A friend of mine recently said she was disheartened by the promotion of the affiliate lifestyle as an easy way for anyone to make serious cash. She pointed out that most affiliates fall flat on their face making little to no money. This got me thinking'. is the affiliate dream real? To answer this question, I decided to pick up the phone and fire up my email to reach out to a few successful affiliate marketers to get their thoughts on the reality of the affiliate dream.

There's no better way to test your resolution than braving a four day conference like PubCon and returning to a pile of emails and backed-up projects. Whether you're still recovering from PubCon Vegas 2011 )Nov 7-10th( or you just want to prepare for your next post-conference hangover, I have a recipe that might just do the trick. If you're one of those people who diligently keep up with your work while you're at a conference,

Amid metropolis shaking earthquakes and looming hurricanes, I survived Affiliate Summit East in New York not long ago. I staggered from NYC with tattered remains of notebook paper littered with choice bits I picked up to bring to you, the Pilgrim readers. While the actual experience was more like an earthquake I didn't feel and a hurricane I narrowly missed, I am glad to have survived ASE to bring you these highlights. 1.

Editor's Note: Occasionally we will give our readers a look at various events that one of our writers will be attending. We have no connection to this event other than this post to inform you about the opportunity that exists for futher online marketing education and networking. Affiliate Summit East is just around the corner )August 21-23( in New York and there's no time like the present to plan your conference strategy.

I'm an efficiency nut. I change little things about my processes and tools just to shave a few seconds off of tasks I repeat over and over again each day. I even use a square monitor because I feel I lose too much time moving my mouse across a wide screen. All these little savings add up and there's no better way to increase your work efficiency than with some juicy browser extensions. Since Chrome is my browser of choice these days,

I remember the first ad buy I ever made. The year was 1996 and I was purchasing a 3"x2" ad in the independent newspaper the Houston Press. I had never bought an ad before and the experience was exciting knowing that my ad would be read by thousands of people who just might purchase the services of my employer, a local ISP in Houston. Now you might ask why I wasn't buying ads for that campaign online. Well, the answer is simple.

If you're looking to expand your Twitter universe, you've found the right post. While opinions will vary on any list of this sort, I've picked out and reviewed my choices for the top 25 online marketers you should be following on Twitter. They are not presented in any particular order so as to prevent any in-fighting with those listed .

Recently, I attended the first ever Affiliate Summit Meetup Day . Affiliate Summit recently launched a nation wide circuit of meetups to bring affiliate marketers together in local networking and learning groups. The meetups are currently held in Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Baltimore, Melbourne, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City and my home-town, Austin. The Austin meetup,

As an online marketing consultant I'm always preaching the value of SEO, but every now and then a website owner crosses my desk where I advise them to abandon their SEO efforts )cue the boos and hisses(. I've compiled a list of the reasons I feel justify abandoning your SEO efforts and I hope it leaves you thinking about the value of all of your marketing campaigns and how they fit into your overall strategy. 1. None of your sales come from your website.

Day two of PubCon Austin started with attendees stumbling from shuttle buses and rental cars into the conference. The chamber-of-commerce 50 degree sunny weather coaxed a few winces from those who had a little too much fun at the Internet Marketing Party with @affiliatetip and @btabke the night before, but the mood was positive as attendees prepared for another day of grade A online marketing training. I b-lined for the coffee station,

Day one of PubCon Austin was filled with high caliber sessions and awesome opportunities to meet interesting people passionate about online marketing. Acting a bit like the lone pilgrim, I embarked through a never ending downpour of useful advice, insightful commentary and the occasional comical outburst to bring the best of PubCon to you, the Marketing Pilgrim readers.

PubCon Austin kicked off today with a keynote by best selling author and social media specialist Jeffrey Eisenberg. Eisenberg's keynote entitled Social Media and Conversion: The Yellow Brick Road , covered the goals and approaches one should take with social media marketing. Eisenberg's main theme was using social media marketing efforts to start a meaningful conversation with your audience.

Running affiliate offers on your website can be a fun and rewarding experience, but there are quite a few challenges for you on your road to strike it rich. To help you on this journey, I've compiled a list of the top 6 pitfalls of affiliate marketing for publishers. While this list is by no means comprehensive of all the challenges you'll face in your campaigns, it's a good place to start and might help you avoid some headaches along the way. Also,

Affiliate marketing can be a very rewarding endeavor for the ambitious online marketer; however, there are several things you should be aware of before you take the plunge. To help you on your journey, I've compiled a list of some of the top 6 pitfalls you may face as you deploy your own affiliate marketing advertising campaigns. While this list is by no means comprehensive of all the challenges you'll face in your campaigns,

So how does a website capturing 25% of all US based traffic grow? They take over your home page of course! Recently, many Facebook users )myself included( have been presented with a gray bar at the top of the Facebook website inviting them to make Facebook their home page. Facebook is using a subtle trick that isn't much a trick at all; however,

Paris-based Yakaz has recently launched a new real-time social classified ad system designed to quickly facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers. The Yakaz website offers visitors the chance to view and post to live classified feeds from across the country or in the city or state of their choice. My initial test drive of Yakaz was a mixed bag of experiences. I started by trying to create an account directly through their web site. Everything seemed to go well,

Last Year the FTC revised guidelines governing the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. As you may recall , the big news then was the addition of a rule stating that bloggers who accept free merchandise or services from companies they write about must reveal the terms of that endorsement to their readers or be found in violation of the law. Apparently someone forgot to tell Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley about this. As discussed at CNNmoney.com,

The latest version of the Amazon iPhone app )1.2.8( connects the offline world to online sales like never before by offering a camera based barcode scanner similar to those available on popular price comparison apps like Red Laser . The new Amazon app supports a more integrated offline-to-online shopping experience by supporting purchases directly inside the app and the ability to add items to your wish list for later purchase. If you're selling on Amazon,

Utilizing their vast collection of shopping data, Google is developing an alternative means of tracking inflation known as the Google Price Index )GPI(. The effort is being headed by Google's chief economist Hal Varian, and has the grand goal of providing more timely price index data. The well known Consumer Price Index )CPI( provides a monthly measure of inflation based on pricing data gathered by hand from brick-and-mortar retailers along with other sources.

A great bot army has descended on the Internet. Tirelessly performing the bidding of its masters, this ravenous horde is invading our websites, taking our content, clicking on our ads and becoming our friends. Most of the time we don't even know they are there, but they are and at one point or another you need to come to terms with bots. A bot is an automated software application which typically performs tasks over the Internet.