How would you organize a huge-ass contest? $15k cash prize etc.

[charlie.simm]

What I like about affbuzz is they have the popular shit on the top and if I was interested in looking for anything new I could just scroll down and see the most recent posts by anyone on the front page.

Your site feels cluttered to me and I didn't even want to stick around for more than 10 seconds. I had no idea what the hell all that crap on the home page was for and I didn't feel like reading anything on there to find out. Maybe its because im hungover and feeling kinda shitty but your color scheme started to give me a headache.

But anyway id suggest having some kind of top posts like aff buzz does so I don't have to go looking through pages of blog posts to find out whats hot.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

The best posts will receive exposure through the "featured" section.

Right now, "AffiliateMarketers.com - Private Beta" is the featured headline that is being displayed on AffiliateMarketers.com but the application lets me feature more than one if I want to.

So through the "featured" section, I will:

1) Make sure that the best posts receive additional exposure
2) Let people pay for exposure (another idea I got from Domaining.com)

And if you visit the site each day, you won't have to go through more than a page or two. For example, only 11 posts were published over the past 24 hours and even on a "busy" day, I doubt there will be more than 20 - 30 new posts. 10 posts are displayed/page, so you'll usually be able to read the headlines of the day without leaving the homepage or maybe you'll also have to visit the second page but that's pretty much it.

That's what I like about Domaining.com. I drop by once or twice a day, see all of the headlines and decide which post(s) I want to read. Literally takes less than a minute and that's why I chose the same approach for AffiliateMarketers.com, this way of displaying content is a huge time saver IMO.

 

[Red_Virus]

I like the design (easy of the eyes) also you got a very good domain name there. I feel that Networks section in the sidebar is way too long.

 

[Napolean]

Bit lame posting your competing site on someone else's forum and holding a competition there to get members, assuming you didn't ask Jon first. Just my opinion.

And lame giving thread such a misleading title, got excited for nothing.

 

[charlie.simm]

I like the design (easy of the eyes) also you got a very good domain name there.

Thanks!

I feel that Networks section in the sidebar is way too long.

Hmm, you're the second WF member who thinks the "Networks" column is too long, gutterseo said the same thing.

I want the column in question to be useful and ultimately help AffiliateMarketers.com have a good "signal to noise" ratio. That's why networks can only promote one offer at a time (their hottest offer) and that's why there's some info about each offer as opposed to just the name + payout. I might remove the "Description" part altogether or at least have something like a character limit.

 

[Fellah]

SEO

Do you have any other ideas?

Have you ever organized a similar contest and if so, what's the most important lesson you learned?

My #1 goal is simple: I want as many people as possible to become loyal visitors and the contest will hopefully help me generate critical mass.

First just let me say none of my shit is researched or from experience. I'm just another guy with an opinion.

I think you should make it more around how people add exposure to your contest. If you can, get your programmer to make it so that each contestant has their own referral link and track how many people they send to your site.

What you really want is for a ton of people to think they have a chance to win some money. So maybe instead of one grand prize, break it down to milestones. Send 100 people and get $XX amount of money. Send 1000 people and get $XXX amount of money. Send 10000000 people and get $XXXXXXXX amount of money lol u get my point.

People could add banners to their sigs on forums, make YouTube videos, add banners to their blogs, make posts about it, etc. I think equally important as getting the super bloggers interested would be getting the masses interested. TONS of broke affiliate marketers would whore out their sig on popular forums in hopes of a couple bucks via Paypal.com. You might need to store a list of referring URLs so that if some one is spamming your link on unrelated forums etc sending untargeted traffic you can disqualify him.

Last but not least in order to get more sponsors and increase your ability to pay out for the contest, you could co-brand the contest's landing page. Tell a sponsor if you throw in $5k then X percentage of referrals from the contest will be shown a co-branded version of your home page.

 

[charlie.simm]

First just let me say none of my shit is researched or from experience. I'm just another guy with an opinion.

I think you should make it more around how people add exposure to your contest. If you can, get your programmer to make it so that each contestant has their own referral link and track how many people they send to your site.

What you really want is for a ton of people to think they have a chance to win some money. So maybe instead of one grand prize, break it down to milestones. Send 100 people and get $XX amount of money. Send 1000 people and get $XXX amount of money. Send 10000000 people and get $XXXXXXXX amount of money lol u get my point.

People could add banners to their sigs on forums, make YouTube videos, add banners to their blogs, make posts about it, etc. I think equally important as getting the super bloggers interested would be getting the masses interested. TONS of broke affiliate marketers would whore out their sig on popular forums in hopes of a couple bucks via Paypal.com. You might need to store a list of referring URLs so that if some one is spamming your link on unrelated forums etc sending untargeted traffic you can disqualify him.

Last but not least in order to get more sponsors and increase your ability to pay out for the contest, you could co-brand the contest's landing page. Tell a sponsor if you throw in $5k then X percentage of referrals from the contest will be shown a co-branded version of your home page.

+rep

I'll be implementing some of your suggestions, for example the forum signature one, I'll basically give people extra points (as explained in my initial post, I'll probably go with an "earn points" approach) if they include a banner or a text link in their sig. I'm pretty sure some people will think they can game the system by creating shitloads of forum accounts, so I'll play it safe by making it clear that you're not allowed to display the banner or text link in your signature if you've joined after the contest start date or if you have less than 50 posts.

The referral link part would be tricky, not because it's hard to implement (it wouldn't be all that complicated) but rather because if I give extra points based on how many visitors they send, people will use proxies and all sorts of unorthodox traffic generation methods :anon.sml:

 

[momchil9]

Contest Domination | The easiest way to run contests on WordPress.

 

[charlie.simm]

Contest Domination | The easiest way to run contests on WordPress.

Thanks, I'll probably use this baby if my programmer thinks it's a good idea, I'll ask him tomorrow. Seems like a pretty decent tool and after all these years on teh Interwebz, it would be my first (and probably only) CB purchase :anon.sml:

 

[jetto]

How much did you pay for the domain if not secret?

 

[jetto]

Also, a few suggestions:

1) $15K is too much. You're wasting money. Most affiliates/make monies online people don't make shit. You can offer $10K or even $5K and gather a ton of attention.

2) I suggest you make it a drawing rather than contest. Make them complete multiple social actions to enter example "must a) blog about it b) Like our Facebook page c) tweet about us" or whatever

3) Randomly draw a winner at the end of the month (maybe there are services that provide random drawing so you will look more trusted)

4) You can get a lot of brand advertising dollars from affiliate networks. Look at Mr. Eagle splashing his face all over affiliate sites for example. That's what you should be going for. I would try to position my site as upscale, serious because there's so many affiliate sites that are associated with teenager spirit so to speak. Position it as a preimum affiliate portal or whatever. Then u can charge higher rates for brand ads. For example ShoeMoney and JohnChow charge crazy money for brand ads. Why? They postioned themselves as premium.

 

[charlie.simm]

How much did you pay for the domain if not secret?

$5k

Also, a few suggestions:

1) $15K is too much. You're wasting money. Most affiliates/make monies online people don't make shit. You can offer $10K or even $5K and gather a ton of attention.

I might offer two cash prizes ($10k and $5k) instead of just one $15k cash prize. There will also be shitloads of prizes offered by various sponsors (networks, service providers and so on), should be more than enough. I'll make my final decision after finding out what the sponsors will be putting on the table.

2) I suggest you make it a drawing rather than contest. Make them complete multiple social actions to enter example "must a) blog about it b) Like our Facebook page c) tweet about us" or whatever

3) Randomly draw a winner at the end of the month (maybe there are services that provide random drawing so you will look more trusted)

Yep, that's what I'll be doing. Maybe there will also be weekly drawings with smaller prizes but that'll depend on how many used fleshlights the sponsors will offer