As web publishers, many of us sink our teeth into tasty affiliate offers only to find they’re not the perfect fit for our audience. The network we’re on may give us a demographic but if we don’t create leads, then we’re out of the game, so to speak. Motive Interactive created an affiliate network that takes a lot of the guesswork out of which offer to push and which we should just pass over. The Advent 2.0 system was developed from the ground up to keep up with industry changes and publisher friendliness.

The Advent 2.0 Interface

When you log into your Motive Interactive account, you’ll be introduced to many of the publisher offers through a spotlight feature. You’ll also notice the graph showing your account’s performance metrics, like the number of clicks, conversions, the rate at which you convert, and more, like the amount of revenue you’ve earned to date.

The site breaks down the offers so you can search for four different types like CPA, CPL, CPS, and CPS%. Each offer has an associated distribution type, like email or banner ads. By narrowing down your search criteria you can find the offer that works for your method of affiliate marketing. This means less of a time sink for finding those ads that work for you, and more time generating leads and creating revenue.

The Advent 2.0 dashboard greets you with a lot of AJAX, allowing for on-screen changes and quick searches of existing offers. The affiliate network really shines with the various tracking features. I would say the campaigns should be broken down into user-generated campaigns. If I push a product through my emailed newsletter then I would want to see specific performance metrics related to that campaign. Right now the system only allows for an overall view of every campaign you run. This waters down the feature somewhat, but for those interested in only doing one type of campaign, like banner ads, then this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Reporting Features

The reporting features gives you what you would expect. You can select a specific time period to view the conversions, and you can narrow down the results to the different types of offers you’re running. Although the same limitations on custom campaigns exist here too. The reports can be downloaded in Excel format with the click of a button. It’s a nice feature many publishers would probably use frequently.

Referral Program

Motive Interactive’s referral earnings program is 5.5% lifetimes referral earnings. That’s a pretty good chunk if you happen to refer someone who makes a decent amount through the network. Imagine sending 20 people who each make around a $100 a month. That could add up month after month. You have to remain active as a publisher with no lapse greater than 12 calendar months to continue receiving your referral income. The referral system is accompanied by the rewards program they have in place as well.

The rewards program gives users a tiered bonus type of reward system, similar to the one Amazon affiliates enjoy. The rewards program pays out according to how well you do within their system. The tiers are based on how well you’re doing with their offers and the like. So if you want to make more of an impact, you’ll push their offers more. The tiers for the reward program look like the following:

Commissions - Rewards
$1,000 - $10
$2,500 - $25
$5,000 - $50
$10,000 - $100
$15,000 - $150
$20,000 - $200
$25,000 - $250
$30,000 - $300
$50,000 - $500
$100,000 - $1,250
$150,000 - $2,000
$200,000 - $3,000
$500,000 - $10,000
$1,000,000 - $20,000
$1,250,000 - $25,000

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and work towards that 25K reward!

Conclusions

Overall the Motive Interactive Advent 2.0 site offers publishers and marketers a great place to find decent types of offers. The site caters to publishers of many types, like those who may own a good email list or website. Every user has access to slick features, like the stat tracking and decent reporting. What about the payout? You can choose to receive payment through a number of methods, including check, bank wire or Paypal. They pay out after you’ve earned $50, which isn’t too bad and shouldn’t be too hard with the number of offers they have available to each and every publisher. If you’re interested in trying out a new affiliate network, then I suggest you watch the video that follows. It should help to give a good view of the network and introduce you to Advent 2.0.

The NESW Sports site claims to be the best sports news anywhere. A very, very bold tagline. Their browser title says The Best Sports Videos, which is maybe a little more apt. I’m no ESPN jockey, but they do some fairly serious reporting. My first bit of advice for the owner would be to cut the hyperbole and get down to the nitty-gritty — what does the blog provide? (Sports Videos from Every Direction — just an idea.)

The NESW Sports site does provide sports videos with a bit of historic background. The current post (as of writing this) shows the Carl Lewis National Anthem from 1993. The bit of text leading into the video provides a clear idea of what you’re about to see. Each post has a relaxed and informative feel to it, which will help gain readers and with search engines ranking.

There’s no archive in the sidebar, but it appears, according to Alexa, the site’s been around since March of this year. Since that time the site has been posting sports videos, or videos related to the sports world on at least a daily basis, if not two or three times a day. This is no small achievement, and fans of the blog should high five the blogger. Keep it up.

Template and Layout Problems

I would say there are some problems with the appearance of the blog, mainly due to the header. The image in the header doesn’t look right. It should cover the whole of the page or at least be balanced with an RSS subscription callout or something to the right, and the main banner should not look like a scanned in photo. The Live banner below the header image appears to be the secondary title of the site. Not a good thing by any measure. There’s also some prime real estate on the right side of the blog being used by…white space.

You’ll also notice the post title scrunched up to the Join Now banner. It’s hardly noticeable with no margin. Pull the ad, or give it a margin, then people will see the post title much more clearly. The navigation does quite well on the right. There’s quick access to subscribe to the feed, recent posts, and categories. The only thing missing is the archive.

The RSS feed is supported by Feedburner and includes the option to sign up via email. It shows the videos perfectly inside the feed, so A+ in that respect.

Does All This Negative Talk Mean the Site Sucks?

Not at all. The site has really good content. If the header were to be cleaned up, some key advertising moved around, and a few navigation elements added, then the blog would be really, very nice. Could it use some professional design touches? Absolutely.

I would start with the header and work my way down. The majority of the design flaws on the site could be fixed in a matter of an hour or two. The more laborious things would be sorting out the main header with advertisements.

All in all I would say the site’s a good one, but could use some tweaking. The right changes and with the current content, the site will definitely pick up readers and continue to move forward.

I recently bought a Microsoft Zune. I know what you’re thinking, why? Well, maybe not. I bought the Zune for research. I had an article to write about connecting the Zune to other applications. Of course, to do the work I bought the device. I’ve been very pleased with it so far. The best part of the Zune? I can carry podcasts with me wherever I go. To facilitate my thirst for fresh, exciting podcasts I’ve turned to the topic of today’s Powder Keg Review, PodcastKicks.com.

What is Podcast Kicks.com?

I received an email from a friend, Si Philps, a little while ago. He’s been hard at work creating PodcastKicks.com. Some of you may remember Si from his comments on this blog or the fact he’s helped me fix some troublesome issues throughout the life of my blog. Either way, when he told me he built a site, I fired up his site and started playing around with it.

Podcast Kicks allows users to create submissions for their favorite podcasts. It’s a community driven site similar to Digg, in that each user can “Tune In” to a podcast, effectively kicking it up. The more kicks a podcast receives, the higher it goes towards the site’s frontpage.

The Site Features

The site has many features common to community driven sites. As a user, you can post a link to your podcast, and watch as you rise in the ranks as more and more people listen to your podcast. The site holds a lot of promise for those looking to introduce their podcast to a wider audience and for the aural podcast junkie like me.

The site does differ from Digg though, as a listener might spend 10 to 60 minutes listening to a podcast. If they’re ADD they may forget to come back and vote up the podcast. It’d be good to see voting capabilities directly on the podcast owner’s blog or website, as well as a custom podcast player with built in Kicking ability. Of course, these are just ideas to keep listeners voting.

Everyone should go check out PodcastKicks.com! Give the site some love, links, posts, stumbles, diggs, or sign up and use the service. If you have any suggestions for the site, leave them in the comments.

What better way to come back from a reprieve than with a Powder Keg Review? So without further ado, I give you the Small Fish Big Money site.

SFBM owner, Fabien, wrote a dazzling review of the Jason Boom.com site a while back. Damien’s blog takes him to many different topics, discussing money making strategies, blog writing, web design, and more.

“Entrepeneurship, Writing, Blogging, and Web Design” is his tag line. He writes in-depth reviews of utilities and blogging methods for the everyday user. Oh, and did I mention he’s 16? That’s right. A pup in the eyes of the world, but a big dog when it comes to blogging.

A Taste of SFBM

Fabien has written some top notch material over his blogs lifespan. He captured my attention with his post titled 5 1/2 Writing Tips on Good Writing. I’m not sure how you get half a tip, but the fundamentals resounded. He’s a quality writer, with content to back it up.

If you want money making content, he shows you some sites to make money writing articles, divulges information on pay per click providers, and also info on pay per action services.

The Design

The design fits the SFBM site. You would expect a site about fish to be a sea blue color. The sketched logo also fits well. The large header of the site pulls the readers attention to important parts of the site, like the RSS subscription and the free eBook. You only need to sign up to receive your free copy.

I love seeing free ebooks on sites, as I know it takes quite a bit of time and energy to build this kind of content. It shows dedication. The Terrific Traffic ebook features some useful information for newbies and online professionals. Fabien talks about resources that can help build your site’s traffic, and also features content focused on public relations. It’s a good read, and best of all it’s free. What’s not to like about that?

Conclusion

Fabien puts a lot of energy into his content. He’s always providing useful information for internet marketers, bloggers, and professionals. What’s not to like? The kid has a bright future. Help him out by visiting his site and subscribing to his feed.

This edition of the Powder Keg Review series examines the impNERD web site’s explosiveness. The name for the site makes me think of little green men running around with black framed glasses. After reviewing the About page, I realized “imp” is an acronym for “Internet Marketing and Publishing.” So you won’t be getting your hands on little impish men, but on some quality Internet Marketing and Publishing content.

Gary Hess runs the impNERD site. The archives date back to October 2005, but Gary didn’t start blogging prolifically until September of 2007. Since then, the posts have focused on information any blogger or website owner should know about. The content contains helpful information on using Wordpress, monetizing your site, joining affiliate networks, and the ins-and-outs of social networks. It’s packed full of content relevant to today’s bloggers. From the latest post, it appears Gary will be reining in the posts published per week to focus attention on marketing the blog, and to give each post a chance to breath. Not a bad idea at all.

The impNERD site houses Wordpress plugins as well. Gary gives back to the WP community through his unique creations. He offers the following plugins on his site:

1. Keyword Snatcher
2. Random Ads
3. Featured Posts
4. SEO Tip of the Day

I’m planning to install the Keyword Snatcher plugin. It shows you the keyword density of any article inside the administrative area of Wordpress. This a great tool for SEO writing itself. The best part — it’s free. The other plugins look good as well. I encourage you to check them out for your own blogs.

The Layout
I like the subtle grays and the easy-to-read site text. impNERD also makes good use of their own creation — the Feature plugin — on the frontpage, which right now illuminates the Keyword Snatcher plugin. The wide adspace along the right compliments the two columns below. This valuable ad space should be a steal for the price he’s asking. Be sure to grab the $15 dollar spot for quality exposure.

I especially like the header where you can find more information about impNERD, see the popular posts on the site, view the available Wordpress plugins, and subscribe to the blog. I only have one complaint. I could not find the search feature. I wanted to search for a keyword to see if anything was written about the topic, but couldn’t find it. I think this is crucial to blogs as they grow in size. The more content we have — the more options we should offer to find that content.

Conclusion
I think it’s safe to say the impNERD site will continue to grow with quality content for bloggers, site owners, and affiliates. Gary’s contributions to the WP community, his insightful commentary on social media, Internet marketing, and web development should carry the site through the coming months and years. I have subscribed to his feed. How about you?