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I need a little help to start (34)

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Hi everybody!
I'm a newbie without experience so forgive ignorance that could be in my questions. I'm getting started and I've just read some of the guides in the beginner section. I've seen that it seems mandatory to create a website of mine in order to do affiliate marketing. If I do mobile it's suggeted to do it later.. My first question is: why?
If my aim is to create facebook ads campaigns with banners to download apps and games for mobile from play store or app store why must I create a website and/or landing pages?

Thanks in advance!

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To increase CR and get ROI. Otherwise all you'll have is your ad copy and that is very limiting.

Invest in a good spy tool and you'll see.

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We need to sort out what kind of website are we talking about here.

It can be :

A) Landing page or other more advanced type of a site made to pre-sell the offer. This is the type of page/site thuglife mentioned in his post. You need these in order to boost conversions. In your example, when you are about to directlink to the app store, you don't need a website ... but you will most likely see lower conversion rates.

B) Agency or company site - it's recommended to have something like this in place when you are applying for affiliate networks or traffic sources - this gives you some more credibility as it makes you look like an established business person and not a fly by person.

So which one was mentioned in the guide you've been reading?

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Thank both of you! (Sorry I was trying to edit my post that was a reply to thuglife because I found what I needed to know in other old posts but deleted it involuntarily ).
The "website" I was talking about was A: landing pages. I read in other posts ( and as you just said) that for the directlink to app store landing page is not necessary yet very useful. I can't understand why, in this case the landing page should be the App Stor/ Play Store page where you download the free app/game. Why should I lose conversion without landing page in this case?

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A landing page is used to convince people they need what you are selling. If you direct link to the play store page people might just not be interested enough in your offer to actually download the app. If you've used a good landing page with convincing ad copy and a creative angle, then people might be 'pushed over the edge' and convert, which means more $$$ for you.

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Ok, now I see. Thank you very much!

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I'm a fan of real life examples, so here we go :

1. Think about a car dealership, the cars are there, you can look at them, they probably have all the technical data printed out out and stuck to the front window - so all the data you need is there. This is a directlink to the app store.

2. But in another car showroom, there is also a shop assistant who will tell you exactly why you need this car, who will talk about all the positives, how it's better than the others etc ... he will basically make you believe you need just that one car ... this is a landing page.

Ask yourself - which of the 2 showrooms are you more likely to buy a car from ?

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Well, of course the second one . Thank you very much now it's all clear.

I'm reading and learning a lot on this forum but there's a point where I got stuck. The affiliate networks. Once that I have chosen some of them I must sign up. I have some very basic questions:
1. In some networks it's clear that i have to sing up as an affiliate but in others, because of my ignorance, I don't know if I have to choose between being an "advertiser" or a "publisher". I suppose it's "publisher" since an advirtiser in this case is the one who creates the offer that I will have to promote. Correct?
2. While signing up in the application form there are some fields that I don't know how to fill. I don't want to have problems so I'd like to ask. This is taken from Adsimils for exemple.
- "Company name": I mean, it's just me and no firm, what do I write? name and surname?
- "Who referred you?": Here? Do I have to write the contact names that appear here?
- "Work phone": I suppose they treat with firms that's why they ask me a non-mobile telephone number. Is it ok to write my cell number although there is "Cell Phone" field?
- "Tax class": Of course i have to choose "individual" but I read that "LLC" is better.


This thing you said made me think . Do you mean that if I don't have a website like this my life as an affiliate marketer is going to be harder? Anyway, should the membership with this forum be enough?

I know these are basic questions but I'm a newbie and would like to learn.

Thanks in advance everybody!

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1. Advertiser is the one who is looking for traffic, publisher is the one who has the traffic (organic or bought). You can be both. When you are registering with a Traffic Source you are the advertiser because you are looking for the traffic. When you are registering with an affiliate network you are the publisher because you already have the traffic from the traffic source and you are looking for offers to send it to - in this case, advertisers provide the offers.

2. - your name if you dont have a company
- just say you found out about them on STM
- Im using my cell phone allways, I dont have any other
- you have to add what relates to your current state of incorporation.

Harder? Probably not or just a little bit, I only have a one page site setup in case someone wants to see it, it's always convenient to have it, but it's not mandatory.

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Thank you matuloo, you're very kind and patient!

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You're welcome and thank you

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I use this topic again to ask a question since it's about me . F5 Media didn't accept me saying that I'm "too newbie" and to try again in a few months so I realized that it's time for me to have a small site (or a page) in order to be accepted by affiliate networks and appear more serious as suggested here. I have seen THIS beautiful guide by Zeno about it and have a few questions to ask just to be sure I have everything clear.

- So I'm gonna create a web page. I choose a business name and say that I'm there to help advertise some kind of products (for exemple, games, dating websites etc). I essentially say "Hey Affiliate Network, I'm a serious publisher and my aim is to help your advertisers promoting their products/apps/sites/whatever". Correct or something else is missing?
- I surely have to buy a domain. In this case, a cheap domain should be enough without going to beyondhosting which is quite expensive and was going to use it for landers. All right?

Thanks in advance!

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- Yes, you need to choose a name for your business page (some Agency ...) When approaching aff networks, you have to say them you are actively promoting affiliate offers with traffic you buy from traffic sources and from your direct clients, and you are looking for more offers to test. You chose this affiliate network because it was recommended to you by your biz partners or you've read about it on STM.

- domain is one thing, hosting is another one. Grab some name like whateveragency.com and host it somewhere. If you have some hosting already, use that one, if you don't, buy some cheap package somewhere - vultr, digitalocean ... they start at $5 per month.

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Ok thanks! And what about the things I have to say on that website? Basically the same I guess.

Oops, I explained myself badly .
I've seen that BeyondHosting too allows you to buy a domain and I've now realised that's not so expensive as I thought. So I'm thinking to buy a domain and host it there.

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No need to reinvent the wheel here, try to google for some "agency site templates" and just copy it, or get a free/cheap template somewhere. It can be very simple, just put your address on it, some contact info, basic description of what you do ... just make it look like a standard presentation - 1 "longer" page is enough.


Domains are cheap pretty much everywhere, you could save some by looking up some godaddy coupon for example, but it a question of a few bucks anyways.

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Dont want to sound like an ass, but the page doesn't look too professional to me, it's ok to keep it simple but polish it a bit more, I would really go with a pre-made template But its a very good thing you actually made a page yourself, any skill you gain can come in handy later on!

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Ahahaha don't worry about sounding like an ass, you're only right . I just wanted to try and of course I'll choose a pre-made template. That was my original intent but I had to wait for the long installation of the Adobe muse update so I decided to give it a try by myself

By the way, could you please tell me if what I'm gonna do is correct and if I've misunderstood some step. I paste here what i wrote before

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Domains and hosting work like this : you register a domain with a registrar, for example namecheap, godaddy ... when registering the domain, you need to fill out the DNS info (nameservers) - this is what you need from your hosting provider. In case you already have a VPS with beyondhosting for example, ask the support for their nameservers. If you don't have any hosting yet, you can edit this info later on.

The support at your hosting will have to create a "virtual" for you, they need the domain name before they can do so. They will then configure their name-servers to send visitors to the proper server in their hosting network. Once they create the virtual, they will give you the username/password for FTP access that you need to upload content to your new virtual/domain. Yes, you can do this with filezilla for example.

You can also ask your hosting provider to register a domain for you and set it up on your VPS or whatever plan you have with them. Most hosting providers offer domain registration too.

For this agency website you really don't need any fast host, but in case you plan to use some VPS for your landing pages, I would host the agency page on the same server - there is no need to have them on separate server and pay extra monthly fee for the agency page.

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Yup, this looks good enough I would say

The domain and email address is totally up to you, whatever you like will fly

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Thanks for everything matuloo! Now I just have to set it online and contact some affiliate network!

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Reading the forum I've discovered some posts where a VPN is strongly suggested in order to keep an eye on the conversation flow.
Can someone please tell me if is really mandatory? Shouldn't be enough a tracker (like Voluum) or the ad network (like Go2Mobi in case someone's following "the appetiser" or similar strategies)?

Edit: same goes for Notepad++ text editor and the SSH into the server.

This is the guide: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...keting-Toolset

I'm asking this question because, unlike for other requirements, it seems to me that these don't appear quite often in the forum

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VPN is needed if you want to spy manually, otherwise you won't be able to see GEO targeted offers. With the use of a VPN you can browse the web as if you were connected from a different country and see the ads that are being served to users from that country.

SSH isn't necessary if you choose a managed server.

Notepad++ - you definitely need some good text editor to edit landing pages for example. Not sure what you are using now, maybe its sufficient.

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If i read above all, Basic first requirement is like you should have your own web page as a beginner..

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Thank you. Ok for SSH and Notepad++

Just one thing about VPN. The proverb "stop thinking and start doing" is paramount! I was choosing the offers in my affiliate network and read that such offers can be run only from and to the countries that were there mentioned. I asked my AM for informations and she said that I can do it but I need a proxy/VPN. I thought: "Shit! I knew it!". So VPN is helpful also for this reason right?
So, which one do you suggest? Is there any guide of how installing and using it?

By the way, I noticed that the affiliate network suggests some banner itself, so it couldn't be necessary for me to create one

In fact I have created it

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Slap your AM and then slap yourself ... Done? She's not reading what you'r asking for and you're not reading STM properly, so you both deserved it

Any offer requires specific traffic, usually from a specific country/GEO, you can define this at the traffic source. VPN has nothing to do with this. Did you start any campaign at a traffic source yet?

VPN is only used to pretend you're surfing from a country you're not in. This is used for spying. There is a ton of VPNs, a safe bet is HideMyAss.com, often referred to as HMA, its not the best but it works

Affiliate networks have banner for the offers, so every lazy ass can use them, do the same and you're gonna what ... loose money, correct

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No I didn't because I want to be enough prepared and avoid losing money . I'll tell you everything. My aim is to use the appetiser. I've been looking for offers in my country but they are either not suitable for mobile or, more important, have a CR 0%. So I looked for something in other countries but since I got redirected when opening the affiliate link of a foreign country offer, when asking my AM told me that I could still run it but I only had to check if the offer was live/working and to do so I'll need a VPN. And yes reading the guide on STM, it's clear that the targeted country must be selected at the traffic source so I guess the only one who deserves to be slapped it's me .

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Ok no slapping then, it was a joke anyways

One thing tho - you shouldn't be the one to check whether offers are live/working, that's what the AMs are there for, they see the data and they should know the status of offers. Try to ask for offers that not everyone is pushing, but they still show good performance.

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I know you were joking.

Thank you for everything. I'm now choosing the offer

EDIT:
I'm really close to start my first offer and I'm really excited about that even if I know that won't go very far the first times .
One quick question about spying. As long as I know spying consinsts in finding as many informations as you can about how competitors have promoted and earned using the same offer we are going to run. I've read about spy tools on this forum but I haven't found some detailed guide about them as I did for other topics.
We've talked about VPN but what are the other spy tools? I've seen something for adult vertical but what about mobile verticals?

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The best is to use a spytool, Im using adplexity for mobile spying. It will show you the banners/LP's and url redirect chain. This gives you pretty much all the info you need.

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I've taken a look at Adplexity and some other spy tools and, I don't want to sound spingy, but I have to admit they are really expensive! I just would like to save some money for campaigns
Don't you think I could do without until I'm earning some money?

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You can, get a VPN, get a good agent emulator and browse sites in the GEO of your choice. I know spytools are not cheap, but they save a ton of time

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Hey guys I'd need to know if I've have some part clear

I've finally set up my first campaign on mobile as anticipated here and as suggested on the forum I'm planning to launch some more offer . As I said in other posts I'm following the appetizer with Go2Mobi where all is based on directlinking and I suppose that if I'd want to launch a more "sofisticated" campaign (like dating) I will need LPs and other traffic sources. So, in short, here are my questions (hoping not to talk rubbish ):

1. Go2Mobi (and similar) is an advertising network for mobile. Can I use LP also with it? Pasting the Url from my tracker in its destination url that will be connected to the banners should be enough. Is it so?
2. What kind of traffic sources are suggested to do this? I suppose that (beside platform like facebook, twitter, google) advertising networks for desktop like Adblade, Media.net are the answer.

Thanks

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1. go2mobi is a TrafficSource/AdvertisingNetwork/AdNetwork ... we can use several names for it. The KEY information is, that its a place where you can buy traffic. When setting up a campaign in any traffic source, you enter the campaign URL that your tracker generates for you once you make a campaign in it. The traffic source has nothing to do with a Landing Page. This is what the tracker will do. You can configure it to send traffic directly to the offer or to send it to a LP first. I suggest to learn how to work with landing pages ASAP, its very hard to profit without them these days.

2. go2mobi is a good source, you can use it for both directlinked campaigns and also for LPs, as explained above.

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Yes and the campaign that's currently running demostrates it. I've got 0 conversions with 333 clicks and a spent of 14.25$ with a survey offer in Brazil.
My next step will be to set up a tracker, buy a domain and create Landing pages. For the first time I'll use Adsbridge because it's free for beginners and has a good reputation. In case I'll go with Voluum later
Just for knowledge for the future I ask you these other 2 newbie questions
-what other ad networks are good as traffic sources beside go2mobi and social networks? I found this list http://www.adpushup.com/blog/the-bes...eyond-adsense/
What do you think?
-I'd like to know something about how these types of traffic source targets users. I mean, if I run a campaign about promoting (for exemple) a sweepstake for Iphone, I guess that my banners will basically end up on users that tend to search about mobile technology. For exemple in go2mobi this can only be done with OS, GEO and carriers. In Facebook this can be done targeting user's likes and interests. Do you know if those ad networks, maybe depending on them, allow this type of targeting?

Thank you in advance! 

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