mail and zip submit offers, Amped has a ton of them.
BlamAds
BlamAds sent me the two cards in the middle. It was a bit strange the white one, only to receive another blue card from them a week later – but I think it’s because the network sent out the white one and then the blue one was from my account manager Jessel separately later on.
I haven’t really talked about BlamAds on my blog before, mainly because I haven’t really done anything with them yet.
BlamAds is a really interesting network though because they specialize in content-locking ads. Basically, these are ads that will lock out content you specify until the visitor does a particular action, usually completing an e-mail or zip submit.
I haven’t had the time to implement it yet, but I was thinking of adding these ads to the Name That Flick game on Movie-Vault.com, so that users could optionally get a hint each time they filled out an offer.
BlamAds also has a lot of incentive offers to choose from.
CasaleMedia
CasaleMedia is a CPM ad network in which you simply slap up their banners on your site and get paid based on the amount of your traffic (and niche of course).
They work similar to AdSense only they pay via CPM rather than CPC.
I’ve been using them for years, mainly on Movie-Vault.com. In fact, I received my first payment from them in June of 2006, so this is certainly a network that isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.
They offer a 70% payout and are awesome if you have a site with a lot of traffic that doesn’t really convert well to affiliate offers, and you want to simply get paid based on your traffic levels. Their pop-under rates are especially rewarding for this.
Thanks!
Thanks everyone, and once again I hope you all had a great Christmas and an equally good upcoming New Years.
