If you are familiar with Craigslist , then you know what a selling machine it can be for whatever industry you are in. The problem is that Craigslist does not really like it when you send visitors away from their site and it especially does not like it when you are in a program like a ticket broker affiliate program and you send people to commercial websites to make purchases.
Craigslist has different ways of attacking this problem and they can and will stop these ads from appearing.
The first way of preventing commercial ads is with robots. These bots search Craigslist all day long and if they find that you are posting these ads, they will automatically delete them.
The second way is with their own employees. They refer to these people as "the Craigslist staff" and if they find these ads, they will delete them.
The third way is with self policing. They let their actual visitors flag ads that are inappropriate or against their guidelines. They claim that your ad needs to be flagged a more then 1 person in order for it to be deleted.
So here is the good news. There are ways of getting around all of these flagging preventions. To get around the first way, which is getting around the bots is to know how they work. These bots look for people that are creating multiple posts under the same e-mail address. The way to get around this is to have multiple e-mail addresses. You can get free e-mail addresses at places like Yahoo and Hotmail but you should not make them similar either. What I mean is, have each e-mail address with different wording. Instead of having 10 e-mail addresses like Ticketaffiliates1@yahoo.com, Ticketaffiliates2@yahoo.com, Ticketaffiliates3@yahoo.com...etc , make all of the addresses unique.
whether you are using 1 address or 10, I would not post more then 7 ads per hour
One of the other things the bots search for is the same outbound link being displayed ad after ad. This is why ticket broker affiliates can get away with much more then other affiliates. Instead of just sending your customers to the same address on every ad like Barrystickets.com , send them to an exact event.
In this case you would still be sending them to
Barrystickets.com but you will be sending them to a specific event at Barrystickets.com
You should also hide your text so instead of saying Barrystickets.com, you would list the event you are selling, Like Purchase Super Bowl Tickets Here.
The reason this works so well is because every event has a different url and it makes it harder for the bots to find out what you are doing, especially if you are using different e-mail addresses for each ad.
Here is the formula to use when placing the link
a href="COPY AND PASTE THE EXACT URL LANDING PAGE THAT YOU WANT HERE">TYPE IN WHATEVER YOU WOULD LIKE HERE-EXAMPLE- SUPERBOWL TICKETS
I do very well on Craigslist. I once e-mailed another ticket broker to help him because his ads on Craigslist were terrible. I told him to link customers to exact games, concerts in the cities they are in and exact events. He told me that it was way too much work. Now I don't know about you but I average about $150.00 a day profit on Craigslist promoting my ticket broker affiliate programs and it takes about 1 1/2 hours a day to put all of my ads out. If that is too much work then you are lazy.
There really is not a way to get around Craigslist staff and Craigslist users flagging you except the fact that there are just so many ads to look through that most of the time they will not even find your ad.
I hope this helped.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
It doesn't hurt to ask your ticket broker affiliate manager for more money
Being in an affiliate program is not different then anything else in life. You are not going to get something if you don't ask. If you are not happy with the commission that you are receiving, simply e-mail the affiliate director for the ticket broker affiliate program that you are in and ask them if they will give you more money. A lot of times that is all it takes and they will. This is especially true if you are already generating a lot of sales for them or if you are new to the program and you can prove that you were doing it for someone else. Just remember, If you don't ask, you will never know.
The ticket brokers affiliate program advantage
As I mentioned in earlier posts, I used to be a ticket broker. The job was a lot tougher then one might think. If you are thinking about being a ticket broker, you might want to consider just being an affiliate and here is why.
When you are a ticket broker and someone purchases another ticket brokers tickets off of your website, you will profit an average of 25% per ticket. Now the company that is in charge of your website and database ( database explained Here ) will charge you an automatic 3% of the PURCHASE PRICE, not 3% of the 25% that you just profited.
Example: On a $100.00 order, you will make an average of 25% so your profit would be $25.00.
You will not be charged 3% on that $25.00. you will be charged 3% on the total order which is $3.00.
So now your profit is only $22.00
The next people that want to gauge at your profits are your credit card processors. They will charge you about 2.25% of again, the total order, so now you can take off another $2.25 off of your $22.00 profit which will give you $19.75.
Now I am not saying that $19.75 is a bad profit off of one $100.00 order but there are many other hidden costs involved such as office space, administration fees, a 1 800 number, employees and many other things.
The biggest head ache by far though is CASH FLOW. You need a lot of money to be an online ticket broker. First off, you have to find a credit card processor. There are places like paypal that you can use but being able to accept credit cards gives your website a lot more credibility. What most people do not know is when you are starting out new with credit processors, they will give you a limit on haw much money you can accept. In most cases it is only about $20,000 - $30,000 per month. That may seem like a lot but it really isn't. The average order for a ticket broker is $400.00. If you only average 3 orders per day, you are already hitting your limit. It usually takes a minimum of 2 days for the credit processor to transfer your money into your account which brings another headache.
When a customer purchases tickets from your website, you will be notified of the order. You have to call the ticket broker who is holding the tickets that have just been sold and make them aware that you want to purchase their tickets. Yes, you have read that right. You have to actually work both sides of this transaction. In addition to processing the order from your customer, you have to make up a purchase order and either e-mail it or fax it to the ticket holding broker along with your customers shipping label. So you need money to purchase these tickets from the holding broker. Again, the average order that a customer places is about $400.00, so that means on average, you are paying $300.00 to purchase these tickets from the holding broker. With 3 orders per day, that is $900 that you have to be responsible for and remember, you will not get that money back for a minimum of 2 days.
Also when you are a ticket broker, you are responsible for your customers orders. You must deal with ALL customer service issues. A lot of times, customers are unaware that you are charging more then face value and when they receive their tickets, they see the face value on the ticket and become very disgruntled. It does not matter how many times it is mentioned on your website or in your purchase agreements that you sell tickets for more then face value, If they are angry enough, they will try to do a charge back and in most cases they will win.
It is just a lot of money and headaches and personally, I am happy just getting 7%-10% from various brokers in a ticket broker affiliate program. I do not have to have a lot of cash on hand, no office, no 1-800 #, no employees and no credit card processors. I just have to market my ticket broker affiliates and they will do all of the grunt work. The Chicago Bulls have had a lot of hard luck in years past. Even though they finished with one of the worst records in the NBA, they did not get the lottery pick slot that they wanted. They picked number 7 and chose Kobe White. Bulls fans are starting to get impatient and they are hoping that this years team will at least compete for a playoff spot. Tickets to the Chicago Bulls are still kind of hard to get. Chicago Bulls Tickets have been hard to get since the Jordan years because Chicago Bulls fans love their team.
When you are a ticket broker and someone purchases another ticket brokers tickets off of your website, you will profit an average of 25% per ticket. Now the company that is in charge of your website and database ( database explained Here ) will charge you an automatic 3% of the PURCHASE PRICE, not 3% of the 25% that you just profited.
Example: On a $100.00 order, you will make an average of 25% so your profit would be $25.00.
You will not be charged 3% on that $25.00. you will be charged 3% on the total order which is $3.00.
So now your profit is only $22.00
The next people that want to gauge at your profits are your credit card processors. They will charge you about 2.25% of again, the total order, so now you can take off another $2.25 off of your $22.00 profit which will give you $19.75.
Now I am not saying that $19.75 is a bad profit off of one $100.00 order but there are many other hidden costs involved such as office space, administration fees, a 1 800 number, employees and many other things.
The biggest head ache by far though is CASH FLOW. You need a lot of money to be an online ticket broker. First off, you have to find a credit card processor. There are places like paypal that you can use but being able to accept credit cards gives your website a lot more credibility. What most people do not know is when you are starting out new with credit processors, they will give you a limit on haw much money you can accept. In most cases it is only about $20,000 - $30,000 per month. That may seem like a lot but it really isn't. The average order for a ticket broker is $400.00. If you only average 3 orders per day, you are already hitting your limit. It usually takes a minimum of 2 days for the credit processor to transfer your money into your account which brings another headache.
When a customer purchases tickets from your website, you will be notified of the order. You have to call the ticket broker who is holding the tickets that have just been sold and make them aware that you want to purchase their tickets. Yes, you have read that right. You have to actually work both sides of this transaction. In addition to processing the order from your customer, you have to make up a purchase order and either e-mail it or fax it to the ticket holding broker along with your customers shipping label. So you need money to purchase these tickets from the holding broker. Again, the average order that a customer places is about $400.00, so that means on average, you are paying $300.00 to purchase these tickets from the holding broker. With 3 orders per day, that is $900 that you have to be responsible for and remember, you will not get that money back for a minimum of 2 days.
Also when you are a ticket broker, you are responsible for your customers orders. You must deal with ALL customer service issues. A lot of times, customers are unaware that you are charging more then face value and when they receive their tickets, they see the face value on the ticket and become very disgruntled. It does not matter how many times it is mentioned on your website or in your purchase agreements that you sell tickets for more then face value, If they are angry enough, they will try to do a charge back and in most cases they will win.
It is just a lot of money and headaches and personally, I am happy just getting 7%-10% from various brokers in a ticket broker affiliate program. I do not have to have a lot of cash on hand, no office, no 1-800 #, no employees and no credit card processors. I just have to market my ticket broker affiliates and they will do all of the grunt work. The Chicago Bulls have had a lot of hard luck in years past. Even though they finished with one of the worst records in the NBA, they did not get the lottery pick slot that they wanted. They picked number 7 and chose Kobe White. Bulls fans are starting to get impatient and they are hoping that this years team will at least compete for a playoff spot. Tickets to the Chicago Bulls are still kind of hard to get. Chicago Bulls Tickets have been hard to get since the Jordan years because Chicago Bulls fans love their team.
Attention ticket broker affiliates - Hannah Montana tickets are hot hot hot
If you are in a ticket broker affiliate program, you have to be crazy if you are not promoting Hannah Montana Tickets right now. The lowest priced ticket is going for an average of $240.00 in every city on her tour. That means if you are in a good ticket broker affiliate program like Barrys Tickets that pays you 10% on every oreder, you will be rewarded $24.00 per ticket. You have to figure that you will at least get a minumum order of 2 tickets, that would make you an easy $48.00 and if by chance you send someone who buys 2 of the best tickets in the house that happen to be averaging at about $2000 per ticket, well then you just made yoursell a quick $400.00
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Concentrate on making money in more then one city
If there is one thing that I have noticed about my customers shopping for tickets, it is that they do just that, shop for tickets. That is why I am not member of just one ticket broker affiliate program. While it is true that most ticket brokers do not even offer an affiliate program, the ones that do can offer you a little known benefit.
When a ticket broker has their own inventory, it most likely is inventory to events near them. That is where their connections are and that is where they do most of their business. Some ticket brokers purchase inventory for events all across the United States but I could almost certainly guarantee you that the majority of their inventory is for their surrounding area.
How can this help you and a ticket broker affiliate. Well, As I stated in my LAST POST, on a ticket broker's website all of the other ticket brokers in the United States inventory is listed on their website and is automatically marked up in price 20%-30%. What I did not mention is that if a particular ticket broker is also selling tickets to an event, their tickets are listed before all of the other ticket brokers inventory, and guess what? There is no mark up and there will be no hidden service charges. You will not find those particular tickets any cheaper, anywhere on the internet. So it makes sense that if you are selling Chicago Bears tickets to try and be an affiliate for someone who actually sells Chicago Bears tickets because the customer you refer is going to find some of the tickets 20%-30% cheaper then on any other ticket brokers website.
As I stated above, most ticket brokers do not even offer an affiliate program but here are a few in some major cities that do. These are the ones I actually use.
For anything in the Chicago area
Ticket America
Ticketsnow
For anything in the New York City Area
Surftix
For anything in any city is California
Barry's Tickets
For anything in Kansas City
Ticket Solutions
It is ALWAYS a good idea to contact the affiliate manager of the ticket broker affiliate program that you are in and ask them to specify which events that they actually hold inventory to. Believe be, this gives you a huge upper hand when people are shopping for tickets and they find your link.
When a ticket broker has their own inventory, it most likely is inventory to events near them. That is where their connections are and that is where they do most of their business. Some ticket brokers purchase inventory for events all across the United States but I could almost certainly guarantee you that the majority of their inventory is for their surrounding area.
How can this help you and a ticket broker affiliate. Well, As I stated in my LAST POST, on a ticket broker's website all of the other ticket brokers in the United States inventory is listed on their website and is automatically marked up in price 20%-30%. What I did not mention is that if a particular ticket broker is also selling tickets to an event, their tickets are listed before all of the other ticket brokers inventory, and guess what? There is no mark up and there will be no hidden service charges. You will not find those particular tickets any cheaper, anywhere on the internet. So it makes sense that if you are selling Chicago Bears tickets to try and be an affiliate for someone who actually sells Chicago Bears tickets because the customer you refer is going to find some of the tickets 20%-30% cheaper then on any other ticket brokers website.
As I stated above, most ticket brokers do not even offer an affiliate program but here are a few in some major cities that do. These are the ones I actually use.
For anything in the Chicago area
Ticket America
Ticketsnow
For anything in the New York City Area
Surftix
For anything in any city is California
Barry's Tickets
For anything in Kansas City
Ticket Solutions
It is ALWAYS a good idea to contact the affiliate manager of the ticket broker affiliate program that you are in and ask them to specify which events that they actually hold inventory to. Believe be, this gives you a huge upper hand when people are shopping for tickets and they find your link.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Understanding how the ticket industry works
Anyone can just join an affiliate program and place a link on their website and hope that it works. Successful affiliates, including myself know that it is not that simple. If you truly want to make money at what you are promoting, you have to understand everything about your product. So before I go and start promoting affiliate programs and helping you succeed, I want to make sure that you understand how the game is played. So let's start at the beginning.
As I stated in my 1st post, there are over 1000 ticket brokers online. What most people do not know is that they all share the same database. Let me explain. Let's say that you wanted to become an online ticket broker. Easy enough, you would design your own website and you would list any tickets that you have for sale. The problem with that is that there are literally thousands and thousands events going on in the USA at almost all times of the year. If a customer were to come to your website, they would check to see if you have tickets for a specific event. Most likely, you will not. You will have some events for sale but I would take a very estimated guess that you would not have tickets for about 99% of the events that they are looking for. So now in order to make your website and your business appear much bigger and profitable, you would probably want to get into a ticket database.
What a ticket database does is literally bring all the online ticket broker inventories together into one database. Currently, there are 2 main companies in the USA that provide these ticket database services, there are more but almost every online ticket broker use either one or both of these databases, and they are Eventinventory (ticketsnow.com partner company) and Ticketnetwork. Almost every ticket you see for sale online is listed through one of these databases.
Eventinventory and Ticketnetwork both offer the same service. If you wanted to list your inventory on one of their databases, they have wonderful packages to sell you.
The advantage of these services are awesome if you want to be an online ticket broker. These companies have a full suite of service from just access to the database for buying and selling to a complete website with every ticket brokers tickets in their database on your website, and yours on theirs.
If you choose just access to the database, you will be able to list your inventory on the database. They will charge you a small fee a month plus 1%-3% of all your sales. This is big because your tickets are not just on one little tiny portion of your website, they are now on every ticket brokers website in the country.
If you choose to also take the website that they offer, well then your little tiny website with less then 1% of the nations events for sale on it just became a huge website with every event in the country for sale and every ticket brokers inventory in the country is on it. That is quite a big difference. So, you see, getting in on one of those databases in huge.
So next, you might be wondering how you make money when you are selling other ticket brokers tickets on your website. Well along with the website that they sell you, they also sell you a Point of sale system. In this point of sale you can keep track of your inventory, accounting, marketing methods and every other thing imaginable. Most importatly, you can control the mark up of the other ticket brokers tickets that are displayed on your website. The industry standard is about 20% - 30% per ticket. So if a ticket broker was selling asking $100.00 for his tickets, your website would automatically list them at $125.00 per ticket because in your POS you went in and marked them up 25%. Because the ticket broker industry is so competitive, ticket brokers have become very creative in making that extra 20% to 30% per ticket.
This is very important on the success you will have as a ticket broker affiliate so please pay close attention. PEOPLE SHOP AROUND WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING FOR TICKETS. Let me say it again, PEOPLE SHOP AROUND WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING FOR TICKETS. More then you can ever imagine. The reason is that the secondary ticket market is so huge that the prices have just gone through the roof. I myself think that it is rediculous but people are still buying but they are shopping first. When they look for tickets online they are mostly shell shocked when they first see the prices for the tickets that they are interested in. Naturally, they think the prices are absurd and they want to find them cheaper somewhere else. This is where the ticket brokers have got creative with hiding their 20% - 30%. Istead of displaying a markup right on the website, in our example this would be $125.00, they wait until the customer is checking out and then they will hit them with a 20%-30% service charge. It is sneaky but in their defense it somehow works.
As I stated in my 1st post, there are over 1000 ticket brokers online. What most people do not know is that they all share the same database. Let me explain. Let's say that you wanted to become an online ticket broker. Easy enough, you would design your own website and you would list any tickets that you have for sale. The problem with that is that there are literally thousands and thousands events going on in the USA at almost all times of the year. If a customer were to come to your website, they would check to see if you have tickets for a specific event. Most likely, you will not. You will have some events for sale but I would take a very estimated guess that you would not have tickets for about 99% of the events that they are looking for. So now in order to make your website and your business appear much bigger and profitable, you would probably want to get into a ticket database.
What a ticket database does is literally bring all the online ticket broker inventories together into one database. Currently, there are 2 main companies in the USA that provide these ticket database services, there are more but almost every online ticket broker use either one or both of these databases, and they are Eventinventory (ticketsnow.com partner company) and Ticketnetwork. Almost every ticket you see for sale online is listed through one of these databases.
Eventinventory and Ticketnetwork both offer the same service. If you wanted to list your inventory on one of their databases, they have wonderful packages to sell you.
The advantage of these services are awesome if you want to be an online ticket broker. These companies have a full suite of service from just access to the database for buying and selling to a complete website with every ticket brokers tickets in their database on your website, and yours on theirs.
If you choose just access to the database, you will be able to list your inventory on the database. They will charge you a small fee a month plus 1%-3% of all your sales. This is big because your tickets are not just on one little tiny portion of your website, they are now on every ticket brokers website in the country.
If you choose to also take the website that they offer, well then your little tiny website with less then 1% of the nations events for sale on it just became a huge website with every event in the country for sale and every ticket brokers inventory in the country is on it. That is quite a big difference. So, you see, getting in on one of those databases in huge.
So next, you might be wondering how you make money when you are selling other ticket brokers tickets on your website. Well along with the website that they sell you, they also sell you a Point of sale system. In this point of sale you can keep track of your inventory, accounting, marketing methods and every other thing imaginable. Most importatly, you can control the mark up of the other ticket brokers tickets that are displayed on your website. The industry standard is about 20% - 30% per ticket. So if a ticket broker was selling asking $100.00 for his tickets, your website would automatically list them at $125.00 per ticket because in your POS you went in and marked them up 25%. Because the ticket broker industry is so competitive, ticket brokers have become very creative in making that extra 20% to 30% per ticket.
This is very important on the success you will have as a ticket broker affiliate so please pay close attention. PEOPLE SHOP AROUND WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING FOR TICKETS. Let me say it again, PEOPLE SHOP AROUND WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING FOR TICKETS. More then you can ever imagine. The reason is that the secondary ticket market is so huge that the prices have just gone through the roof. I myself think that it is rediculous but people are still buying but they are shopping first. When they look for tickets online they are mostly shell shocked when they first see the prices for the tickets that they are interested in. Naturally, they think the prices are absurd and they want to find them cheaper somewhere else. This is where the ticket brokers have got creative with hiding their 20% - 30%. Istead of displaying a markup right on the website, in our example this would be $125.00, they wait until the customer is checking out and then they will hit them with a 20%-30% service charge. It is sneaky but in their defense it somehow works.
There is big money to be made as a ticket broker affiliate
It is estimated that the secondary ticket market is worth $10 - $12 billion dollars. The internet is a huge market place for both buyers and sellers alike. To date, there are over 1000 online ticket brokers, and that does not include the huge individual customer base on places like Stub Hub and Ebay. I used to be an online ticket broker, and well, let's just say that it was very competitve and way too much work. I am making a lot more money now as an affiliate of numerous ticket brokers then I was when I was an actual ticket broker.
Anyone can be an affiliate for a ticket broker and the best part is that is is very easy and it is very good money. So what is a ticket broker affiliate? An affiliate is someone who advertises for a ticket broker and in turn is paid, very nicely I might ad, when a sale is made. Advertising is not that hard. There are a ton of free places to advertise on the internet. You can also just put a link on your website, newsletter or blog. That is the thing, there are a ton of different ways to advertise and most of the time it just takes your time, not your money. It is like anything else in life, you have to work for it.
In future posts, you will read everything that you need to learn about being a ticket broker affiliate.I will give you tips on where to advertise and everything. I will also give yu tips on what is selling like hot cakes and what you should not waste your time with. There are THOUSANDS of events for you to promote weekly and you just have to know how. Heck, you will even learn how to be a ticket broker with your own website if you would even like to do that. Now, being a ticket broker is not something that I am trying to promote here but because I am going to be so thorough about everything, you will know how to do it. One more thing, to me, selling tickets online and being a ticket broker are two different things. I still sell all kinds of tickets online and I do pretty well with it, but I do not consider myself a ticket broker. So, welcome to my site and if you ever have any questions, fell free to e-mail me.
Anyone can be an affiliate for a ticket broker and the best part is that is is very easy and it is very good money. So what is a ticket broker affiliate? An affiliate is someone who advertises for a ticket broker and in turn is paid, very nicely I might ad, when a sale is made. Advertising is not that hard. There are a ton of free places to advertise on the internet. You can also just put a link on your website, newsletter or blog. That is the thing, there are a ton of different ways to advertise and most of the time it just takes your time, not your money. It is like anything else in life, you have to work for it.
In future posts, you will read everything that you need to learn about being a ticket broker affiliate.I will give you tips on where to advertise and everything. I will also give yu tips on what is selling like hot cakes and what you should not waste your time with. There are THOUSANDS of events for you to promote weekly and you just have to know how. Heck, you will even learn how to be a ticket broker with your own website if you would even like to do that. Now, being a ticket broker is not something that I am trying to promote here but because I am going to be so thorough about everything, you will know how to do it. One more thing, to me, selling tickets online and being a ticket broker are two different things. I still sell all kinds of tickets online and I do pretty well with it, but I do not consider myself a ticket broker. So, welcome to my site and if you ever have any questions, fell free to e-mail me.
Please go to my next step Understanding how the ticket broker industry works
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