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My Successes and Failures as a Semi-Noob AM'er [+Some Bronze Nuggets] (9)

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I suppose it's customary to post in the "introduce yourself" section, but I'm not a big fan of the "Hi, my name is.." type threads that provide no value to anyone, so I thought I'd post my intro here, along with my successes and (many) failures so far in my short IM career. Not sure if anybody actually reads these things but here it goes anyways. What I'll go into:

1. How I got Started in this Crazy Biz
2. Campaigns that Failed
3. Campaigns that Succeeded
4. Things I've Learned So Far
5. Where I'm at Right Now

A short intro about me..

I'm a 22 y/o Florida guy and got started in IM about a year and a half ago while working part time at a bank (made my first website when I was 16 but that was a total failure and doesn't really count).

The first thing I got into were MFA sites. I thought that if I could churn out 200 websites each raking in ~$50 a month I'd be set. So I went to work.

First Failure

I made my first niche-site, loaded her up with adsense from head to toe and was super excited to start seeing the traffic and monies come in. It didn't. So being the super impatient person I am, I got frustrated and started on another project.

First Success (Thank God)

Fast forward 3 months down the road, and I'm astonished to find out that my once-forgotten niche website is pulling in around 100 uniques a day. But yet this was only translating into $.25 to $.50 cents a day in profit. So again I was disappointed and being the noob that I was, decided that this just "didn't work" and left it again to chase something else.

Yet some more weeks passes and I had discovered the world of CPA. The smart side of my brain decided to finally kick in, and I began to brainstorm ways to monetize the traffic I was already getting. Long story short, I decided to try link-locking some of the downloadable content on my site. It was in immediate difference.

A supposed "failure" was now generating me $160-$220 a month; all from one simple tweak. This really motivated me to keep going and keep pumping out more sites with this newly-acquired knowledge. Until...

Bronze Nugget: Just because you think a campaign or project is a failure doesn't mean it really is. Be creative, come up with a new angle and don't quit on it. That campaign could turn out to be a winner.

My 2nd Failure (This one hurt..)

About 2 months after my content-locking success, one of Google's updates hit and my sites were nowhere to be found on the SERPs. My $200/mo was now zero again. I was devastated.

But also smarter.

I realized that putting all my eggs into the Google SEO basket wasn't a good idea at all, and could backfire at any time. So I started looking into other ways of generating $$$ that didn't involve SEO.

So I spent the next few months throwing a ton of stuff up hoping that something would stick. Here's some of the stuff I tried:

• Youtube videos to promote Amazon products (Got my Utube account banned, and subsequently unbanned)
• Created a couple of Squidoo Lenses per someone on WaFo's suggestion
• Started leaving blog comments promoting Clickbank products
• And some other noobish stuff

It was also during this time that my father got sick, and was forced to retire early. He had a very good job with the county, and was paid a generous salary. The immediate shrinkage of his income put an enormous financial strain on my family and I. His early retirement isn't even enough to pay our mortgage and his insurance company hung him out to dry. Long story short, my parents are now about $40k in debt, and risk losing the house.

But I'm not here to write a sob story. Everybody has problems and stuff to deal with. I just wrote that to illustrate how my original simple "wanting" to earn some extra money online turned into a relentless drive to survive. I suppose that's one positive thing, as I've learned that attitude and mindset is extremely important in this biz.

The aftermath:

I was ready to throw in the towel when a Clickbank check for $168 dollars unexpectedly showed up in my mailbox. Now, that may not seem like a lot to you, but given our circumstances that was an absolute Godsend.

Once I figured out what I had done that worked, I went back to work and replicated it.

It still may not seem like a lot, but over the last 4 months I've been able to generate close to $4,000 from just that one simple method. But like everything in the IM world, competition soon caught on and spoiled the fun for all of us.

But I certainly learned a lot during that time, and it has allowed me to invest more time (and funds) into this business and help my family. I thank God for that blessing, as without it things would certainly be very different.

Where I'm currently at:

My mindset has changed a lot. When I would previously dabble in paid traffic, I'd be so afraid to lose money that I'd scrap projects after just spending a few bucks. I also was afraid to invest a lot of money, so I wasn't tracking, used shared hosting, and cheap low-quality traffic sources.

I was afraid of failure.

But thanks to failing time after time again, I've learned to treat failure differently. I now don't see it as "failing," but as learning. I also use failure as a motivating factor to not quit, and continue trying things until they work.

Since I decided to get serious about paid traffic (as it's the only method that can potentially generate the funds me and my family need), here's what I've done:

• Diet/Fitness on Facebook: -100% ROI
• Dating on Facebook: - Broke Even (maybe -10% ROI)
• Dating on PoF: +10/20% ROI (Some campaigns did better)
• Pay Per Call on AdWords: -50% ROI (But it was a Google Coupon, so it's all good)
• CB Products on Bing: Mixed results so far
• MyPCBackup on LeadImpact: -60% ROI (I'm still a noob with PPV)
• Mobile Dating on AdFonic: Awaiting Results

Another thing that I've learned (especially since joining STM) is that I've been focusing on too many things. Instead of doing so many things at once I should be focusing on one thing until it works.

Again, this goes back to the fear of losing money. As soon as I started losing a little bit, I'd pull the plug. Can't keep doing that.

The next month or two will be crucial, as I don't have the capital (or the credit limit) to continue without seeing profits. But I welcome the challenge. I used to have a regular job and go to school like all the other normal kids, but sometimes life throws you a curveball and you have to take a swing.

I'm thankful for the opportunity I've been dealt and expect to make the most of it. I've been working 14 hour days for the last year and have no intention of slowing down now anytime soon.

Some may think it's hard to not go out with friends, not party or just relax every once in a while. But when you're so focused on success, nothing else really seems to matter. Especially when so much is riding on your back.

If anybody actually takes the time to read through this monster of a post, thank you. In a way it feels good to vent a little bit and share your experiences with others that have been there before.

I'll now be going back to taking some more action while digestion the vast amount of valuable information on here. Hopefully my next thread starts with the word "Success" and ends in +XXX% ROI.

See ya' next time.

Andrew

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Nice first post man. I know that feeling, I had a similar situation when I was doing a level exams in school and my father got hit by a stroke, pretty much like your situation back then. Since you seem to be kinda short on budget, I'd recommend a smaller source, potentially POF, to gather some experience at lower costs compared to the monsters of adult/mobile. POF you should be able to generate 40-50$ / day avg. pretty easily and it will help you cover your basic costs for testing a new source after making POF work for you and allow you to take a couple of hundreds out of your bank account each month.

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Awesome introduction man, thanks a lot for sharing all that. Many people on this forum have come from pretty shaken circumstances, but you will find in the end of the day its a blessing in disguise bro as it will make you much much stronger as you're forced to look for avenues to better your life in the most time efficient manner possible

Make sure you don't burn out and try to keep a good life to work balance, do things everyday outside of work that you enjoy as well as there really is only so much you can do with AM everyday before you start becoming extremely unproductive and building bad habits of excess social media and no action taking XD

I am looking forward to your success bro, keep at it because its more then possible and we all believe in your here!

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I'm going to say the 14hr days comment is pretty bauss. Its HARD hours and thats whats going to make you continue to succeed.. you won't burnout for a while

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Thanks for the advice fjk, as well as reading through my behemoth of an intro. Hope your dad is doing better.

And that's basically what I had planned to do, given that PoF has been pretty much my only profitable traffic source thus far. And with the spy tools and ad uploader, it should be much easier to see a positive ROI.

Thanks Maynzie, I appreciate you taking the time to read through my intro as well.

I have to say, you've already helped me tremendously with many of your posts. It's funny, I came here thinking that I was lacking technical knowledge. And while that is true to an extent, what I've noticed I really lacked was the right mindset. You guys look at a campaign from a completely different perspective. It's a bit hard to explain but just reading through your guides and case studies I start to see things completely differently as before.

And thanks for the burn-out tip, lol. I try to take some time off every once in a while, but this biz is strangely addicting. I don't know if it's the lack of a big success yet, but the only way I can describe it is a sort of "hunger." Hehe.. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks again for the words of encouragement guys, they're much appreciated.

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Thanks Stack, your posts have been a tremendous help as well.

And the 14 hour days just happen, really. I honestly don't make it a point to work that long, and take a few hours off here and there to relax the mind (and the eyes) every once in a while, but time just passes by when you're doing something you want to do. And I want success. So it doesn't really seem like a chore at all. I wish the day had 72 hours.

lol. Again, I'm sure many of you can relate.

Besides, I could be in a factory in a third-world country working 18 hour days for a bowl of soup. At least my hard work will pay off one day.

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Yay, one more POF follow-along! Excited to see your progress

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You're welcome man! We're here to help you guys piece together the puzzle of affiliate marketing, and I do understand... I myself know jacksh*t about tracking, same as far as I know for stackman and mrgreen as they know only the basics of basics, its not a huge part of the puzzle or something you can simply outsource

We all go through burn out and something that can kill motivation in the click of 2 fingers is spending 14 hour days on a campaign building it into profits, only for quality not to back out or the offer go down so its always a good idea to have a balance because that frustration just destroys your motivation efforts and will just make ya straight out tired haha!

Also, I'm sure you've read it before but analysis paralysis is a huge problem on this forum for the newcombers, don't spend your whole day reading, then the next day reading, you will soon get in a rut of too much information. Pick 1 sub forum, (ie one source) and stick with it, heck get a follow along going

"If you do tomorrow what you did today, tomorrow you will get what you got today"

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Nice and inspiring post indeed...In life I think we all come across this crossroads of life...The spirit of winning has make us the AMs...we are able to make the odd campaigns profitable then why cant we make our odd life even and successfull...

Guys at STM rocks...many thanks to Maynzie, Caurmen and Stackman for the continuous effort you guys put to make us capable and well equipped...cheers

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