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Need Advice From Successful Affiliates - What would you recommend I do with my budget (14)

01-18-2015 11:56 PM #1 timrodriguez (Member)
Need Advice From Successful Affiliates - What would you recommend I do with my budget

How's it going guys. I was on here a few months back and took a stab at POF in my final semester at college. I really started to resent the traffic source due to the sheer lack of volume. I actually had some profitable days in the 3 months I worked, but couldn't scale effectively. Anyway, I took a break from Affiliate Marketing to finish college, and ended on a good note graduating with a 3.75 GPA.

So now I'm here figuring out what's next. I sat with my parents and explained EXACTLY what Affiliate Marketing is so they understood that this isn't some scam and that people do actually make LOTS of money doing this. Long story short - 5 years ago under my parents supervision I invested 5,000 dollars in stocks, and a year later it was up to almost 10,000. Call it beginners luck but it is what it is, and I withdrew the money because I was very busy with school. As a result of my convo with my parents, they're allowing me to use that 10k for an "investment" to Affiliate Marketing - aka testing budget.

No, I'm not trying to be a Day Trader (too risky), but my question for you guys is, given my sudden increase in budget (with POF it was minimal) and free time, what traffic source do you think I should pursue? I don't want to do POF - I learned a LOT that's for sure, but I want a traffic source where if I find a winning combination I can REALLY reap the benefits. I would rather not watch porn all day either - Knowing myself I wouldn't get a lot of work done.

I'm thinking either Mobile or Facebook. With Facebook though, I only have 1 credit card and can't keep getting new ones every time an account gets banned (which I'm under the impression happens often). What about PPV? Are there any other traffic sources / options you would recommend? I'm a member of Convert2Media, Peerfly, MaxBounty, ClickDealer, and F5Media. Anyway, any suggestions would be often. I have 10,000 to test with to become a successful affiliate marketer.

01-19-2015 10:29 AM #2 bbrock32 (Administrator)

Hey Tim, I think you have a nice capital to get started.

If I was in your position I would start with mobile. Way less restrictive than FB and tons of low paying / high converting offers.

These offers are great to learn since it makes data gathering fast and relatively cheap.

01-19-2015 02:13 PM #3 Finch (Moderator)

FB is all about having the infrastructure (to get new accounts at a moment's notice, cloak etc) and the cashflow to keep it going.

You've got a nice budget, but 10K is burnt very quickly on FB.

I'd agree with mobile as a good starting point. Pick 2 or 3 decent sources then comb through the network newsletters for trends and emerging markets/offers.

Pop/redirect traffic sources are also a good bet. They have huge volume available, although lead quality is the trade-off.

01-19-2015 02:57 PM #4 timrodriguez (Member)

Ok thanks a lot guys. I'm going to have to go through the Mobile guide (I think it's called cookbook) and get started. Would you say though that Mobile is OVER saturated now? Or still a lot of money to be made. I remember reading that 2 years ago, mobile was hot and everyone was jumping on board and cashing in, but now it's over saturated. I know that no traffic source will be easy, but now that I learned a little bit on POF, I want to choose a source that I can stick with long term and re-assess at the end of 2015. What do you guys think of PPV?

01-19-2015 03:10 PM #5 bbrock32 (Administrator)

I think mobile is way longer term than PPV and it will only be growing in the next years

01-19-2015 05:47 PM #6 timrodriguez (Member)

Thanks! Would you recommend I start with the Mobile Main Course since I have experience with Affiliate Marketing (on POF) and have a decent budget? Or should I still go through the Appetizer guide that Caurmen wrote, and then progress to the Main Course. From what I read briefly, the Appetizer is direct linking while the main course takes into account landers?

01-20-2015 12:54 PM #7 Finch (Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by timrodriguez View Post
Would you say though that Mobile is OVER saturated now? Or still a lot of money to be made. I remember reading that 2 years ago, mobile was hot and everyone was jumping on board and cashing in, but now it's over saturated. I know that no traffic source will be easy, but now that I learned a little bit on POF, I want to choose a source that I can stick with long term and re-assess at the end of 2015. What do you guys think of PPV?
I think when people refer to trends like, 'Mobile is hot', they are referring to a specific bunch of offers within the mobile landscape that they have had success with.

I don't see how mobile could ever be truly saturated.

Mobile is just a way of accessing the Internet, right?

There's going to be a never-ending factory line of offers to promote -- some hot, some terrible -- and if you get on the good ones early, you'll make money.

Same as web-based offers.

Nobody ever says there's money in 'going desktop'.

It's just a way to reach an audience.

I agree that the initial gold rush first mover's advantage is over -- from when nobody knew (or talked) about promoting mobile offers.

But there'll always be a first mover advantage for specific offers within verticals.

I think when people mention 'going mobile' as some sort of strategy for 2015, that's like a big store announcing that it plans to 'do retail'.

Doesn't really mean much until you dig under the surface.

There are many segments within mobile marketing, and most affiliates are successful by learning one of them better than the competition.

01-20-2015 01:24 PM #8 timrodriguez (Member)

Thanks for that response, really clears a lot up. With that being said, are there any particular verticals you would recommend for a newbie in 2015? It is true that there's an overwhelming amount of mobile segments - making it much more complicated to select a route than say POF, where it's 99% dating and the traffic/ad options are like 3.

01-20-2015 10:09 PM #9 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by timrodriguez View Post
Ok thanks a lot guys. I'm going to have to go through the Mobile guide (I think it's called cookbook) and get started. Would you say though that Mobile is OVER saturated now? Or still a lot of money to be made. I remember reading that 2 years ago, mobile was hot and everyone was jumping on board and cashing in, but now it's over saturated. I know that no traffic source will be easy, but now that I learned a little bit on POF, I want to choose a source that I can stick with long term and re-assess at the end of 2015. What do you guys think of PPV?
You generally want to operate in large and growing markets, instead of small and shrinking ones.

PPV definitely is a small and shrinking market. I really would not recommend this if you were to place all your bets on one horse.

01-21-2015 02:44 PM #10 Smaxor (Veteran Member)

I wrote a post you might find helpful here. It's fairly big picture stuff but might get your mind churning in the right direction. http://www.oooff.com/php-affiliate-s...-sitting-down/

01-21-2015 03:01 PM #11 timrodriguez (Member)

Thanks a lot man much appreciated! Really insightful post

01-21-2015 05:04 PM #12 clubdrock (Member)

Hey Tim, sounds like you have some experience promoting dating offers. Adult would probably be the easiest transition for you. Think towers and footer placements in tier 2 geos, on both web and especially mobile traffic. Even today there is still a lot of placements outside of NTV squares that have little competition because most affiliates are too lazy to design/test banners in these other placements or already spinning to many plates managing all their NTV campaigns. As far as the whole 'looking at porn all day' I knew a few affiliates who also got sick of this and worked almost exclusively with cartoons on their banners and got really good results. You can also eventually hire VA's to source new gif's and images for you and to do all your creative work for you. Best of luck!

01-24-2015 05:38 AM #13 zeno (Administrator)

Quote Originally Posted by timrodriguez View Post
Ok thanks a lot guys. I'm going to have to go through the Mobile guide (I think it's called cookbook) and get started. Would you say though that Mobile is OVER saturated now? Or still a lot of money to be made. I remember reading that 2 years ago, mobile was hot and everyone was jumping on board and cashing in, but now it's over saturated. I know that no traffic source will be easy, but now that I learned a little bit on POF, I want to choose a source that I can stick with long term and re-assess at the end of 2015. What do you guys think of PPV?
Saturate mobile? That's like globally saturating cafes. Or swimming pools.

If traffic sources on the other hand are busy and competitive then it's because people are making money.

I think saturated is really the wrong term for anything internet marketing - whether it be traffic sources, verticals or ad formats. Saturation implies things being full with no room left. But advertisers are in a constant state of flux. Conversely, the goal of publishers/ad networks is saturation, i.e. 100% fill rates in all ad spots/geos/etc. Competitive is a much more accurate word to describe the markets we work in.

01-24-2015 02:49 PM #14 xentaa (AMC Alumnus)

If you listen to the podcast "confessions of a multi millionaire super affiliate" from Viperchill MrGreen gives his vision about saturated markets as well . http://www.viperchill.com/podcast/

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