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Game-Changing Marketing Nuggets You've FINALLY learned.... (18)

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I think this may be a useful thread for all...

Link To/Try to Explain/Name a marketing concept you feel is a reason for your success.

Marketing, I feel, is tough because there are sooo many things to think about and keep in mind. One of the most useful ones for me, is none other than the ANgry Russian's spiel on Marketing vs Advertising.

PS. If you could name some books too., please! For me, Tested Advertising Methods + Breakthrough Advertising (gotta read that shit 8x just to get it, it's that difficult of a read) + V. Schwartz How to Write an Ad.

Let's talk angles and fundamentals here!

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Go directly to shockmarketer.com/finchesells.com/charlesngo.com . Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

But along the way, you can revisit these old gems:
http://www.ppc.bz/stuff-that-is-actu...ficit-disorder

http://www.mrgreen.am/affiliate-mark...he-ugly-truth/

http://shockmarketer.com/increase-co...on-rate-asw11/

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When I first got into affiliate marketing years ago I think tracking was the biggest game changer for me. I knew how to use subids and stuff like that but when Prosper202 came around and when I started learning about using pixels that's when things took off. Suddenly I could split test things and turn a break even or lower campaign into a highly profitable campaign.

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I wrote about the 5 things that helped me getting rolling here http://www.mrgreen.am/affiliate-mark...-starting-out/

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I'm curious, was this the post you're referring to? http://www.nickycakes.com/still-cant...-facebook-ads/

That's actually the campaign that launched my career. Ended up doing 6 figures profit and quitting my job from that campaign, and it put me in a really good position to take advantage of the 2008 boom.

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My biggest shift was going from a "throw shit against the wall" affiliate into a split-testing specialist.

My newbie thinking was launch to constantly launch campaigns until I had one that was profitable. 14 campaigns later, none of them made money. I was depending on luck.

What changed was telling myself my next campaign, I have to spend $1,000 on this before I can move on. Since I was "stuck" with this campaign I had to learn how to improve it. It started off at -50%, but then a few landing page / offer / ads tests later it became very profitable.

I think the problem with a lot of people is they don't wanna feel like they're "missing out" on a campaign, so what happens is they are running more campaigns than they can actually handle. You decide to run PlentyofFish, but then you keep hearing about how "hot" mobile and adult dating are so you throw up some campaigns. What happens now is you're in 3 completely different verticals, and you're competing against guys that master one.

The industry rewards specialists, not jack of all trades.

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Definitely. I know this is something I've suffered from on and off through my internet marketing career. It's very easy to come from a scarcity mindset and think "aargh, can't miss an opportunity or I'm doomed".

For me, I've found that reframing my thinking to one of abundance - accepting that there are far more opportunities out there than I'll ever have time to chase, and each one of them is enough to build a business on - has really helped me focus and actually Get Shit Done. That's true in AM, internet business in general and even filmmaking.

It's also much more relaxing. I don't know if other people find this, but I find that being able to say "well, that does look like it's hot, but it's not what I'm focusing on right now" is actually quite a relief!

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Some of my biggest nuggets haven't necessarily been direct marketing knowledge, but more system flaws/ways to game systems. When i say this it's not always tech either, i've had crazy campaigns do well that should never do well.

Here's a fak example, but this is a good one to explain how off the wall some things are. ex: attaching a acai berry offer to an IQ test landing page. Again this didn't happen, but i've had similar crazy experiences that have just killed it!

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oh I was a newb back when I read this post in March 08
I copied the EXACT same ads with the exact picture

my best performer was Better Than HalfLife 2
followed by Beta Testers Needed

4 weeks later the advertiser saw my ads and didn't like it, so I was charged back

but I understood more about Fb ads and I modified those style of headlines to other products not related to gaming and made lots of money

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hehe mine was "Better than Halo" with Halo images. I was completely new back then so didn't really understand copyright infringement. Regardless, I was able to run it for 6 months before anyone noticed. I think I was doing .04 CPC and .25 EPC on average.

But yea definitely introduced me to the basics of Facebook

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I learned the hard way not to build an adult list with AWeber

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Mine was more a mindset lesson.

I used to see affiliate marketing more as a hobby / side money than as a real business.

The moment I started taking it seriously ( waking up at decent hours , turning off distractions ) , my profit skyrocketed.

AM is not very hard if you think , doesn't require any special talents.

Anyone with enough time and dedication can make it big time.

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True, but I'd say that having the discipline to work on your own and actually treat it as a real business is a special talent. You can buy a lot of services and products to help you find a shortcut, but focus and application has to come from somewhere else.

As for game changing nuggets, for me it was probably just snapping away from the mindset of delivering leads without a care in the world about quality (or where they came from). The first half of my affiliate career was pretty much an exercise in blissful ignorance. I didn't appreciate the bigger picture of leads turning in to sales, and misleading ads turning in to a media shitstorm.

I think it definitely helps to detach from the affiliate mindset and start thinking about your value to the actual sales process. Sharking for leads and burning your bridges isn't the way to build a long-term business.

Edit: And another nugget was learning that if I found a placement or campaign that worked, I didn't have to spend money on it forever. I could try to build my own asset and harvest the traffic for free. That's something I've really started to appreciate in the last year.

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What you do is not nearly as important as how you do it. We all have access to more or less the same offers and more or less the same traffic sources. Some make $100k/month while others can't make $10.

I see a lot of people come into AM looking for "techniques" and "how to's" and often they don't know why copying campaigns from spy tools aren't making them rich.

Your mindset and attitude is everything - and this includes your mindset towards money. In fact, AM will expose your beliefs about money very quickly.

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@drngo yep I think that was the one. That kind of info was amazing/rare back then, now we are spoilt for choice.

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What's interesting is when that case study came out I thought to myself, "no way this is going to work anymore, everyone's going to try it and it's going to be too competitive."

When I did get it to work, it was a big mental shift in my head where there's no such thing as a niche that's too competitive in this industry. If there are 50 people making money on a campaign, you just have to be better than guy #50.

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I think you would be surprised at how little people actually take action. I remember I posted a profitable direct linking PPV campaign, I expected to get shut out soon after I posted it, and bids to rise, but nothing changed, volume and bids stayed the same.

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Focusing on revenue over profits was a game changer for me. I was doing $200 / day wondering why I couldn't make $1000 profit / day. Then I realized I needed to realistically be doing 2-3k rev / day for close to that profit on my typical profit margin. I started setting up a lot campaigns and actually letting them run instead of pausing after spending $50, turns out campaigns that I thought were losers were long term winners. Fortunately, most people can't resist pausing after spending $50 so I don't think the competition in certain verticals will ever get too large.

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