Year: 2011

Matt Cutts, the guy who determines what SEO spam is, what blackhat and white hat, and can basically ban your site from Google has been nice enough to share the following video which basically says that he really loves SEO. In a few words, he says that people are better than technology and SEO does a lot of great things including helping people discover new and great content. He of course points out that there are SEO firms that do things that Google does not like and goes way over the line. It’s a great watch in order to know the mind of the guy who can determine your ranking and success on Google.

November 8-10^th in NYC, held at the worst convention center in the world (no hotels, no restaurants in the area) will be ADTECH. Many affiliates do not attend ADTECH feeling that it is not for the affiliate industry; thinking that the lack of training, affiliate centric topics will make it a boring event.  They are wrong, and in fact missing perhaps one of the top opportunities to really learn about the industry and grow their business.  ADTECH in fact may be one of the best opportunities for affiliates and here are my thoughts on it:

1)   First, the idea that the affiliate industry is separate from the rest of the industry is turning out to be a complete fallacy. The new term, as you may know, is Performance Marketing, and with being a more mature industry, comes more mature technologies. The rest of the industry is embracing Performance Marketing as a method to reach consumers and they are looking for people to help them. Go to ADTECH with your experience, with your resume, and perhaps you’ll get a good consulting gig or project that uses your expertise to make a lot of money.

2)   New Media Buying Opportunities are always launched at ADTECH. Don’t wait until your favorite blogger tells you that some new system is a good platform to buy media. Find out for yourself what is up and coming and more importantly where there is cheap inventory. If you are an experienced media buyer, ADTECH is a cornucopia of untapped inventory. New companies especially are looking for someone to help them monetize inventory and you never know, you might become their main source for affiliate campaigns.

3)   Open your Mind & Brainstorm. Being an affiliate is a great job, but what is better is coming out with product that everyone can use. Don’t fall into the trap of being just an “affiliate” who follows other – but instead learn to create things and think outside the box.  ADTECH is an amazing place to really learn about technologies and opportunities that exist and then think about applications for the affiliate industry. If you create a product or method that you can pass to other affiliates and more importantly, works, you’ll find yourself beyond any “super-affiliate.”

Last of all, the floor is absolutely free if you register. Register now, get an exhibition pass, and you can walk the floor all day, pick up all the pens, plushy mascots and flashlights you want.

Don’t forget to register for The Official CPAWAY KickAss Party @ Adtech

Could Flash Sales be a new affiliate marketing opportunity? As more and more sites are turing to flash sales as a method of marketing, they seem to be almost expected. This technique, which seems to have a better longevity than the now failing Daily Deal model, provides significant discounts to consumers of certain products for a limited tiem

HubPages says of flash sales, that “one of the most crucial features of flash selling is, well, as the name abundantly suggests, abrupt offers for service at subsidized prices. The offers are ‘abrupt’ and lasts for a tiny window period – a brief time. It is also one of the safest deal takings. In other words you have to avail the opportunity as soon as you are offered the services. Consumers normally receive online offers including even invitations in the mail/emails.”

MarketingVox reports that Flash Sales in the Travel Industry are now a new staple in the travel industry:

…with Cruise price comparison website CruiseCompare teaming up with Cheapflights to launch a cruise flash sales on its site. The deals are available for seven days with savings of up to 50% being offered to members of the site on a range of cruises, according to Travolution.

Another example is Travelocity, which recently launched a twist on the concept: a single new “dashing deal,” available only on that day, but valid for travel for up to several months (via the Baltimore Sun).

Seems that many affiliates and CPA networks should partner up with retailers to promote their flash sales for unique positions both in social marketing and email marketing.

If you didn’t know, just a few days ago, Google updated Panda again, and quite a few more sites dropped off the radar. This change however perhaps is one of the biggest changes since the original panda update. Tons of complaints have been logged all over the blogosphere with people calling Matt Cutts, the head of all search, nothing less than the devil.

According to reports, companies like Consumeraffairs, prnewswire, entrepenuer.com and even Technorati have been experiencing huge hits.

What is most interesting however is that according to a poll taken by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, almost 10% of the industry asked claimed to have actually lost a job because of the Google Panda update. Some 6.8% claimed  that they laid off people since the update. Even more interesting is that 25% of the industry said they were afraid they’d lose their job since the update.

Does this mean that Panda is evil, or perhaps that a great deal of the industry was doing blackhat SEO and just was caught?

As part of ClickBanks continued desire to pretend to clean up their act, they have instituted another policy. Because of all the crap on Clickbank and more important Affiliates Revolt Against Clickbank, they have instituted a policy that will help them collect more money. However, it doesn’t address the issue of continued scams on ClickBank and worse, the fact that affiliates are the ones continually screwed by crappy products. Affiliates still have no way to be compensated when crappy products waste their traffic, or worse have huge charge-backs when they don’t deliver what they said they would. ClickBank still protects the owners of the product and refuses to provide information to anyone about the people behind these products, or to help take legal action short of a court order.

Here’s the announcement.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing high quality products to consumers, ClickBank is adjusting certain fees relating to refund and chargeback rates for ClickBank vendors. These changes will affect a very small number of ClickBank vendors, and will not affect affiliates.

Beginning October 17, 2011, vendor accounts with a refund rate at or above 15% over a rolling 60-day period and/or chargeback rate at or above 1% over a rolling 70-day period may be subject to additional fees or penalties.

To help you avoid fees or penalties, we are adding a clear indicator of your current rolling 60-day refund rate to your Account Home page so you can easily track your refund rate and take action if necessary.

As we begin to implement this new policy in the coming weeks, affected vendors will be contacted individually before any additional fees are applied to their accounts.

We are committed to supporting our clients and end customers, and these changes are part of our commitment to keeping affiliate marketing profitable and sustainable for years to come.

Recently I’ve heard that several, including possibly the largest, CPA Networks are starting to pay affiliate late. It seems to be a topic of conversation on several message boards, that several networks, to be unnamed aren’t paying their bills on the normal schedule required of them. Because of that many major affiliates who have been with these networks are starting to look elsewhere, only to find that other major networks are also paying late. Is this an issue of the networks having issues, or is it just part of a greater problem that needs to be addressed? I want to examine the issues that face the industry, and have a real conversation about what is happening.

The problems facing the industry are the same problems facing the entire economy. Even though our industry is growing, and more and more companies are looking to performance based marketing as a solution to their advertising needs, this doesn’t mean that we aren’t plagued by the same issues.

Here are some of the issues that CPA networks are facing:

1)      Compliance Issues Costing Legal Bills. Some companies are facing enormous legal costs based on everything from FTC lawsuits to frivolous class action suits. As I pointed out in my article about the Essociate  Affiliate Marketing Patent, the industry is also facing people who are trying to get a quick buck on the backs of hard working networks. All these things cost money, and while some networks can foot the bill, many of them find that they often the legal problems are costing them both cash flow and clients. Expect more and more networks to face legal bills and questions in the coming years as the FTC says “No more” to certain type of promotions.

2)      Clients Paying CPA Networks Late. Simply put, CPA Networks, while making often tens of millions of dollars, are still often at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to payments from major advertisers.  This is an issue facing almost all media companies and small business in general. Larger companies trying to shore up their finances will often pay “whenever” to smaller companies, especially CPA networks, knowing that the networks can’t afford not to stop working with them.  Since most CPA networks don’t report non-payments or late payments to credit companies like Dun & Bradstreet, they don’t have much leverage.  In plain English, the larger companies are using ad networks as banks. Paying late, getting interest on their payments.

3)      Poor Planning. You remember all those companies last year that were doing “amazing” throwing huge parties in Vegas? Most of those companies with all those promotions are gone (and some even started new companies right after, when their previous company went belly up.) Many of those had a few major clients, and didn’t have the experience to plan for the worse times. Any smart business person knows that you save when you are doing well, invest in other solutions and then immediately notice the time to cut back. It’s the same entire story of all dot-com bubble bursts!

What can you do if you are a CPA network or more importantly, an affiliate facing issues? Simply put, always plan ahead for anything. If you think that you are doing amazing, don’t spend all your money: save it, and look at other solutions. Putting all your eggs in one basket, because you have a great campaign that is making you “rich” is not the solution.  Keep testing, invest in learning and even create partnerships.

Additionally, please try other networks. I can’t say this enough to get your attention. If you have an offer that is doing well, send traffic to another network with the same or similar offer. Getting payments from more than one source will ensure that you don’t find yourself in a bad spot. Nothing is worse than having one large client not paying your bill. If it’s one out of many clients, you can immediate switch where you are sending traffic, and only face a small loss.

Pay attention to what is going on in the industry.

Find a reliable source for feedback, such as our CPA Network Review System. This is an independent, user submitted system from real affiliates. Leave feedback, and read about others. Please note that many of the “review” sites out there are completely made to get you to sign up for networks, and the people get paid on those referrals. Don’t trust most of those sites, because they are paid to make good reviews and they delete bad reviews.

What companies are you having issues with, what are your perceptions?

Every so often I waste my money on things that I don’t really need. That might explain why my storage is filled with about dozen types of stereo speakers, every sort of cleaning device for clothing and god knows how many chairs that I didn’t like. If you are anything like me, you like spending your money on ridiculous things. Then again, isn’t that why you got into the marketing industry, so you’d have the money to spend on ridiculous things? I know that I did.

Two Dell Ultra Sharp Monitors
Whether you have a Mac or a PC, there comes a time when you need to have a better monitor.  Perhaps one of the best investments I’ve made is using very large monitors, side by side. First of all, the benefit of the large monitor helps with eye strain and visibility. If you are using a cheap monitor, there is a huge difference on how fast your eye’s get tired and that can make a different in your productivity. Secondly, I highly recommend getting two of them. Two monitors allow you to multi-task better, and that is important while checking stats, loading campaigns. Buy at Dell

Herman Miller Embody Chair – Starting at $1,200
I was one of those people who loved my Aeron Chair, and even bought a dozen of them for my NYC office. However, this chair brings… chairs, to a whole new level.  If you aren’t concerned about the chair, realize that bad posture over a long term can create additional issues. Don’t want to be one of those guys who ends up in the hospital with a neck issue, missing out on making more cash. While I’m not sure that it does everything that their brochure claims, including “boosting creativity”  it definitely the chair that makes me want to cheat on my other chair.   Check it out at Herman Miller

Luna 2 Designer Italian Office Desk by Uffix – $12,000
This has to be one of the hottest desks that I’ve ever seen and itself is a piece of artwork. If you want something impressive that makes you want to work every day, this is a great place to start.  It will take at least 3 months to get these desks, but its well worth the wait.  A desk for an executive (and yes, affiliates you are an executive of your life) is much needed. Think of it this way: when you sit down every day to a nice desk, you’ll first think how you’ve worked your ass off to be successful, and now can have a beautiful desk to help you be more succesful.

Kohler’s Numi – Starting at $6,000
Good news is that you can actually get this much cheaper, that is the MSRP. The great news is that this is best fricken toilet you could imagine. Seriously this toilet does about everything for you, from opening itself, heating your ass, self-cleaning and even lights up in the dark. Somewhere I believe there is even a reach-around button. I have to be honest, this toilet makes me want to spend more time on the can.

Check out this amazing commercial about the product. I have to admit after watching it, I’m not sure I should be using this for a toilet.

 

Chivas Regal Royal Salute 50 year old – $10,000/bottle
If you aren’t a scotch drinker, become one. Scotch Whiskey has a tradition of being drunk by the richest people in the world, especially while doing business.  The Chivas Regal Royal Salute is one of the best Scotches that you can buy, and I promise that anyone that you invite to your house and offer them a glass of this, will be your friend and customer.

 

So a few night ago I was buying an energy drink at a place we all know and hate..Wal-mart.

Like usual the lines were backed up with a ton people and  I was going have to wait in line for a good 20 minutes just to buy 1 drink. This was a waste of time, and one of my biggest rules is Value Thy Time.

So, I instead walked 10 steps over to the electronics departments cash register and was able to check out in seconds while the horde of people continued to waste their lives waiting in line for one of the many open cash registers in the store.

The funny this is this is that 95% of marketers have something in common with these people.  Instead of a fighting over the same cash register though , marketers are dueling over the same traffic when the cold hard truth is THEY DO NOT HAVE TO.

Just like at Wal-Mart, there are cash registers (traffic) everywhere. However most  online Marketers, just like the Wal-mart people,  are stuck fighting over just 1 type of traffic.

American Traffic Is The Hard Way

Alright, did you know that well over a billion people speak English? Did you also know that only 300 million of those people live in U.S? That is not even half of the english speakers in the world.

So what is really crazy, is that most of marketers target only 30% of their potential English speaking customers (Americans)

The result is there being WAY to much demand for American Traffic and way to little supply of it. Because of this

• Ranking highly in the American Google(.com) is extremely competitive
• The price for advertising to American traffic  is astronomical
• You constantly have to fight your competition to stay on top

In short, marketing to American traffic is like going to overused playground covered in broken glass and expecting to have fun.

So who do I market to then?

The answer is foreign countries!

• Guess what massive country speaks mostly English and is exploding right now..India
• Canada’s first language is English, yet its is almost 10 times less competitive for online marketing
• The Google Adsense CPC for some completely untapped high traffic keywords in the Philippines (speaks mostly English) is over .90 cents

The thing is this applies to  applies to all sorts of traffic generation online methods (SEO, paid traffic, etc) Check out the example below ( based on real results I have gotten online)

For Paid Traffic In The Same Niche

Price for 150×150 banner ad on an American site = $2 per CPM (thousand views)

Vs

Price for a leaderboard sized Banner on a Canadian site = .02 cents per CPM (My cost per click was less than .01 cents)

Best of all results like this are very common. Here so other benefits to target foreign traffic

-The price for Pay Per View traffic is often 4 times cheapers from foreign countries.

-Adspace can be bought for next to nothing.

-Searchs that are extremely competitive in the Amercian Google are virtually open game in other countries ( I get into this a lot in another popular article of mine : The Harsh Truths SEO and How The Big Dogs Really Bank ).

There is literally an endless amount of loops holes when you start looking at traffic globabally instead of just focusing on one spot.

AND The reason for this is not because the traffic is bad, it is simply because no one is fighting over it yet!

So Stop Waiting In Line

If you are an online marketer, stop being one of the 100 morons waiting in line at Wal Mart and be the guy that finds the better way to do things.  One of the coolest things about the internet is it allows you to get access to customers regardless of where they live. Restricting yourself to just one country is absurd!

Stop fighting over high priced competitive traffic and start utilizing the untapped foreign traffic that will literally bring you the SAME results for 1/10th of the work.

 

 

After investigation, it has come to my attention that Pubcon is not launching a competive event to Affiliate Summit; they are in no way larger than Affiliate Summit; and it is impossible for Affiliate Summit to black-ball any speaker since they have a public vote for sessions.

WebMaster World, the Owners of the PubCon have announced that they are launching as part of the PubCon Las Vegas, a new affiliate conference to directly compete with Affiliate Summit. The conference which will be a sub-conference of PubCon will be in Las Vegas, November 8-10^th several months before the Affiliate Summit conference, also in Las Vegas.

The PubCon new affiliate track seems to be a possible serious competitor to Affiliate Summit as the convention features many famous executives and industry leaders as speakers. Matt Cutts, the head of Google Compliance aka Search Quality group is slated to be one of the top speakers at the PubCon Affiliate Conference. Past speakers include major money makers such as Tony Hsieh, Guy Kawasaki and Craig Newmark, giving PubCon a level of Gravitas needed to compete with Affiliate Summit.

Several companies have attempted to compete with Affiliate Summit in the last few years, including AffCon, owned by Webmaster Radio. While AffCon seemed to initially be successful, with two canceled events, the event seems to be completely gone from the radar. The owners of AffCon were however faced with significant issues from the start, including claims that speakers of their event were told that they would be banned from Affiliate Summit if they spoke at AffCon. Whether or not this is true, the two conventions have not had a friendly relationship.

Neil Marshal, a spokesperson for PubCon, told  PMi that they find the Affiliate and CPA industry, “Outstanding. All the forms of advertising are good for the industry. We need diversification from simple advertising models that can help us also pursue alternative sources of traffic. We rely too much on singular SEO as the end-all/be-all of traffic acquisition. Affiliate marketing makes the industry think differently.”

Whether or not this will become a serious competitor to Affiliate Summit, is to be seen. Affiliate Summit has been mainstay in the industry, and seems to attract affiliates from all circles.  While PubCon is much larger (correction: read comments below), the targeted audience of experts at Affiliate Summit keeps people coming year after year. Perhaps this is just a play to address issues that the publishers have been asking, while getting more sponsors and into the growing Affiliate marketplace.

 Find out what anyone is doing – Right Now
SpyPeeps lets you legally spy without getting caught!
http://www.spypeeps.com

Why run Spypeeps?

–          There absolutely no competition in the marketplace because entrance levels are costly and requires significant investment in data and data collection.
–          This is not a PULL based system like a “background check” company. This type of system appeals to many consumers, including the curious and casual browsers. Converts exponentially higher than any “background” company.
–          Patent Pending using proprietary data that is integrated with friendly user interface.
–          Owned by HD Publishing, a multi-million dollar corporation that has launched numerous products on the net and is the leading online “detective” company.
–          Online History since 1996, not a fly-by-night company.
–          Great Credit and Payment Ability.
–          Enormous room to create custom landing pages, demographic pages and adjust the CPA as necessary to hit any and all targets.
–          Industry leading 24/7 Live Custom Support.
–          Partnered with Litle & Co, the leading card-not-present merchant processing company.

More information about the product at: www.scribd.com/doc/67222340/SPbackgrounder

Contact Pace Lattin
pace@hdpublishing.com

Prosper202 version 1.7.2 is now done and available for download. Or even better, get it Pre-Installed and ready to go with hosting partner Beyond Hosting. They understand Prosper202 better than any other host out there and will be there as you scale up to a million clicks a day and more. When developing this newer version, we looked over all the requests for features that have come in over the past few years and made a list of everything we could possibly add to make Prosper202 better.

Next we split the list into stuff that could be done now, what should be postponed for the next version when we do a rewrite. Here’s what we kept and built out for you:

• Faster Redirects – Redirects are now 200-500% faster than before. For anyone who care about performance, you will appreciate exactly what this means to you. For everyone else, you are going to see more accurate stats, more conversions, and more profits. If you are looking for the one big reason to upgrade now, this is it!
• Faster Landing Page Pixels – The new landing page javascript is optimized to load as soon as possible, instead of waiting for the whole page to load first. You should see less discrepancies due to this fix.
• Mobile Optimized Stats – Have you ever wanted to check your stats while on the road? Your new Prosper202 1.7.2 now has a brand new mobile optimized mini stats view page. Load it up on your smart phone for a quick overview of how things are going.
• Conversion202– We launched Conversion202 earlier as a stand alone application. With the new release of Prosper202, you will find it much easier to integrate your split-testing data from c202 into p202.
• Better Mobile & Desktop Browser Support – We added better support for detecting mobile browsers. Prosper 1.7.2 detects 3x more browsers than 1.6.1.
• 3rd party pixel fires – So, your traffic source happens to allow you to place a pixel that can then be used to further optimize your campaigns but your CPA network only allows one pixel per campaign. What do you do? Instead of having to choose between a tracking202 pixel or the traffic source pixel, you can now enjoy the benefits of both. Just place the new Universal Smart pixel and the new Prosper202 can intelligently figure out the traffic source that generated the conversion and fire the appropriate pixel for you.
• Landing Page CTR Mod – This is one of the more popular mods developed by our friend Jasper. We now have it built in and have updated the mod to also generate the appropriate excel files for downloading. Huge thanks to Jasper for the mod and also Tomislav for the referer mod.
• Subid Injection Mod – Thanks Mark from CTRtard.com for this cool mod, we thought it was an awesome timesaver and error preventer and rolled it into the official Prosper202 distribution.
• Updated interface – Prosper202 was originally built for ppc, as affiliates like you found out it was powerful enough to power other forms of marketing such as social, email, display and more, it just made sense the we make changes in our ui to reflect that fact. It’s now easier for newer users to get up and running with less confusion.
• Delete notifications – Have you accidentally deleted something in Prosper202 while working on campaigns? I know I have done this multiple times, as of this new release you will have to confirm deletes before they are committed.
• Data management tools– Many times after accumulating a ton of clicks, the database becomes sluggish. There has always been instructions on how to manually clear out old data from all the tables, but for most people this is too time consuming and difficult. This new feature allows you to clear out all the click tables with a simple click.

 

Prosper202 Deals

To celebrate the launch of the new Prosper202 v1.7 we reached out to a few partners to offer you some special offers. To get access to these deals, you must login to your Prosper202 and click on the resources202 icon or the featured resources link at the top of the page. Many of these are limited time deals and will not be available for for long so act fast! So get Prosper202 now and grab these deals.

If you are already using Prosper202 1.7 grab your special offers on the new Resources202 page. Just click the link on the homepage when you login to access all the discounts.

Conversion202

Our premier partner Conversion202 makes it easy to test and grow revenue. Create Powerful A/B and multivariate tests in minutes. Track Unlimited Goals (leads, sales, etc.) Enjoy the easy to understand Reports, Heat Maps and more.

Deal: For a Limited Time Only, Get their $19 plan for FREE!

BeyondHosting

Theres no wonder why people are constantly switching their dedicated hosting from amazon EC2, hostgator, liquidweb, singlehop, softlayer and all of the competition, they have the best servers and stand by that guarantee. Trust us, nobody understand your Prosper202 and affiliate hosting needs than Tyler and his team. You are crazy to host with anyone else. Switch to BeyondHosting, and go beyond hosting.

Deal: Get 50% off your first month of hosting with Prosper202 1.7.2 Pre-Installed and optimized just for you.

LeadsMob

MOBILE is the FUTURE! Either get with it, or get left behind. LeadsMob BETA is a platform for monetizing your data through SMS. Now you can SPLIT TEST SMS messages, TRACK lifetime customer value from both SMS + Email. Create UNLIMITED campaigns. Make money with Pay Per Call & More!

Deal: Sign up NOW and receive $25 in FREE credits. No monthly fee. No set up fee.

WhatRunsWhere

WhatRunsWhere is a competitive intelligence service for online media buying. We offer access to the largest collection of networks to help you buy more intelligently and profitably for your existing and future campaigns, discover new traffic sources, and help keep an eye on what your competition is up to. All in one amazing package. With the most ad networks and multiple countries supported, WRW is a must have for any media buyer.

Deal: Save 20% off your first month of WRW

MixRank

Uncover any advertiser’s ads and traffic sources MixRank reveals your competitors’ campaigns showing you exactly what’s working for them. See their most successful ad copy, landing pages, and traffic sources across 93,000 sites.

Deal: Try MixRank Pro for $1 then enjoy a reduced month plan of $67 a month. A $360 a year savings.

AdBeat

Instantly find top PPC ads across 13,000+ publishers. Spy on competitors using Google Display Network, Adcenter Content, Adsonar, Pulse360, + many more networks.

Deal: Get 50% of your first month of AdBeat

StackThatMoney

Learn from a team with 12 years of marketing experience. Who have generated $XX,XXX,XXX of affiliate revenues. They bring you the most comprehensive and skilled affiliate marketing forum to ever exist!

PPV Playbook

The Playbook Network forum is a private coaching forum geard towards affiliate marketers that includes the PPV Playbook, PPC Playbook, Social Ads Playbook-Facebook & Plenty of Fish, And SEO Playbook sections. We have video lessons, tips, tricks, and update regularly with actual case studies of campaigns making money. your membership gives you access to the forum and Affportal tools.

Deal: Save $10 off your monthly subscription fee

IM Grind

Nowhere On The Web Are You Going To Find Another Forum Like IMGrind. It Simply Doesn’t Exist. This is for Affiliates, Advertisers, Entrepreneurs and people who are serious about building Internet businesses online. Ryan and Ruck have nearly 2 decades of experience in Affiliate Marketing, Advertising, and Managing Affiliates and Advertisers. Ruck is the former CEO of the Convert2Media Affiliate Network (named in the top 20 CPA Networks by mThink this past year) and long time friend of Tracking202 while Ryan is a 6-Figure a month affiliate marketer and advertiser. Ryan and Ruck now bring their passion of helping other Marketers and Entrepreneurs build their businesses online to the Exclusive IM Grind Community.

Deal: Save 20% off your first month subscription fee

Offer Snitch

Offer Snitch is the only platform that instantly notifies you if any changes are being made to the offer page you are promoting. Never be caught unaware of a drastic landing page change that could cost you hundred or possible thousands of dollars. Start Using Offer Snitch Today.

 

I don’t watch that many late night commercials, but I have to be honest that more and more of the work out products make me feel almost dirty. After watching this commercial, I feel violated in so many ways.

Are they serious about these products? Is this some sort of subliminal message that I just don’t get that gets most of middle-America wanting to tug, swing and jerk their work out products? Perhaps the companies have must made every possible work out product known to mankind, and now are just trying weird crap to get attention?

Gap Inc, the humongous discount clothing retailer , which runs the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, detailed plans on Thursday to close 189 locations, or 21 percent of its namesake Gap stores in the U.S., by the end of 2013.

U.S. But even before the U.S. economy took a turn for the worse, tts sales in the U.S. have eroded considerably. In an interview on the eve of Gap’s investor day on Thursday, President of Gap North America Art Peck told Reuters that the company had lost its way by straying from high-quality jeans and other basics. “What’s expected of us is pretty clear,” Peck said. “I think it’s been us who’ve kind of wandered around.” Peck joined Gap in February following a management reshuffle.

This news is interesting to marketers because it shows that even though the economy is doing worse, and in theory people would be looking for discounts, companies like Gap are actually doing worse. Why? Its interesting to note that earlier this year EBAY actually had a net income last year of $476 Million on revenue of $2.55 Billion. That’s an increase of 20 percent from the previous year.

That news is extremely interesting for marketers because it shows that while people used to shop in discount outlets during bad times, they are now turning to the internet. That means that marketers have an opportunity to offer discount products first, because even while people have less money, they are still shopping ONLINE. Even with the economy, the growth of people getting online still raises each year and is considered an essential part of any household. Comparison shopping is made easier, as is any type of deal shopping.

Is this going to be a trend for more and more brick and motor discount outlets closing, making room for online deals?