when to call it quits? (19)
ive invested over $1500+ on testing different angles, tracking, hosting, etc. and i only made $100+. I didnt want to move on to something else until i mastered this niche, but my pockets are getting dry. im running my last 50$ on one of my traffic sources and i think im going to call it quits after. what would you do in this situation ?
if you only made $100 back the offer could simply suck, whats the cvr??
maybe you should've split tested either the offer with other similar offers, and/or also the network
Adult is not the easiest vertical to get into mate, especially on a short budget !
It all seems easy because of the success stories and spytools, everybody figures just rip bans, rip landers and you're all set ... well, not exactly !
It cost me something around $2000 just to get to break-even point on a US campaign, a lot of optimizations, tons of banners ( 100+ ), tons of landers ( 30+ ), and tons of negative volume waiting for quality checks and paybumps etc , it is no easy game!
Though I wouldn't call it quits, either go for a tier 3 country ( lower volume but cheaper clics and much much less competition ) and/or keyword/category targeting, I'll give you a hint, Black and BBW work great and have solid offers available on reputable networks 
Good luck!
Mehdi
I think a lot depends on your situation and on who you are.
Like pop music or sports, IM is an industry where the top 1% do extremely well, about 10% are able to make a decent living from this, but the rest probably would be better off financially and emotionally in a more traditional career.
Many people will say that success in this industry is all about hard work and persistence. This, unfortunately, is not true. The people who say this don't really understand statistics and Bayes' Theorem. Just because almost all the successful Internet marketers are hard working and persistent, that doesn't mean that by being hard working and persistent, you will become a successful Internet marketer.
Entrepreneurs face this question all the time, and it is a very difficult one. Despite amazing entrepreneurial stories like Whatsapp, the sad fact is that 90% of all startups fail. There is a lot to be said about perseverance, but sometimes the line between perseverance and stubbornness is very hazy.
There is no right answer on whether you should continue or call it a day, because any answer is dependent on you and your personal situation, e.g.
- Do you have a lot of capital, or is this your only savings?
- Are you young or are you old?
- Do you have a strong educational qualifications from a good school or do you not have any?
- Can you work in a traditional environment, or can you only work best by yourself?
- Are you single with no dependents, or are you married with children to support?
- Do you see a path to profitability, or is this still nowhere in sight?
Etc etc etc.
Instead, you should ask yourself, are you making your decision for the right reasons.
Was the one offer you tried proven?
And why are you spending money on tracking when you are on a tight budget and you can get it for free?
Originally Posted by pfabian166
I wish there was option to quit, I would have used it long time ago.
Originally Posted by iamattila
Originally Posted by godspeed
One of the most valuable questions to ask if you're facing a situation like this is always what do I keep doing the same every time?
Are you designing landing pages in a certain way? Using a similar style of headline, image, copy? Always targeting the same sites, always using the same networks, always targeting the same countries / languages? Always using the same hurdles to cut ads?
To borrow a term from poker, it's likely that you have a "leak" somewhere in your system. Find that, and you're likely to see sudden massive improvement.
Also, do you feel like you understand your visitors? Do you know who they are and what they want?
Depending on how much money you have to invest is how I'd look and decide what to focus on an try and learn.
To do this effectively (unless you get lucky) you need a measured approach, always go all the way to statistical relevance. In order to have statistical relevance you need click and conversion data. A good amount of it. For each targeting, ad, lander combo More variation = more click/conversion data needed = more money.
This is why in you testing it's always good to start with as many "knowns" as possible. Known traffic sources with quality traffic, I like Google and Facebook to start as they have proven high quality traffic and if you spend the time to figure them out there's massive scale there. As another example I see POF as the opposite. It's a good source but it's very limited in scale if you figure something out there. Another known that's pretty easy known to find which is what offer to run. I'd ask other affiliates what offer is actually performing and converting for them. Then I'd cross reference this with what your affiliate manager at your network says as well. If you're new don't go with the latest offer, go with the tried and true proven one so you have another known. Other knowns we can find out pretty easily are what things like what minimum CTR's should be, by source and targeting. Another known should be what traffic cost should be on that source with the right CTR's.
Once we know all this stuff we synthesize it into a spreadsheet and make sure we think we have a fighting chance based on projections. If you don't know how to make that spreadsheet calculation check out my blog here http://www.oooff.com/php-affiliate-s...ore-of-it-all/
Now you have a good fighting chance to start. I like the break down the marketing equation and get as many "knowns" as possible. Then I can guage if I'm in line with expectations or not. This will also tell me where I need to do the most testing.
In short:
1. Pick a lower paying, higher converting offer to get data back faster
2. Find out as many "knowns" as possible
3. Run the numbers and see how much of a variance you can have from those knowns and still be successful, more leeway = more chances of success. Projections
4. Build
5. Test
6. Compare against projections
Everything I do I try to make into processes. Processes can be looked at, optimized and improved. Improving processes is the key to efficiency, scale and teaching others.
^^ so much gold in that post
Smaxor you drop heavy bombs man, always appreciate you taking time to write up text gold!
From: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/...#ixzz2uJwxWi9m
Even the most successful people have failed at some point or another. Actually, scratch that — especially the most successful people have failed at some point or another. (And probably a whole lot more than you might imagine.)
Alex Fauske, The Doodle Video Guy, put together this animation illustrating the surprising records of failure for some folks who are now pretty legendary success stories with data from San Francisco-based startup organization Funders and Founders.
Teaser: Sylvester Stallone was rejected 1,500 times when he tried selling his script, with himself as the lead actor, for the now legendary movie "Rocky":
"Sylvester Stallone was rejected 1,500 times when he tried selling his script, with himself as the lead actor, for the now legendary movie "rocky""
Holy fuck, respect.
Fun fact: Stallone was a porn start in the 70s under the name "Italian Stallion"...which women often refer to me now as.
Hey, I recently joined STM, and decided to start with Adult offers, First i started with USA campaign and Exoclick well got alot of traffic but no conversions at all.After that i decided to ask my AM about offers what is going good over their network.Thanks to him that he showed me few tricks and pushed me to right direction somehow with my little experience i start making profits not much but its profit!!So my suggestion is first ask your AM whats the top preforming Offer that is not english speaking ... second check the age limit.I invest about 1000$ + for all everything so far and i need week or two max to reach my investment and start making something.I was testing on TrafficForce too was getting profit too but i still need to optimaze it couse there traffic seems to like something much different from current traffic source i'm using and i need to get more banners and landing pages.Hope this give you some directions what and where too look
Originally Posted by pfabian166
Stallone is the man. Most inspirational for me is, that he had to sell his dog and didn't quit.
Originally Posted by graham
I hope he bought the dog back when he hit the big time.
That must've hurt.
EDIT: nevermind, he did! Ballin'
I actually know how he really felt here
You have to sleep on bus terminal, cos police will chase you from any other bench.
Happened to me while bench sleeping in Ft. Lauderdale for couple of weeks.
I was also working until 4-5am and than taking showers on the beach while saving money for apartment.
Also spent couple of months sleeping in my gf car @ another chapter of my life Imagine sleeping in car on 100F and you can't open window cos mosquitoes will eat you alive.
Fun times You never knows what life brings you.
p.s. If i had dog, I would never sell it. Stallone is pussy
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