Anyone else dabble or work in Affiliate Marketing?

[abrown83]

I have been working in Web Development for the past few years and before that worked in Software Development.

I have taken my Web Development experiences and started dabbling in Affiliate Marketing, specifically PPC on Google and Facebook.

I am about a month in and now have found a couple profitable products to advertise. I am nearly turning a $100 a day in profit, and pretty sure I can go 10x this pretty quickly just don't have the cash flow to bankroll yet.

I am wondering if anybody else is doing this? If so, any tips or places/industries you would stay away from?

Thanks!

[Dan Druff]

I have been working in Web Development for the past few years and before that worked in Software Development.

I have taken my Web Development experiences and started dabbling in Affiliate Marketing, specifically PPC on Google and Facebook.

I am about a month in and now have found a couple profitable products to advertise. I am nearly turning a $100 a day in profit, and pretty sure I can go 10x this pretty quickly just don't have the cash flow to bankroll yet.

I am wondering if anybody else is doing this? If so, any tips or places/industries you would stay away from?

Thanks!

SPAM







Just kidding. Pretty cool that you have turned this into $100/day already.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is PPC?

[Crowe Diddly]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is PPC?

pay per click

[Dan Druff]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is PPC?

pay per click

Okay.

I actually worked with pay-per-click affiliate stuff when I ran a chat room in the '90s, but it was not abbreviated as PPC -- at least not to my knowledge.

I thought he might have been selling Power PC chips.

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

Any tips on how you get started doing this if you have zero background in the aforementioned jobs you listed?

Is it even possible?

[SrslySirius]

Congrats on your success so far, OP.

I've dabbled in affiliate marketing myself, but I've always been somewhat reluctant to get into PPC. I understand that it used to be a goldmine, but there's lots of competition now (in most niches) and the edges have gotten smaller. It's the easiest way to lose big if you don't know exactly what you're doing. I know it can be tempting to scale up big since you've already got results, but I would recommend doing it gradually. One of the biggest pitfalls in that game is to see results on a small sample size, get excited, and drop 10x the money into another campaign. Sometimes it backfires.

Make absolutely sure that you've got a good enough sample size and that your landing page is really converting well enough to get a positive ROI. Once you've done that, gradually ramp things up, but also split test that landing page constantly for optimal conversions.

I hear that there's a bit of a scandal going on with Facebook ads. Some company determined 90% of their clicks were coming from bots. Shortly before that, some big company pulled all their advertising. I'm not up to date on that situation, but I'd suggest looking into it.

Are you doing any list-building? That's something I've been very interested in lately.

[SrslySirius]

One more thing... how exactly are you utilizing Adwords for aff marketing? If you're using a basic squeezepage, or using a direct affiliate link, Google hates that and will shitcan your account before long. There are ways to make Adwords friendly sites for affiliate offers or opt-ins, but they reduce conversions quite a bit. This is another thing that has turned me off from PPC, at least for aff marketing. I don't know what Facebook's policy on this is.

However, I hear that Bing Adcenter has no such restrictions. You can pick up some vouchers for it too.

[abrown83]

One more thing... how exactly are you utilizing Adwords for aff marketing? If you're using a basic squeezepage, or using a direct affiliate link, Google hates that and will shitcan your account before long. There are ways to make Adwords friendly sites for affiliate offers or opt-ins, but they reduce conversions quite a bit. This is another thing that has turned me off from PPC, at least for aff marketing. I don't know what Facebook's policy on this is.

However, I hear that Bing Adcenter has no such restrictions. You can pick up some vouchers for it too.

For Google:

Make 8-10 page website with relevant content and back links. (These are geo-targeted, and are starting to gain some actual organic traffic as well.)

Main page has embedded form, all inner pages have lead form in sidebar.


For Facebook:

With Facebook I have just been direct link marketing the crap out products.

My CTR is terrible but my conversion rate has been okay.

I am also paying about 20% of what I am paying on Google for the same ad.


On Google I need to hit around 50% conversion rate to be decently profitable.
On Facebook my conversion rate can be quite a bit lower since my cost is so much lower.

[abrown83]

Any tips on how you get started doing this if you have zero background in the aforementioned jobs you listed?

Is it even possible?

Not easily, knowing how to make web pages is one thing.

Then you need to know quite a bit about SEO (content saturation, back linking, avoiding Panda and Penguin), PPC advertising.

After all that you have to decide if you want to do Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Lead or Tiered Affiliate Marketing.


My greatest advantage is I understand how to churn web sites with good SEO, all I had to do was learn more about the Affiliate side. Which required a little math and finding some products that had decent traffic but not tons of competition.

[cmoney]

My 2 cents about affiliate marketing as used to do a bunch of this. I dont active pursue it anymore, as I am super busy but at the peak I was doing around 1000 a day.

Some markets I would explore:

1. Plants the seeds for online poker/casino legalization in the USA. Online casinos completely spew money to get new players. I remember back in the day online casinos would pay 1000 a player. Now with all the fraud they will pay 200-300 a player. Or if you find a legit casino rev share is a good option. When I mean legit I mean like a publicly trading company like william hill or if MGM or Wynn comes into the market. Start buying up domains and get your blogs and review sites ranked high so if the USA gets back into it you will be ready.

Keep in mind you dont need to wait for the US market to come online to make money. Many casinos in the EU will still pay you for EU players.

2. Adult web Cams - They also pay 200-300 a person and it is a good market to make money in.


3. There are a lot of Forex type trading sites operated out of the EU that will pay 500 a customer.

4. Market your own product. I started an adult site with around 6,000 usd back in 2006. I rolled that into a mil in sales within a couple years and kept reinvesting in other things. The key is to get affiliates to market the product for you. Typically they get a 50/50 rev share. The adult market as a whole is in the toilet because of tube sites and the fact you can get everything for free. However, there are a lot of niches out there you can get into that people will still pay for. And you can do this with relatively low start up costs.

Back when I started my first adult site in 2006, Micon laughed at me and told me I would fail and that we should compare "rolls" in 5-6 years. Trying to find that thread..

[Yebsite]

My 2 cents about affiliate marketing as used to do a bunch of this. I dont active pursue it anymore, as I am super busy but at the peak I was doing around 1000 a day.

Some markets I would explore:

1. Plants the seeds for online poker/casino legalization in the USA. Online casinos completely spew money to get new players. I remember back in the day online casinos would pay 1000 a player. Now with all the fraud they will pay 200-300 a player. Or if you find a legit casino rev share is a good option. When I mean legit I mean like a publicly trading company like william hill or if MGM or Wynn comes into the market. Start buying up domains and get your blogs and review sites ranked high so if the USA gets back into it you will be ready.

Keep in mind you dont need to wait for the US market to come online to make money. Many casinos in the EU will still pay you for EU players.

2. Adult web Cams - They also pay 200-300 a person and it is a good market to make money in.


3. There are a lot of Forex type trading sites operated out of the EU that will pay 500 a customer.

4. Market your own product. I started an adult site with around 6,000 usd back in 2006. I rolled that into a mil in sales within a couple years and kept reinvesting in other things. The key is to get affiliates to market the product for you. Typically they get a 50/50 rev share. The adult market as a whole is in the toilet because of tube sites and the fact you can get everything for free. However, there are a lot of niches out there you can get into that people will still pay for. And you can do this with relatively low start up costs.

Back when I started my first adult site in 2006, Micon laughed at me and told me I would fail and that we should compare "rolls" in 5-6 years. Trying to find that thread..

i have to agree with cmoney on this one...

[BCR]

Any tips on how you get started doing this if you have zero background in the aforementioned jobs you listed?

Is it even possible?

Not easily, knowing how to make web pages is one thing.

Then you need to know quite a bit about SEO (content saturation, back linking, avoiding Panda and Penguin), PPC advertising.

After all that you have to decide if you want to do Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Lead or Tiered Affiliate Marketing.


My greatest advantage is I understand how to churn web sites with good SEO, all I had to do was learn more about the Affiliate side. Which required a little math and finding some products that had decent traffic but not tons of competition.

How long to get to a $100 a day? Is this after recouping your initial investment? How much do you think you need to invest to get to $1000 a day, and how long to recoup original investment before you are solidly all in the black? I have no knowledge of any of this and I'm most unqualified, I am more interested as an investor how it works without you giving up any proprietary information or skills you may have obtained or developed. More of a ballpark, if I spent x, I could expect y in z amount of time given my skill set and knowledge.

[abrown83]

Not easily, knowing how to make web pages is one thing.

Then you need to know quite a bit about SEO (content saturation, back linking, avoiding Panda and Penguin), PPC advertising.

After all that you have to decide if you want to do Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Lead or Tiered Affiliate Marketing.


My greatest advantage is I understand how to churn web sites with good SEO, all I had to do was learn more about the Affiliate side. Which required a little math and finding some products that had decent traffic but not tons of competition.

How long to get to a $100 a day? Is this after recouping your initial investment? How much do you think you need to invest to get to $1000 a day, and how long to recoup original investment before you are solidly all in the black? I have no knowledge of any of this and I'm most unqualified, I am more interested as an investor how it works without you giving up any proprietary information or skills you may have obtained or developed. More of a ballpark, if I spent x, I could expect y in z amount of time given my skill set and knowledge.

Just a hair over a month to start netting $100 a day.

I dropped about 2k fishing around for products/services that worked.

I am spending about $400 to $500 to net about $100. Like cmoney mentioned there are a lot higher return products but they are also a lot more competitive keywords wise and PPC wise.

I am investing $1-$5 a user for a conversion of $12.

So in a 30 day period you could spend anywhere between $12,000 and $15,000 to return roughly $3,000.

My plan is to dump profits back in at a 70/30 clip (I keep 30).

I am still working full-time but if I could find another 5-10 products that I could do well at. I think I could quit and do it full-time.

I actually know a guy (friend of a friend) locally that does the same thing. He specializes in some really weird stuff but has had the domains for like 5-6 years and gets a ton of organic traffic. His rate of return is a lot higher than mine, but if I can increase organic traffic I can increase profit margins as well. He just pays a lot less for advertising because he does so well in search results.

At this point, it is just fascinating to tinker around with, and has filled the gambling void for a while.

[Dan Druff]

How long to get to a $100 a day? Is this after recouping your initial investment? How much do you think you need to invest to get to $1000 a day, and how long to recoup original investment before you are solidly all in the black? I have no knowledge of any of this and I'm most unqualified, I am more interested as an investor how it works without you giving up any proprietary information or skills you may have obtained or developed. More of a ballpark, if I spent x, I could expect y in z amount of time given my skill set and knowledge.

Just a hair over a month to start netting $100 a day.

I dropped about 2k fishing around for products/services that worked.

I am spending about $400 to $500 to net about $100. Like cmoney mentioned there are a lot higher return products but they are also a lot more competitive keywords wise and PPC wise.

I am investing $1-$5 a user for a conversion of $12.

So in a 30 day period you could spend anywhere between $12,000 and $15,000 to return roughly $3,000.

My plan is to dump profits back in at a 70/30 clip (I keep 30).

I am still working full-time but if I could find another 5-10 products that I could do well at. I think I could quit and do it full-time.

I actually know a guy (friend of a friend) locally that does the same thing. He specializes in some really weird stuff but has had the domains for like 5-6 years and gets a ton of organic traffic. His rate of return is a lot higher than mine, but if I can increase organic traffic I can increase profit margins as well. He just pays a lot less for advertising because he does so well in search results.

At this point, it is just fascinating to tinker around with, and has filled the gambling void for a while.

Wait, so it sounds like you are losing money.

Am I missing something here?

[abrown83]

Just a hair over a month to start netting $100 a day.

I dropped about 2k fishing around for products/services that worked.

I am spending about $400 to $500 to net about $100. Like cmoney mentioned there are a lot higher return products but they are also a lot more competitive keywords wise and PPC wise.

I am investing $1-$5 a user for a conversion of $12.

So in a 30 day period you could spend anywhere between $12,000 and $15,000 to return roughly $3,000.

My plan is to dump profits back in at a 70/30 clip (I keep 30).

I am still working full-time but if I could find another 5-10 products that I could do well at. I think I could quit and do it full-time.

I actually know a guy (friend of a friend) locally that does the same thing. He specializes in some really weird stuff but has had the domains for like 5-6 years and gets a ton of organic traffic. His rate of return is a lot higher than mine, but if I can increase organic traffic I can increase profit margins as well. He just pays a lot less for advertising because he does so well in search results.

At this point, it is just fascinating to tinker around with, and has filled the gambling void for a while.

Wait, so it sounds like you are losing money.

Am I missing something here?

Yup, spending 12-15k to net $3,000 in profit. So actually returning $15,000 to $18,000 on the 12-15k investment.

[v12cl]

Might as well create your own product. If you are going to be dumping that much money into marketing, you might as well be building the long term value of a company you own. With this setup, the minute you quit paying for clicks, is the minute your income dries up.

[v12cl]

...that is, if you can even get it to the point of establishing a + ROI. And even if you can, can you sustain it?

Also, affiliate tracking software/affiliates can be sketchy, as can PPC.

[abrown83]

Might as well create your own product. If you are going to be dumping that much money into marketing, you might as well be building the long term value of a company you own. With this setup, the minute you quit paying for clicks, is the minute your income dries up.

Which is probably why cmoney started his own.

The long term value comes from having a bunch of websites with excellent SEO that generate organic traffic to collect on Affiliate Marketing. The PPC is a starting point that can generate income.

[SrslySirius]

One more thing... how exactly are you utilizing Adwords for aff marketing? If you're using a basic squeezepage, or using a direct affiliate link, Google hates that and will shitcan your account before long. There are ways to make Adwords friendly sites for affiliate offers or opt-ins, but they reduce conversions quite a bit. This is another thing that has turned me off from PPC, at least for aff marketing. I don't know what Facebook's policy on this is.

However, I hear that Bing Adcenter has no such restrictions. You can pick up some vouchers for it too.

For Google:

Make 8-10 page website with relevant content and back links. (These are geo-targeted, and are starting to gain some actual organic traffic as well.)

Main page has embedded form, all inner pages have lead form in sidebar.


For Facebook:

With Facebook I have just been direct link marketing the crap out products.

My CTR is terrible but my conversion rate has been okay.

I am also paying about 20% of what I am paying on Google for the same ad.


On Google I need to hit around 50% conversion rate to be decently profitable.
On Facebook my conversion rate can be quite a bit lower since my cost is so much lower.

Right on, you know what you're doing. For some reason I got the impression from your first post that you were in a bit over your head, but you know more about this stuff than I do.

My understanding has always been that the best converting pages are very lean on content; usually just a single page, mostly comprised of sales copy. And that distracting users with relevant quality content, ironically, reduces conversions. And man, 50% seems really high. That must be a hell of a product.

By lead form do you mean e-mail list opt-in? If so, how's your list doing? Are you offering freebies for sign-ups? Do you intend to build a relationship with your list or blast them with offers? Any plans for running solo ads or swaps? Sorry for all the questions, this is the side of aff marketing that I'm super interested in right now. However, I am intrigued that you can in fact run direct affiliate links on Facebook. I wonder if that's doable on Bing adcenter as well.

[SrslySirius]

:bump

Abrown, you still around? I've getting my feet wet in affiliate/PPC for the last few weeks and would like to compare notes.