I had a phone call with a friend and fellow internet marketer, A.M. Khan the other day. I had planned to ask him some questions I had about Google’s new remarketing features, since I knew only a little bit and was genuinely curious about it.

I watched his video about remarketing.

I thought I pretty much got the picture.

I thought I knew where the conversation would go.

I thought it would last around 15 to 20 minutes.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

You’ve got to listen to this, especially if you use PPV at all and have an Adwords account (or plan to get one).

Remarketing Call With A.M. Khan (mp3)

This is 100% for real, totally unscripted and completely unexpected. PPV and PPC people need to listen to this!

Of course A.M. also had something to promote, even though I kinda hijacked the call for my own selfish interests! LOL

He makes an offer on the call of his Adtext Image Creator 2.0 software for $197. That’s half price and I thought it was an awesome offer.

But then we talked a couple days later.

One thing led to another and he agreed to drop the price from $397 to only $97 for 2 weeks just for my readers & customers!

Before you buy, make sure you read the rest of this post!

www.tooltrainer.com/aic

If you don’t already have a tool for mass-producing banners in all the appropriate sizes for your content network/remarketing campaigns, you should really give AIC a try.

Now for the really fun stuff… it doesn’t stop there. This is where you’re going to want to pay attention if you use PPV or plan to.

I got so excited about the potential of what we discussed on the phone, that I immediately set up a few test campaigns to see if it actually was possible.

Well sure enough, IT IS possible! I’m now building remarketing lists that I can zero in on again later via PPC, from the cheapest of the cheap PPV traffic.

I can target these people EVERYWHERE they go on the Content Network.

Screw site targeting.

Forget trying to guess what websites they might visit.

I can show ads to them REGARDLESS of the sites they’re on, even if they aren’t related to the original niche!

I was able to add 1,000 targeted people to my first test “health products” remarketing list for just $15 from PPV traffic.

I’m working on another list now for auto insurance, and another for credit.

The possibilities here are staggering.

I’m producing a video documenting the technique and my findings, and will make it available as a bonus to all who buy Adtext Image Creator through my link.

www.tooltrainer.com/aic

You’ll get to see me developing and refining the technique as I go. This is so new I’m not sure there’s even anyone else in the world who’s done this (if there is they certainly aren’t talking about it!)

But listen to our call first, as it may even be all you need to get started with this technique. Still I expect my video will help clear the whole process up a lot for those who don’t quite get it just from hearing us talk about it.

I really think this could breathe new life into PPV and PPC in specific, and even affiliate marketing in general.

Seriously, go listen to this right away. Shut the door, turn off the phone, open your ears and pay close attention when I start getting really excited. You won’t miss it.

Thanks to everyone who submitted an application for my private consulting club. I’ve been scanning them already and will be going over them in depth this weekend, and begin sending acceptance letters to those that are the best fit. If you don’t get accepted at this time, I’m going to keep your information for future reference so that if I decide to bring on more people later, I can revisit with you and see if you’re a fit at that time.

There is still time to apply, I doubt I’ll get through all the applications this weekend alone. After reading the original post on the subject, please do apply if you think it will benefit you. Nothing to lose and you might just get in!

Jonathan

For those who just want to skip to the point and make
a decision, here’s the short version:

I’m offering private 1-on-1 consulting via Instant
Messenger as a monthly subscription, to help you out
and answer whatever questions you may have in your
online business. I am only accepting 100 people at
this time. To apply go to
http://tooltrainer.com/consulting.php right away.

Now for those who like details…

I’ve been asked countless times over the years, if I
do personal coaching/mentoring or have a membership
program, etc. The answer has pretty much always been
“no I don’t and no I don’t.” Don’t get me wrong - I
love the idea of personal coaching and spending that
kind of time & attention with someone to make things
happen. But the time commitment on my end is
enormous, and to make it make any sense for me I would
have to charge a massive fee, which then wouldn’t make
sense for the other person (I don’t want anyone
starting from that much of a hole!)

If you’ve ever put a support ticket in my support
desk, or sent me an email, you know that I actually
answer things myself. I also have people helping me
on those occasions when the volume gets to be too much
(like on a launch or something) but mostly I do my own
support. I’m very hands on that way.

You may also know that I can *usually* solve/fix just
about any problem online, from simple HTML errors on a
page, to complex PHP scripting, to database setup to
scraping, pinging, automation, whitehat, blackhat, and
just about everything in between. I’ve become the “go-
to-guy” for a number of people that are much higher
profile than myself, because they know I can
troubleshoot and solve damn near anything and always
have a creative solution to a problem. I guess all
those years I spent doing software QA and testing for
a living taught me something eh?

I’ve been wanting for a long time to come up with some
sort of program where I could be available to more
people, to do what I do best in helping them out and
removing the technical obstacles from their path. But
like I said before, personal coaching just requires
WAY too much of my time and energy, and I *do* have a
life outside of the online world (or at least I like
to pretend that I do! LOL)

So suddenly it hit me. I’ve got several “big”
projects I’m working on, including some that are
outside of the marketing space entirely. This means
I’m at the computer almost all day anyway creating
content, coding, directing my employees, handling
support, etc. Why couldn’t I handle a few more chat
conversations at any given time, and still get my
other things done as well?

I think I can!

So here’s the idea: I’m going to offer personal,
private consulting via skype to just 100 people, to
test the waters and see how it goes. When people ask
me to do personal consulting I normally charge
$500/hour to get on the phone with them. However the
fee for this is much less because it won’t be as all-
consuming as the phone, and I’m working it into what
I’m already doing anyway.

This program will cost just $100/month. No not $97,
or $99, or $99.99. We’re all big girls & boys here,
and it’s simply a flat hundred bucks a month.

Here’s what you get for that:

* A private skype ID to contact between my “office”
hours (not yet locked down). This will be for member
use ONLY and I won’t talk to anyone else on it.

* The ability to contact me and ask me any questions
you have about your business or anything you’re
doing. Note that this does NOT include questions like
“How can I make some money?” I’m not doing this to
take people who have never made their first dollar
online and make them superstars. This is for people
who are already doing SOMETHING, that will benefit
from having my expertise available day in & day out to
help them solve technical issues, refine & perfect
ideas, critique landing pages or sites, suggest
solutions to tracking issues, etc. etc. The
possibilities are near endless.

My goal with this program is to be able to take
whatever problem or challenges you’re currently being
stopped by, and remove them so you can continue on
your way. And I’m *REALLY* good at this. =)

I don’t tend to tolerate excuses when there are
solutions sitting right in front of us, so be prepared
to have me all but force you to move forward!

Here’s what is required of you:

* Fill out an application. Many thousands of people
are being exposed to this opportunity, and clearly I
can’t accommodate everyone. I will review the
applications and personally choose the 100 individuals
that I feel are best suited for this. The others will
go into a waiting queue in case anyone drops out or I
feel I can handle a few more.

* Be respectful of the fact that you are almost
certainly not the only thing I’m focusing on at any
given moment. Most of the time I’ll respond within
minutes, but like I said i do have a life, and if I’m
across the house, or out running errands, or rebooting
my computer, talking to someone else, on the phone,
etc. then it may take a little while for me to
respond. Just leave all the information you possibly
can in skype and I’ll see it and respond just as soon
as I can.

* Don’t use skype as a telephone. I’m not offering
private telephone consulting. If you want that, I
will be happy to charge you $500/hour. When I speak,
I can’t do anything else… I can’t multitask, I can’t
type while I talk, etc. If by chance *I* think
something is best communicated by voice, then I may
request that we go audio, but it’s solely at my
discretion. If you ring me without me requesting you
to, you’ll go to the bottom of the priority list.

That’s about it. Fairly simple stuff I think but I
want to again make it clear that this is not personal
coaching. This is personal problem solving. Think of
it as having me for a private mastermind partner who
knows how to solve just about anything.

Personally I’m tired of info product launches that
just give more “clutter” to people when they’re
already overwhelmed and lost with what they’re doing
now. I want to cut through some of that, and help a
group of people actually solve problems, defeat
challenges, and move forward in their businesses. All
while I continue to do the same for myself!

Here’s a note someone recently sent me who has been
receiving just the sort of help I’ll be giving you if
you’re selected to join:

[5/17/2010 8:45:41 AM] I owe a lot to you my friend.
You helped my business quadrouple this year!
[5/17/2010 8:45:50 AM] so a big THANK YOU!

Once you’ve read all this and feel that this is
something that will benefit you, simply head over to:

http://tooltrainer.com/consulting.php

Fill out the application form there and I’ll get in
touch with the 100 accepted members with more details
soon.

Looking forward to helping you!

Even if you’re not usually a fan of the show… you’ve gotta watch this. One of the funniest things I’ve seen in ages, especially as a kid of the 80s who grew up on Tron!

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267112

BRILLIANT!

Jonathan

P.S.

I think you look cute in your bunny costume.

OK folks, it’s tool time! There’s a new player in the URL scraping/manipulation game. You may not have heard about it yet and even if you do it will probably get lost under the noise of the latest “hot launch” in the IM world. But this is one offering you really need to know the details about, so I made a video that you can watch here.

I strongly suggest you watch the whole thing… I spent a lot of time on this because I think it’s something that a lot of people will actually benefit from, in particular if they use CPV/PPV traffic but for PPC marketers as well this could be a big time & money saver.

If you find it useful, please hit the “Tweet” button on the upper right.

Enjoy!

Jonathan

You may not even know what this is since I don’t talk about it a whole lot and haven’t ever really opened it up to the world at large. KWBot is my personal keyword tool, my “secret weapon” if you will, that I’ve used for about 3 years. Around a year ago I decided to let a small group of people from the PPCFormula community have access to it, and I’ve offered access as an affiliate bonus a couple of times… but that’s just about it.

It wasn’t pretty, wasn’t fancy, but got the job done better than any other keyword tool, and in ways that nothing else worked. Here are the original KWBot tutorials.

I decided a little while ago to let a designer friend of mine loose on it, and he came up with a really cool look for it that I decided I’m going to go ahead and roll out. I got tired of the blank white background and dull un-styled web form.

I also had my programmer add a number of new features. I’ll be formally announcing what they are and how they all work soon, but for the moment… here’s a little tease for you:

See if you can spot the new options and start imagining how they might be helpful when mining for gold keywords…

Jonathan

OK I know to a lot of people my birthday party yesterday would be FAR from the best party ever and in fact would’ve been downright dull. But to me, it absolutely rocked. I had a small awesome group of friends show up, some of whom I barely knew but wanted to get to know better. We had amazing conversations, played some games, ate red velvet cake (baked it myself), rode a segway, played with cats… couldn’t have been better!

And to top it all off, the streaming actually worked (mostly) and people even stopped by to say hi! Wow what a world we live in where friends and even strangers from all over the world can drop in on a party from thousands of miles away and feel like they’re a part of it.

So thanks to all who showed up in person or in spirit, you helped give me the best birthday I’ve had in years and one of the best days ever. I sure know some fantastic people!

Jonathan

OK I know it’s slightly late notice, but crazy ideas strike when they strike.

I’ve already mentioned that tomorrow, May 15, is my birthday. 37th to be exact. And normally I don’t much care about my birthday… just another day in my book, but this year my other half has insisted that we’re throwing a party and inviting friends over to celebrate.

The weather should be absolutely fantastic, so we expect to spend some time enjoying the back yard, and certainly some time inside playing games (what’s a party without Rock Band these days??)

But here’s the crazy idea part. We had a few friends that really wanted to be here, but couldn’t for various reasons (not the least of which is traveling cross-country in some cases). So it suddenly dawned on me…

Hey this is 2010. Can’t we broadcast the party for anyone to stop by whenever they wish??

Of course the answer is a definite YES WE CAN! Thanks to www.ustream.tv I’ve decided that I’m going to set a camera up in the game room, where I expect most of the action will be happening, and broadcast as long as there’s anything going on.

So this means our friends, acquaintances, heck total strangers even, can stop in on the festivities any time.

Now don’t expect anything too wild, in fact this is such a tame gathering that kids are even welcome. But still if you’d like to look in on my birthday party and see what’s going on and say hello, we’d love for you to drop in!

Just head over to this link between 3pm and 7pm Pacific. That should do the trick… or if the miracle that is object embedding works, you will see it right here:

Stream videos at Ustream

But if you want to be able to chat & all that goodness, head over to the Ustream feed instead.

Looking forward to it!

Jonathan

This is a first for me, I’ve never broadcast anything online before so it’s a total experiment… but stop on by if you get the chance!

I recently spent 5 days in San Diego to attend the second Magic Bullet Seminar hosted by Amish Shah and Jose Rivera. Personally I went primarily so I could get a change of scenery and a change of energy, after what has been an extremely rough first half of the year for me personally. The event itself was only 2 days but I stayed a couple extra days so I could hang out & mastermind with some of the speakers as well as some other industry insiders who were in attendance.

The event itself was fine, though in my opinion it lacked the energy of the first MB seminar last august. Something about that event was just magical, and for whatever reason it wasn’t there this time. There was still some really good stuff discussed, in particular the presentation on CPV I thought was excellent, and spelled out a lot of really solid advice.

For me personally, the star of the event was the networking outside of the presentations. In addition to getting to meet a number of my LPGen customers (which is always so cool as I rarely get out and it’s great to put faces to names and hear what people are doing with it!) I got to spend a good chunk of time at Amish’s new house, hanging out with him & Jose, Matt Harward, John Jonas, Keith Baxter, Matt Trainer, and a bunch of other more underground guys you probably wouldn’t know by name - but who seriously know what they’re doing.

I also got to make some new friends, and was introduced to things that some people are doing that really blew my mind. At least one in particular I’m looking into more thoroughly now, and if it holds up to more scrutiny then I’ll be talking more about it. I also got a little feedback on a top secret project I’m working on, and it was very encouraging. This is the true power of a trusted mastermind group… getting direct and honest feedback on new ideas from people that you know, know their stuff.

I’m glad I went to the event, though it was hard to be away from home for so long. I’m such a homebody and I really don’t care for unfamiliar, overpriced hotel surroundings. It was sure nice to come home again.

On another note… make sure you come check out the free Traffic Rockstars virtual tradeshow this coming weekend. I’ll “be there” in my virtual booth available to chat with anyone who stops by, and I hope that will include you! I’ll have some stuff to give away, and of course will also be presenting on the subjects of landing page & keyword research blunders. There promises to be a lot of good stuff being discussed at the 3-day event (May 14 to 16) and I know there will be lots of special deals available from many of the presenters as well, including yours truly. So make sure you go sign up, after all it’s free and I’d love to “see” you there! I’m just so happy I don’t have to travel for this one!

Jonathan

P.S.

May 15 is my 37th birthday so I’ll probably do something special for everyone for the weekend too. Stay tuned!

Today I just wanted to share a couple of things that I use and enjoy, that I think many of my visitors might enjoy as well.

1. First is a product/service called Playon. You can read about it at www.Playon.tv if you like, but I’ll summarize it for you here.

Playon is software you run on your Windows PC that pulls content from various sources on the web (Youtube, Amazon VOD, Netflix, Hulu, countless websites…) and then streams it to certain types of home media devices. In my case I use it with my Playstation 3 but it also supports the Wii, Xbox 360, and a ton of other consumer devices for bringing streaming media to your TV.

I could go on at some length about how much I like Playon, but the bottom line is that for a relatively tiny amount of money I get massive amounts of content on demand, and instead of having to watch them on my computer screen I can watch them in my home theater on a 56″ LCD TV while reclining in the “comfy chair”! My other half uses it to stream her favorite Youtube playlists throughout the day while she works around the house, and we even bought the cheapest Netflix subscription primarily so we can stream from their Instant Stream catalog.

Playon’s awesome… it’s list price is about $40 but they often run specials. I paid $30. RIGHT NOW however they have it for just $20! The catch is they’re apparently going to switch to a subscription model on May 2nd and it’s going to cost about $30 PER YEAR! If you buy it right now and use the discount code LIFETIME, then you can get it for just $20 period, forever. There will still be an optional subscription service you can get if you want it, but the core features (what I already use) will be yours at no additional cost.

Check it out, Playon is a brilliant product in my book, especially if you’re a home theater junkie or just like to have lots of content on your TV that’s outside the mainstream cable/satellite stuff.

http://www.playon.tv/playon/lp/purchase/?prmcd=lifetime

Make sure you use the code LIFETIME when you buy, to get the deal!

2. And now for something completely different. A web comic! Yeah I know those are soooo 2003 but seriously, this one regularly has me either in stitches, or scratching my head in confused puzzlement. Either way it’s worth the price of admission, which is zero!

http://xkcd.com

It’s audience is definitely going to be the geekier and more intellectual side of the spectrum, but I suspect that’s an awful lot of internet marketers so… enjoy!

Jonathan