One of the ways to earn money by using CPA networks is by using a content locker, also called a gateway on your website. This is something that can be used with incentive offers to increase conversions. Now what exactly does a gateway do? The principle is very simple. When a user gets to your page, a content gateway will pop up, asking them to complete a CPA offer before they get access to the content presented. These offers are usually short email submits or mobile offers that pay around $1 to $2 a lead.

Is this better than simply having CPA text ads or banners on your site? Well, the answer is usually yes. Many people are used to seeing ad banners, especially the cheesy “Shoot X to get an iPhone” type of ads and will usually ignore them. However, with a content gateway, they will actually have to complete one offer before they get access to the content that they want. Sure, some of them will simply walk away and go to another website. However, some of the visitors will complete the offer, especially if they are really looking forward to seeing the content that is presented on your website.

Many of you may be thinking: sounds great! How do I set this up on my site? There are essentially two ways to do this: either you can sign up for a CPA network such as CPA Lead or Adscend Media, that offers CPA content locking gateways, or use a third party script with incentive offers from another network. Of course, the first would be much easier, as the script has already been designed by the CPA network and all you would need to do is to insert some pre formatted code on your website. If you do use a third party script with another network, make sure that you only do so with incentive offers. Also, discuss with your affiliate manager first to see if you are allowed to do so, to make sure that there are no restrictions on this type of marketing with the network that you are using.

One question that remains is: should you use this on your site at all? The answer here will vary. If you have a completely new website that you’ve just started sending traffic to, then this might be a good idea. However, on the other hand if you have an established site with plenty of regular visitors, you may want to think twice before using a content locker on it. This is because if you are already making a good amount of revenue from these visitors from “regular” CPA offers or pay per click ads, you might risk losing some of your regular traffic if these visitors don’t really like the idea of filling out a CPA offer to get to your content. But there is always a compromise, for example you can set up a “premium” section of your website that requires filling out a CPA offer to access. Or you could display the gateway only to random users, or after they have visited a certain amount of pages on your website.

While article marketing is an effective way to promote various offers or products online, some people seem to have a bit of trouble cranking out enough articles for their efforts to be effective. Here are some more tips to make the whole thing go easier for you and which just may increase your revenue.

Do your research quickly.

Some articles will require that you do a fair amount of research before you are able to create some usable content. That’s a known fact. However, you must be able to complete that research rather quickly. After all, you are not writing a high school essay here where you have 2 weeks to write 1000 words.

When you do your research, open up multiple tabs in your browser that contain information that is related to your niche. See if they contain useful things that you can use in your article. Close those that don’t. Then, start writing right away. A lot of marketers spend too much time simply reading the information and thinking about whether they should include that in their articles.

Improve your typing speed.

Some of us can easily crank out 60 words per minute. Others type with one finger and it takes them an hour just to write one paragraph. Not much to say here except that you will need to practice your typing in order to be able to type faster. The more you practice, the better you will get at it, that’s pretty much guaranteed.

You can also consider using voice recognition software, like Dragon Naturally Speaking. This software will basically write everything that you are saying for you. If you aren’t too fast of a typist, this could be a viable solution for you.

Consider outsourcing part of your work.

If you simply have too many articles that you need to write, why not outsource some of your writing to a third party? There are many places where you can find a freelancer willing to do some of the work for you, such as internet marketing forums and freelancing sites. Getting quality articles done is not that expensive. In fact, you can easily find people who would be willing to create a 500 word article for around $5. Remember that you get what you pay for, however. So don’t necessarily go with whoever is offering the cheapest writing service, but rather with a writer that is capable of following your instructions and writing in proper English.

Practice makes perfect.

This applies in many areas of life, not just article writing. So remember, the more articles you write on any given niche, the more proficient you will get in it and the faster you will be able to crank out that content. Writing your articles faster means more money in your pocket, as you will have more opportunities to get traffic due to the fact that you have posted more articles, plus you can also focus on growing and improving your business more rather than be always busy writing marketing materials.

Advertising on social media has been a topic that is widely discussed in internet marketing circles. Given the fact that social networks are receiving millions of visitors daily and have hundreds of millions of active users around the globe, it is no wonder that internet marketers are trying various ways to make profit from them. It is, of course, possible to create a page for your business on social networks and have people add you to their profiles. While it can be quite effective if you run a local business, such as a bar or restaurant, or otherwise provide a very unique and interesting product, this may not always be the best choice when trying to market something on social networks.

There is an alternative, however. Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have an advertising platform in place where you can pay for ads on a cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis. The way that these advertising networks operate are similar to the Google Adwords content network, but with a few differences. First, your ads are only distributed on pages in the respective social network’s site and not on third party sites. You also have the opportunity to include a small graphic next to your ad text.

One of the main things that makes buying social media advertising attractive to internet marketers is that you get the ability to targeted various groups of users with your ads. You are not limited to simply targeting people based on their location. You can choose things such as gender, age, relationship status and interests in order to better target your ads.

But one question remains and is subject to a lot of debate among internet marketers: is it really possible to make a profit when using paid social media advertising? Well the answer is yes. It actually HAS to be. You see, if no one was profiting from these ads, advertisers wouldn’t pay for them and social do networks would lose their source of funding.

The main consideration for an internet marketer using social media ads would be what type of offers you would be running. Remember that those visiting social networks are usually not currently on the lookout for things to buy. Check out the social networks for yourself and see what kinds of ads are being served on their pages. You will notice that most of them are offers that do not require the user to buy anything, such as ads for survey sites, dating sites, coupons, credit card applications, insurance quotes, etc. These are the types of offers that typically are the most successful when promoting via social networking ads. A good strategy would be to check out the ads that you get served with while browsing the site. Ads that stay there for longer than a week or so are usually the ones that are bringing in some profit for the advertisers.

Keeping your email opt in page clean and professional is important to showing your users trust and respect. Make sure you emphasize privacy and the purpose of your list. List the benefits of being a member of your email list such as giveaways, free information, gifts, or whatever benefits your list might have. This helps gain trust right away from your users and makes them feel like they will benefit from joining your list, rather than giving away their privacy to a third party. Trust is the most important thing you can build on your opt in page.

The opt in email page takes some time to perfect, but the main objective is to keep the person interested enough to want to give you their personal information such as an email address to offer them solicited information. This is known as opting in to receive the information and allows you to send them related information. Most people will not simply put in their information if they see no incentive or gains that they would receive for doing so. This is where you would provide a free gift for giving you their information. This allows you to provide a free gift as the ethical bribe to earn their email address information.

This means that you will be tasked with gaining the trust of opt in subscribers. The more that you work to gain the trust of the potential subscribers, the more likely they will be to opt in. Once you do get their trust to give you their information you will have to continue earning their trust. Sending them the free gift via auto-response scripts is important to utilize. Do not bombard them with spam and offers they do not need.

Delivering on the join request is very important. You will have to ensure that they will be receiving important information that they will want to read without asking them to buy anything at first. Once gaining their trust has gone on for a few days to a week, your email responses could be tailored to ask them politely to purchase a product. If they do not continue on, the next email should outline why they should buy it. After this, the emails should explain why not using the product is less effective than other products or methods. This will usually provide them with a reason to purchase within a set time frame if their interest is caught well enough.