First $22,000.00 Revenue month ☺ (48)
Here's my stats from November (screenshot below):
November 2013
Ad spend: $11,692.13
Revenue: $21,881.78
Profit: $10,189.65
First off, I’m not writing this to brag. I’m writing this because I was asked to by a friend, who, among countless other friends and factors, helped me reach my goal of making a full-time income from Affiliate Marketing. He told me I needed to do this to inspire and motivate those struggling in this business. If you are struggling; I know your pain, because I was struggling until very recently. A few months ago I had $5 in my checking account, and had to borrow $12 from my girlfriend for food because I was dead broke and all my small nest egg was tied up in a affiliate network. The pain is still fresh in my mind.
Secondly, I apologize for the length of this. If I had more time I would have made it shorter. ☺
Truth is, when I started in affiliate marketing I was terrible at it. Furthermore, my idea of success and how to achieve it in AM was really skewed. I thought it was simple: all you had to do was follow a guru, setup a campaign and you were guaranteed to profit. Turns out that was the farthest thing from the truth. From my experiences, I found I needed to invest thousands of hours of my time, have a strong passion to succeed, a mastermind group, faith and basically all of Think and Grow Rich’s success principles in place.
I have learned so many valuable lessons in affiliate marketing. Like anything in life, Affiliate marketing takes a lot of hard work to get good at. It’s a linear hard-work vs success relationship. The harder you work, the more success you have. Furthermore, nothing comes easy in this business, and it takes hundreds, more like thousands of hours to build your skill set. Moreover, this business takes grit, a lot of grit. I recently gained a new appreciation of grit. Grit is the ability to keep pushing towards your goals, even when you experience short term failure, and understanding that short term failure, is necessary to achieve long term success.
Now I’ll get into my story, and explain the success and failure I experienced.
Four Years ago I met Charles Ngo at a Martial Arts School we both trained at. I remember thinking how is a young guy driving a $100,000 car? I asked him what he did for work, and he said internet marketing... Something about diet pills. I remember having no clue how he made money with that, but the seed was now planted in my head. Keep in mind, I didn’t start in affiliate marketing until almost 2 years after meeting him.
In august 2012 I was approached by an investor who gave me a xx,xxx budget and told me to run campaigns for a profit share. I had been doing email and info marketing in my martial arts niche for a little over a year and I thought I could succeed at paid traffic. The investors friend was a big affiliate and he was going to have his friend train me and help me get started. After the event, I Joined STM forums for the follow along threads and at the time I was running Bing and Adwords Diet and Skin Campaigns. The event was great and I learned a lot, but trying to learn this stuff in a weekend is nearly impossible. That would be like getting a engineering degree in a single weekend. There is so much to learn, and very little can be actually taught.
When I started running traffic I remember spending $500 in a day on adwords and not getting a single conversion. I was running diet re-bills and having no success. One morning I work up and I had lost another Bing account. The next day my only Adwords account left got banned. I had hoped Bing and google were my golden ticket, but I was forced to move on, and that’s when I learned my first, most valuable lesson:
----- Nothing is as good, or bad as it seems ----
You see, I had so much emotionally invested into succeeding in diet rebills that I was devastated when I failed miserably at it. I remember I even got depressed for a few weeks. Then after thinking about it, and talking to an old friend on skype, I swore to never get so emotionally attached to any campaign, or niche again. Truth is, it could all disappear in second. Nothing lasts long in this business, another lesson I would learn the hard way. So, I adopted a new mindset and I tried to not let what my mind perceived as failure effect my moods (even though it did a little).
Next, I met someone on STM who would change everything for me. I met Maynzie.
Maynzie’s is a sick affiliate. One of the nicest ‘cunts’ I’ve ever met. He told me about these Mobile sweepstakes that were hot on F5. I started running them on push traffic with manual tracking passing SUBID’s and immediately has success. Within a few weeks I was doing $500 profit/day, but I was torn. It wasn’t my profits, and I had agreed to a 10% share of the profits with my investor.
The sweepstake camps died about 5 weeks later, and I couldn’t keep them alive. I had heard about adult on the forums and wanted to give it a try. But I knew nothing about adult.
So Maynzie gives me a list of the top offers and I swipe, launch and fail. Over and over and over. During this time, I had a falling-out with my mentor. I had a few thousand of my own money saved, but I was in debt from credit cards and college loans.
I moved to Florida USA and lived with my sister for a little while. Next a new offer came out. It was called ‘saucy or sweet’. A US white label mobile offer that converted very well and I capitalized on it. I had a few $500 days then the offer was paused. At this point I was desperate. My savings were dwindling and I was barely breaking even between testing new campaigns and gathering data.
I tested everything. Ever new offer, I would test, and fast. I had been told that money is attracted to speed and I made sure I was as fast as possible. If a new offer came out I would be sending traffic the next day.
At this point, I had build a specific set of skills, but I knew I needed to improve on those skills, so I tried to learn as much as possible. I watched youtube tutorials on photoshop, JAVA and started making my own landers, banners and stopped swiping other peoples work.
I was still waking up every day with a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was there because I had bills I couldn’t pay, I was struggling. I needed knee surgery and couldn’t afford it. This was the hardest thing to overcome. Staying motivated day in and out when you’re one, or two years into affiliate marketing and you are barely making ends meet.
Then something happened that gave me a huge boost of motivation. Maynzie introduced me to two other guys, and we formed a small mastermind. Three People, all sharing everything, holding nothing back was exactly what I needed. We all worked together and shared ads, landers, everything. We started having success on mobile. $X,XXX days. But I still wasn’t skilled enough to scale, and I didn’t know how to nurture a fragile campaign. I lost my profitable camps for quality reasons, and not split testing enough, and other reasons.
The mastermind eventually died out, but it gave me the motivation to keep pushing. I did everything I could to build my ad spend. I still had no credit cards, only a few thousand of ad spend.
Finally it happened. (October 2013) All the stars aligned. I hit a big campaign. I knew I had to take full advantage of it, so I did a spending fast. I started spending $30 per week on food and eating very cheap, I wouldn’t buy anything. All my money went to ad spend. I would look for quarters in sofas, I sold things, I did things I’m not proud of. Every penny went to ad spend.
I spit tested like a Mother Fu%ker. I started pushing as much volume as possible, even though I was breaking even. I finally found a good designer and he made me a winning LP, I split tested it every day. I made 100’s of banners per day. And then I made one final optimization (simple one) and BOOM! I went from zero ROI to 100% ROI overnight.
I started averaging $500 profit days and it was stacking quick. Now I have $XX,XXX in ad spend saved and I’ve hit the point of no return. I can pay my rent in a day, two days I have my monthly bills covered. I now understand how to get a big campaign and every single failure has been absolutely crucial in getting me here. There is no success without struggle. The universe does not work that way….
Lastly, Maynzie once told me “It doesn’t rain forever”. And that, more than anything else gave me the motivation to not quit when things got hard. It makes perfect sense. When you are at your lowest point, it usually means you are about to expereince massive success. It’s happened the same way for so many successful people I’ve read about. They don’t expereince success until they have hit rock bottom, some hit rock bottom several times.
Special Thanks: F5 network and the briliant owners, STM Forums, Charles Ngo, and all my friends.
Truly inspirational, really happy for you mate! 
Congrats Mate! Thanks for the inspiration.
Well done bro. Your post reminded me a quote from Matthew Henry "After a storm comes a calm." Now scale that mofo and make it rain!
Awesome!
Also.. some lines of your post gave me shivers
Fucking inspiring mate! You deserved your success!
Man this is so inspiring! You truly deserve this! Once again you have proven that affiliate marketing is not a get rich fast thing, you got to put in hours of hardwork and gone through a lot of failures before you hit your first BIG campaign! I am glad that you did!
Can't wait to read your next $xxx,xxx/month success story! Keep it up!!! 
Congrats on making it.
Francis is not your average guy. When I met him a few years ago he was already a world champion martial artist (and I'm not talking about like some tai chi shit either)
He's the kinda of guy thats crazy obsessive when he sets a goal, and that's the drive you need to make it in this industry. It's not 2009 anymore, you gotta be a wolf if you wanna make money.
At this point there's two paths I've seen. The guy keeps the momentum going and turns that $22k into $100k a month, or the guy who fucks it up by getting lazy, blowing their money away, etc. You know what to do homey.
Wow. Awesome stuff. Congratulations!
Thanks for motivation
Keep it up.
Very impressive! Persistence always pays off.
I would try to milk this campaign as much and as fast as possible.
Things change fast in AM and you don't want to have regrets you didn't milk it enough.
Now will be waiting for your $xxx,xxx month story.
Come on francis you know the drill. We need your traffic source, offer, network, and all ads and LPs in a zip file, sorted by effectiveness.
Originally Posted by _mcr_
Congrats to you! I'm struggling to make profits with AM and your story is truly inspirational. I hope I could make money someday. Thanks for your story again.
Thanks for reading brahs
@Dr_ngo: Today I was going to splurge on a $400 gucci belts but after reading your reply I decided against it.
@bbrock: Milking is my weakness, but im working on it.
Also, I truly believe this dude would already be at $xxx,xxx months if he had the option for more cashflow, but he has just had to make do with the cards life gave him.
Truly an amazing dude, much love homedog and thanks for sharing your story!
Congrats dude! dr_ngo's advice is, as always, spot on. I was in your shoes one year ago and, sadly, I was the guy who fucked it up by getting lazy. I first got into AM August of last year. Last November I broke $30k revenue and Dec 1st of last year I had my first $x,xxx profit day. By spring my campaigns had died and then due to some personal reasons I had to step away from AM for a few months, and here I am trying to get back to $100/day. Don't get complacent like I did - stay hungry!
Very inspiring.
Stay foolish. Stay Hungry!
Awesome man!
+1 for Think and Grow Rich. Read that book from cover to cover and take notes, then read it again. Then listen to Napoleon Hills audio tapes.
Congrats on your hustle bro. No time to chill, turn up and keep the momentum going!
awesome story! i love hearing these.. we all struggle in reaching our goals...
but "passion for success".. you're spot on man
congrats!
I just read the email from your mailing list, can't wait the next one....congrats on your success
Congrats..
Great post mate!! Congratulations on your success my friend and here's to more for the future! 
Mega congrats man! You've definitely been working for it
Very inspirational thanks a lot!!
Dude, congrats. That's fuckin' awesome
Question for you mate. After all the failed campaigns what was it that made you aware you had finally hit a big campaign?
Originally Posted by d4dirty
congrats man! And thanks a lot for the inspiration.
Hey all,
Someone sent me a link to this thread I started two years ago...
Wanted to give you an update.
Since my first big successful campaign in 2013 I kept reaching for something more.
I met a amazing partner and our combined skill sets created the perfect storm.
Since then I've built a publishing company from the ground up, and have a booming corporation with multiple employees.
I'm now more of a CEO, and have a great team under me.
My best advice is when you build your first company.... Hire women! (They are more loyal than men from my personal experience)
STM was the place I got started so if you are just starting, or you are struggling don't give up on your dream.
The folks on this board are an amazing group of people and the sky is the limit if you network here, go to meetups and get involved in masterminds.
-Jordon
Bought my dream Car. Mercedes E63
Glad this got bumped, that first post was an Awesome read! Congrats on the success and the new ride
Bad ass ride. Can i have it please?
So glad to have come across this thread. Rock bottom isn't easy. Thanks Francis.
Proud of you man, you seem to prosper when you're really against the wall.
He left MANY MANY real hardships during the process outside of this success story, brings a tear to my eye thinking how far his come since the first PM I received on STM.
You've earned your spot man, over and over again
Glad to see this update. Its awesome to see you stuck with it and continue to make progress!
Congrats very inspiring
Very inspiring and eye-opening. Thanks, Jordon!
Awesome man!
when i'm feeling defeated, i love reading these stories. It really motivates me to continue! Thanks for sharing.
Hard work pays off
Tq for sharing! This is inspiring!
Great job man and nice car.
Francis,
This helps big time. I am starting my campaigns now, today ryt this moment. I guess I would need a mentor who would spend some 1-2 hours a week.
But I will start and I will be persistent.
Thanks for amazing inspiring story.
Awesome story! I relate to it in so many ways, I guess I'm on the right track I had some downs (broke, divorced) and I hit rock bottom. Now I'm back on track and I met a business partner, similar to you when you met Maynzie. Keep it up and update us!
BTW, any reason your blog is down? http://mobilemadhatter.com
Originally Posted by john_g
I had some downs (broke, divorced) and I hit rock bottom. Now I'm back on track and I met a business partner, similar to you when you met Maynzie. Keep it up and update us!BTW, any reason your blog is down? http://mobilemadhatter.com
Great article francis! Very informative and helpful for all of those who are struggling to get thing "going". Always great to see people finally get things going but like you said it does take lots and lots of time and patience to get there!
dude. tjhats pimp ass shit.
congrats on your success!
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