$200 to get started with Microsoft adCenter for your contextual affiliate arbitrage

Microsoft® is giving away $200 in clicks if you sign up for adCenter (Their equivalent of Google Adwords). There is a mandatory $5 setup fee. You simple go to this microsoft adcenter special offer page and follow the instructions. The adCenter coupon code is “DM-2-1106″. The offer states its over with at 1/15/2007, but I have seen these come down before the end date so hurry up. [link credit to SEOBook]
So for those who wanted to try affiliate arbitrage, here is your chance to give it a shot.

1. Make sure you are signed up for a CPA (Cost Per Click) affiliate network. I highly recommend AzoogleAds, or Maxbounty. I have a good relationship with my Azoogle rep [Fraser], and I will help you expedite your signup request for you if you comment bellow.
2. Select a good ad to run with - here is a good example; Holiday Offer - Santa-Letters.net - Letters from the North Pole! This offer pays out about 12ish dollars per someone ordering. Normally I wouldn’t go for something that requires a purchase, but this is one of those things people are looking for now. Now really good offers are ones that pay well (the higher the better), but only require the user to add their email address. Ringtone offers do this, you will find great offers on azoogle that pay out over 10 bucks just for someone putting in an email address on a form. I personally won’t go for the ringtone market because its pretty flooded, but you get the idea.
3. Make sure you “Mask” your affiliate url. This is important more for google adwords, but you might as well get into the habit of doing it. Plus, if the offer comes to a stop for some reason, you can change the redirect on your end to point to something really similar without a lot of work. You mask your affiliate urls like this; Lets say your url from azoogle looks like this [http://x.azjmp.com/063f9?sub=affiliatepro], you don’t want that in the ads, so you use something to redirect it so now your url looks like this [http://www.affiliatepro.info/go/santaletters] and all it will do is redirect someone to the earlier url.
4. Do your research on the demographics of users who would be prime subjects for your offer. In this case it would be 30-55 year old women with children or grand children. Find terms that fit that demographic and subjects related to the offer. I use wordtracker for my keyword search lists. It’s probably the best tool out there, but I can say Nichebot is quickly catching up! Get you a good list of keywords.
5. Ok, now all you need to do is, setup your campaign in adcenter and load up your keywords. Work on your ad copy, because that will play an important roll, now run your campaign and watch the 200 convert! Keep your eye on the $200 limit because it will charge you if you don’t!

Now keep in mind, this isn’t easy and a lot of people fail the first few tries, BUT eventually when you get the hang of it, then that’s where the big bucks is!

Here is some good reading on this subject. Take note that shoemoney didn’t do so hot the first couple of times, but he learned and check out the payoff at the end!