Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

Health converter stepped up today to become a sponsor for the Purpose Inc. Poker Tourney during Affiliate Summit.

Thank you so much Health Converter!

They also are having a killer party

Health converter is going to have a pimp ass party during
Affiliate Summit. Here is the Health Converter Party  invite for Purpose Inc fans.

Tonight at 8:00 P.M. the last 20 seats go on sale for the Texas Holdem tournament.

Here is the deal.

The first day of play is Saturday, starting at 8:00 p.m.
The last 10 players alive on Saturday, will be back,
Sunday around 11:00 p.m. for the championship finals.

The second day of play is Sunday, starting at 8:00 p.m.
If you make the final 10 players, you go on to the finals,
Sunday at around 11:00 p.m.

$100 buy in.

Yes you can sign up for both nights, but if you are in the final 10
on Saturday, you don’t get to play on Sunday, and lose your money.

I will send out an email tonight around 8:00 pacific time when
we open registration.

Game will be at Mirage hotel.

We also still have room for another sponsor if you let me know asap.

If you want to see more silliness and details about the tourney, go here.

Much Love,
dk

Just to keep you all in the loop.

Both Saturday and Sunday of Purpose Inc. Poker Tournament during Affiliate Summit is sold out.

We have gotten some nice help from NeverBlue affiliate company. By the way, with my new project I have been looking at NeverBlue’s site and running some offers. One thing I dig that I have not seen on any other sites is a little blue thermometer thing that lets you know how much action an offer is getting. It looks like a combo between total amount of the offer being sold, but also how much per affiliate. It is nice to have a summary visual to help decide which offer to go after.

The Mirage has a big tournament playing before our tournament, that got scheduled before we did. As a result we have been limited on tables. As we get closer to the night, I am going to see if I can get them to open up another table of 10 for each night. No promises yet.

For those of you playing one night, who are interested in playing the second night, here are the rules.

If you play the first night and make it to the final 10 that night, then you move on to the finals on the second night. If you are one of those moving onto the championship from the top 10 of the first day, then you can not play the second day. So there is a bit of a risk if you sign up for both nights and do well the first night, you lose the entry fee for the second day.

Also, if you no show, you also lose your entry fee. It will just remain in the pot.

Also, every cent you paid to enter either will go to:
1. Pay the paypal fees
2. Pay the eventbrite fees
3. Go to cover the Mirage for their small take.
4. Most of it goes into the pot.

All of the other costs (Including In and Out Go Tweet Find!) were picked up by our sponsors, Never Blue, WhyPark and Tweet Find, and me

We have some amazing people playing.

Some of the biggest shots in the affiliate industry will be playing, super affiliates, owners of the networks, and playahs.

Everyone is invited to come and watch.

For the night you play, you get free drinks all night in the Mirage Poker room, even if you get knocked out.

Tournament is going to rock. It will be an elite intimate tournament at the Mirage.
We have man of my favorite people in the industry playing, some real smart, and real successful mofos.
Sorry, I have not been blogging much lately. I have been working on a secret project set to change an entire industry.
I will let you guys know about it after it is released into the wild. It literally is taking every bit of skill I have
to pull this off, and I am stoked with the results so far.

Don’t even ask me about what it is, because I have not been discussing it with ANYBODY!

Love you guys tons, and everyone of you in some way has contributed to my being able to work on this.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Dad, I really miss you today

O.K. here is the deal. 11 hours into selling tickets for the event it sold out.

I know a LOT of people want to play. After all, something like 2000 affiliate marketers are going to vegas and what do people like to do more than get together in a pack, with free drinks, and a chance play some h0ldem.

Note for those registered, before you read the next line:

THOSE ALREADY SIGNED UP, WHO SIGNED UP FOR SUNDAY WILL PLAY ON SUNDAY, AND THEN KEEP PLAYING ON SUNDAY UNTIL THE TOURNAMENT IS OVER FOR THEM (DETAILS BELOW)

I have talked to the Mirage, and most likely we are going to be selling  more seats for Saturday, January 8th, with the game starting at 8:00 p.m.

If we do this, the top 10 people from Saturday will move forward to play the top 10 people of Sundays game.

These two top ten groups, 20 people in all, will play each other on Sunday, until only one player is standing.

The guys who allready signed up to play on Sunday, will get to play longer and have a bigger pot.

The guys sign up for Saturday “if we do it” will play on Saturday, and if they are in the top 10, will move on to play on Sunday.

No guarantees, but watch your e-mail for announcements.

Either way, should be tons of fun!

The Purpose Inc Affiliate Marketer Poker Tournament, party at ASW11 is going like a freight train now.

There is plenty of buzz, and a good size mailing list of those wanting to play.

Based on my experience watching interest in events, mailing lists grow, and predicting numbers, I think this thing will sell out somewhere between 5 minutes after we open to maybe a few hours later.

Here are some more details about the poker tournament.

Place: Mirage Hotel Poker Room

Date: Sunday, January 9th, the Sunday of Affiliate Summit.

Starting Time: 8:00 P.M. Sharp

Checkin Time: 7:00 P.M.

Registration Opens: Thursday December 9th (tonight) 8:00 P.M. Pacific Time

(Those that have opted in at purposeincpoker will get a 10 minute head start on registering, and based on what I see, it could possibly actually sell out during that 10 minute pre-window)

Plus the newest video with the girls in the short santa suits is so cute that you don’t want to miss it.

It is safe for work, but just barely.

Game (Mirage has final say, but I believe the below is correct):

Buy in is $100

Tournament is No Limit Texas Hold’em,

Players Start with 4,000 in tournament chips.

Unlimited Rebuys are available during the first hour any time a player has 4,000 or less in chips. Rebuys are $40 for 2,000 in tournament chips.

One add-on is available at the end of the first hour, regardless of chip count. The add-on is $40 for 4,000 in tournament chips.

Who Can Play: You must be registered for Affiliate Summit, any pass is o.k. or be someone who is part of the Affiliate Marketing Community. Professional Poker Players are not welcome, unless you are registered for Affiliate Summit. If you have a wife, husband, friend etc. who is not a registered attendee, then send me an e-mail before registering at dk (at) purposeinc.com and tell me about who they are, and their poker experience.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Never Blue who continually kicks butt and supports great events for Affiliate Marketers like our thinktank, and this poker tournament.

WhyPark, who is also kicking in big time and is very, very appreciated for their help!

I am working with a company and at the moment am helping them to monetize some of their visitors from China and India. My initial instinct on this was, waste of traffic, there is no money in this.

Then I was at the Range Rover repair shop getting my wife’s car fixed, and I remembered that Rage Rover was now owned by a company in India. I also know my country is in debt to China to a point where they could call it a day for us at any time.

There are a lot of poor people in China and in India. With the shift of the worlds assets during the past 2 years, there are also a lot of poor Americans. It is a new world order, and to consider all Chinese and Indians and poor is a bad, bad mistake.

In fact two months ago I was contacted by a very nice guy in Katmandu, at the base of the Himalayas, Dali Lama country. My jaw dropped to my knees when I told him my hourly rate for consulting for the type of work he neeeded was $250 per hour, and he paid without hesitating.

Affiliate marketing in this part of the world is just getting started, but last time I was in Vegas it was the Chinese that were paying the big money gambling and eating at Wing Lei at the Wynn. Just look inside any of the high limit rooms in Vegas, and see who’s playing.

With clicks on Facebook in the U.S. costing around a buck each, and traffic from China getting around $0.001 per click, do you think there might be a market imbalance?

If you are in the game monetizing Chinese or Indian traffic, let me know, maybe we can work together. Maybe it is time for me to get to work on my Mandarin.

Wait! This isn't Aaron from Azoogle!

Well, I got invited back to the Playboy Party again this year thrown by Epic Direct Advertising (formerly Azoogle). It is almost embarrassing just how much fun it is.

In an industry made up of cowboys and pirates, each year they show themselves to evolve into an ever more sophisticated company, with solid statistics and credibility in every direction, while never losing their soul. Hence the party at the Playboy Mansion!

If you have been following my training about how to network, you will understand my passion on the subject of being connected with the best and the brightest. This party is like shooting fish in a barrel, or as I refer to it, a Diamond mine. It is a multi day party, with a pool party, cocktail parties, brunch, and the main event at Heffs House.

At most internet get togethers, it takes a few minutes to determine if someone is a real player or not. At this event, they either are a major player online, or they work for Epic, and most of the Epic employees are major players themselves.

The environment is so much fun, that everyone who is part of this “in” group, is automatically your friend. Introductions come easily, and smoothly.

Mike Sprouse pulled off the event in great style.

It got totally wild, and that is just on the sidewalk leaving the hotel on the way to the party!

That is my wife in the middle.

The food was amazing, the entertainment gorgeous, the food was as good as any great restaurant.

It was just straight up fun!

Michael Sprouse was showing off his new fiance Kate, by now his wife! When I first met her, I honestly thought she was a playmate. She was just sweet as pie, kind, warm, and of course drop dead gorgeous.

How cool do I feel, hanging out and talking to a bunny, which I talked to last year, exchanging contact info and getting to be friends. I mean, come on, how fricken cool does that make me feel!

One of the greatest things about this event is that it was the second year. People I met last year, got to be better friends this year, and those that were good friends became great ones.

The next pic is of me and tennis star Michael Sprouse, who also used to be in charge of online marketing for Playboy, and not is in charge of marketing at Epic Direct Advertising, but the name doesn’t really capture all he does at the company.

This is Scott, bunny hunting.

Levi Matkins dazzled everyone with his dance moves. Watch the three photo sequence below.

This next one really shows off his moves!

Whooooo!!!

This was crazy, they brought in a dozen performers, doing dance, gymnastics, and just going wild.

I got to hang out with Art Shaw, the new CEO of Epic Direct. Art immediately struck me as being polished, brilliant, and the perfect guy to lead this powerhouse of a company.

I can’t even tell you how many hot girls there were. Just everywhere.

You know the pole dancer is good, when the painted naked girls stop to watch!

I am not even kidding about these two. Jenny, the blonde and her buddy are visiting from the Czech Republic, and were on a one month road trip through the U.S. This picture just happened to capture them where all of our lives intersected. I just loved how much fun they were having with all the internet geeks. What an amazing time in their lives as well. I remember the blonds name was Jenny. America thanks you for visiting Jenny!

Thanks to every single person who was part of this party, again just amazing!

(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.