IMMania.com

I truly don’t mean for IMMania.com to become a mirror of CNBC, but being an affiliate marketer, it’s in my best interests to follow consumer trends. And the latest reports from the retailing front lines are not at all encouraging. Unrelenting pressures from the cost of energy as well as a declining job market have left many American consumers in a foul mood. When this happens, government and business can no longer rely on the stalwart consumer to prop up a sick economy with his wallet.

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In addition to the affiliate marketing stuff I do with eBay (ePN) I’m also pretty involved in two other niches that I’ve promoted with both SEO methods and PPC. For the latter two niches it has been a lesson in shifting economic trends as well as what areas seems to resist economic downturns.

I won’t discuss how to do market research since this is a complex topic that gets discussed to death everywhere. It’s certainly a very important topic and it’s one of the first things newbies get initiated into when first venturing online.

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Today, July 8, 2008, is the big day when “Google Nemesis” “drops“. I like that term: “drops“. The first I heard it used was by Chris “Credit Card Killer” McNeeny. Oops, sorry! That should be Chris “Day Job Killer“. Just a little morbid humor from the wonderful world of IM and interestingly enough, “Google Nemesis” is from none other than Chris McNeeny.

As product launches go, this one seems to be relatively subdued compared to Chris’ previous ones such as “Day Job Killer“. Overall, I’ve noticed that a lot of the hype surrounding big launches has subsided. Hopefully, this is a trend that’s here to stay, but one thing that Chris hasn’t let up on is the power of his earnings’ persuasion.

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I’ve been using the BayRSS plugin from Azlan Kasim for several months now, both here on IMMania.com as well as on several niche affiliate blogs. This is a fantastic WP plugin and has worked for me without a hitch. My approach to using the eBay affiliate program, now called ePN since the migration in-house by eBay, is to rapidly blast-test products from eBay using Adwords and then breakout the winners into WP blogs to leverage longer term free traffic.

Gotta love that free traffic!

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Effective April 1, 2008, eBay opened the doors to their new in-house affiliate program. Previously, the eBay affiliate program had been managed by Commission Junction (CJ) with all link tracking performed by eBay. That’s what all those canine sounding affiliate links were about:

“rover”

A transition period has been in effect during the entire month of April, where eBay affiliate links for both CJ and ePN would be active. As an added incentive for early migration to ePN, eBay is offering an extra 5% on commissions generated during April.

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