Hey guys, to get to the point, here's my question:
Should I keep learning about mobile and saving money until I can run traffic on offers in 5-6 months from now or try to find a local, reputable company/agency/investor that understands the game? I'm thinking of an ad network or local media buying company if that makes any sense...
My long-term goal is to become a media buyer. All I know, is that's what's going to happen. The gap between now and then will be filled with new relationships and new skills that will determine my next move..I realize this, which is why I'm not asking about little details from a campaign, etc.. I just need starting advice from those who have made money in this industry!
A little more about me...
-I'm 22 and have 1 1/2 more years til I gradate from University
-I'm studying Advertising Mgmt, minoring in Advertising Analytics (I get the industry!)
-Made a few aff sales w/ organic traffic only, learning paid traffic w/ mobile pop now
I joined this forum a few weeks ago, after a year of traveling down the rabbit-hole of affiliate marketing. During that year I wasted a lot of time, following so-called gurus, but managed to still do the following for myself:
-taught myself how to code basic HTML
-learned how to create banner ads and basics using Adobe tools like Photoshop and Dreamweaver
-grew a YouTube account to couple hundred subscribers, earning my my first few affiliate sales (account got suspended a month ago tho)
-became Google Analytics/AdWords certified (ran a campaign with a small class at school too, spending $5k granted to us)
-read over 50 books (Persuasion, Psycho Cybernetics, To Sell is Human and Mindset were some favorites)
-started a blog, w/ an email subscribers list
-became HubSpot certified and got experience using personal blog w/ it
-got some real experience w/ internships (taught me how to analyze data and develop social media/marketing campaigns for a company)
Before you think to yourself yeah, yeah, bid deal...so you wasted a year...remember a year ago I didn't even know what AdWords, PPC, HubSpot, affiliate marketing, HTML, or banner ads even were. I didn't even know what I didn't know. That being said, the position I'm in right now is I've read nearly everything (written from the past two years) on this forum, read every damn blog post, watched every Malan Darras (thanks Malan!) YouTube video out there, you name it... but being a broke college student, I just don't have the funds to launch my first campaign for paid traffic. I'm afraid if I read anything more, I'll develop analysis paralysis and somehow get derailed in the details. I need to PRACTICE!
Since joining STM, I've been trying to determine my one thing, which I've decided (for now) is Mobile Pop, for obvious funding (or lack of) reasons. I know it’s not as high pay or scalable as other options like Native, but the barrier to entry appears lower than anything else and I've rationalized that spending $200/month for spytools, $100/month for tracking, $100/month for STM and $1500/month to buy traffic would leave me at a low enough cost to start testing in a couple months. With these numbers, I could test for about 3 months without making profit.
Any thoughts on these numbers? Should I go for it on my own once I have a couple grand saved to gain some experience testing? Or should I find a company or person to work under who gets the game before wasting any money and more time..and how would I find a company if anyone has has success this way?!
**sorry for the rambling, if anyone who has seen the light at the other end of the media buying tunnel can give any kind of input to give me some kind of direction, I’d really appreciate it! It’s hard to learn this stuff while being a full time student, but I aint quittin!
I would personally try and get things going on your own as if you work under someone or a company you are already cutting your ROI as you have to share profits to someone else. From what you posted you have learned a lot in your year as an affiliate and you should be proud of that!
If you are going to use mobile pop traffic i would look at running with AirPush or leadbolt. When it is time to look into Native ( one of my favorite forums of running campaigns) i would look at MGID, Taboola or revcontent.
Something that is hard to master but worth the time would be to run Facebook ads, as the optimization pixels that Facebook has are extremely useful.
Best of luck!
Where are you from?
Michigan