Easiest Money I Ever Made...

I've been an avid studier of online marketing for a few years now. I've spent thousands of dollars on courses, books and seminars to learn from the best.

There are a few marketers that I have learned a lot from, one of them being Ann Sieg.

It isn't so much what she taught me... but what I saw her doing. Ann Sieg is one of the pioneers when it comes to internet-network marketing. The last time I talked to Ann she said that network marketing will never be the same now that the internet is in the picture.

I couldn't agree more.

The Zfreedom marketing system is the end result of putting together everything I know about internet marketing with network marketing. It is a tool that gives Zrii distributors a HUGE advantage over just relying on "traditional" recruiting.

Anyway, back to Ann Sieg.

Ann sent me an email a couple months ago that I thought is very relevant for those using the Zfreedom system. I had a gentleman ask me on the last conference call to write a post about how to track his advertisements.

I believe tracking your advertisements is absolutely critical when marketing your business but so few people do it. Instead of me explaining why it is so vital, I thought I would simply share with you the email I received from Ann.

"You probably already know that having a good
conversion rate is your number one concern when
it comes to making money online with your
business.

There is nothing that has a more direct impact on
your bank account than your website's ability to
convert visitors into leads, customers and
distributors.

There's also nothing else that has more of an
influence on WHERE you can advertise...

How much you can afford to PAY for your
advertising...

And what KIND of advertising opportunities are
available to you.

Simply put, it will single-handedly determine
whether or not you succeed or fail in your business.

But what you may be surprised to know is that when
it comes to getting killer conversion rates, the most
important factor is NOT your ads.

It's NOT your emails.

It's NOT your sales letter.

And it's NOT your copywriting skills.

Yep, you read that right.

These are all crucial and you need to master them.

However...

There's another element that has a far greater
impact on whether or not people choose to opt in
to your newsletter, purchase your product, or join
your opportunity (or even click on your ad in the
first place).

You'll want to really let this sink in because it's
dangerously simply. So simple in fact, that most
people never even think about it or they
completely overlook it even if someone tells them
about it. Very few people online actually practice
it diligently. But what I'm about to share with you
may be THE most valuable piece of knowledge
you can have when it comes to getting the most
out of your advertising.

If you understand this concept and you make a
commitment to NEVER advertise again without
taking this into consideration, you'll be able to
routinely achieve conversion rates that most
marketers can only dream about.

You see, when it comes to conversion rates, the
single greatest factor has nothing to do with you...

And EVERYTHING to do with your audience.

What is that factor?

Your traffic sources.

In other words:

---------------------------------
WHERE ARE YOUR CLICKS COMING FROM
AND WHAT KIND OF CLICKS ARE THEY?
---------------------------------

Most people, myself included, assume that all clicks
are created equal and blindly pour tons of time and
money into just getting as many visitors to their site
as they possibly can.

This is one of the most costly mistakes you can
make online.

I wasted a lot of money before I finally figured this
out and it's a lesson that never ceases to amaze me.

It's so counter-intuitive because whenever we think
about how to make more money, the first thing we
always think about is how to improve OUR ability
to convince people to do what we want them to do.

We ask ourselves things like...

"How can I improve my sales presentation?"

Or...

"What's the latest trick or gimmick I could put on
my website that would bring in more sales?"

Or...

"What new headline idea could I come up with that
would cause people to throw their money at me?"

Now don't get me wrong-you can't have a
profitable business without being able to persuade
people to take action and this is the number one
skill you need to develop... BUT... all too often
we forget that it's the prospect - not us - that's
the most important part of the entire equation. And
the key thing to keep in mind about marketing on
the internet is that every different source of traffic,
every different type of click or visitor, is a
completely different type of prospect.

To illustrate this point, think about this: In many
cases, if you get the right person in front of your
message, someone who has been DYING to find
something exactly like what you're offering, they
won't even read your sales letter. They don't even
care. They'll go straight to the bottom and hit the
order button or submit their info.

Just think back to a time when you've made a
purchase like this. I'm sure you can think of a few.
You didn't even have the patience to listen to any
kind of sales message. You wanted the product
NOW.

What if you only targeted groups of people (aka -
traffic sources) like this, as opposed to ones that
require a lot more selling?

How much more profitable (and easier) would that
make your job?

By continually testing and making improvements
to a given marketing piece, like an ad or a website,
you can increase the conversion rate by 50%...
100%... 200%... 300% or more over time.

However, by simply targeting better and more
qualified sources of traffic, you can easily get TEN
TIMES the conversion rate - in some cases basically
overnight - without hardly even trying!

Which is why I say:

"A mediocre sales message given to a red-hot
prospect will ALWAYS give you better results
than a whole bunch of red-hot sales messages
given to an indifferent prospect."

Now, on the surface, this idea of targeting the right
prospects seems pretty straight forward. It doesn't
really sound like there's a whole lot to it.

Just go after people who want to make money from
home right?

But here's where you really have to be careful.

When I first began studying direct response
marketing and I started building my business
online, I mistakenly assumed that as long as I was
advertising on home-based-business-type-websites
or as long as I was bidding on MLM-ish type
keywords, that's all I needed to do.

I had no idea the extent to which this concept of
a "starving crowd" was true and just how far I
needed to take it.

What I failed to realize in the beginning (a big
thank you to John Reese for teaching me this) is
that if you're not tracking the performance of
EACH individual ad or traffic source separately,
not only are you wasting an enormous amount of
money...

But you're also leaving tons more on the table -
money that's just sitting there, waiting for you to
scoop it up.

Experienced direct marketers from the offline
world have known this for years.

Even the greatest sales letter in the world will be
a complete flop if it's mailed to the wrong list of
people (a list being a collection of names and
contact info, for example, subscribers of a golf
magazine). EVEN IF it's a list of people you
would think would be highly interested in your
offer, a list that for all intents and purposes
SHOULD be interested in your offer.

The problem is, even the smartest marketers in the
world can never know for sure what audience will
respond best. They can certainly make educated
guesses and those guesses may turn out to be right
a good percentage of the time, but they never leave
anything to chance without testing it first.

That's why successful direct mailers always send
their promotion to small sample audiences of 1,000-
5,000 people from different lists in order to test the
response BEFORE sending out mass mailings of
100,000 or more letters.

The reason they have to be so careful is because
the cost of making a mistake in the "physical world"
and mailing out a few hundred thousand letters to
the wrong group of people could end up putting
them $100 grand or more in the hole.

But today with the internet, these incredibly high
costs have been removed and ANYONE who wants
to can quickly, easily and cheaply reach thousands
and even millions of potential prospects.

Never before in the history of the world has this
been possible.

But of course there's a flip side to this coin.

Because of the speed, simplicity and low-cost of
the internet...

It's also easier for people to be a lot more careless.

LESS RISK = LESS RESPONSIBILITY.

And this is where 90% of people doing business
online are missing the boat because the most
powerful advantage of the internet isn't the speed
or the low-cost or even the huge reach that it
offers...

----------------------------------
THE GREATEST ADVANTAGE OF THE
INTERNET IS THAT IT'S THE MOST
TRACKABLE ADVERTISING MEDIUM EVER!
----------------------------------

The biggest difference between successful
business owners and unsuccessful ones has always
been that the successful ones track EVERYTHING
they do to make sure it's earning them a return on
their investment.

If it's not, they stop doing it. If it is, they do more
of it.

(This is why MLM companies don't teach their
distributors to track all of their warm market/cold
market prospecting activities. If they did, no one
would do them anymore!)

But for those who want to take a truly scientific
approach to their business, the internet is a dream
come true.

Let me show you what I mean...

For starters, it's important to know that organic
traffic... pay-per-click traffic... banner traffic...
article traffic... press release traffic... blog
traffic... social networking traffic... youtube
traffic... JV traffic... offline-to-online traffic...
viral traffic... and any other type of traffic you
can think of, ALL convert differently.

And an ad or website that works great with one
of them, very well could, but may not work so well
with others.

Here are a couple extreme examples just to show
you the vast difference between all these types of
traffic.

One of the best ways to generate a lot of leads or
sales in a short period of time is to have someone
recommend your offer to their list of subscribers
(this is known as a joint venture or endorsed
mailing).

In one instance I did this with a newsletter owner
who had a very high-quality list of subscribers.
The offer I was making on my website in this
case was actually to opt in for my free newsletter.

The promotion ended up with an almost-
unbelievable 87% of the people who visited my
site taking me up on my offer!

I then did it again with another joint venture, a
different list of subscribers, and this time "only"
54% of the visitors opted in for my newsletter.

Then, I took this exact same website and advertised
it using pay-per-click listings on one of the smaller
search engines and it got a not-so-exciting 6.5%
average conversion rate.

Keep in mind, all this traffic, all of these visitors,
were within the make-money-from-home crowd -
people who should have all been interested in my
offer.

Now, I could invest time into improving the
conversion rate for the "6.5%" traffic source... or...
I could invest time into finding more "54%" and
"87%" traffic sources.

It's not that I DON'T want to work on improving
the "6.5%" conversion rate, but out of those two
options, if I was pressed for time (and who isn't?)
and I had to choose, which one would bring me the
greatest return in the shortest period of time?

Like I said, that's an extreme example and the
difference isn't always so big since good joint
venture traffic is just about the most qualified type
of traffic you can get (aside from your own list of
subscribers). It's also not always easy to find.

So what about within the same individual traffic
generation techniques themselves?

You already saw the huge difference in conversions
between two separate lists of subscribers...

What about pay-per-click?

Did you know that in many cases, especially in our
industry, Yahoo traffic usually converts better than
Google traffic?

What about even more specific than that?

When I say track every traffic source separately, I
don't just mean individual traffic generation
techniques or even just individual ads... I mean
every KEYWORD (if it applies).

This is where it gets really interesting -- and
super profitable. Here are some specific keyword
examples that I have bid on over the years.

In these examples I wasn't promoting a free offer
either, but a couple different paid products.

-----------------------------------------
networkmarketing . com = 10.2% conv. rate
vs.
network marketing = 3.33% conv. rate
-----------------------------------------

Isn't that amazing?

Same industry. Exact same website/message. Same
traffic technique. Even the same keyword almost.

Totally different mindset.

This one's insightful:

------------------------------------
network marketing = 3.33% conv. rate
vs.
MLM = 1.27% conv. rate
------------------------------------

Now, a 3.33% conversion rate over a 1.27% one
may not seem huge, but it makes all the difference
in the world.

It's the difference between being able to pay $3.00
for your clicks vs. $.50.

It's the difference between having a prime spot on
page one vs. being buried on page four.

It's the difference between hauling in hundreds of
leads every month like clockwork vs. having a
trickle of five or six to work with.

---------------------------------
free MLM leads = 1.96% conv. rate
vs.
MLM leads = 4.13% conv. rate
---------------------------------

This one doesn't really surprise me too much
because I would assume that someone who types
in "free MLM leads" is less likely to be interested in
learning how to generate their own leads as
opposed to someone who types in "MLM leads."

But here's a weird one for you...

----------------------------------------
multi level marketing = 1.79% conv. rate
vs.
multilevelmarketing = 14.29% conv. rate
----------------------------------------

Why is this?

Who knows.

I have a few theories, but all that really matters is
that for the last two years I've been getting almost
eight times the conversion rate from the keyword
"multilevelmarketing" with no spaces vs the
normal keyword "multi level marketing."

(Something tells me there's going to be a lot more
competition for this keyword, starting tomorrow
morning. :)

And one more...

If you're savvy about pay-per-click, this one's to
illustrate the importance of using different match
types. (If you're not, that's okay too - it's still just
illustrating the bigger point of tracking). This
shows the difference between exact match and
broad match (I see this all the time by the way,
with many, many different keywords).

-----------------------------------------------
[network marketing business] = 12.5% conv. rate
vs.
network marketing business = 1.66% conv. rate
-----------------------------------------------

What if you were advertising and you DIDN'T
know this information?

What if you were paying $.15 for a keyword that
converts at 2% and more than twice as much for a
keyword that only converts at .8%?

Or what if you were paying through the nose to
have your ads placed on a website that hasn't
yielded a single prospect in the last 4 months and
you had no idea about it?

How much money would you be wasting?

A lot.

If you're not doing this right now,
you need to be. You're really operating in the dark
until you are. And you won't fully realize it until
you actually start doing it.

Then you'll look back and say, "How in the world
could I have gone so long without doing this? I
must have been insane!"

What's really scary about this whole thing is that
if there's THAT much of a difference in conversion
rates between different groups of people who are
all LOOKING for information about network
marketing...

How bad are the conversion rates for people who
have no interest in MLM whatsoever or who just
want to be left alone?

People like friends and coworkers or dead-beat
"opportunity leads" that just requested info about
making money from home because they wanted
a free iPod.

It really sheds a whole new light on this business
of sponsoring and recruiting doesn't it?

But even more important than the money you're
wasting by not tracking is the money you're
missing out on...

When you're able to pinpoint those advertising
sources that are bringing you the absolute highest
return on your dollar and you focus all your money
and efforts on them, it's very powerful.

The greatest and fastest increase in profits I've ever
experienced with the least amount of effort was
when I started tracking individual traffic sources.

------------------------------------
IT WAS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE EASIEST
MONEY I'VE EVER MADE.
------------------------------------

But the best part about this strategy, is that this is
something you can go implement RIGHT NOW
and immediately see dramatic results from (not to
mention the tools you need to do it are free).

Most of the activities in business that really make
you a lot of money require a good amount of
learning and skill development.

This is not one of them.

This is something that anyone can quickly and
easily put to use, today, with no learning curve, and
in some cases, if you're currently doing a decent of
amount of advertising, produce huge results
literally overnight - as was the case for me.

On the other hand, if you're just getting started
learning how to generate your own leads, you're
way ahead of the ballgame.

It's pretty easy to see how a savvy marketer who
focuses on highly qualified pockets of traffic that
convert like crazy can dance circles around
everyone else who's just randomly throwing stuff
out there and hoping some of it works"

Okay... I hope you have a better understanding on why I believe so much in tracking your advertisements.

Here's the good news. With the Zfreedom system you can EASILY track every ad you do (ppc, article marketing, magazine ad, newspaper, etc.)...

This is how it is done:

http://username.zfreedom.com/promocode

All you do is ad / to the end of your link and call your advertisement whatever you want which would replace the "promocode".

For instance, if I was doing a Pay-per-click ad on Zrii I would do this:

http://dave.zfreedom.com/zrii

Now, all the traffic that comes from that source will show up in my Zfreedom back office as being from my zrii ad.

THIS IS SO POWERFUL! All of those who are doing their own marketing should be utilizing this tool.

To check your promo traffic just scroll over the "Reports" tab in the Zfreedom back office and click on "Business Site Promo"- that will give you a break down of all your percentages so that you can see how your ads are doing.

I bet you've just learned what 99.99% of network marketers have NO clue about.

Zfreedom.com