Getting to $200 / day spent - My affiliate marketing journey 04 (6)
Getting to $200 / day spent - My affiliate marketing journey 04
Besides learning Affiliate Marketing, I'm also running a lifestyle and self-development blog. I decided to publish a series of articles on my journey in affiliate marketing, geared towards everyone who never heard of affiliate marketing but wants a job which enables them to live a freedom lifestyle.
This is part 4 of the series, and it is the most important chapter so far. I believe I crossed the "zone of broken dreams" - where most newbies with initial big enthusiasm finally give up because they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
This zone exists in all kinds of journeys we go on in life, and overcoming it without giving up is key. The first big success is right around the corner, and it's the only accomplishment necessary to fuel your motivation for months! Everyone who makes it this far is so much more likely to take things to a massive level.
<-- previous chapter (02) - Six lessons worth $500
<-- previous chapter (03) - I must be mad to share those insights
GETTING TO $200 / DAY SPENT - MY AFFILIATE MARKETING JOURNEY 04
It has been more than three weeks since the last journal post, and my progress during this time has been the fastest and biggest so far. While I am still spending money instead of making money, I can now comfortably spent $200 each day to gather data. That's only possible because I know will earn a massive chunk of that $200 back in revenue.
But let's take it slow - I will tell you exactly how I went from the level I was at in my previous entry to the level I am at now.
My previous level
- Spending $1,000 total over a period of 5 weeks, with a revenue of $300 which means a $700 loss
My current level
- Spending over $1,600 during the last 7 days, with a revenue of almost $1,400 which means a loss of a little more than $200
Even though we are still losing money, there have already been a couple of profitable campaigns. And the amount of testing and experimenting I’ve done is insane. I am surprised myself that the loss is so small. All those split-tests are the foundation for the next big step - entering the profit zone.
SOCIAL SUPPORT AND MAKING IT REAL
Around Christmas time I noticed a post in the STM forum organizing a spontaneous Sydney meetup. I posted, and found myself sipping drinks at the Opera bar together with a couple of awesome guys a few days later! Even though there was no "secret knowledge" or insider tips for what I was doing, I immediately profited massively. Just hanging out with people actually making a living doing what you’re trying to do - never underestimate that effect. When you are doing something over the Internet, no matter how real it seems and how much proof there is, it never comes close to meeting people in person.
This meetup motivated me so much that I launched three new campaigns right after it—and the next morning one of them was profitable. It was only a small profit of around $4/day. But it remained stable over the following days, and I reached my biggest goal since starting with Affiliate Marketing: A PROFITABLE CAMPAIGN!! After hitting this big milestone, New Year’s Eve came around.
NEW YEARS EVE
This was one of those legendary "days off": a day for reflection and strategic re-alignment. Completely forgetting about the details and techniques, just looking at the bigger picture and my life in general. I have got those days when I feel like needing them, which is usually every two or three months. Concerning my current development in affiliate marketing, I was able to see the bigger picture and it started to click.
What’s very important is that I don't think I would have been able to grasp this bigger picture without delving into one traffic source in detail and working on one offer for a long time. There is a thin line between keeping the bird’s eye view and looking at the bigger picture, while focusing and channeling your energy towards one task. It is almost an art to hit the right balance between laser focus and trying everything out. What worked well for me during those days was spending 80% of my time / money / energy with a laser focus on one single approach, and the other 20% to test everything and take a few shots at new things.
And then one of those shots hit its target! What sounds so simple was actually a big gamble with lots of uncertainty, including burning a couple hundred dollars trying new things. With time, I am getting more comfortable with such big investments just to gain data, and that's one of the biggest changes which has enabled me to step up to the next level.
SPENDING MONEY TO GATHER DATA
I’ve read dozens of times that you need to view money as a way to get data. But only now, after grinding away at those offers for hours and hours on end, has it really clicked. That's a kinda fucked up way our brain works, and I’ve noticed it in all areas of life. Simply knowing something in an academic sense doesn’t matter; you might logically know it, but your brain doesn’t care.
You need experience and mental connections to make the knowledge worth something! What you need is reference experiences, a lot of them. That's the only way to teach your brain the truth. Therefore, I would not recommend anyone just starting out to do what took me to the next level. Because it won't work out without that early foundation.
REACHING THE NEXT LEVEL
After hitting a sweet spot with one of my random shots, I completely focused on it, spending more time in the office than ever.I went to more than five different new traffic sources, some really obscure and with weird interfaces. I put a couple hundreds dollars in every account and tested, tested, tested. So far I am two months into affiliate marketing in total.
My biggest success is the one profitable campaign that made $4 a day—and it had just died. Now I keep optimizing and working on new traffic sources, landers, split-testing until late. Everyone else in the office left around 5 or 6 PM, but I’m still sitting there eight hours later. And it's fucking awesome. The next day I wake up around noon, excited like a little child. I head to the office immediately. I arrive, and check how much I’ve earned while sleeping:
Holy fucking shit—now I am going to kill it!!! Deep down I already knew that it would not come that easy - but the feeling of working extremely hard and finally hitting a massive success is incredible. Of course the backlash came fast and hard...
BACK TO REALITY
Someone experienced would probably be easily making a $XXX / day profit with those campaigns by now—but I just reached my first profitable campaign ever a few days ago. I have no experience with all these new traffic sources, no experience with scaling and reaching more volume—and a hundreds of others things to keep an eye on.
The first issue was that I had already paid for the advertising costs, but all my income is still inside the Affiliate Network accounts. That's not a good feeling. I had to make absolutely sure that my ways of promoting the offers were completely compliant. While nobody cared when I was an extremely small fish without any reasonable numbers, now things have changed a bit.
TEST THE RIGHT WAY
I have to split-test every change I make to prepare my creatives for scaling. And those tests take time. When I end up spending a huge sum of money on a campaign, I want the initial tests to be solid as hell. There is no margin for errors, or for the kind of testing I previously did. Back then I just split-tested something, looked at it, and when I felt like something was statistically significant I made the change right away and set up a new split-test. Those times are over now. With a bunch of traffic sources, several offers, different landers, and a lot of other factors to test, everything has to be systematized.
What makes the job much harder now is that some of the traffic sources do not support certain features that Decisive has. Every traffic source has a different time-zone, which messes up the complete data, some have different currencies, and I have to make solid decisions manually and with careful consideration. It feels a lot more like Wild-West, and it would have crushed me if I had attempted it right away. Just to get some figures of significance, I have to spend a couple hundred dollars. That's not possible without making a big chunk of it back. When I started there were dozens of follow alongs and guides I could look up to. For some of what I am trying now, there is no guidance at all - but relying on my previous experience of focusing and learning the details of one traffic source and one offer, I am able to adapt.
THE LEARNING CURVE - SPIKES FOLLOWED BY STAGNATION
At least that’s what it feels like. I have been focusing on Affiliate Marketing so much over the last two months, and I’ve noticed those patterns. Every time I hit a new big goal, it did not come slowly and consistently. One day I felt helpless, and the next day a massive success happened. But instead of being able to keep going like this, weeks of stagnation followed. Around New Year’s Eve I did not know what to do because my progress had become very slow. Then the massive success hit.
When I saw the data from those several $XX / day campaigns, I thought the $XXX / day income days would not be far away. But then everything tanked again, and now I am barely breaking even and am struggling with a load of other problems. Even though it can be very disencouraging, the pattern is clear and simple—all you have to do is keep going. Simple, yet hard and painful in reality. But if you can overcome this pain and make it to the next big success, you will be able to achieve anything you want!
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I appreciate all the feedback, thanks, comments, critique, and of course all the awesome support from you!! Big THX! -Kevin
Hey Kevin, those are some really inspiring words. I'm just starting out and reading your story gives me a lot of encouragement and help. Hope to meet up with you one day, have some beers and laugh about when we were noobs on STM 
This is a really awesome series of posts mate, keep it up!
Good read, Kevin!
I remember being in your position 3 months ago. Just remember that there are things to learn in EVERYTHING. Whether it be quirks of traffic sources, how to use software a like
There is no one who fails in Internet marketing. Only those who give up before they succeed.
Good luck!
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