This is a guest post from Don Garcia at Yellow Fire Marketing. Even though summer is here, there’s always next semester to start thinking about!

More Businesses to Start Out of Your Dorm Room

When you are in college, the urge to stretch out and see what you can do is both an incredible rush, and a kind of humility lesson. When you really consider that Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg pretty much started their billion dollar businesses “from their dorm rooms,” (not technically in Jobs’ case, but pretty close) you start to realize that you might be embarking on a lightly trod path to great riches. And indeed, once you really ‘make it,’ it can be an incredible rush. But whether you are glancing over the reading materials for a couple of franchise opportunities, and seeing if they are right for you, or if you are just practicing a skill you have developed, and keep having this crazy dream that you might change the world, there are a LOT of possibilities you can choose from. So let’s look at a couple of these options.

A toiletries stockpile

A long time ago, a college freshman noticed that a lot of his fellow dorm rats had neglected to bring a few necessary but often forgettable items with them. These items included tooth brushes, tooth paste, toilet paper, and other miscellany. So he took a cabinet, filled it with these things (which he bought inexpensively), and arbitrated these goods for a reasonable profit, while keeping them substantially less expensive than the on campus options would be. Needless to say, that young man went on to do great things. And this might also be the start of your entrepreneurial career.

A social networking web site

While it is true that social networking is no longer new in the slightest, there will always be the ability to niche it down. Consider that while fashion is not always new, it is constantly being tweaked and resold in an innumerable variety of different styles. Now think about the kind of social atmosphere your school has – is it being extremely well represented through sites like MySpace and Facebook? If not, you might just have the start of something big.

A dorm room cleaning business

While this may only come into play during the periods when every college student is suddenly obsessed with cleanliness (think parental visits, trying to avoid studying for finals, and trying not to get charged a fee before they move out), it could also get some play as a “membership” service. Say, for a small monthly charge, you come in one day a month while they are in class, and turn the place from “disaster area” into “halfway decent.” Get a hundred people to pay you $40 a month (which even most college students could probably scrape up), and that is a decent income.

What kind of business do you want to run? One where you are an absentee owner or one where you are an owner operator? Not sure what the difference is? Click here for the long version, or read on! Okay, here we go: an Absentee Owner is a business owner who can leave their business alone and not be involved daily, yet still run an effective business. An Owner Operator business is just the opposite – where you as the owner are down in the trenches working everyday within your business. Interested in learning more about the two types of owners? Then head to www.hands-onsolutions.com where you can find lots of articles and resources on the topic.

I think it’s pretty obvious that we all hope to become an absentee owner where we can just let out business run and not have to worry about whats going on all the time. With techniques such as outsourcing, automation, and utilizing technology, this is more achievable now then ever before. Guys like Tim Ferriss talk about it their books all the time. However, as a young entrepreneur, sometimes it’s hard to set up your business that way from the start and you have to start out being an owner operator and living in your business day to day. Plus, your business is your baby, and at such an infant stage, you don’t want to just abandon it, now do you?

As you grow your business, streamline your activities, and determine what actions make you the best return for your time, you can start to slip into the ‘absentee owner’ mode and start to let your business just run by itself. Think you can handle that? One of the great things about the interenet is that it allows you the chance to make it happen much more quickly then when everything was “brick and mortar” based.

If you want to check out 63 other ways that absentee owners think and act differently than an owner operator, check out the website of Hands On Solutions, a Seatle based consulting services business. They’ve got a great archive of resources and articles on the topic!

Starting a business is fun and exciting. It’s also frustrating and sometimes even depressing. But being the entrepreneur you are, you are constantly thinking of new business ideas that you would love to do. The only problem is how you decide what business you start and how you are going to get funding.

Going to business school, you are taught to write up a business plan. I just want to say this is a bad idea. Sure, it will probably be required down the road for some annoying reason, but not right at the beginning. At this point, it’s a time waster.

All business plans that are drawn up at the beginning of a venture normally just talk about the ‘market potential’ of the business. This means nothing. Especially when you are trying to get some funding to get it off the ground.

Instead of spending your time writing up a business plan, run a PPC campaign. This will truly help prove (or disprove) the market potential you think there is.

There use to be a time where you had to look at market surveys and data available to you to determine whether or not you had a shot or not with that business idea. Turns out, that data is really expensive to come across and just not viable for you to acquire as a Dorm Room Biz person.

Luckily though, you can get that data all on your own. Take $500 or so of your own money and invest it into a PPC campaign. Here’s a short step-by-step way to implement this plan.

1. Get a domain name. Any name related to whatever you are doing, not necessarily the one you will end up using. If you are going to start a cookie selling biz, get cookieseller101.com.
2. Find some cheap hosting and install a CMS.
3. Create a few landing pages. Up to 5 should be enough and ask questions on them. You are looking for answers from the people in the market you want to serve. You can even go ahead and offer your service now.
4. Setup your campaign in Adwords and spend the allotted amount.
5. Collect all the data and read through it. Pour over your keywords and clicks data from Adwords and even send messages to some of the people (your new ‘customers’) and try to get some more information from them.

Once you’re done, you should have some information. And if you didn’t get any, well, you might want to start rethinking that business idea right away.

Then you need to take that data and reflect over it. Find new perspectives that you think the business should take. If you think you need some more information, try running another campaign and see what you can gather from that.

This can really work. It’s how I helped start my Surety Bonds company with some friends.

And it’s also what saved me from wasting 9 months of my life and a lot of my money chasing the idea I had of starting a local textbook buying and selling website.

This is a guest post from Kevin Kaiser, a web entrepreneur and college student. You can connect with him on twitter, @kevinckaiser.

wise management of personal finance is the best way to avoid cash crunch and debt problems. The necessity of wise money management has been urgently felt in the face of a crumbling economy!  In fact, it is very important to cultivate this habit at a young age.

For those of you keen on perfecting this habit, start managing your money now!

To start with it, you may consider investment in stocks as a great option. But you must keep it in mind that smart stock investing for young people differs from that for the veterans. The main reason being that the youngsters in the age group of 20 to 30 years tend to go through spending sprees. Their monthly expenditures are often quite high and leave minimal scopes for savings.

Wondering what smart investment is? Smart stock investment is nothing but investment that maximizes gain and minimizes loss. It is

Some smart investment in stocks can actually secure your finances for future, without having your monthly luxuries curtailed.

Investment can be real time peppy idea and here are some hot tips on investing for all you youngsters:

1. There is never really an ideal time for investment, especially when you are a newbie. But do keep a track of the stocks for at least three years at a stretch, before you embark on first your investment.
2. Smart Stock Investing requires constant practice; while it takes a lot of work, the more you put in the better you get.
3. Try to be extremely logical and analytical while you invest. Do not worry! You will get better at differentiating good investments from bad ones, as you gain experience.
4. Google for a cheap online stock broker to help you buy the stocks.
5. Develop the habit of putting aside some money for investment every month. It can be so that you have to go for a debt consolidating measure and would require making monthly payments. Whether you’re in college or in the working world, you surely save up some extra money each month after paying off your bills. Keep about 10 to 15% of that money for investing in stocks. This percentage, on one hand, will not affect your entertainment/luxury expenses. On the other hand, it would ensure your monetary profits for you.
6. Whenever you zero in on a company in whose stocks you would like to invest, do not forget to do an exhaustive research on that company. Go through its financial statement. And it would give you a fair idea whether the company’s stocks are worth investing in.
7. Check the price of the stock before you make the transaction. For this, log on to your online broker’s website and type in the stock’s ticker symbol on the Stock Trading page. You may also get the information on stock prices at Google Finance.
8. The stock brokers usually charge a commission fee when you book stocks via brokers. The commission fee is usually around 10$ and it gets added to your total stock price.
9. Once you have invested, keep a track of your stocks every day. This will keep you updated about the diurnal rise or fall in the price of your stocks.
10. Developed the habit of reading financial news and statements. This will not only help you learn about the pros and cons of your investment but also sharpen your foresight for possibilities of future investments.

So, you can see investment is not an exclusive area of experienced, grey haired veterans dealing with stocks for years. Youngsters like you too may try your luck at it successfully. All you need is a bit of patience and a rational approach. And you are sure to secure your finances with some intelligent investment!

Guest post provided by: Dorothy Anderson

Ever wondered how that guy who never went near a book passed all his exams with flying colors? The answer is simple. He tutored his juniors from the first semester up; he got paid for it and his revisions were probably more interesting than yours. Tutoring is just one option; there are many more businesses you can start while still a student. Being innovative does pay and I don’t mean the money alone. Such businesses may well shape your entire future. Here are some tips to earn money while still at school or college:

• Be a personal coach – Are you a fitness freak who enjoys hanging out at the local gym? If the answer is yes, become a personal coach or fitness expert to a classmate. Amateur dietitians too can easily find a market.
• Be a painter – Painting is a job that requires only minimal capital. Get a brush or two, paints, a ladder and overalls, and you are ready to start. It may well progress to more paying dry walling jobs in the future.
• Be a fashion designer or a writer – For individuals suffering from the creative spark, both are good options. In fact, schooldays are the right time to start on a portfolio of your own.
• Dabble in real estate – Admittedly, this is one of the riskier options and requires some amount of natural flair, but many students do find it worthwhile. I knew a guy who bought himself a Mercedes at 23; he bought a house for 60k, refurbished it himself, and sold it for 110k.
• Start a cleaning and laundry service – No doubt this option will definitely attract many customers because not many people actually enjoy doing laundry. This can progress to a whole new business line in the future too.
• Start a ride service – For those who have a vehicle, travel regularly and enjoy driving, a ride service is an apt choice.
• Be an eco/green consultant – Do you feel incensed when you see forests disappearing and animals becoming extinct? If you do, go green and become an eco consultant. Read, write, and blog on the subject. Do your duty to the planet and earn money in the process.

So much for the physical, offline businesses; on the online front, business options are more diverse and interesting:

• Designing – If you are skilled at Photoshop or CorelDraw, you can shine at student parties and functions by designing brochures, banners, etc.
• Copyediting – This type of work does require some creative and language skills. However, the jobs are generally highly paying.
• Researching for term papers – You will find many clients for this service as very few enjoy researching or facts checking for their term assignments and the like.
• Designing websites – This is viable if you have an Internet connection and enjoy playing with colors and fonts.
• Developing content for websites – All websites need content writers. The jobs offer good payments and are highly flexible.

The idea is to play to your strengths. After all, the best lessons you learn are the ones outside the school.

Today we have a great interview for you all with Anthony Adams who is the creator of The Hangover Cure! Enjoy!

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Hi Chris, thank you so much for having me here today.  I graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock in 2006 with a degree in marketing and spent the next two years doing sales for a very large computer/tech company here in Dallas.  I currently run a dietary supplement company, Apollo Nutrition LLC.  Our flagship product is THC-The Hangover Cure.

1. Now that we know a little bit about you, let’s find out some more about your business. When and why did you decide to start THC – The Hangover Cure? What promoted you to make the leap?

I founded my company in February of 2009.  Like a lot of people I know, I was laid off in January, took a month off to evaluate where I was in life, and then decided to make the leap by forming a limited liability company and creating my product, The Hangover Cure.  I always planned to start my own business at some point and I figured there was no point in putting it off any longer with the amount of free time I had been given.  I think I was pretty disenfranchised with working for other people at that point, so I looked at being laid off as a great opportunity, as I probably wouldn’t have voluntarily quit my job with the way the economy was going.  My actual ‘aha’ moment for the product came to me in college, but I had been putting it off in favor of a career up until being laid off.

2. There are many similar products to THC on the market, which claim to cure hangovers…or help reduce them. What makes THC stand out from the rest? Is THC more affective/better than the others?

It occurred to me while in college that there really wasn’t a hangover product that was marketed correctly.  No one came up to me in the dorms and mentioned an existing product as a good cure, nothing had a ‘cool’ factor to it.  Competing products sell in health food stores and gyms; they are being marketed to the wrong audience.  Our product sells in liquor stores and bars, it’s just a logical extension of what’s already for sale.  I look at the success of Red Bull; most people who drink it don’t care what’s in it, they like it because it gives them energy and it makes a great mixed drink.  They drink it because it works.  That’s what I wanted to create; a product that is geared towards people who actually need hangover help in a genuine way.  So our marketing strategy is geared towards that demographic.  I will gladly put The Hangover Cure’s formula up against anything on the market because I know we will win, it’s literally the most potent nutritional drink on the market today.  And that’s where those hangover pills miss the mark; they don’t help rehydrate you after a night of drinking.  If you aren’t rehydrating and replenishing your body, you will have a hangover.  So yes, I would say our formula is the only complete hangover prevention product on the market today.

3. With the business being less than a year old, what’s been some of the biggest challenges that you’ve had and lessons that you’ve learned from them?

Early on, it was convincing my family that I was committed to making this work.  They saw it as more of a hobby and were probably worried about me not finding another ‘real’ job.  I’ve learned that you have to be vocal with your family about what you are doing, especially with online business, which a lot of people simply don’t understand.  I’ve also learned to keep a level head.  The nature of my business is full of highs and lows, so I have to remind myself that no matter how good or bad a situation is, it can change at any time.  It’s fleeting.

4. A question a lot of young entrepreneurs ask is if it is necessary to have a formal written business plan in this “day and age”? Lots of the “way things used to be done” mentalities are being shattered by younger entrepreneurs.

I think it’s crazy, especially with a primarily online-based business, to try to predict with any degree of certainty how you will be doing business in a few years.  My business plan is pretty simple:  Create a good product that people like, sell it, and maintain strong relationships with existing customers and distributors.  That’s it.  Everything else is secondary.  Focus on tasks that generate revenue.  It’s timeless.

5. You mentioned in your first email to me that you have distribution on 5 continents, which is awesome. How were you able to accomplish such a feat so quickly?

I wish I could say there was some secret formula to it but there really isn’t.  The international interest we have received so far has been incredible and beyond anything I had expected starting out, which again shatters the notion of a formal business plan like you mentioned earlier.  I think it’s much more important to be flexible and able to adapt to whatever comes your way than to stick with an outdated plan.  But to answer your question directly, entrepreneurial minded people from all over the world seek us out online, which is a huge compliment.

6. Social Media is a major buzzword and trend right now. How are you utilizing communities like Facebook and Twitter to market THC and build your business?

Every business needs a presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with its fans.  I’ve noticed companies like vitaminwater, Sprint, and TJ Maxx advertising their Facebook and Twitter pages on TV ads instead of their official sites, which I find fascinating, because those companies get it.  At the same time, a company like IBM doesn’t even have an active Twitter account, which I find a little ironic.  I live on Twitter, I think it’s a fantastic resource for business.  I’ve had a lot of success contacting bloggers on Twitter and asking them to review my product.  I then use these free and unbiased testimonials and blog write-ups to highlight my product’s credibility.  Bloggers get to write good content on a new product and I get free advertising, so it’s a win-win situation.  Also, we were the first company I have seen to add real tweets from satisfied customers to the THC testimonials page instead of static, unverifiable text.  That’s helped add further credibility to my product as potential buyers could actually tweet at the customers mentioned on my testimonial page raving about The Hangover Cure to verify that yes, these are real people who like what we sell.  But I don’t obsess about how many Twitter followers we have or anything like that, it’s a hollow number.  I would rather have 50 followers who are actively involved in the brand than 10,000 followers who never interact with us.

7. You’ve obviously seen some success so far and are stationing your business for future success too. What tips to being successful as a young entrepreneur can you share with our readers?

Don’t be afraid of failure.  No business is perfect and you will fail a lot, especially starting out.  As long as you don’t get discouraged and learn from your mistakes, you are on the right track.  The real world is a hell of a teacher and I have learned so much from failing until I get something right.  And that’s why it’s important to believe in what you are doing and care about your product, because it will get discouraging.  It’s important to have mental toughness and to keep going.  All the theory and textbooks in the world don’t compare to real world experience.

8. Entrepreneurs in your position usually work crazy hours and just get engulfed in the business, working to grow it as big as possible. Because of this, there is never a “normal” day, but what does your standard, as standard as it can get, day look like? What hours are you working, what are you doing, etc?

A typical, middle of the week workday for me varies in terms of the hours I work.  I try to break it up into morning, afternoon and then after dinner.  So I might work from 9 am to noon, take a break, then 2 to 6 pm, and then maybe 8 or 9 pm to 1 or 2 am.  I spend a lot of time working with distributors all over the world, which makes for some pretty crazy hours as you can imagine.  I make sure orders arrive on time and in good condition, find out how they are selling the product, offer advertising support and so on.  I also spend a lot of time tweaking my website and studying Google Analytics, writing site content and improving SEO with link building, which gets tedious.  Then there is time spent on Twitter, which I enjoy.  And record keeping, which isn’t so enjoyable to me.

9. You’ve obviously been using the internet a lot to leverage your business and grow it, if you didn’t have the resources of the web, would you still have been able to successfully launch your business?

No, at least not in its current form.  I really cannot fathom how people did business without the internet, I think about that often.  If it was 1977 and I wanted to find a dietary supplement contract manufacturer or form an LLC, I would have no idea how to go about it.  I came along at the right time I guess.

10. Continuing to learn as an entrepreneur is important. An easy way to do so is by reading books and following the paths of other successful entrepreneurs. Are there any books that you’d recommend to others that you like?

I would highly recommend two books by Paul Arden:  ’It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’ and ‘Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite’.  They are the two most motivational books I have ever read and I think any young entrepreneur would benefit from them.  I honestly believe that every secret to success can be found in their pages.  Also, ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins.  Specifically the chapter on the ‘Hedgehog Principle’ as he calls it.  ’Purple Cow’ by Seth Godin is also an interesting take on marketing that I refer to often.

11. Along that same line, do you have any business role models that you admire?

I admire Phil Knight, the founder of Nike.  Nike’s marketing is always insanely good and I probably would have tried to build my business the way Knight built his early on if I was starting out in the pre-Internet age.  It’s hard not to admire Steve Jobs for what he has done, and Apple’s marketing is also fantastic because they keep everything so simple and clean.  In the beverage/supplement industry, I would say J. Darius Bikoff of Glaceau/vitaminwater and Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull, for the way they both built great beverage brands from nothing.

12. What’s next for The Hangover Cure? Where do you see your business in 3-5 years?

I’m looking into a canned beverage form of my product in 2010 as the functional beverage market is booming right now and growing distribution networks worldwide.  Like I said earlier, it’s almost impossible for me to predict where I will be in a few years with the way everything is changing right now and the opportunities that are out there.  I do see my brand’s national and international visibility growing in the coming years though, that’s about as concrete as I can be.

Well, since the site is called Dorm Room Biz, I thought it was time that we got back to posting some more student business ideas. So, without further ado, here is a great list of opportunities and businesses that students can start from their dorm room, apartment, or home. Starting a business in school is a great chance to A) learn business skills, B) make some extra money, and C) to just have a great time.

• Garage Sale Marketing and Promotion Service – One of the worst parts of holding a yard sale is getting everything together, pricing items, and advertising the sale. So, why not offer this service to your local community? Now is the time to start up a service like this as the spring season is starting to get rolling, people will start ’spring cleaning’ their houses, and yard sales will pop up all over the place. Check Craigslist in your area for people advertising yard sales and offer them your services.
• Personal Conceiger Service – How hard could it be to get some reservations set up at a restuarant or to get some tickets to a game? Actually, probably pretty difficult starting out. You’d really need to be able to work your personal network and tap into other networks to make it happen. However, starting small is what it’s all about. Since you’ve got the extra time in between classes and studying, it leaves the perfect opportunity to work on getting your name out there, making connections at hotels, restuarants, stadiums, clubs, etc. Offer the service to students and faculty at your school looking to plan an event (say a Valentines Day date or a birthday party) and set everything up for them. Along the lines of a personal assistant, but without all the bitch work.
• Green/Eco Consulting – Into the idea of going green? Read up on it because it is the latest and greatest thing happening. Once you have a solid foundation from books, magazines, industry blogs, and other resources, break out on your own and create your own website promoting green and eco-friendly practicies. As your site grows in popularity, so will your exposure and ability to grow your business into a consulting service. Start working with companies and families providing tips and tricks to help them be more green. Provide home inspections and office inspections to see how green your clients are and what else they can do. The kicker here is to also offer the service of whatever you are promoting they do. So as an example, if you inspect someones house and can tell that their lightbulbs should be replaced with CFL bulbs or their windows could be replaced with more energy efficient ones, offer this service to them. This is where real money can come in because you could then outsource the work to a

What do you think? Have a dorm room business idea that you’d like to share? Leave a comment below!

In part 1, I gave a quick background on my latest affiliate marketing efforts, suggested you sign up with Market Leverage and Commission Junction, and also talked about deciding on the type of offers you want to promote. Now that you’ve got the offer you want to promote, perhaps something in the dating arena, it’s time to move forward with setting up campaigns within the different advertising arenas, analyzing your stats, and testing keywords.

I’m just going to use the topic of dating offers as an example, but the tips I’ll give obviously apply to any niche or offer you pick.

Getting traffic to your offer

You can’t make money without traffic. So, getting people to see your ad, click on your links, submit their info, or even purchase something is the most important part of all of this. Deciding on where you want to get that traffic from is the tough part. There are so many options – Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Facebook, Twitter, and many more. For this example, we’ll stick with AdWords and AdCenter since they are pretty similar.  Sign up for both of them as you’ll want to diversify and test which platform works better for you. Most affiliate marketers seem to believe that AdCenter converts better, but it takes longer for a campaign to ramp up and receive traffic, where with AdWords you may see impressions and clicks more quickly, but not necessarily any conversions. Test them both and keep working with them.

Within each of the sites, you’ll be able to set up different campaigns. I like to to test different keywords, so if we are dealing with a Dating offer, then I may set up the overall campaign with the offer name. Then within the campaign you can set up your different ad groups. These are the ads that will be displayed and the keywords that they would show for. I set up different ad groups based on different groups of keywords. To get off the dating example for a second, a better one to understand this might be if you were promoting an affiliate link for a discount printer ink website. You could have Ad Groups for each different printer type or manufacturer (Epson, HP, etc) and then have all your keywords relating to that manufacturer or group. This way you can see which keywords are performing the best within different ad groups. I think that explanation makes sense, if not leave a comment and I’ll try to help explain some more!

Once you’ve got your Ads and ad groups set up, set your budget for spending and let it go.

Finding Keywords

Doing keyword research is probably the most time consuming part of this process. There are so many tools out there and different websites you can use. Ian Fernando just posted a video about the Google Wonder Wheel which is an excellent tool to use and gain ideas from. Within Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter there are also keyword research tools which are pretty helpful in giving you ideas. You can just put in your main keyword and it will spit out tons of related terms and even show you the search volume for them. I’ll post more in the future about keyword research as I get more into it. Right now, I don’t really have any set method or system that I use besides the research tools within AdWords and AdCenter.

Testing, Testing, Testing

The biggest part to making this venture successful besides effective keyword research is continually testing every aspect of your ad and campaign. You always want to be changing your keywords (removing some and adding others) to see what works, changing the text or copy of your ad, and also your ad headlines. Another tip is to make as many ads as you can! There’s nothing stopping you from creating hundreds of different ads and seeing what performs the best – this is what some of the big guys do…all day. Just changing a word or two can make a big difference.

Along with testing, you want to keep checking your stats to see what keywords bringing impressions, and more importantly, are getting clicked. Also, be ready to drop some money to see some rewards. I’ve probably spent about $200 to make the $60 that I did. So there is definitely a big learning curve involved, but you could stumble on a great niche or ad that converts great and makes all that money back for you right away!

Twitter is all the rage – you know that. Now, here’s a great way to make money from twitter. I’m sure you guys have read about or seen the different eBooks and courses about Twitter Marketing and making money from twitter, so you can add this one to that pile but making money from Twitter just became easier than those others.

Izea, the company behind PayPerPost and Social Spark, have launched Sponsored Tweets – another Ted Murphy idea!

SponsoredTweets is similar to the other services Izea has in which you sign up as a “tweeter” and give SponsoredTweets access to your Twitter account through the API. Then as offers come in through their service that meet your criteria, you get notified by either a DM on Twitter or email and you can accept or deny them. Finally, you post the tweet to your account you get paid.

There are two ways to make money from Twitter when using Sponsored Tweets.

• Charge Per Tweet – this is the amount that you want to earn for each tweet you send out. As an example, when I signed up for the service, my “CPT” was recommended at $3.33. You can obviously change this yourself or just let it roll. The starting rate is based on your Twitter account – number of followers, etc. Some people are reporting great pay outs from sponsors such as Shoemoney who reported $250 for posting a tweet about K-Mart.
• Charge Per Click – this is the minimum you want to be paid when you being paid per click. Again, when I signed up, this was automatically set at $0.13 for each click. I’m going to leave it here to see how it goes.

Two types of offers

When you sign up, you have a choice to make about the types of offers you get – you either have the ability to edit or write the tweet/ad that you post to your account or you just have to post what the advertiser provides. But, the best part is that you can select to have either type of tweets, so you’re making your chances better.

Minimum payout is $50.00, which seems pretty high when similar services offer a payout of $20.00.

Anyway, I’ve signed up for the service and will report back how it goes. I suggest checking it out if you are into Twitter and social media, as well as if you have a pretty good following because you can quickly make some decent money from Twitter with little effort!

Click the bird to make it happen!

**This is part one in a two part series about getting started with affiliate marking**

As you all know, I’m always looking for ways to make more money and I know you are too – that’s why you are reading this! So anyway, I’ve been playing around with affiliate marketing for a while now but have not had much success. I’ve been able to get a sale here or a sale there but usually for just a few bucks. So last week I decided I wanted to give it a harder shot and started doing some reading on Ian Fernando’s site, Justin Dupree’s site, Zac Johnson’s site, and many others. I’ve basically been looking for any tips, guides, or recommendations to get me started into the crazy world of affiliate marketing and PPC (pay-per-click) marketing. Well, after launching a couple campaigns recently, I had some luck last week!

I made $60.

Yes, you read that right, $60. Now, its not exactly anything to jump and scream about when guys like Jonathan Volk are earning thousands of dollars a day or even people making a few hundred a week. However, it is fun to see the small amount of work that I put into it start to pay off somehow. So, I wanted to go through a few things that I did, the process I went through, and hopefully it will give you some ideas and tips on starting up some of your own campaigns to earn that extra money.

First, you’re going to need to be apart of an affiliate network like Market Leverage. The folks at Market Leverage are great and I highly recommend going with them as they have a good variety of offers in a number of industries/niches. So, start out by signing up with them and then get familiar with the dashboard and looking through the offers. Another great option is Commission Junction which is a very popular network with tons of online stores, sites, and programs.

Next, you’ll need to decide what kind of offers you want to run. Now, you have a bunch of choices. If you have a large email list built up, you may want to run email specific offers or if you know where you can get a large amount of traffic from, email or zip code submit offers may convert better for you. But if you don’t have an email list of thousands of people or large amounts of traffic you could direct to a landing page, there is always the option for advertising your campaign through Facebook, MSN AdCenter and Google AdWords.  These are the three traffic sources I have been using lately, but there are tons of others – pretty much any search engine has an advertising networking you can join.  If you want to just push out some affiliate links and test a bunch of different offers, offers that allow for search traffic will be what you want to go with.

Once you’ve decided on the type of offer you want to run, you have to decide on the actual offers to promote. This is where it gets tricky. Obviously a network is going to have a lot of offers you could run including niches like weight loss, mobile/ring tones, home business ops, dating, and more – so narrowing down what you want to promote is important. However, you easily could just start picking random offers and trying them out. It just depends on what you want to do!

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In part two of this short series on affiliate marketing, I’ll write more about actually setting up ads with AdWords or AdCenter and testing different things to see what works. Look for that coming shortly.