Solo Media Buyers - What Processes Do You Follow? (9)
I am a solo media buyer doing buys for whitehat offers on RevC/Bing/Taboola.
I have just recently quit my job and am taking a more active role in scaling a bunch of existing campaigns.
My goal is to reach $2-3k/day profit across all the media activities I am running.
Right now I average about $600/day. Yesterday was $1k 
The obstacle I see that gets in the way of getting to $2-3k/day is solely myself and my processes (or lack thereof).
I don't really have any kind of media buying "routine" or structure at all. I get up, grab some coffee, and start checking out stats and doing analysis on existing campaigns, hit up some reps looking for hot offers, do some manual spying. It's all work, but its just so random/patchy day to day. Maybe I'll launch a new campaign in the afternoon or not at all. Maybe I'll just think up 7 different things to do and do none of them.
Anyways, I am searching for a better routine/process to gravitate my daily tasks towards. I need to systemize my media buying. Should I be setting goals to launch X campaigns per week? Do I need to freaking hire someone already as I'm my own bottleneck?
What processes do you guys follow to continue to crank out campaigns & optimize them all as a solo buyer and/or small team?
Thanks!
I loved this interview of Erik.
Hire a team and create a SaaS or LaaS or PaaS.
LeadCloak
What I do is write down a list the day before to plan out my day. Some things are pretty routine that you should always be doing like updating your P&L and analyzing the data from the prior day. However I find that if I don't make a list things get lost and things won't get done. You'll feel a better sense of accomplishment with it that you actually got done what you wanted to in that day.
Secondly, don't ever sit on you hands always be testing or making plans for new test and adding it to your list.
I would only hire someone when you can sustain a level of income well beyond your monthly expense. If your campaigns are short lived, you'll only hire someone to let them go a few months later. Ask yourself how stable your campaigns. If your doing well only because it's Q4 or running offers that are doing well only because of the holiday that would be an example of campaigns that are likely to fizzle out by Q1. However if your campaigns are evergreen then that's a different story. I've been in your situation before and staying idle is the worse thing you can do. So be sure to plan out your days.... and as in the video above key is persistence
Haha yeah my man, we've all been there and done that - but its headed one way - burn out and frustration. As much as it feels good waking up and aimlessly floating through the day and making more then your peers its going to lead to a very empty feeling shortly. You should really try and create an environment at home where you have certain work hours, maybe create blocks in your day and having some structure is really important to keep yourself in the game as long as you can.
You should always be motivated that there is much more you could be doing, its easy to get comfortable in the $1k day phases but you never know whats around the corner, you could wake up and have everything dead and at the same time there are people doing the same as you but on the $10k daily scale so having some consistency in your routine will be good.
- Try wake up at the same time daily and bed at similar time, at least Monday to Friday
- Find a patch in your day for some exercise everyday, weights, walk, yoga, sauna, sports whatever movement keeps your mind healthy too lol
- Attack the hardest problems you don't want to do first in the day, then the rest is easy to do
- I'm a huge fan of having a diary, pen to paper is such a nice feeling and ticking off daily tasks is even better
- Have weekly goals and monthly goals. It feels much better to have a direction you're aiming for then an aimless stray bullet
- Get a whiteboard and create a nice little spot for you to work at home. Even better find a cheap co-working space if you start getting cabin fever lol
You should definitely look to delegate the grunt tasks elsewhere, so head to upwork or another job platform and start brewing up some lemmings (Big fan of Philippine VA's and most other guys I know online use them too, great friendly people and good for their price) Just post a job for office admin or ad buying and read some resumes. You could give them say 3-4 hours a day even contracts don't have to be full time at all, which would free you up to go hunting for more campaigns, just never get into the mindset of being too comfortable, it can dry up overnight bro then you'll wish you had planned for it earlier haha
- They can help with media buying (uploading ads, optimising ads - you create a flow for them and they will get good at it)
- We use Airtable.com for managing our entire media buying operation its been a god send lately moved from having 10 google sheets to this one overview
- I found it so hard at first to think others could complete the tasks I was doing without my own mind madness thrown in the process but its a huge mistake, learn to let go and trust the process. If you wanna grow as an affiliate you need to build a solid team. Its not expensive at all as well, some of our best VA's are $4/hour and save SO much time
- Maybe an easy metric for you to follow is 80% of your day spent scaling working campaigns (testing what is working on more and more placements and traffic sources) and 20% working on new campaigns to brew them up (completely new campaigns throw them up and eventually more and more will stick which will then move into the 80% and the 20% is for even more new ones)
All the best bro, don't get too comfortable theres always someone smashing it 100x more and it could be you there is no ceilings! (But find time in life for passion and things that make you happy too its super important <3)
@maynzie
Great response. Exactly the kinda feedback I am looking for.
All good man, if you need help with any part just lmk 
Haha, thanks @leadcloak for posting my interview here.
I described there how I built some tools that help me to watch my campaigns and that basically replaces a team.
Besides things like that it's all about PRIORITIES.
It's hard to be in FOCUS and FLOW all the time, when you are doing everything yourself.
But the key is to choose what's the most important TASK at the MOMENT for you to go FORWARD.
I have to admit it's not easy all the time
I recommend you to read also the book The ONE Thing, it will help you to learn more about priorities and focusing on one thing at a time.
https://www.the1thing.com/
Cheers.
I've only been doing media buying fulltime a few months, but from doing other businesses/entrepreneurial stuff fulltime the last few years, here's the best things I ever did:
-Batch busy work. Don't file away every document when you get it (physical documents I mean), throw them in a 'to be filed' box and then once every 2-3 months do an hour of straight filing.
-Do your bookkeeping once a month religiously (I use excel to keep it simple but you can use quickbooks if you like it obviously). At the same time you can calculate your net worth, which will keep you motivated. Do a personal budget too- as your personal spending is a key part of "You, Inc" and will determine your long-term net worth.
-Have separate business accounts, don't pay for your media or SaaS's through your regular checking account. Even if its just an "unofficial" business account rather than an actual entity like an LLC or S-Corp, it just makes everything way simpler.
-Have a good accountant/lawyer/insurance agent/etc. It sounds overly simplistic but it really makes a huge difference.
-Lift weights- men need to push heavy things with our bodies, its in our DNA.
-Remember there's many ways to skin a cat, just because one person loves having a team of VA's or employees doesn't mean that's the best solution for everyone.
-Get a standing desk or improvise one, or get a fancy-dancy treadmill desk.
-Don't do work on your laptop in bed or you'll have trouble sleeping.
-Go outside at least once a day to walk around.
-Take 5 minute breaks throughout the day to stay fresh.
-Do a quick "Morning Routine" where you do all your self-improvement stuff, write out what you're thankful for, your goals, etc.
-Track as many things as possible. Everything that is tracked is improved upon. It makes life like a video game, because seeing your improvement provides a dopamine rush just like what makes video games so addictive
-Don't forget to play, and have fun. Buy yourself some legos or something Keeps the mind fresh.
-Awesome book is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Fantastic book on productivity/building businesses.
Anyway, I meant that to be more directly applicable to IM and solo-businesses but kind of went on a couple tangents... hopefully there's at least a little value in it
Great work on the natives! Hope to be at the same level as you soon
Thanks for the added insights Jack
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