What ads have been the most effective for you in sponsoring quality affiliates?

(1) Banners in various sizes and purposes 
(2) Text ads in simple and powerful words 
(3) Splash landing page designs used in our SFI gateway links etc. 

In addition, there are so many key words suggestions in ASK SC and Forum sections for text ads which can be modified by your own imagination and communication skills. 

Where do you use the above to get the most effective results? 

(A) Internet blog or cafe in local language and/or in English as well 
(B) Facebook or Twitter - our profile section with relevant size of SFI banner 
(C) In traffic exchange sites (manual and auto) 
(D) In free credit based email marketing on safelist sites 
(E) PTC sites with cheaper ads costs etc. 

Actually I have done nearly everything of the above during the past 5 monthS since I joined SFI, in addition to the purchases of PSAs from TripleClicks, it's like a lottery to find some good active results. However, my best results of active members up to now came from my local language blog visitors, for whom I just provided with banners and relevant honest information about SFI in a form of some simple clear articles, quite driven by the original wordings given to me by SFI. 

You will find a lot of differing opinions with your question. Do not be alarmed. 
What you must do is take it all in and decide what will work best for you. 

I started out using the standard proven text ads and banners provided by SFI. 
Most of which very well. 
I think the best successful ads are the ones you have fine tuned to your target market. 
You must pick your market first. Then prepare your own ads. 
Study the ads provided by SFI. Study the ads you come across as you are 
searching classified advertising sites, traffic exchanges, listing sites. 
Join a few Facebook Internet Marketing Fan pages. 
Open a Twitter account and follow fellow marketers. 
Do not forget Pinterest and Video possibilities. 
All will provide access to various target markets. 

You need to try them all to find what works best for you. 

Keywords are another special ingredient to a successful ad campaign. 
There is another ASK SC question and good answers with regard to Keywords. 
It would be a good read. 

Still I am trying to find out which one will be best suited for me in terms of my time, energy and cost. It's going to be a never ending interesting & challenging game, I think! 

How do you learn to write effective ads if you have never written any ads before?

There are certain principles I follow when I write Ads. I have learnt how to put across the detail explicitly with training experience and generally first researching about the market in which I wish to place that Ad. 

The rules I follow may be useful to you. 

RESEARCH YOUR MARKET 
1..write the AD with the primary aim of getting maximum exposure within the market you are advertising and get maximum results. 

KEEP IT SIMPLE 
2..keep in mind that that AD message should have clarity of content with not too much detail, simple to understand and depending on where your AD will appear, keep in mind that some ADs have limitations on the size of your copy(*) 

CREATE INTEREST 
3..Prepare your AD with the intention of creating interest, attention and a response. That should always be the aim. 

USE DIFFERENT FONT SIZES TO HIGHLIGHT YOUR DETAIL 
4..Try to get the reader of the AD to notice the most important part of the AD through either altering the font or highlight it and let the writing be visible from a distance. It should catch the eye and stand out amongst other ADs if for instance you have a notice board on which you will place it. 

YOUR CONTACT 
5.. should always have the correct contact information to enable those responding to it to have immediate and easy access. 

LEARN FROM WWW TRAINING SITES 
6..there is a considerable amount of information on any available topic you wish to learn on the World Wide Web and this can be your source of help. You will at least get some idea on how to write an AD and as you prepare them continuously, you will be able to focus on what content to include that is relevant. 

7..Practice writing on various topics 

I always keep in mind when writing an AD is that I do not disclose all the details about my venture in my AD because the aim is to have as many people contact you to find out more about your advert. 

* copy will be the AD that you finally print to use in your advertising campaign 
HAPPY ADVERTISING 

What keywords should I avoid when setting up advertisements on search engines?

Avoid Generic terms that are used across multiple niche markets. 

Avoid Industry Jargon, a prospect may not know what network marketing is for example or MLM. 

Avoid search terms that don't directly describe the information of the page you are sending the person to. 

Avoid high competition Keywords unless you have a plan in place to convert these high cost visitors into leads and sales for years to come. 

Know your competition. See what they are targeting and look for similar and related search terms and low cost low competition keywords they are promoting to. 

Know the sites where your competitions ads are most likely shown and use their keywords to develop even more ideas on search terms you can use. To do this find your competitors keywords out and then search for those search terms and find the top 5-10 websites ranking for those keywords and see what other related keywords they are ranking for. 

The more time you spend researching your keywords the less money you'll spend to get MASSIVE Results! 

AND here's another answer;

There are two types of keywords I try to avoid when researching keywords. 
Stay away from keywords with high competition. It makes sense to go after the most popular keywords, but they will be the hardest to get results from or cost you the most amount of money. Try to find keywords which have medium to low competition. 

Stay away from keywords with low monthly search average. If you target a keyword that only gets 10 searches a month, it's not going to do much for your business. They will be easy to rank for, but without a healthy search average, you won't see much return. 

The perfect keywords to use are those which have low competition and the highest monthly search average. 

There are many tools available for keyword research. Choose one that shows you monthly search averages, competition and geo targeting at a minimum. 

If you're having troubles finding a keyword, try using long tail keywords or location/date specific keywords. For example, if your keyword is passive income, turn that into long tail keywords like: online passive income ideas, passive income ideas 2014, smart passive income on the internet, how to generate passive income, passive income in the UK, etc. 

SFI Team Leaders, Starting Something Only Needs Action The Rest Will Follow

So we have this simple gathering every once in a while in our place to celebrate and reconnect with fellow affiliates, last night we concluded the latest in one in the group. We had some pictures, lots of food, while it may have been fun to drink, this is Brunei and as an Islamic country we couldn't find anyone to supply us with the said beverage. We did have a great night though, some of the affiliates resorted to bidding in the pennybender auctions and managed to win much to amazement and entertainment of the group.
We did took some photos and here they are;

There are more pictures taken but seeing that our internet connection is crawling, they will have to be uploaded and posted next time. So do watch out for them.

How can I determine if my auto-responder is working?

One of the many advantages of running an auto responder is that, you do the major work at one point and then let the campaign run on its own, but it is also necessary to check it once in a while for optimization. 

If you have set up your auto responder, here are ways to find out if your auto responder is working: 

- Log in to your auto responder account. Depending on which auto responder account you have signed up with, for clarity I have chosen to list only an auto responder account with simple/basic features, such as Home, Email, Social Campaigns and so on. The Home tab is sub-divided into Contacts, Reports, Activity, Sign-Up Tools and Help. You can find the auto responder feature under the Email tab. 

- After logging into your auto responder account, click Email>Autoresponder. 

- Select the name of the Autoresponder email to preview and test. 

- Click Preview and Test. You’ll find this feature on the right side of the Autoresponder Email Details page. 

- Enter email addresses max. 5 in the Email Addresses field located on the left. Note: Before entering email addresses, you’ll need to inform the people you’re sending to, that you’re doing a test. 

- Click to Send. 

- Click Exit Preview to return to the Autoresponder main page. 

- Go to your My Contacts tab> Email Lists to check the delivery of your test email. You’ll find out from this section, if your test email went through. 

By working you can mean two things: 

1. Technically working. That is a person signs up and you are assured they are getting your email campaign. 

2. Principally working. That is the efforts and emails are producing conversions. Conversions being the desired outcome of joining the email campaign. That might be, new affiliates, qualified affiliates, or perhaps trained Affiliate. Or that might be more product exposure for TripleClicks and more sales. What ever the desired outcome is. 

You can usually test number 1 by signing up yourself with an alternate email address. 

You test number 2 very differently. The first thing to do is write 3 or 4 questions helping you define the desired outcome and how to measure that outcome. 

Then recruit 5 friends to sign up and test it for you. Give them your questions and ask them to answer the questions for you. for example, 

1. Were you able to sign up, and did you start getting my emails? 
2. Are my emails grammatically correct? 
3. Are my emails clear and to the point? 
4. Is there a call to action? Would you know what to do? 
5. Are they helpful, or are they too Commercial? 
6. Would you opt out after the first few emails or would you look forward to the next one? 

Then you reward each person who helped you with a TripleClicks gift card and an additional $5.00 TripleClicks Gift Certificate after they sign up using the gift card. 

One Year in SFI, E365 Champion

I joined SFI in April 09,2013. Back then I don't have a clue as to what is SFI all about.

In my first two months in SFI I didn't do anything up until my sponsor Mr. Henry Stevens, sent me an email explaining how paying for a membership in a gym but not doing actual work out won't help you lose weight. 

Here's a  Screenshot of it; 

I haven't checked in detail what actually is in it for me but damn it feels good to be a champion :)

SFI represents multiple income earning opportunities. Should I focus on just one, some, or ALL?

Yes indeed! SFI primarily presents you with 6 options to earn & earn huge : 

1. Direct Commissions - Each time one of your PSA's buy something from TripleClicks, you earn 45% of Commission Value(CV) 
2. TripleClicks Executive Pool - Having maximum Versapoints(VP's) a month is crucial to earn big on this one. You need to be a Team Leader with multiple EA2's to mushroom your matching VP's. 
3. Co-Sponsor commissions - Each time one of your CSA places an order with TC, you earn 15% of CV 
4. Bonus Tcredits - Each month you get 10 T-credits if you were an EA the previous month, 12 if you were a BTL & so on... 
5. ECA royalties - You earn 10% of CV of total earnings in a month of your referred ECA 
6. Pay-Per-Action - Be an advertiser & get new enrollers(who won't be part of your downline). You'll earn per new enroller(conditions apply, of course) 

Now, from my personal experience, the primary source of income remains the 1st 3 options. And for that, you need to duplicate & help your own PSA's & CSA's duplicate. TripleClicks is our store & it's thriving success is vital for every SFI affiliate. 

Options number 1 & 3 are the easiest. Get your PSA's & CSA's to set up a Standing Order, encourage them to shop at TripleClicks for their day to day purchases(household items, cosmetics, electronics etc.) 

For option number 2, you need to have exponential downline growth. 

Option number 4 is an added bonus from SFI & Gery. Everyone likes free T-credits :) 

Option number 5 & 6 remain the elusive options, but they could also be your best options. If you know a lot of merchants who would like to sell or advertise through SFI & TC, then you have hit the jackpot my friend. 

Focus on one or all : That's your prerogative. If you are happy with what you are earning through steps 1 to 4 and are not running your SFI business full time, then it's fine. But if you do want to leave any territory uncharted when it comes to potential income, give your best shot to each option. 

You will end up a winner.