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An Observation I Noticed - Living Campaign to Campaign (11)

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I've been pretty much devouring the posts here on STM.

Tons of awesome value for a newbie like me to learn, especially since
I have always come more from an SEO world than paid advertising.

(Something about free traffic, or the allure of it I should say as it
is hardly ever actually free).

I noticed despite some people earning some awesome moola on here,
there also seems to be a lot of people living campaign to campaign.

Are most people here just doing the paid ad direct to affiliate offer model?

Seems very few are practicing list building, or creating other long term
projects that don't rely on single offers survival rates.

Anyhow, I am a total newb who is making $0 typically right now, just
getting started, but I always had a ton of ideas of what I do if I had
the income coming in.

From SEO projects to kindle etc. etc.

One of my big questions for big time affiliates here is how do you grow
your affiliate marketing business?

Outside of some creative and web work, it seems the outsourcing
potential is very low in comparison to others things.

But the profits are also way high than other things I've seen work.

Guess it's a bit of pros and cons with the model haha.

Anyhow just an observation, I see a lot of people saying milk a
profitable campaign while it lasts and sound like they are living
a stress-filled life from one campaign to the next.

Haha I thought one of the benefits of the IM lifestyle was less
stress and more time freedom :P

These gurus be lying to me!!! lol

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That is the nature of the affiliate marketing game. It is highly stressful because it is not only very competitive, but also because campaigns can dry up overnight for a wide variety of reasons.

Anyone who claims that IM is a business that can run on autopilot while you spend your hours on a beach in the Maldives with no wi-fi is trying to sell you an overpriced, overhyped seminar or training course.

This is why the smart players in this game make sure that they are socking enough money away and investing their earnings wisely.

You see many folks start spending cash like it's going to last forever once they hit their first big campaign. Unfortunately, these folks usually don't last very long.

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It definitely is very stressful at least when you have no idea what to do. Once you have a working system going, it is just a step by step process for building new profitable campaigns.

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I've always known the "autopilot money systems" or "profits while you sleep" courses are overhyped.

It is definitely possible, I have made $500 while I slept a few different times before using SEO. So profits while I was sleeping has happened, but I know that is not the inherent nature of the game.

Pretty much everything I ever learned about IM always talked about building an email list for the long haul and so on, so it is a total change of pace for me to see campaigns being built to last just a couple of months before needing to test tons more. I saw one guy on here compare it to drug money which made me laugh, but could definitely see how the analogy worked haha.

I find all this paid marketing stuff to be super fascinating as it's something I've never touched once before until now (which I'm starting with my next check in about a week from now).

If affiliate marketing is super stressful for some, why do they keep doing it? I imagine some the hyped up benefits the gurus sell must be true in everyday affiliate life.

My erratic earnings have always been pretty awesome, since before I was terribly lazy. So earning $500 bucks now and again off a crap article I wrote and ranked was always nice feeling. Now looking to make the income a bit more steady and consistent (but I guess that is the trick, eh?)

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This is because the numbers can get very large, very quickly if all the planets line up properly.

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Your head is in the right space, eidolon. It's very stressful to work campaign to campaign.

I don't entirely agree that it's impossible to have an autopilot income from IM, but it is very very hard. It took me an enormous amount of time, and the establishment of a proper "company" rather than just myself, to get to the point where it's possible. However, I personally currently have four campaigns that have been running for over 2 years each, make $x,xxx/day each, and I literally have not even changed the ad copy since they first went live. They are 100% autopilot and "evergreen." I get emails if the ROI drops below a certain %, otherwise I pay them no attention.

This is very rare, but it does happen. I'd say you should expect this, but if you see an opportunity for it, obviously take it and set up everything you can (auto-responder sequences included) to keep your life as stress-free as possible. After a while of the ups and downs of the IM life, it definitely starts to take its toll (at least on me), so if you're very sensitive to that type of stress then campaign-to-campaign IM may not be the best business to be in.

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Like joshogle said, some campaigns setup and take very little maintenance. I would personally setup my self in something that is evergreen and build from there... 2-3 campaigns that just work day in/day out and that gives you the ability/freedom to try out new campaigns. it gives you a base to build from, where your not living day to day....

Jumping on the next fly by night flappy bird campaign may be great money for a short while, but i would rather have an evergreen niche that just keeps going and going, the effort to get both campaigns profitable is the same... For me, its all about momentum...

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I agree with what you're saying.

I too would rather build a longer lasting business structure. But I'll probably just test out a few offers as I learn this whole paid traffic stuff.

I wouldn't say I am overly sensitive to stress, I have slept on a park bench and homeless and was pretty happy. I own a house now, but I pay very little since I rented out to two roomies who pay the vast majority of my mortgage. Frankly, I can pay all my bills off $2000 a month of net income and live pretty comfortably.

Kind of funny to think that, since I live in one of the most expensive cities in the USA to live in (Anchorage alaska).

My goal has always been to be jobless with geographically free income.

Reading this forum has opened my eyes to some crazy traffic creation that I never saw in any SEO training before (with paid stuff). But I just noticed there seems less of a drive to build up the "sustainable business" that I always had seen in other places where I lurked devouring IM info (usually via rebills/membership type deal or building out authority sites).

I'm really looking forward to losing my shirt and losing my $1,000 budget starting in 7 days when I get paid next. All in the name of glorious science...

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LOL, Gotta love em gurus

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I think that you will find that 1) paid traffic is, paradoxically, more sustainable than SEO and that 2) it also endows you with many more transferable skills than SEO.


The savvier ones are actually thinking about this and working on this all the time. Building assets with enterprise value does require a much broader set of skills, knowledge, experience and contacts than just running campaigns, but there is no question that if you do this right, the rewards can be exponentially greater.

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How do you find SEO less sustainable? Just because of the Google updates or something else?

Love to learn more as I am still a terrible noob when it comes to paid stuff.

As far as SEO, I think I got that pretty down, but it does seem SEO takes more initial investment to succeed than paid stuff from what I've been reading/seeing. But again that all depends on the niche I suppose!

Thanks for the responses

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