Do newbies have a chance to succeed in AM in 2019? (13)
Hello STMers,
I am a newbie in AM and I must admit my knowledge of AM (it is way bigger than I had thought) has widened since I joined STM more than a week ago as I have continued to read threads after threads and even blog posts of some members here. I do love AM and understand better what it entails.
However, the key question in my mind is “is there still a chance for newbies to enter into AM in 2019 and be successful?” If yes, what vertical and traffic gives the best chance of succeeding given the current state of the industry as a newbie?
I ask this for 2 main reasons
1. most of the posts in the newbie zone (which is where I have primarily focused on as advised) are “old”. Mostly written earlier than 2017. Considering the rate of change in the marketplace eg regulations and compliance with some traffic sources etc, I am wondering if the dynamics are still same in 2019 to make this viable. Some of the verticals booming them are probably dead or saturated now
2. I stumbled on the what’s working in AM in 2018 document (is there a 2019 edition yet?) and reading through some comments from experienced affiliates shows me things have changed a lot. Some verticals and traffic sources which were working in 2015/2016 aren’t that lucrative anymore.
I know no one can promise anyone else of success in this business as there are factors tied to individual efforts, budget etc. But as I read through the threads and getting ready to start executing the Vortex 40-day tutorial (thanks Amy the tutorial contains a lot of information I must admit) this reality check question kept coming up in my mind so I thought I ask now to have a clearer picture of this which will guide my steps as I enter into this industry.
If I am totally wrong in my understanding, I will like to be told and hopefully corrected. If I have approached things differently again I will appreciate being guided right. It is just that I do want to sense check that the dynamics aren’t skewed against newbies in terms of learning curve, budget, adapting to change etc.
I am totally committed to putting in everything required to make this work in this second attempt at AM but I want to be sure I have a chance to succeed especially against competition from those who are more experienced and have more money to fund testing offers etc than me.
I hope this question is not misinterpreted / misunderstood as coming from a skeptic or a lazy person who doesn’t want to work hard and looking for easy way to make money. Far from it.
I will really your help with this question hope you understand where I am coming from.
Lukeman
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Hi Lukeman!
Your question is a valid one.
I'll start by making this statement:
It is still 100% possible for newbies to make good money from paid traffic.
How do I know? Based on newbie follow-alongs, and people that have PM'ed me, or stopped by the STM booth at conferences to tell me how well they're doing.
It is true that the paid traffic industry has become more saturated as more people have entered, but at the same time, there are more tools and knowledge and traffic networks and aff networks etc. out there to provide more opportunities to succeed.
There will ALWAYS be people that will say "XYZ is dead" or "XYZ is saturated". I've been hearing that said about so many areas of online marketing, ever since I entered the online marketing world full-time back in 2006.
13 years later, there are still people making a fortune in many different areas.
As to which type of traffic you should focus on - below are some options:
POP - I wouldn't recommend to STAY in pop forever, but it IS one of the easiest types of camps to run, and one of the cheapest to learn to run. Basically sign up to a few aff networks and ask affiliate managers for hot offers, rip some landers, set up campaigns on a tracker and a traffic source and you'd be good to go.
This is why it's even possible to write a step-by-step guide for pop - because it's easy. It would be a lot more difficult to attempt that for, say, Facebook, which has so many more variables to consider and test.
If you hussle, you can be making xx-xxx/day in profits within a few weeks or months. But I wouldn't recommend staying in pop too long, because it IS quite saturated (because it's easy to run!), campaigns don't stay profitable very long (due to competition, and lack of solid offers that stick around for long, and volatility in campaign performance in general), there's more and more bot traffic, spy tools are around to level the playing field, chrome browsers / google getting better and better in banning our lander sites - and other reasons.
Basically, by putting the same effort towards another type of traffic, you can stand to make more money.
However, pop is a great learning tool for the reasons I mentioned above: It's easy and cheap to learn.
And a lot of what you learn from pop (e.g. from the 40-day tutorial) is transferable to other traffic types: How to split-test offers and landers, how tracking works, how to optimize campaigns, etc. etc.
Also: Most newbies that "dabble" in paid traffic, will either give up or not ever take action. With pop, you'll see results FAST which will really help you gain some traction and keep you engaged. You can set up your 1st campaign within the first couple of days by following the 40-day tutorial. And if you test enough AM-recommended offers, you're guaranteed to make your first conversions.
Once people see conversions, they'll feel so much closer to profits. This type of motivation is what will fuel their enthusiasm - to do more learning and experimentation until they find the success they seek.
However, if you already have the persistence and tenacity to figure some things out on your own without giving up before you succeed, feel free to skip pop and start with another traffic type.
PUSH - Push traffic would be a great traffic type to expand to after finishing the 40-day tutorial. It's not a new type of traffic, but has recently made a very strong comeback. You could even skip pop and start with push directly (if you're willing to figure things out yourself as mentioned before).
Read ALL the threads in the push subforum, take notes, and start testing!
NATIVE - Native traffic would be another natural progression from pop. Main differences are 1)native traffic is considerably more expensive, so you'll need to push offers that have higher payouts/margins, 2)in addition to landers you'll also need to create display ads (image + text).
Due to higher offer payouts, it will require a LOT more budget to optimize native campaigns compared to pop. For tier 1 geos, you need to spend 1k+/day just on cutting placements.
If you'd like to get into native, I would recommend testing the cheaper tier 3/4 geos first. Better, learn how to optimize pop campaigns effectively first, so that when you run native camps, you'll know how to use your budget effectively.
We have a big subforum for native traffic, with lots of follow-along threads to help you get started.
FACEBOOK - This is one of the most lucrative sources of traffic and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. There are a million and one offer verticals you can run on Facebook. You can run whitehat if you don't want to bother with getting accounts, or blackhat if you don't mind playing the cat-and-mouse game. I wouldn't recommend running completely blackhat though, because it has gotten increasingly more difficult to keep accounts alive for long enough to be worth your money/effort. Unless you can swap intel with a group of other affiliates that also run blackhat and are "in the know" that you can mastermind with to figure out how to jump through new hoops (and FB is getting better at catching and banning blackhat practices all the time), I wouldn't recommend that you start there.
A lot of FB newbies got their start by running sweeps offers, but please be warned that you CAN lose accounts because sweeps is not really a 100% whitehat vertical. But if you stick with more whitehat angles, bans shouldn't happen too often. But you'd still need to have a way of getting some accounts. As a mod I can't discuss blackhat or account sales, but do a search on this forum and talk to some people (AMs, other affiliates) and you'll find some ways - it's just that not every seller is honest, and not everyone sells quality accounts. But that's just something you'll have to test and find out.
If you'd like to give FB+sweeps a try, see this post:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post362269
Alternatively, you can start a
We have a big subforum for Facebook. I'm sure you'll find lots of info to help you get started!
ECOMMERCE - This is another very promising way both to make quick money and to build a long-term asset. Start with
When it comes to paid traffic for ecom: FB, Adwords, and Pinterest are definitely worth testing.
We have a tutorial on how to get started in ecom (written by the great caurmen) plus many follow-alongs you can learn from. Lots of STM members have reached success with their ecom stores!
PAID SEARCH - Paid search traffic from Adwords, Bing etc., is the highest quality traffic you can get in terms of laser-targeting. The quality is so much better than FB in general, because you can target people that have purchase intent, whereas most people on FB are looking for interesting stuff to watch/read just to pass the time.
We do have a subforum for adwords, but not a tutorial for beginners, so if you choose this route, you'll have to figure out a lot of things yourself - or join an adwords forum somewhere.
LIST-BUILDING - No matter what type of traffic you're buying, there's a way to build an email list and monetize it. This is more of a long-term asset that you can grow - just don't be expecting to build a high income overnight. A mailing list is traffic you actually own (unless something like GDPR gets implemented that can make you lose a massive part of your list...but I digress).
Picking a niche that has passionate buyers is a must. To learn how to build and monetize a niche, browse online forums for that niche to identify pain and pleasure points and the jargon they use. Seek out all the major niche sites in that niche and sign up to their newsletters to get inspiration on what offers they're pushing and the copy they're using and how they're monetizing their lists. Imitate + innovate.
We have a subforum on email as a traffic type - you can read some of the threads to see if they inspire you.
So you have quite a few options now! Just pick one and get started - you can always switch later on. Just make sure you don't give up on something easily. No matter what you pick, there WILL be a learning curve, and some hoops to jump through. Don't be the person that cringes at the first hoop they see and switch gears, jumping from thing to thing to thing and ending up broke because they didn't stick with one thing to the point of making profits.
As for the "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing" report: It's still very early in the year. But we have plans to start interviewing industry experts soon. A VERY rough ETA would be some time in March but no promises - except we'll get this out as soon as our schedules allow.
As for some of the content in the Newbie Zone being old: Many of the fundamental concepts will either never change, or are still valid. What I would take with a grain of salt is stuff like: Vertical suggestions, aff network suggestions, traffic network suggestions, advice on "currently-working" angles - you know, stuff that tends to change all the time. And of course, user interfaces of networks and tools etc. are always being updated.
Hope that helps! And whatever you choose to work on, have fun with it - because that's what life is about!
Amy
This is reassuring. Thanks Amy for the very detailed response.
Great post!
Great response vortex!
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
Ofc it is! Try and use the skills affiliate marketing teaches to promote offers that are truly of value to the end user. There are a ton. For example guitar lesson courses. Another random one... leads for a gardener.... another random one... leads for insurance... and good products via ecom... many more
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
Hey Lukeman, I totally agree with Vortex (moreover, thank you Vortex for the mention).
It is definitely still possible to make money in this industry, regardless of what you want to focus on. I recommend you to get last iAmAttila's guide (hopefully still available) for just $1.
Just take this into consideration. Most of the top affiliates, and in this category I want to account everyone who scaled at least a campaign to 20k+ profit in one month during the past years, have a problem. All these affiliate want to play big, aiming only for the K/day. This leaves a lot of quick money on the table since there are many small campaign, probably NOT scalable, that can make anything between $20 to $200 in profit (per day, week, month it doesn't matter). If you combine a few of these campaigns, you can literally create quick money in the next few months.
Then I recommend you to start investing that money in building a real asset.
If you need help with E-Commerce, at uDroppy we help both Dropshippers and Brand Owners automate everything besides marketing, from sourcing products, branding them and fulfilling (of course with just a few clicks). You can send an email to g.sibelli@udroppy.com to discuss further about how we can help you build a successful business from scratch!
Originally Posted by udroppy
Bigger whales need more shrimp, so there is room for small fish.
Just make sure you have funds ready,
say goodbye to your social life for 6 months
and do 12+ hours daily.. and success is guaranteed.
Also..
do follow along, even if it means exposing stuff that you are currently making money on (if you're a newbie),
you will take a minor loss, but you might potentially gain some very good and established friends,
who might occasionally give you a campaign or so..which is too little for them, provided.. that they see
you are really working your ass off..
Hi guys, newbie AM here but we have several Nutra, Skin, and CBD offers in the U.S. (some trial, mostly SS) and want to train a smart new employee to run traffic to our offers (FB, Native, Display, Email - blackhat and whitehat). What training would you recommend to get him started asap? Maybe something like the Istack training in San Diego (4-day course) or something else? Thank you!
Hi Amy I am interested in Ecommerce and you said have a tutorial on how to get started in ecom (written by the great caurmen).
Do you have a link on that ? I cannot find it.
Dara
Originally Posted by dara99
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...merce-Cookbook
Enjoy!
Amy
Originally Posted by jvas1704
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...Stack-Training
We do have subforums for the traffic types that could work for your type of offers (please note the disclaimer below):
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?202-Native
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?6-Facebook
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...?174-eCommerce
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...8-Push-Traffic
DISCLAIMER: Nutra, Skin and CBD are not really facebook-friendly - especially when it comes to anything cannabis-related.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/10/1...wsuit-cannabis
As for nutra and skin, it would depend on the product and the way it's advertised. There are a lot of affiliates running those offers in a blackhat fashion, using celeb endorsement and much-exaggerated claims etc. FB may or may not flag your campaigns/account even if just by association. (This is my speculation.)
If you're wanting to run blackhat, I would suggest seeking out blackhat forums, because STM doesn't discuss anything blackhat in detail.
Push and Native traffic though tend to be way more lenient than FB, so would be a good start if you're not wanting to burn through accounts and mess with cloakers and such. However, different native/push traffic networks have different policies and restrictions on what kinds of stuff they allow to be advertised, and how "aggressive" or misleading the ads are allowed to be. I would encourage for your media buyer to check out each platform's policies in detail, then experiment to see what ads gets accepted/rejected.
As for email and display traffic: There's not a lot of discussion on those here, but we do have subforums for them:
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?45-Email
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...y-Media-Buying
So feel free to check them out as well.
Amy
Hey Vortex, thanks for your informative post, I am new to the forum and like it!
What do you think about using Native ads for eCommerce instead or in combination with FB? Since the audience on natives is older, I guess I have to pick the right offer/product.... cant go with trending products?
Would you recommend sending the traffic directly to the product page as we do with FB? Or should I build a Landingpage (with an opt-in) to warm the visitor up before redirecting to the offer?
Could you drop some words for a beginner :-) Thx!
Thank you!
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