I suck at affiliate marketing (46)
This is a super short review of my not-so-bright AM career
I started my first campaign in sept.'11 and from that day on, I've netted only about $20K (but I also have to subtract hosting, tools and time)
Looking back at what i've done and what I'm able to do: I learned a lot in 18 months, but I still cannot profit if I pay a click more than 0.05
Being this an increasingly rare scenario nowadays, i think i'm fucked
Learn copywriting.
The first thing I would advise is for you stop this “me and my sad affiliate story” business.
Choose a large Vertical like dating, weight loss or whatever just something you can scale when you hit that ROI sweet spot, stick to that one vertical you choose for 12 months eat , breath and sleep it and if possible try and get in contact with affiliates who have been successful in your chosen vertical and learn as much from them as you can .
Or… you can just quit *shrugs*
You could always become cam model, maybe for foot fetishes, or get paid by others to watch you eat naked... 
Or, you could stop throwing tantrums like cashmoney already said, and just get on it and GET BETTER, learn by doing and do not sit on your ass reading this or others forums all day long. You won't learn much new by reading, after doing this already since '11.
Do it, go out there, build campaigns, lose money, learn from mistakes, rebuild campaign better... AND DON'T BE LAZY with landing pages.
You don't suck at affiliate marketing...you suck at working.
If there was an exam you had to sit about affiliate marketing you would pass with flying colors. I know you know more info than a lot of people who are making money in the affiliate game. The only difference between them and you is how they apply the info they know.
Act on what szmudo said "Do it, go out there, build campaigns, lose money, learn from mistakes, rebuild campaign better... AND DON'T BE LAZY with landing pages."
DOOOO IT!
Please 
Thanks Folks
Each one of you is 100% right
This thread has turned into a winner for those struggling, awesome awesome awesome contributions!
Netted $20k?
That's better than 99.9% of the people that have ever launched an affiliate marketing campaign.
What Mr.Green said! There are no shortcuts and nothing replaces "field experience".
You need to come up with a good process and stick to it.
So for example it could be :
1 - Pick one niche ( adult dating as an example ).
2 - Get top 5 countries and top 5 offers for each one
3 - Commit to launch at least one campaign every day. This is very important. You have to actually do it , no excuses. Write it down on a calendar if needed.
4 - For every question come and post here and you will get much better advice once you show us some data.
I bet in 30 days you will have found at least one profitable campaign.
Give it a go
If you netted "only" $20k , you've already made $17k more than me in the same time period. I've felt like quitting many many times. I've got tons of obstacles , like not having access to credit cards,etc. But I know I'm gonna make it in this game man.
So you don't suck at all.
Keep at it.
For me the biggest problem that slows my progress is (was?) thinking too much. As in being overwhelmed with tons of possible offers, options, angles, lander ideas, thinking/imagining how much work it takes to launch each campaign, set up, etc.. Some ppl also call it analysis paralysis.
Solution? breaking up the process in small steps, small enough to be able to focus on each one of them and go step by step without overthinking anything. Need an angle? Don't think of anything else. Done? Good. Move to creatives. Done with one? Move on to #2, #3, etc. Done with creatives? Ok, so start setting up your campaign.
Focus on 1 little thing at a time, don't do 10 things at once, dont jump from 1 campaign to another, don't daydream about launching a million different things.
Don't look at your stats when you need to be making banners.
Don't check your daily revenue if your task for today is creating 5 new landers and you havent opened Dreamweaver yet. Or messaged 3 new contractors on Flippa for the same..
Dr. Ngo posted on his blog his 30-minute method, very simple and very effective. It involves Pomodoro counter - check it out on his blog, and try to implement. (I use Android Pomodoro app that helps me focus when I need to by the way). And don't stress about a fucking thing - you're gonna die anyway, sooner or later
(Stressing, by the way, is living in reality that does not exist: it's either future that you're afraid of that didn't happen yet or your past that's gone anyway. Focus on the "now"; Chopping your goals into small tasks is how it's done)
Keep at it.
^ thats really great piece of advice.
As much as i hate to admit it, I am in the same boat..Need to get my shit together
Work is your friend, my friend!
First ask yourself, what's your daily routine like?
What's your % of time in building campaigns (lander, ads, upload ads etc) VS time in reading forums, guides, spying. You will usually find the answer why you're not successful here.
Formula is simple - Pick a niche, pick 1-2 traffic sources, stick with it, do multiple countries (not just US because it's easy and you don't have to translate).
DO NOT, chase shiny objects. DO NOT, jump niches.
I have a friend that i've been coaching early this year, he's now quickly hitting 50-100 a day profits. Because i guide him ONLY on 1 traffic source, and 1 vertical to focus on - If he jumps, he's on his own.
All it takes is this 3 step, for any vertical you do it's the same shit over and over again.
I can't see how this will fail, alot of people here is already making it work, why not you?
Please, don't waste my (our) 5 minutes spent here writing this and still don't make a change in your life. I'm sure you'll be there very soon!
Lots of great tips! THE MAIN THING TO KNOW is its about sticking with it even though you've tried for 1.5 yrs, it's not time to give up.
BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT is sticking with 1 thing. 1 niche or 1 traffic source. Learn, test and do everything you can until you're the absolute expert, captain, master at it... because experts, captains and masters are at the top of their game.
This is something you always have to do too, not just a 1 time thing. Just a year ago i decided i wanted to learn mobile and would not give up. Stuck with it, tried 30+ offers, and must have went through atleast 30 angles for 1 of the offers until i cracked it. Next day i was doing $5k+ a day.
We're in the biz of not giving up.
If I hadn't gotten that advice, listened to it and followed it, I'd probably still be wondering why I can't get this Internet Marketing thing to work.
Guys there is really no magical secret/formula/pill to success, except hard & continuous work...
The more you try, the bigger your chances of finding something that actually works.
The more winners you've found, the bigger your repertoire of ideas/knowledge becomes and after a while you are able to make a profitable campaign with just a few tries...
Might not always be the $5000/day jackpot, but I know that today, after doing this for a long time, I can make almost any campaign profitable really quick.
As I said, most of the time it's not the big jackpot, but having 2,3,4,5+ campaigns that do $200/day in profit is good money too... And every few months you'll find the big jackpot campaign that makes you a few grand per day in profit or more.
But to get to this stage, you have to work continuous which means every single day, 7 days a week, and never sit still... always do research, always be building campaigns, always test. Give yourself daily enough time for other activities tho to keep your sanity ;o)
Specialization is also a big key, don't be the guy working with a million traffic sources, specialize in 1-3 sources that you can get good volume from.
Volume is the next key... But you will figure this out for yourselves once you get there. Just never stop, and learn to work harder & smarter & CONTINUOUSLY!
PS: After you specialized yourself with those three sources, and you have a good amount of steady campaigns.... OF COURSE start specializing in other traffic sources... ;D
Some decent advice in the thread about working as such....and all though i do agree with the stick with 1 thing motto as it does magnify your chances of success....
BUT
I think the biggest reason why 90% of the people who start in this biz fail....is inability to lose...when I first started and even after I got to a place similar to where you are now its was the inability to lose that kept holding me back....
the big wins in this biz come out of focused work and the understanding that you will lose money....you have to be ok with being a loser for a while...its just part of the game....no way around it really....you need to feel comfortable in that role the more comfort you have...imo the more successful you will be.....
the problem is that this forum even this thread all talk about winning....everyone wants to talk about there x,xxx a day camp or their cool trip to eastern Zimbabwe where they got uber fucked up with some shaman, or their porche on the facebook, some party on a boat, or the pics of there 4 thunderbolt displays on their desk....oooo with a view I almost forgot....
FUCK DAT SHIT....
heres the thing...seeing that kinda stuff day in day out everywhere in this biz wears on your self esteem....makes you start to believe that everyone is winning but you.....fact is thats the utter bullshit of this biz....anyone who has made it big in this biz has lost many many thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to those points....
YOU NEVER FUCKING SEE THAT!!!
you only see them cool pics of them touching some hot shawty(I think thats the term the cool kids use), or the porche, or the 1200$ desk chair....
No one ever talks about the amount of money it took them to get to the $5,xxx/day camp they are talking about or any of that stuff....
to me thats the missing piece of the puzzle....you need to understand fully, money was lost to get to those heights....you will lose it....its just a fact of life....
its a rare day that I launch a camp and it starts making money day 1...rare day....
SO THATS GREAT BACON I WILL BECOME A LOSER AND MAKE LOADZ OF CASHZ.....makes sense right?
no...
this is where the law of averages come into play....
if i flip a coin 10 times there is nothing that says it cant come up heads those 10 times...yes its way above average but still very possible......
BUT
the more i flip the coin the more the average will revert back to the mean...in this case 50% .....so the trick is to flip the coin more because its more likely you get to something you can predict....(50%)...
so if i told you you were gonna win 10% of the time flipping this magical unicorn coin that i have.....and those with 10% wins would exceed your ENTIRE losses by a factor of 3x.....what would you want to to?
FLIP THAT FUCKING COIN AS MUCH AS YOU COULD....
again law of averages state that you could lose 40 times in a row.....yes that would suck your a loser.....you failed....post a thread in STM about how you failed and should give up....right?
of course not....you would keep flipping that coin....cuz you had FAITH in the law of averages (and unicorns) because you know at some point this will win and when it does it erases all your losses...and then some...
OK so If i havent lost you yet....here is where I bring it all together for you so you can get going on your merry way to WINNING in this biz...
Why did you keep flipping the coin above?
because you knew in the end things would avg out and you had FAITH in the system....how does this apply to IM?
Your a bright guy I have seen alot of your posts, you have the basic skill set to succeed in this biz....thats your 10%....you need to have faith in that, faith in yourself, faith that if you apply your skills in the end you will have that 1 camp that erases your losses by a factor of 3x...(it will happen btw law of unicorns mandates it)
what you need to succeed is you need to keep believing in yourself and improving your skills to maintain that 10% and..
KEEP FLIPPING THE FUCKING COIN YO....
the minute you stop flipping the coin....the game is over...you can never win....
If you can do $20k, you can do $200k. Focus on one vertical and master it. As stated above, $20k is by no means 'sucking', you may just need to work harder and be pushed in the right direction.
I'm astonished by the amount of real help everyone is putting here.
Thank you guys !
Thank you guys !
!
# If there is a will there is always a way #GoldenRule
# Its better to rule the spirit than to rule the city (Rule your spirit to not give up)
# Leave the mirror and change your face #Neville Goddard. (you mind is your mirror, you keep saying you are fucked? well this is what will come to you.)
# and at last $20k in a country like India means a lot. #Affirmations
You've made 20k more than most people do, so that's something to be somewhat proud of. Persistance pays off. Like it was said above, learn copywriting and you'll be pro at it.
One other tip that I picked up from reading about Pick-Up Artists, of all things: you can't control when you win, so don't set that as a goal. Instead, set *losing* stuff as a goal.
That sounds pretty strange, I know. In the case of PUAs, the tip was "try and collect at least 20 rejections a day". The theory being that in order to get rejected 20 times, you've got to approach 20 women, and that actually means you're likely to succeed a bunch of times - but because you're not focused on success as a metric, you don't get depressed when you fail.
In my case, last time I seriously learned a traffic source, I set aside a daily budget of $50 a day for a couple of months, and made it my goal to spend that money on the traffic source - whilst following intelligent campaign-setup practise, of course. It was great - even when I was still at the "dear god I suck at this" stage, I could look at my goals, and give myself a big tick in the "spend money on data" column.
I hit profitability about $1.5k in and since then have made...rather more than that
I've been dabbling in affiliate marketing for years and the #1 thing holding me back from bigger success and switching from "dabbling" to full time is putting in the time.
This isn't a four hour work week. In the beginning, you really have to be churning out campaigns EVERY DAY and optimizing EVERY DAY. But life gets in the way. I have a full time job, a wife, a son. During the week, while I'm at my job I'll often get excited about trying something in affiliate marketing that I thought of that day. But by the time I get home, eat dinner, put the kid to sleep and spend some time with my wife, it's tough to motivate myself to sit down and start working again. Especially when I'm getting up at 5:15am to hit the gym and go back into the office to do it all over again.
My other "disadvantage" is that I don't hate my full time job. It's in the online marketing world, but for big brands (waaaay different strategies and thought processes than direct/performance/CPA advertising) so it's interesting, I work with cool, smart people and make about $74k/year. If I was flipping burgers, I might be more motivated to make a change or just throw up my hands and quit to go full time in affiliate marketing because if I failed, I could probably find another minimum wage job.
So for those who are doing this full time: how'd you make the switch? I told myself that if I make $10k/month for three months in a row, I'll quit. But I can't help but thinking, "Man, if I just quit my job now, I'd have a LOT more time to focus and work at this." Because again, I feel I have the skills and knowledge, I'm just not putting in enough hours.
A lot of people have already left good replies, but I'll just throw my own reply in as well.
I tried affiliate marketing off and on for about 4-5 years, mostly breaking even, before finally getting anywhere half decent with it. I'm now netting 6 figures a year. I just kept at it. You can't succeed if you give up.
Good luck! $20k/year means you already got past the toughest part of this game, IMHO.
Originally Posted by nefig
Solution? breaking up the process in small steps, small enough to be able to focus on each one of them and go step by step without overthinking anything. Need an angle? Don't think of anything else. Done? Good. Move to creatives. Done with one? Move on to #2, #3, etc. Done with creatives? Ok, so start setting up your campaign.
Focus on 1 little thing at a time, don't do 10 things at once, dont jump from 1 campaign to another, don't daydream about launching a million different things.
Don't look at your stats when you need to be making banners.
Don't check your daily revenue if your task for today is creating 5 new landers and you havent opened Dreamweaver yet. Or messaged 3 new contractors on Flippa for the same..
Dr. Ngo posted on his blog his 30-minute method, very simple and very effective. It involves Pomodoro counter - check it out on his blog, and try to implement. (I use Android Pomodoro app that helps me focus when I need to by the way). And don't stress about a fucking thing - you're gonna die anyway, sooner or later
(Stressing, by the way, is living in reality that does not exist: it's either future that you're afraid of that didn't happen yet or your past that's gone anyway. Focus on the "now"; Chopping your goals into small tasks is how it's done)
Keep at it.
It really is funny how this industry makes it seem so that if you're not almost instantly making $xx,xxx a month and driving a Porsche you have failed.
It's probably safe to say that 90% of affiliates don't ever even break even, you've already come a long way so why give up and stop now.
Originally Posted by Michael Jordan
This thread is full of win. Man, you guys rock.
Is like I wake up in the morning see that my campaigns are tanking, come here, get pumped up and go at it again.
And dude, 20K Is money!
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!
- Rocky Balboa -
Originally Posted by dextrous
Affiliate marketing has to be one of the rare few industries where you can get guys making a 30-40% ROI and still complaining about cashflow! Not that it's a bad thing. The expectations and standards are a good motivation, so long as you apply some realism and patience...
Originally Posted by polarbacon
Definitely a good thread to read again!
How do you feel looking back at this thread now @dario after your $5k/month
Trust the process everyone, its possible for each and everyone of you
^^ hahaha yes!
haha good read to bump...
I feel like coming from an online poker background, it really puts you in a good mind set .... it's actually crazy how many parallels there are between the two disciplines. even in regards to the forums, reading twoplustwo, there were the people that drooled over the success threads and didn't take proper action to put in the time and effort to get there. The success threads shouldn't be a stick on your back with a carrot dangling in front you keep aimlessly chasing. they should let you know whats possible, and give you a bit of drive. imo
two things I learned from poker that helped with this stuff
1. Learn to "fail" and get VALUE out of your failures. hell you already "failed", what can you take from that. lessons learned can only come one way not from hypothetically reading. so don't discount that value. take the experience and use that to be better.
2. find an edge and exploit the hell out of it. - - - it's all about an edge...
you're negative ROI because your pay outs are too small? ... make your own offer!
getting shut down on FB all the time? ... figure out how to farm your own accounts and have an arsenal
cash flow is small? rig up a loan or eat rayman noodles while you invest EVERY cent back into your flow.
you have to want it at all costs, like with anything. and truth be told, its really not that hard to make money at this shit hahaha ... think about opening a shop downtown. so much more to it and less return on investment. so buckle up and go full force.
i could go on forever, but point being is think outside the box and put those thoughts to action.
sorry this got ranty. couple frosty beverages tonight. haha ...
GL !
Reading this post pumps me up a lot and makes me cry a little...thank you everyone this is a great forum full of successful people and i just started out with you guys...i feel like i can do it too, even though i decided to go on mobile
Even when you've feel like you have failed thousands of times as every successful person has ... it's still discouraging.
When you feel you have failed — it's easy to think that there is something wrong with you.
So it's helpful to remember that everybody has "failed" at one time or another.
- Lots of investors passed on Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al, for example.
- Lots of publishers sniffed at "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (the U.K. title of the original book before one brave U.S. publisher finally bought it).
- And at least one record company, it seems, rejected the early recordings of an unknown teenage Dublin band called "U2."
U2, needless to say, is one of the most successful bands in history. And the record label that said "no?" They're almost certainly toast.
So have a look at this U2 rejection letter. Use feedback and failure to improve.
But don't spend a single second doubting yourself just because you heard the word "no."
http://www.businessinsider.com/u2-re...d-label-2014-3
Originally Posted by cmdeal
When you feel you have failed — it's easy to think that there is something wrong with you.
So it's helpful to remember that everybody has "failed" at one time or another.
- Lots of investors passed on Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al, for example.
- Lots of publishers sniffed at "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (the U.K. title of the original book before one brave U.S. publisher finally bought it).
- And at least one record company, it seems, rejected the early recordings of an unknown teenage Dublin band called "U2."
U2, needless to say, is one of the most successful bands in history. And the record label that said "no?" They're almost certainly toast.
So have a look at this U2 rejection letter. Use feedback and failure to improve.
But don't spend a single second doubting yourself just because you heard the word "no."
http://www.businessinsider.com/u2-re...d-label-2014-3
Badass
The U2 letter reminds me of Taylor Swift's story. When she was 11, she made a demo and went door to door to every record label in Nashville and was rejected by every single one of them. The rest is history.
That's cray cray - but super inspirational.
also, we need an update from OP
Yes Dario, update us
excellent thread, just took some salient points and filled my whiteboard with them, thanks!
Originally Posted by maynzie
Here's to never giving up ... dario is the man!
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