Products & Pricing

• Inner Circle: This is the most expensive offering on the site at $497. Essentially, if you buy this product, you will have access to four inclusive teleconferences.
• Mastery Level Marketing System: For $197, you receive a step-by-step guide which will help you become an internet marketing expert.
• Invest Domains Home Study Course: This costs $79.95 and gives you advice on buying, selling, parking and flipping domains.
• Social Ads Pro – Advertising Software:  For $19.95, this automated software enables you to build up your advertising campaign on social networks.
• Advertising Profits from Home: This is his most popular book and will set you back $29.90. It helps you to make money by sending customers to other companies. He claims that it is an affiliate marketing guide which guarantees results.

Advertising Profits from Home
There is a rather clever infomercial for this book which involves Morrison appearing to speak sense and promise relatively moderate income from his system. He does not claim to have the ability to make you a millionaire overnight which is a refreshing change from the usual ‘make $10,000 a day’ nonsense that people are accustomed to. However, the infomercial gives little away in terms of telling you how his system actually works. The book also contains a few CD’s which purport to teach you all about affiliate marketing including the practice of generating traffic.

Cons
Frankly, Advertising Profits from Home does not contain any amazing new information. In fact, the entire book and accompanying CD’s have nothing more than very basic affiliate marketing concepts that can be read for free online. There are sections on having the right mindset, an introduction to affiliate marketing, an introduction to social networks and a host of other ‘introductions’. For $29.90, you would expect more than information that can be found in 10 minutes online.

The real problems arise within days of buying the book when you are bombarded with phone calls from his company who attempt to sell you a host of other products. His representatives started asking for thousands of dollars for more ‘advanced’ programs. These people continue phoning you and it is extremely irritating.

Verdict
Not only is the book almost worthless, the sneaky sales tactics used by Morrison thereafter really leave a bad taste in your mouth. Do not allow yourself to buy any of his products because you will leave yourself open to days of constant phone calls and emails. Save your money and look for something that may actually be useful.

• Vendors
• Agencies
• Networks
• Merchants
• Affiliates

Incidentally, only one third of attendees are affiliates. The Summit has gained in popularity since its first conference which took place in New York in 2003 where there were only 200 attendees. The latest Affiliate Summit Conference was held in Las Vegas and more than 5,000 people attended.

Affiliate Conference West 2012
This was held in Las Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace and attracted a record number of people. As you should know, the whole point of being an affiliate is to make money promoting goods and services of other companies on your website or blog. One of the real downsides of the latest conference was the fact that a platinum pass cost a whopping $1,250. Few affiliates can afford this and one wonders how big the attendance would be if prices were lowered to an affordable level. With a platinum pass, you have complete freedom and can listen to any of the summit’s speakers. You are also allowed to enter the market meet and exhibition hall. For future reference, apply for a platinum pass early and you may receive a significant discount.

What Was On Offer
In a word, ‘opportunity’ was on offer at the Affiliate Conference West. There were a number of Breakout Sessions and four different sessions taking place every 60 minutes. The fact that there were so many interesting topics was actually a downside as you could only attend one at a time! One of the most popular talks related to increasing your existing revenue by 300% using existing traffic. Other important topics included affiliate marketing in the era of social networks and ‘Are your affiliates offering value?’

However, ‘The Importance of effective communication flow’ was probably the best received talk during the entire event. The main speaker was Sylvia Cintron and she answered questions about the typical relationships enjoyed by affiliate marketers. She concentrated on the art of increasing earning potential through effective communication.

This conference was also an opportunity for affiliates to meet industry leaders as well as networking. The industry experts were generally friendly and happy to answer any affiliate marketing questions. Other attendees finally got to meet individuals whom they had only previously spoken to via email or through online phone calls. Aside from professional conversations, there was also a friendly atmosphere which encouraged casual chats too.

Verdict
If you are a small business owner and are looking to expand your company through affiliate marketing, you should not miss the chance to attend one of these Affiliate Summit Conferences if they are in your neighborhood. As well as hosting conferences on the East and West coasts of the United States, the Affiliate Summit team is hosting a Central conference in 2012. If you were unable to attend the latest offering, you can find videos of speakers from the conference online. However, you will not find everything that was mentioned in Las Vegas.

Be sure to use an Affiliate Summit coupon when registering for future conferences.

Pricing
Intuit GoPayment doesn’t have a range of confusing charges. Instead, it sticks with two options:

• Pay As You Go: This is ideal for companies who don’t have a regular stream of transactions. Instead of being penalized by having to pay the same fees during a slow month as a lucrative one, you can pay per transaction. There is no monthly service charge, no set up fee and it comes with a free Intuit card reader. You are charged 2.7% for every swiped card and 3.7% when the details are keyed in. There are no other charges.
• Monthly: This is the best choice for companies who engage in a consistently high level of transactions per month. The swiped card rate is just 1.7% with keyed in transactions costing you 2.7%. The monthly fee is $12.95.

Features
While the best aspect of Intuit GoPayment is the way it allows you to accept credit cards on your phone, you really want to be able to swipe the cards as this speeds up the transaction process and also saves you money on fees. Luckily, GoPayment is compatible with a number of high quality mobile credit card swipers such as the Bluetooth credit card reader which can be yours for less than $150. GoPayment can be used on any phone with a web browser and not necessarily a Smartphone.

With GoPayment, you can add sales tax immediately, use a touch screen phone for customer signatures, send receipts to customers via email or text, use GPS tracking to keep track of the sales location and void transactions. Hopefully, Intuit will update GoPayment one day and allow you to authorize and hold funds for use at a later date and refund. Up to 50 employees can process credit cards on their mobiles and have all these sales tied to a single account.

Overall
The mobile credit card processing app is extremely easy to use. All you need to do is enter the usual credit card information and the zip code for billing and charge the customer. The whole confirmation process only takes a few seconds and the interface is clean and easy to use. 128-bit SSL encryption is used to protect your data. There is also password protection on the app which helps avoid fraud. It may not have as many features as some of its rivals, but it is one of the most professional mobile credit card processing services on offer and comes highly recommended.

Intuit GoPayment – Free Card Reader. Get it Now!

Pricing
Unlike similar companies who have a number of confusing charges, Square makes their fees abundantly clear. You get charged a fee of 2.75% on every transaction. It’s possible to use fairly simple mathematics to find out how much profit you’ve made on the transaction. It should be noted that Square has one set of extra charges for those who enter credit card numbers manually: 3.5% plus $0.15 per transaction.

Start Up
You can download one of the many Square apps that are available. It can be used on iPhones, iPads and most Android devices. When you’re setting up, you need to enter your tax information, including your social security number and some selected personal information. Naturally, Square have a large legal section on their site which covers their usage of your private information. Read this thoroughly before signing up. The app itself is clean, easy to use and lovely to look at. After you’ve successfully registered for a Square account, the company sends you a card reader which is free. This is a white plastic square that is barely more than half an inch squared in area. It plugs into the headphone jack of your mobile device. You can connect it immediately upon receipt and start issuing payments as and when you like. The reader works with a standard Wi-Fi connection.

Buying And Selling
To get paid, just swipe the card and choose an amount. It’s also possible to create a virtual shelf which showcases items for sale. One minor problem with the reader is that occasionally it takes a couple of tries for it to read properly but it doesn’t cause major delays. You can give the consumer a receipt and they sign their name by using their finger on the touch screen. Thanks to the set charges, you know that $97.25 out of every $100 you make is yours unless transactions are entered manually. You can also link your bank account to the Square account and money will be deposited automatically within 24 hours.

‘Card Case’ is the interface used by customers. If you are purchasing valuable items, you will need to use a 4 digit PIN for your safety. One problem with ‘Card Case’ is that you can’t become a member until you’ve purchased something from a Square supported shop. If you open a tab at a Square store, it expires after an hour if you forget about it.

Overall
This is a great mobile credit card solution for buyer and seller alike. From a seller’s point of view, it allows them to make sales on the street. Buyers can use ‘Card Case’ to purchase something they like within seconds. There is little doubt that Square’s way of doing business will become more popular in the very near future.

StreamSend Ease of Use

Overall, StreamSend is very easy to use, especially if you are new to e-mail marketing.  The central dashboard is where you will do nearly all of the basic tasks in terms of e-mail creation and scheduling.  Additionally, all of the analytics are provided numerically as well as graphically.  For some people, the visual representation of the data it is much easier to understand than simply looking at the numbers themselves.  At the same time, there have been some complaints about the overall ease of use.  This stem primarily from the level of customization that you are allowed when using their pre-formatted templates.  Additionally, some people feel that the central dashboard is too cluttered, which is not surprising considering how much you can do from there.

StreamSend Pricing

One thing to keep in mind is that StreamSend sets up your monthly rates based upon the number of e-mails that you send.  For some marketers this is potentially an issue because even with smaller lists, they are sending out multiple e-mails per week.  The smallest package is $19.90 per month and allows you to send 2000 e-mails, with each additional 1000 e-mails costing and added five dollars.  The most expensive package is $209.90 per month and it allows you to send 150,000 e-mails with each additional 1000 e-mails costing $1.40.  In the end, you will need to decide whether or not this is the right pricing model for your e-mail marketing campaign.  Some people can greatly benefit from paying per e-mail because they have larger lists, but are only sending out a monthly newsletter or weekly newsletter.

Potential Drawbacks of StreamSend

While this service does seem to get fairly solid reviews, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider as well.  One of the biggest potential drawbacks is that handling unsubscribed readers isn’t always done automatically.  This means that you would have to go through and clean up your list manually which must be done regularly, or you will end up paying for e-mails that are never delivered.

Review of StreamSend

One of the biggest benefits of StreamSend is that they offer a free 30 day trial.  This will allow you to actually use their system and decide whether or not it is the best fit for you.  Keep in mind during your free trial you can only send a total of 200 e-mails.  While this should be more than enough to decide whether or not StreamSend is right for you, it may not be enough to actually get a full 30 days worth of use.

Try a StreamSend 30 Day Free Trial.

Affiliate Summit Coupon

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Use this Affiliate Summit coupon code to get 5% off any registration type. Codes are for attendee registrations only, and cannot be used for sponsorships.

Affiliate Summit is the premier affiliate marketing conference and was founded by Missy Ward and Shawn Collins in 2003 for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest industry issues. Affiliate Summit’s goal is to foster a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers.

Use the Affiliate Summit promo code listed above to save 5% off any individual pass type (All Access, VIP, Networking Plus, or Networking).

Accepting payment with your smartphone is done in one of two ways, either by a plug in device, or by app. Here is how both work:

•    Plug in Device: There are now a few plug in devices that can turn smartphones, like the Apple iPhone and others, into a credit card swiping machine. This allows for any business owner to easily accept a credit card payment, even while they are on the go. These tiny little devices make it possible to accept credit cards without having to set up a merchant account, which can be a hard and costly process. There are also typically no contracts to sign or any costly monthly fees to pay. Some of the more popular plug in devices includes Intuit’s GoPayment, VeriFone’s PayWare, North American Bancrad’s Pay Anywhere, and Square, which was created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
•    App: In additional to plug in devices, there are also many apps that can be downloaded to your smartphone which will allow you take payments. PayPal, which is one of the most popular online payment platforms, has an app as do many of the more popular payment platforms. Recently, PayPal even integrated Bump, which allows smartphone users to exchange payment info by ‘bumping’ them together lightly. This is usually done between friends, but the method is also picking up steam with businesses.

A nice added feature with accepting payment on your smartphone is the end of paper receipts. Because everything is done electronically, you can therefore have your receipts sent electronically. This is typically done in the form of an e-mail receipt.

While the idea of accepting payments using your smartphone was originally thought of as somewhat of a taboo idea, more and more companies are starting to look at the possibilities. Even some of the big banking institutions are scrambling to capture some of this new market by either developing an app or coming out with a plug in device.

Their main motivation is of course money. Because you can use your smartphone to conduct business and accept payments, all without having to pay costly fees or even sign contracts, the typical merchant account is losing its luster. This is great for you as a business owner as more plug in devices and apps coming out mean an even easier and more cost effective way to accept payments with your smartphone.

If you have a smartphone and you have a business, let the two work together and start accepting payment with your smartphone. The process is affordable and couldn’t be easier to implement. When you accept payment with your smartphone, as opposed to only cash or checks, the end result will be an increase in customers and a tremendous increase to your bottom line.

1.    Customer completes the order on the merchant website. The payment information will be entered on a secure web page. This is encrypted to prevent third parties from accessing it.
2.    Shopping cart gathers the information and compiles it into a standard form within the system.
3.    Information is transmitted from the web host to the payment gateway. The processor will check that data. If it is accurate, it will continue processing the transaction.
4.    The credit card processor will signal to the shopping cart whether the transaction is successful or not. If it is, the processor initiates a fund transfer and the money is deposited to the merchant’s account.

When everything is all clear, the buyer will receive the order successfully. The entire process can be completed within minutes, sometimes within seconds. There are a number of companies that offer online payment services. We’ll analyze their charges further below.

Online Payment Services Fees and Other Charges
The online payment system providers have different ways of charging you for the service. For example, some companies charge a flat monthly fee while others takes a percentage of every sale you process. Meanwhile, a number of them also charge a flat fee for each site you operate (using the gateway) as opposed to a flat fee for one account.

It is important to consider your business structure carefully before choosing. It can significantly affect your bottom line especially if you’re just starting out. Some of the things you need to consider include the projected profit of your company and the average amount spent on the store.

Ecommerce Merchant Account vs. Online Payment Services
Which service is more relevant for your business? Merchant accounts or online payment systems (like PayPal)? For larger companies, they prefer to set-up a merchant account to avoid third-party fees. Also, they have the scale to make the hassle and investment worthwhile. On the other hand, smaller firms tend to stick with online payment providers because it is relatively easy to set up and is convenient.
In the former, it is important to take note that only merchants with business history are entitled to get an ecommerce merchant account. So if your business is a startup, it would be difficult to find a company that’s willing to take a risk. The best solution in this case is to choose a third-party payment processor.

Overall, the use of an online payment service is unavoidable if you want to engage in an ecommerce business. They key is to study all aspects of the service before committing your company to any service. Take note that it is more effective to combine credit card processing capabilities together with an ability to accept PayPal payments. That way, you can target a larger segment of the market.

Prices
More than 200,000 people use GetResponse and they offer a 30 day free trial. You can sign up immediately and credit card details are not required. There are a total of four paid packages:

• Start: This is for companies with a maximum of 1,000 subscribers and is available for £12 a month (The Company lists prices in pounds sterling). If you subscribe for 12 months, the monthly cost becomes £9.84. It allows you to send unlimited emails, has video email marketing capability, 1GB of multimedia storage and an iPhone app.
• Plus: Companies with a maximum of 2,500 subscribers can use this package for £20 a month or £16.40 when an annual subscription is purchased.
• Max: If you have up to 10,000 subscribers, this £54 a month package is for you. It becomes £44.28 per month if purchased annually. Incidentally, the Plus and Max packages only have the same features as the Start offer.
• GetResponse 360: This is their granddaddy package and is suitable for companies with more than 100,000 subscribers. You need to contact the company for a quote and it comes with special features such as email marketing consultancy, list management and customized solutions.

Features
If an auto responder service doesn’t have a high percentage when it comes to email deliverability, then it isn’t worth using. Fortunately, GetResponse have a deliverability rate of 99%. One of the best things about GetResponse is the statistical analysis it provides. It not only shows you when the email recipients took action regarding the emails, it gives you an exact time. This enables you to group your subscribers and send them emails at suitable times. You can also compare two different email messages side by side to see which one got better results. This helps you analyze the content and make the requisite changes.

Instead of boring your recipients with bland messages, spice things up by using one of the 350 newsletter templates provided by GetResponse. Best of all, you can create stylish messages without HTML or coding knowledge. Time strapped businesses will also be delighted to know that you can write a number of emails at once and schedule them to be sent at various times.

Overall
GetResponse has more features that you’ll ever need. There is seemingly no limit to what you can do with this auto responder and its customer support is also top notch. Paying the equivalent of $80 a month for the Max package may seem steep but when you consider the fact that they are helping up with up to 10,000 subscribers, it really is a drop in the ocean, especially if it helps increase your conversion rate. Naturally, this is entirely up to you but GetResponse provides you with all the tools you need to be successful.

GetResponse Email Marketing. Trusted by 160,000 Customers in 172 Countries. Get Started Today!