Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

(there is a little intentional changing of small facts below to protect details of various businesses mentioned to protect those companies including my own)

Over the past two weeks facebook has made some changes to the way it is handling affiliate marketers. This is another wave in a series of changes over the past year where facebook has altered what ads are acceptable to be run on facebook.

I have been getting a steady stream of e-mails and phone calls from some of the biggest players in the industry asking me what is going on.

None of what I am saying is coming from inside of facebook, but instead what I have seen happening to my own campaigns, and from the campaigns of other big shot affiliate marketers.

The phone call or e-mail usually goes like this.

Super Affiliate: “Hey, How’s it going?”

Me: “Good! How are you?”

Super Affiliate: “So,….ah…have you noticed anything different about facebook ads lately?”

Me: “Yeh, I had some of my campaigns turned off”

Super Affiliate: (Now relieved that they were not the only one, now speaking in a stronger voice),

“Yeh! We were spending $xxxxx dollars a day on (dating/games/or education offers) and our ads just got turned off and retroactively disapproved.”

This has not been an uncommon conversation over the past few weeks.

facebook has been improving the quality of its ads over the past year. Many affiliate marketers I know, will run anything they can make money off of that doesn’t put them in jail.  (an exaggeration, but not by much). facebook on the other hand is trying to protect its users from illegal and unethical behavior of it’s advertisers.

In my opinion, and only in my opinion, I think that affiliate marketers have as a group simply pushed the edge too far, and facebook is being a bit “cautious” or maybe “suspicious”, or “protective” against any affiliate offers that are being run.

Some people I know, who I believe have been spending way over the cost of a new Porsche EACH DAY on facebook ads, have had ads removed that appear to be both legal and ethical in my opinion.

This is a strong move by facebook, as this is real cash in a very significant volume that facebook is saying no to.

Here is a personal example of an ad I tried to run in another country to test what is going on.

I actually tried to run a few different versions of the ad to be as compliant with the policies as possible.

The original ad was not in English, but below is the Google Translation into English.

The Title of the Ad was:

Online Dating

The image in the Ad was:

The body of the ad said:

Online dating site (Dating Name Brand). Please complete form
online to participate.

If you click on the ad, it takes you to a dating site called “SITENAME”, which is a very generic site, similar to Match.com or Eharmony, but in another country. The site is free, and I am guessing makes it’s money off of advertising, or plans on making its money that way.

The ad was submitted to be shown to Males, who were single, between the ages of 21 and 60 in that country. It is interesting to note that in the new dating guidelines for facebook it states that you should also select in the demographics of the user, whether they are interested in men or women. At the same time, for some countries there is no option to choose whether the user is interested in men or women.

The ad was rejected with the following explanation:

Ad Disapproval Reason(s):

* The content of this ad does not adequately reflect the product/service offered. Ads may not be false, misleading, fraudulent or deceptive.  Per section 4, ads must not make unsubstantiated claims, including but not limited to prices, discounts or product availability; use of current events in the ad text or image that create false association to be used for irrelevant commercial agenda; use of false qualifications to create a sense of relevancy; as well as the implication of dynamic ad content.  Any statement made within an ad must be accurate and relevant to all users.

Additionally, ads must disclose what action or set of actions is required to qualify or receive the product/service.  Offers requiring the submission of Personally Identifiable Information must disclose on the landing page how such information will be used and distributed.  This disclosure must be clearly and prominently displayed.

When I read the reason above, it does not seem to match up with ad I ran. I can’t quite figure it out.

Now on the other hand, the ads I have running for brick and mortar businesses are running just fine with no hangups.

My feel I am getting from this is simply that facebook is being extremely careful of affiliate offers, extremely careful.

My final analysis is that an affiliate offer is no worse or better than any other offer. A brick and mortar advertiser, or a large fortune 500 company, can also be deceptive, or criminal in their advertising. At the moment the affiliate marketers have simply pushed a little too far, and are getting pushed back. This creates a tremendous opportunity for brick and mortar businesses to be advertising on facebook because they are not competing with the overly profitable illegal affiliate offers. Since facebook is a bid based system, the price is simply going to be a bit less now than it would have otherwise.

Many affiliate marketers have been scrambling to find other sources of traffic, and I am sure that is big talk at Ad Tech this week.

Jason Akatif, founder of Ads 4 Dough stated that he keeps a spreadsheet with hundreds of traffic sources. It sounds like affiliate marketers will need to do the same, at least for a while. I am starting up a spreadsheet to do the same.

The cat may have just crept out of the bag, and is chasing a bunny.

When I have more info, I will let you know.

All I can say is yes, the Epic/Azgoogle Playboy party  was the best party I have ever been to and one of the absolute best nights of my life.

Each one of us who went was given one of these to take with us

Time: 3:30 a.m.

Location: The hardest party to get into at Affiliate Summit,  The Epic Ads Party @ Hugh Hefner Suite at Palms Hotel

Who: dk and un-named Playboy Playmate

The winner for dinner, is Daniel Boulud, on Saturday January 16th at 6:00 P.M.

(News Flash – Fight Club with Robert Drysdale 6X World Champion in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu added on Satuday at 3:00, see end of this post!)

Daniel Boulud has amazing food. It is comfortable as hell. You can just order drinks, or have a full dinner in the lounge very comfortably. Dress is business casual, probably save your Shoemoney t-shirt for the poker tournament. Please RSVP here

When we ate there for my wife’s dinner the food was out of the world, but I did not try their burger. Their Burger is $30, and is supposed to be out of this world, with Foi Gras on it, truffles, and is supposed to be to die for. I am definitely getting that! The salads and other food there are out of this world as well. This is the only place in Vegas I know of with a Michelin Star. These are from the French food rating company, and to earn even a singe star takes gourmet restaurants decades to accomplish.

Everyone in the Affiliate Marketing and Internet Entrepreneurial world is invited!

This is where all the cool kids will be on Satuday night before the poker tournament!

Please RSVP here

Fight Club! On Saturday, before dinner at 3:00, we are throwing a Fight Club at Shoemoney and my friend, Robert Drysdales gym. Robert Drysdale just texted me and gave me the thumbs up. We got lucky because he was  going to be out of town, and just changed his plans. It is $75 per person, which is a hell of a lot less than his usual fee to train someone. Sign up through RSVP link above. All are invited, space is limited.

I asked Tovio to write this up for us. It is a guest post on hotel options for ASW.
Also, to prepare for Vegas, please watch this video on how to give a lap dance.
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Now that I’ve recovered from PubCon, I’m looking forward to Affiliate Summit West, which takes place in Las Vegas January 16-19. Whenever I find out about a conference in Vegas the first thing I try to figure out is which hotel I’m going to stay at. ASW takes place at Rio, so I started my search based on that location for 4 nights stay starting January 16th. Unfortunately Rio is already sold out for Saturday, so that won’t be an option. Here are some options to consider:

Gold Coast and the Palms are close enough to the conference to walk. Gold Coast is the closest hotel and has some great rates – from $216 for the four nights, but it’s a pretty basic hotel and casino and is off the strip. Unless you have a really tight budget I wouldn’t recommend it. The Palms, which is across the street from the Gold Coast and Rio, is oriented toward a younger, hip party crowd and I found rates starting at $596 for the four nights.

If you want to stay at a really nice Strip hotel with short taxi rides (and who doesn’t), try Caesars Palace or Bellagio. These are both high-end hotels that will be a bit pricier for the four days – Bellagio starts at $706 and Caesars from $685. For more budget-friendly Strip options, I would go with Monte Carlo ($417), Luxor ($360), or Excalibur ($289). These are all comfortable hotels that are really good values.

The place I have decided to stay is ARIA. This high-end hotel’s grand opening will be on December 16th and it will feature not only luxury, but great technology in the rooms. I can’t wait to stay there. They have a “Winter Special” with rates from $786 for the four days, and offers a $75 resort credit. Vegas offers some great deals on hotels and you’re sure to have fun no matter where you stay.

Toivo Lainevool – VegasHotelSpecial.com

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Tovio is not sponsoring Purpose Inc for Affiliate Summit, this is simply a post of info. None of these hotels gave me a dam cent for this either!

First off, you guys are fricken rock stars with the donations for the poker tournament.

Over the past 48 hours I was sent over $46,000 worth of prizes for the Affiliate Summit West / Purpose Inc. poker tournament.

No kidding, $46k. LOL

I know I owe you a lot of photos, and a lot of video, from thinktank, and Pubcon. I have literally about 1000 unpublished photos, and some funny as video of me fighting Robert Drysdale (6X world Jiu Jitsu Champion), and making a girl disapear, cut in half, levitate a table etc.

I blew up the server, and overloaded it with big files. We are currently figuring out the best hosting company to use. We are currently looking at IP House, who Shoemoney uses, and loves, and will make a decision this week.

Then I expect a week or so to get it all grooved in, and then expect massive numbers of photos of your favorite events showing up.

Danny D’Michelle and Neil Greer have kicked in some seed money for me to get my Purpose Inc. thing on in Vegas during ASW10, but I will need some more cash sponsors if you guys want me to pull something truly amazing off. Otherwise Danny, Neil and myself will just sip Louis XII at Lavo watching the world go by!

I am still getting the ASW thing down like I get Pubcon, but last year was off the hook.

Full disclosure? Everyone is giving me (or at least the poker tournament for the National Breast Cancer Foundation) everything!

So stay tuned for stunning photos, with hot chicks, vegas, sports, surf, and video of me making a jack ass out of myself. I also have an idea I am working on where I will need many of your help, so stay tuned for that too!

If you want to be a voulunteer and help out with the poker tournament, I am going to need people to hand stuff out, keep things organized etc. You will need to help for about 4 hours or so, and the only pay you will get is me yelling at you to do better work. Just e-mail me if you want to help.

And for god sakes play, the prizes are unbelievable. You may win something you can’t use, and can ebay it to someone who can.

A little Vegas? Bring it on!

So many people have been doing so many nice things for me lately that it seems all I have time to blog about are thankyou’s!

If you read this and contact me immediately, you may still be able to get in on the donations.

I sent out an e-mail yesterday to my core group and a bunch of people kicked in bigtime.

Here is the deal, Missy Ward was talking to Shoemoney about a fund raiser for the National Breast Cancer Foundation during Affiliate Summit West. Jeremy told Missy about my legendary poker tournaments.

Missy contacted me and I have been her assistant on this the last month getting it set up. I think she is just using me as eye candy!

None of this is technically official, but I am o.k. talking about it now to try to squeeze a few more prizes out of you! LOL

We just found out that if we want to have prizes, we basically need to give the list of prizes to the RIO, like tonight! but I bet I can sneak a few more in if we are fast!

ALL of the money in the buy in is going to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, except for the cut the Rio is taking to run the tourney. By the way the awesome guy we have been working with, Jack Eifel, who runs the poker room at the Rio, also runs the World Series of Poker! A seriously cool contact!

It is my job to drum up some bad ass prizes for the winners, to make the pot sweet.

The following is the list of prizes people kicked in with zero notice!

By the way, I am also taking sponsors for my usual fun stuff in Vegas! Contact me if you want in. I am working on something that will as usual be legendary! We already got a handful of those in support of fun for all of us who have stepped up (Thank you Danny and Neil!)

Here is the list of prizes we have so far for the poker tournament. If you want to be on this list, e-mail me immediately!!! at dk (at) purposeinc.com

I want a clear description for each of these. If I have not explained it, please fire me an explanation, and a link to the best page!

SEO Moz – PRO Annual membership $799

Shop7.com gave us $100 gift certificate!

Another $100 gift certificate for handmade gifts!

Loxly gallery kicks in a $200 gift certificate for posters of lovely art.

A $200 gift certificate for butterfly art!

Neil Patel is kicking in a Crazy Egg subscription for stunning visual analytics.

Neil is also kicking in an account for Kissmetrics analytics which will be released soon and we are all excited to see!

Dan Martell’s social media company , flow town, which takes your e-mail list, and lets you find out all kind of demographic information about them, as well as where they play in the social media space. Dan is kicking in $1300 worth of their service.

This is one of my favorites, Aaron Chronister, The Mad Hat, creator of the bacon explosion, is kicking in 2 full bacon explosions, packed in a cooler with dry ice and mailed to you. Personally my handfull of bacon explosion, on the way out to go surfing was my highlight moment of thinktank as I chomped!

Mr Web Guru, Robert Wright, a brilliant SEO, is donating 1 hour of SEO consulting services which is normally $600.

One of my absolute favorite guys in our industry, Jeremy Hermanns is giving an Executive Membership to his SEO intelligence, which he charges $469. I have used this and it really picks your site apart SEO wise, and gives great insight!

Neil Greer of Impact Engine is throwing in THREE annual subscriptions to his Impact Engine Platform. His charge for this is normally $3600 each per year! The Impact Engine banner advertising platform combines a simple, yet powerful display ad builder and ad analytics tool, a suite of self service display ad retailing capabilities and an ad syndication network for creative professionals. Together, these deliver a massive catalyst to the online display advertising marketplace. We call it, Display Advertising Optimized.

Also, for those who understand and need it, Impact Engine is kicking in 5,000,000 3rd Party Rich Media ad impression run for any rich media display ad campaign (the advertiser has to already have bought the ad impressions and he will serve the display media).

Danny DeMichele  at Evisibillity is willing to give us $1000 of their SEO, consulting, or social media work! Danny is a real genius, and a damn fine surfer!

Liz over at Giganews is throwing down a 1 year Diamond Service Subscription for their Usenet Newsgroup services!

Andrew Pincock of Lotus Jump SEO software is giving a 1 year Pro account subscription worth $588, to one of the winners!

Brian La France, a Purpose Inc fan and supporter from way, way back in the early days, is going to roll up his sleeves and get in their one on one with you and doing 2 hours of SEO consulting. This would normally be $1,000. Brian is a guy who I would trust with a million dollars in cash, just a smart, fine, hard working SEO.

Ariel Ozick is willing to spend 2 hours with one of the winners doing e-commerce link building consulting.

Another one of my long time supporters, who literally puts their money where our mouths are, Chipotle, is giving us 100 certificates, each one of them good for a burrito which can feed a small family!

The guys at Custom Poker Tables have also stepped up again with a very cool poker table for the winner! More to come about this later!

Gyuatae Park, is giving out 5 one-month subscriptions to my Internet marketing case study program, Winners Circle.

Matt McGowan who runs the popular Search Engine Strategies conference just agreed to two passes for any SES event in 2010, which are worth over $1,000 each!

Plus there are a few more HUGE prizes we will add on in a bit!

Again thanks to Danny D’Michelle and Neil Greer who both have kicked in to get the Purpose Inc moving party moving!

I am going to work on some fun ideas that will need some more funding. I promise if you want to kick on these events, they will be legendary

Also thanks to Missy for throwing a kick ass event ASW, and also for letting me into her lovely world (even though I know I am just being asked to be around because I am eye candy!)

If you want to be on the above list ping me immediately with what you want to donate for the poker tournament, or if you want to kick in some cash for the dk events at ASW, let me know what you want to do! (dk (@) purposeinc.com

It is 4 a.m., the party is finally over, I am exausted, but as good journalist I need to keep the public updated with what’s important right?

Azoogle, Alex Z. and Michael Sprouse pulled out all the stops for what was THE BEST PARTY I HAVE EVER BEEN TO.

On the bus ride home, I said to my wife, after this what is left? Seriously it was unbelievable. There will be a lot more shots that will show up my blog coming up, but a lot of them will never see the light of day.

It was cool, Michael Sprouse used to be high up in the playboy corporation doing marketing for them. When the girls saw him, they were genuinely happy to see him. It made me proud!

If you can imagine just how wild a party could get, the absolute wildest, and turned back the volume just a quarter of a click, that is what I just experienced.

I stayed out of trouble and played Donky Kong. Free video games, are you kidding me?

All the while the whole event was actually done tastefully, and with a lot of grace and beauty. The food in fact was off the hook, and a huge surprise.

My wife and I got to hang out with Hugh Hefners brother Keith. I noticed something amazing. He constantly complimented all of the girls, and was warm and friendly to everyone he met. Very, very nice guy. Feel free to invite us over for old movies whenever you want!

Come back soon to see more of the pics, once I have time to edit through them.

I went out on one of these stands to get my picture taken standing over the pool, and a few of the Azoogle staff were kind enough to give me a little push into joining their pool party.

I will let these 11 pictures tell the story, and you can fill in what is not being shown with your own imagination.

Ha Ha! I honestly can’t believe I am saying that. I grew up in the 70’s reading playboy as a kid. In fact as soon as I could read, I was reading it! Before Maxim, and all these other mags, and even before sports illustrated’s swim suit edition, there was Playboy. I even read it for the articles, and as a kid just adored the cartoons!

It was marketing genius.

I think of myself as being fairly enlightened, and yet I am still a sucker for a pretty girl. Pretty much still just stops me in my tracks. You want to brand yourself? What if you could create a brand that would forever be associated with georgeous, yet classy girls? That is what Playboy did.

I have begun to have fun with affiliate marketing lately, thanks to my good friends running these cool companies. It is the funnest of all of the internet worlds I have dropped into so far. It is a fun world because they are not afraid to be exactly who they are, a bunch of guys purely interested in making money and having fun. O.K., so some of them exagerate how much money they make in affiliate marketing, but I do know there are some big bucks rolling around in this area, and plenty of guys making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in profit, who never did a day of college.

I’ve learned you can lose a nice bucket of money really quickly in affiliate marketing also. It is not for the weak of stomach, that is for sure.

But the real deal companies are rolling through hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Azoogle is unquestionably a huge mega force in this area.

So tomorrow I get to go feed the bunnies!

This should be absolutely fantastic, hilarious, and a photo opportunity like no other!

The perks that go along with being involved in the internet business world just rock!

Michael Sprouse (Azoogle Marketing Director) rocks for putting this together.

By the way, in addition to the trip to the Mansion, Michael is putting us all up at the W hotel with pool parties, brunches and the whole works.

It is probably worth running some Azzogle ads if you are not already, just for the parties

And I will See You at the Mansion!