The making of a mobile mogul (25)
Alright STM, glad to be here. I'm Nate and I'm ready to accept my lowly status as an affiliate apprentice. All I care about right now is learning this business, launching campaigns, losing money, learning from that data, and then continually optimizing and mastering my offers.
I'm under no illusion that this is a path to quick wealth (even though it can be). I'll be 26 this month, married with two kids, one of whom is autistic. I work as an IT help desk dude, which for obvious reasons I'm looking to move away from.
All I'm looking for is guidance on this journey, which there is clearly an abundance of on STM.
I have affiliate accounts with Adsimilis, F5 Media and A4D. I've spoken with each of my affiliate managers and they all seem to be genuinely interested in helping me succeed (understandably because it helps them).
I have a VPS setup with Beyond; although I'm still learning the details on the technical side of things.
As for a vertical, mobile is very appealing to me. I'm all about smartphones and I've switched phones literally over a dozen times in the past couple years. Right now I'm reading up on mobile marketing, as I understand it can be a bit more challenging because of the variables involved.
One of my strengths I plan to capitalize on is direct response marketing and copywriting knowledge. I think the ability to sell with words can only help my campaigns.
Wrapping up now, I truly appreciate the hard work that goes into this community and the solid gold wisdom that is given out by the veterans.
Here's to a prosperous 2014!
Hey mate!
Awesome start, you got the basics covered let me know if you need some help picking some verticals. Start small when testing, learn the ropes, don't over complicate and also no paralysis analysis. Hopefully you can attend one of STM's meetups this year and get your networking up. looking forward to some more posts mango!
I too salute to a prosperous 2014! 
Are you per chance reading Mobile Manifesto? It's a sick guide. Good luck with everything man.
Nice man, i think you've got the right attitude, and mindset to hit your goals.
If you look at the journey as a year long thing, you'll be very surprised what you can do in the year. I recommend taking this approach.
My approach to mobile is purley about copywriting and design. Coming up with unique ideas/angles to sell the user. So your onto something with your approach of direct response marketing.
I highly recommend hitting up your AM at F5 and asking for the top mobile offers. Some anti-virus ones are on fire right now, and i think anti-virus is a great start. So is sweeps, and some of the hotter app installs such as mobogenie/spotify etc..
A follow along is always a great way to get you started, organized and get tips from others that sometimes can really help!
Cheers and good luck!
Whoop whoop!
@redrummr Yeah man, I started reading the Mobile Manifesto yesterday. Great stuff from Ruck.
Looking good! I'll be following this one with interest!
Originally Posted by nlgodd
It seems like you are a well grounded individual approaching things methodically. That already separates you from 95% of the people out there who are looking for a get rich quick scheme.
If caurmen is following you, you are in good hands
Best of luck to you!
Update: Well that de-escalated quickly. I started learning about mobile and ended up letting analysis paralysis get the best of me. Never got fully set up or launched a campaign. Bitched out I guess. That ends now.
I spent all weekend up to about 3am this morning getting started again, going through the newbie guide, researching offers. I realized I should get my feet wet with something simple like POF to learn the basics and then move into mobile. This is purely for learning purposes, I don't want to do POF long term.
I have a dating offer I'm launching today, just figuring out tracking and all that now. I'll spend a couple weeks on POF just to get the fundamentals of AM down, and then go balls out into mobile. There's no doubt that mobile is where I want to be and what I want to master.
My goal is 3K per month by August. Two reasons for that: I only make about $2500/month at my day job, so I could replace that; and Affiliate Summit East 2014 is in August. I'd love to be at that and meet some of you ballers. I feel this is a pretty realistic and attainable goal and it gives me something specific to work towards.
I'll post my campaign stats once I get them and get this shit rolling.
Screw starting with POF, not going to become a mobile mogul with that. I'm taking the next couple weeks to follow The Angry Russian's guide to master mobile. I have at least 5-6 hours per day I'll be working on this, should be able to make some progress.
My main concern was getting burned with mobile because of all the different variables that need to be tested, but with our favorite commie guiding me, I should be able to avoid too many problems with that.
Good luck! $3k/month by August is VERY achievable if you put in the work. You're working with the right networks, have good hosting and seem pretty motivated. Everything you need to know to achieve your goal is on this forum, but don't let that turn into analysis paralysis again.
Originally Posted by dragoshsd
Something I'm confused about: if I'm using Decisive as my traffic source and it has its own tracking, do I still need to set up tracking on my own?
Yes You should always use your own tracker imo....Unless you have a proven campaign that is fully optimized. I would still use my own tracker. I havent run on decisive and not sure what they track or dont track. With mobile you need to track numerous variables and most trackers like
Originally Posted by marketone
Another question: I'm using Beyond's starter VPS, is that going to be a problem running mobile? I definitely want to upgrade to dedicated soon, just trying to put all funds into the campaigns.
Your fine with their VPS starting out...Tell them your running only mobile to make sure its optimized best it can be. Usually is though. For like 15 bucks a month with beyond you can get a CDN and save some load time on images. If you use rackspace cdn its based on your usage every month. Cant imagine you would be using to much space just starting out. Beyond can also load your tracker. They are in the forum. They load all my trackers, domains and anything else i need. Their support to me is great.
Originally Posted by marketone
Okay, so I've funded my Decisive account and I have a $0.20 app install that I'm going to try in South Africa (11.7M impressions, $0.16 CPM). What's a good number to start bidding at for this?
Also, I'm still confused about tracking. So far I have the tracking link from #7 in Prosper, not sure what I need to do with that one. The pixel from #8 in Prosper, does that go to Decisive? Then there's the conversion pixel that Decisive provides. WTF is that for?
I don't know if I'll be able to make this first campaign profitable or not, but mainly it'll be a learning experience, so I'll be happy to be completely transparent about the details if it helps me understand everything better.
I don't know if you'd see the KB-article from decisive -> http://help.decisive.is/knowledgebas...ns-prosper-202
Originally Posted by nlgodd
When I started off I wanted to get into mobile too.... we're always hearing about how mobiles are outgrowing desktops etc etc etc so it naturally feels like a more prosperous path. However, when I started reading about mobile I felt seriously out of my depth. And that's despite having ~5 years experience in Internet marketing (SEO, product focused) with businesses still generating low $xx,xxx profits per month (not bragging, just trying to show that this was still tough despite previous experience / reasonable success).
The other reason why I didn't start off in mobile is because from what I understand testing costs a lot ($x,xxx) and as a newbie, 'losing' that kind of money off the bat would probably suck some of my enthusiasm. So, as advised by Caurmen's getting started guide (still my bible), I'm working on making POF profitable first.
POF has still been a hell of a learning curve but the resources here are awesome for that. POF has made me comfortable with sourcing images, setting up tracking, reading data, and more.
Takeaway: If mobile feels tough and is getting expensive real quick, give POF a try - it really is a great platform for newbies. Although if you're a faster learner than me and mobile is falling into place for you - props! Just be sure to focus on your traffic source 100% and absolutely stick to it until you make it work
Originally Posted by sacare
I honestly don't spend less than 100 a day testing on mobile. If your just getting started with no back ground in mobile. You will need a decent budget to have any major break throughs. Especially if you are on a competitive niche, geo or traffic source. If you have have some back ground in Aff marketing and want to move to mobile then will be an easier transition. With no experience then you better have a large budget. There are so many more variables you need to be able to track and optimize to make it. So if your still bent on mobile. Go to a less competitive geo with a hot offer. Good luck man.
Originally Posted by marketone
Something else I've been thinking about is that I like to focus on direct response marketing, copywriting and email. With mobile, there doesn't seem to be as many opportunities to leverage those skills.
I appreciate the feedback.
No problem man 
Would rather see you succeed and learn at a better pace then get frustrated and quit. Your skills can benefit and give you the edge over those on POF. You just need to dig in and get after it. It will give you the basic skills you need to succeed at other sources. Tracking is a must and you need to learn how that works first before you spend a nickel. You have a skill set most ppl including my self struggle with. That gives you the edge bro. So dont think of this as a set back but getting your education fairly cheap. There is plenty of money in POF. You can easily reach your goals on that source. Use your skills to separate your self from the herd.
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