What Software, Hardware and Memberships Do I Need Before I Start My First Campaign? (35)
What Software, Hardware and Memberships Do I Need Before I Start My First Campaign?
Before you can begin building, you need tools. And the same's true if you're building your affiliate marketing career.
You should go through this guide step-by-step and either check you already have what you need, or get it for yourself.
You should also read our guides to the mindset, skills, and budget you will need to begin affiliate marketing.
Hardware: Server
You will need to rent a web server, use an Amazon S3 account, or a CDN (Content Delivery Network) account in order to serve your landing pages.
People often try to avoid this step, or try to save money by using cheap web hosting. DO NOT DO THIS.
Bad web hosting can easily cost you all your profits by giving you faulty tracking or slow landing pages. Is it worth saving $25 a month if that means you waste $1,000?
If you are definitely going for
Unless you're an experienced system administrator, the best approach to take here is to buy the Beyond Hosting starter VPS, which is specifically set up for affiliate marketing, and has a special half-price deal for Stack That Money members. If you need to run very international ads, Beyond Hosting's CDN is also a good bet - it's easy to use and has a lot of geographical coverage.
If you are experienced with server setup then we recommend Linode for servers - here's STM's official setup script for Linode - and Cloudfront + Amazon S3 for CDNs. Be warned - some setup is involved with both these options!
Software: Tracking
You will also need a tracker - a piece of software which tracks the success of your individual ads, landing pages, and campaigns.
(Again, if you're using the Mobile Cookbook Appetiser, you can skip this for now, but when you move on from that you'll need a tracker.)
There is a wide variety of tracking software available. However, for most people who are starting out we would recommend setting up an account with Voluum.
Voluum is $99 a month, and takes care of all your tracking requirements. It doesn't require you to set up a server, unlike most other tracking options.
If you're more experienced with technical setup, it's also worth considering other trackers like Thrive or Funnelflux. But if you're already overwhelmed with tech issues, go for Voluum for now.
Software: Other
Unless you're an experienced web designer - in which case use whatever tool you like - you'll need a web design tool. Get the free trial of Adobe Muse - it's free for 30 days and is an excellent tool for creating landing pages. (After that, it's about $25 a month - a steal for what it does).
You'll also need a graphics program. Photoshop is definitely the best option here (and there's a free trial), but this is one area you can save a bit of money when you start - the free software Paint.net or the online program Pixlr will do fine for your first banners and landing pages.
Finally, you'll need an FTP program for transferring files to your server. Filezilla is the best choice here.
Download and install all those tools.
Software: Spying Tools
Competitor research tools - often called "spying" tools - are a really useful thing to have available in the early days of your affiliate career. I'd recommend you take a couple of days spying on your chosen traffic source and taking notes of what's running and what works, before you embark on your own campaigns.
The simplest way to spy is just to browse the Web on the traffic sources you're planning to target! However, you can get a lot more advanced than that, too:
Here's a great thread on mobile spying with links to some fantastic tools and guides: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...is-good-to-use
Here's a list of ways to spy on mobile for free: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...042#post234042
Here's a thread on spying on popups: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...th-PPV-traffic . It's a little technical to spy on pops - you can also use the paid tool Box Of Ads, which has a free trial for you to get started.
Membership: Traffic Source
You'll need to choose a single traffic source to start with. Jumping around or trying multiple traffic sources at once when you're beginning is one of the surest ways to failure - stick with one until you've made it work.
Currently, there are a lot of good options for traffic sources: however, the best ones are:
- Pop ads - Pop-up or otherwise full-screen adverts through a provider like PopAds.net or Zeropark.
To get a full rundown on what traffic sources and verticals (areas of interest - games, apps, or sweepstakes, for example) are working right now, read our annual guide to verticals and traffic sources for the latest, most up-to-date suggestions of where to get going.
Sign up for one traffic source now. You may need to make an initial deposit.
Membership: Affiliate Network
You'll need memberships with at least one - preferably more - affiliate networks. These are the people who give you offers to promote.
Good, long-established affiliate networks include http://convert2media.com, http://ads4dough.com, http://neverblue.com, http://www.adsimilis.com.
You can also find posts from other networks in our Networks and Offers forum. Here's a list of networks that are active on STM. Sign up with several of these networks.
When you're applying to a network, expect that you'll have to go through some simple vetting procedures. In particular:
- Be available for a phone call - being willing to talk on the phone is one of the biggest things that separates serious affiliates from wannabes as far as the networks are concerned.
- Respond promptly to their emails - networks are often very busy.
- Make sure to answer any questions they ask - if in doubt you can always ask on STM for help, suggestions, or if you should answer a question.
- Follow up if you don't hear anything - don't badger the network after 10 minutes, but if you've not heard in a couple of days, shoot them a PM on STM or a Skype message to follow up.
When you're applying, be sure to mention that you're a member of Stack That Money - and it's often worth shooting one of the network representatives on Stack That Money a quick Private Message too, mentioning that you've applied.
Here's another great thread from Ruby Tunes on making sure you're accepted into affiliate networks: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-First-Network .
Membership: Friends And Advisors
Finally, one thing that really helps in affiliate marketing - and not just at the start, but all through your affiliate marketing career - is having people to bounce ideas off, ask questions of, and generally talk to about your campaigns.
Fortunately, in Stack That Money, you've already found that. Do remember to use it!
If you don't understand something, if your campaigns aren't working, if you're having a problem - make a post and ask about it! If you're worried your question is too "newbie", post on the Newbie Q&A forum - that's what it's for!
And do start a Follow-Along Campaign on Stack That Money soon - they're the best ways to find your feet with your new affiliate marketing career. Having the feedback from experienced affiliates makes ALL the difference. Be as open as you can be in your Follow-Along: if you share landing pages and banners, in particular, you'll find you get a lot of excellent feedback.
That's it! Once you have all of these tools set up, you're fully prepared to launch, test, optimise and scale your first campaigns!
Great article!!!
You would also need a Financial tool to follow up on your outstanding invoicing (whats numbers if you dont get paid) and if you get a lots of relationships going with clients (networks or advertisers), a SaaS CRM system can also be very helpful. Also, if you are working with developers and need to track their purpose a management system for that might also be a good investment, especially if the development tasks are complex and you work with multiple developers from multiple locations.
My recommendations
- CRM: Insightly (very comprehensive and not that expensive, easy to upgrade)
- Finance/invoicing: any of these basically, there's so many services out there that its basically become a commodity so just pick a cheap one http://www.capterra.com/billing-and-invoicing-software/
- Management system for managing your projects: Pivoltracker.com
Hi caurmen, First of all thanks for all your posts. I have been very confused about Software tracking. What does it mean? Is software tracking a program that gets all the data from my campaigns? Is google analytic a software tracking?
@12greyn12
Software are programs that run on computers. Skype is a piece of software, Microsoft Word is another piece of software.
There are many pieces of software which are built especially for tracking (we sometimes just refer to these as "trackers"). Some of the most common ones we use are called
All of these help us track our campaigns. When you've chosen yours (lets pretend you choose
Yes, Google Analytics tracks data on webpages, but it is definitely not common in the paid- traffic affiliate space that we work in.
As a beginner applying for traffic sources, would you recommend joining as many as possible to expand your options? Secondly, In the application they ask for company name, etc. is it required to have a legally registered business?
Your post have been helping me a lot, Thank you
@jean03 - I'd recommend joining one or at most two traffic sources initially - many will ask for an initial deposit.
You don't need a legally registered limited company or similar in most countries (although I can't give global advice on that, normally you'll be OK.).
I made a mistake there. I mend Affiliate Network, not traffic source
@jean03 - Ah, right. In that case, yes, join a good number - at least 4, preferably more.
Hi @caurmen, in here you recommend "Beyond Hosting starter VPS" or "Beyond Hosting starter CDN" on a other page "http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread.php?19143-10-FREE-High-Performance-Starter-Setup" @Zeno recommends "http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/files/". So now i dont know what to do anymore? Can you help me out?
@spartanen - those are both good options, as is the Amazon S3 setup I've recommended over here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-Cost-Way-Ever! Any of those will work for you.
If you're using Rackspace or the Amazon approach, you'll also need a seperately hosted tracker -
Thanks @caurmen i chose Beyond hosting. For this i also need 
)
@Spartanen - You need a tracking system, but given that you're going with a Beyond Hosting server you can either use
Pick the thing that seems best and simplest to get started.
Hi @caurmen,
I already choose Volluum in my head because everybody talkes about volluum. Thanks for your help again.
Other quistion. In the future i am thinking of selling data (lead generation) and is there a software that you know is really good for this?
On top of this do you need software to split test landing pages? Or can that be done through
@spartanen - what problem are you specifically looking to solve in lead gen? Sales of the leads to customers or something else?
@rjhaynes89 -
Hi @Caurmen
Where can i save my data? What saves my data?
I am good in sales... (i hope, because i always been a sales person)... so maybe in the future i wanna call companys and sell leads to them but i need a program/software for that i think. Maybe not a totaly AM quistion but i think a lot of people are doing that.
For example: A company is selling Proteine products and i call them and say to them. I have a phone number etc of people who you can direct contact and i know they are interested in your product.
@spartanen - You're looking for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) suite. There are a lot of good options at various price points out there.
You may subsequently also need a back-end to automatically route leads to customers, once you start doing this at volume. There may be off-the-peg solutions to that out there, but I'm not sure what they're called - anyone? All the people I know who do that sort of lead gen have custom-built systems to do that.
@caurmen thanks! and yes i need that too! A kinda friend of mine is doing this (and doing freaking good business since he started a year ago) so i will ask him also! (dont wanna bother friends all the time with quistions because they already get crazy from me!)
Can you maybe help me asking the quistion over here:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...affic-sources)
@spartanen - if you fancy reporting back on what he suggests, I'd love to know if there's an off-the-shelf solution for something like that. Good luck!
@caurmen... The build the CRM and automatic route leads generation themself with cake... also custom made like probably everyone is doing... So no off the shelf solution that i can recommend you, sorry. Sorry for myself also!
Guys I am using the
Vultr has faster servers than Amazon and Rackspace.
Originally Posted by vitavee
Rackspace is great and so is Amazon, but most affiliates don't do enterprise-level stuff and the prices can therefore be prohibitive.
Yup. I'm hearing great things about Vultr. Haven't tested them myself yet - I'm still on Digital Ocean for most smaller projects, and still like 'em - but Vultr are really making waves and impressing people whose opinion I'd trust on servers.
For a noobie, which of the 3 would you recommend?
Beyond Hosting starter VPS
Digital Ocean
Vultr
Rackspace
Thanks!
Originally Posted by dreinz
As far as I remember, STM is hosted on Beyond and they rarely have issues on dedicated, I'd go with them.
@dreinz - if you don't have Linux system administration skills, then Beyond, absolutely.
If you can run a server yourself, then you can save some money by going unmanaged, in which case I'd currently advise Vultr. I haven't use them myself yet, but people whose opinion I really trust on servers rave about them.
Thanks for the great post Caurmen.
I have a couple quick questions for you...
Would it be OK to host my landing pages, and Prosper 202 on the same VPS?
And what domain should I pick when I purchase the VPS? Should it be something generic? Will this domain be used for all my landing pages? Or will I have to buy a separate domain for each landing page?
Thank you,
Gordon
@tapadh leibh - Yep, hosting your landers and Prosper on the same VPS is fine.
You'll generally buy a seperate domain for each vertical you work in, rather than each lander. So if you're thinking of doing sweeps initially, pick a domain loosely related to sweeps (great-giveaways.info or something).
However, testing shows that the domain you use doesn't matter that much, so don't stress about it too much. Just grab something and get moving!
Originally Posted by caurmen
@modesto - a "vertical" is a general category of offer. PIN submits, adult, ecommerce, etc.
Hosting: have a look at our new hosting guide, just updated for 2017! https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...s-2017-Edition
@Caurmen, Thanks a lot!
I will.
Hello guys!
Just wanted to know if Adplexitiy is a good spy tool. More importantly is it similar to WRW, Mobile Ad Scout, and Box Of Ads. I intend to use it for mobile popup spying.
Thanks in advance,
Luigi
Originally Posted by luigi0821
@caurmen I am currently using clickfunnels, is this a bad idea? Should I be using a dedicated server instead?
Home > >