To WH or BH? A noobs take and final decision... (11)
Well hello there fellow STMers...
Ah yes... yet another "noob" follow-along. I'm sure at least half of the Super Affiliates in here are most likely rolling their eyes, but alas here I am.
I will, however, try to avoid as many mistakes outlined in @stickupkid 's post, namely, Newbie "Failures Of the Galaxy" Summary, while on this journey to un-noob myself
I won't bore you with the details of my back story, if you are interested you can find that here.
The ensuing post are the mental musings of how I plan to enter the affiliate world in the most efficient way possible and the reasons why I have chosen this path over others.
I have built a framework for my mission using three separate dimensions: Objective, Strategy and Tactics.
My Objective for the next few months is simple.
No, it's not to make 8 figures, buy a super-yacht and cruise the Mediterranean with my fiance while I watch all my highly-profitable White Hat campaigns scale on complete autopilot - only getting a phone call once a month from my full-time Facebook Rep to check if I'm happy with my CPM's.
Well, maybe someday.
Back to my Objective:
After some deep thinking on how to best enter the abyss that is affiliate marketing, I have come to the realisation that traffic is KING, and knowing how to leverage a traffic platform proficiently to get the right eyeballs on your funnel is the only way you will be able to make the $$$.
Granted the funnel has to be optimized, but without the right traffic in the first place, there is no way to get the feedback and find your winners and losers, which will ultimately put the money into your pocket.
Side note: If anyone on this forum is making money without any traffic, please PM me. I would love to pick your genius brain.
So, naturally, I’m drawn towards mastering a traffic source as a first priority, since this seems to be a force multiplier in the entire chain of skills one has to acquire in order to become an accomplished super affiliate.
Ergo my #1 OBJECTIVE is to become competent with the Facebook Ads/ the Business Manager platform.
Why have I chosen Facebook you say? The answer is fourfold.
- It has the second biggest reach [behind the 1000lbs gorilla that is Google].
- It's targeting and algorithms are second to none - special mentions should go to the Pixel here.
- I hear FB is incrementally becoming more strict with regards to affiliates and ads in general, so the sooner I jump on the bandwagon the better - before all the ads are deduced to stock photo's and video's of smiling families in their living rooms with bland copy. [unlikely, but tend to be dramatic]
- It's touted as the most complex/complicated ad platforms to master according to a few "guru's". [one being Tim Burd]
Some would see the last point as a strike against choosing Facebook as a noob, however, I see things slightly differently.
I figure if I can fully grasp Facebook Ads the rest should be child's play to master. [well that's my assumption at least]
Now onto my STRATERGY:
One of the most pervasive questions that seems to loom in every noobs mind after researching AM with FB is:
TO WHITE HAT OR TO BLACK HAT?
@stickupkid has answered this question fairly extensively in this post, and the pro's and con's helped me determine which route I want to take based on my objective. [thanks dude]
I will be choosing the WH route for the purposes of fulfilling my objective.[becoming competent with the Facebook Ad platform]
Since I have already got one of my BM's disabled going the BH route while following a sub-par course it makes sense to NOT have the added headache of worrying about account bans while I get the hang of navigating the dashboard, creating and implementing pixels and tracking statistics.
Playing the cat and mouse game can while trying to wrap your head around things is not fun.
To make this process even more safe, I will only be choosing Lead Gen offers.
This should hopefully increase the volume of conversions and prevent FB sending surveys to unhappy purchasers[ which I have heard can be quite common]
Having more volume will help me to understand what metrics matter and what changes need to be made, thereby honing those skills in a shorter amount of time.
The offer's I'll be looking into are auto insurance, auto finance, real estate, education, home warranty etc.
Onto the TACTICS:
Now this is where it gets interesting. The nitty gritty as they say. I'll be choosing the following courses for tactics to incorporate into my approach:
1. Charles Ngo's Lead Gen Engine
2.iStack's FBML
3.Tim Burd's Mastermind replays
4.Feedback from you delightful gentleman here on STM.
Other general tactics/habits I'll be using:
1.Clockify to track time [minimum 40 hours a week]⏰
2.Pomodoro technique for concentration⏱
3.Bulletproof coffee ☕️
4.Nootropics, lots of nootropics...
~I'll also be updating this thread a minimum of once a week to let you know my progress and any sticking points I may have.[Most likely Friday's or Sunday's]~
So, in summary my mission is as follows:
To Learn Facebook Advertising using WH LeadGen offers.
If anyone can direct me to threads that provide more insight with this I'd really appreciate it, and if anyone is actually having success with this kind of model I'd also love to hear from you.
Once I feel that I have a solid grip on Facebook and this WH model I'll slowly start moving onto more BH offers with a "burner BM".
If you disagree with any of my points above and or think this is a retarded way of approaching affiliate marketing, please feel free to let me know.
I would prefer to know if you think this is a waste of time BEFORE embarking on this journey.
I welcome comments, questions or even straight up criticisms - I'm all about feedback, provided I'm given explanations and alternatives to explore.
To the STMers that are on a similar journey - message me below and we can perhaps create an accountability system with a mastermind.
I'll update with the exact campaign I'll be choosing next week - since this thread is in the campaign follow-along category.
Until next time fellow Marketeers...
Adios
Hi Ticos ,
Nice write-up , Good luck with your journey , and easy with nootropics man : )
Cheers
This will have my attention 
good luck!
I really like your style man 
another interesting character,
Got my attention here too, eager to see how you go bud! Just don't overdo the nootropics to burn out, its a nasty place to find your mind haha!
The "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing in 2019" report will DEFINITELY help shed some light on the question "Whitehat or Blackhat?"
It's coming out in the next 2 days - I would read that before making any final decisions!
Amy
WEEK 1 ENTRY 2
Bonjour marketing-heads
Hope you guys have had a splendid little week, jam-packed full low CPM'S and positive ROI's.
Yes, the very first week on my WH affiliate marketing journey has concluded and I'm pretty sure I feel like the 90% of the type-A personality go getters in here:
"I could have done more!"
We all know that this little voice is unrelenting, regardless of what you've accomplished, so I'm trying to ignore it and focus on the time metrics.
Here's are some of the tasks completed and choices I have made and could possibly use a 2nd and 3rd perspective...
OFFER
I managed to find a few auto loans offers (4-6) with decent EPC'S ($1.00+) so opted to attack this vertical first.
After further research I requested approval for a Lead Gen offer with a $23 payout and $1.05 EPC that had a solid looking funnel (questionnaire leading to sign up form).
Shortly thereafter a got rejected by my AM since I have no payout history, which is understandable. #joysofnoobing
He then recommended a $9 offer(0.30c EPC) that is open to newbies on the network.
After checking it out, it looks like my best option for now...until I've sent some quality traffic and sales to prove myself.
This is a simple two-pager, with the second page being the opt-in form.
I'm looking at it as a stepping stone to the higher paying offers.
To summarise,
Vertical: Auto-loan, Lead Gen
Payout: $9.00 [ 2nd page submit ]
EPC: 0.30c
GEO'S: USA only
INFRUSTRUCTURE
I bought a generic sounding domain in the "lowering rates" space so I can use it for multiple offers down the line [ auto-loans, insurance, real estate etc].
Built a front end to the website with Wordpress and Oxygen builder plugin for credibility with a Privacy Policy, T&C's, Contact, About Us...all the things that Facebook likes.
Created a page on FB/Instagram page and posted relevant 10 relevant articles/pictures.
Re-named an Ad account accordingly and have the timezone set to NY, since I'll be running most of my traffic in the states and figured it may help out.
I then ran a $25 Page Like campaign to Tier 3 countries to warm up the new ad account and get some credibility on the page, aiming gain 1000 likes.
Small issue:
Weird thing is, the page like campaign has spent $5.48 and has been stuck that way for 3 days now, even though the campaign displays that it's active.
Should I stop this one, dup it and re-publish? or fiddle around and try to get it to run? any help here will be appreciated.
CREATIVE:
I found a really talented video editor and animation/motion graphics artist for cheap on Upwork after some thorough digging and a targeted post.
Sent him a test job to check out his skills.
To note: I'm looking to build a solid team to churn out creatives, so want to hire from the get-go.
I'll also be creating a few image creatives, slide shows and possibly carousels myself as waiting two days for a few fresh creatives can be annoying.
My strategy is to use some images/video's that will provide a sufficient pattern interrupt and get the person to stop scrolling, but also keep the ad congruent to the vertical.
EXAMPLE: the first hook in the creative will show an attractive girl woman with a shocked face (mouth open) holding up a paper with a big red "APPROVED" stamp on it.
It will then cut to some people in front of their new cars happy/ecstatic getting the keys handed over.
^^^Let me know if you think Facebook will have a problem with the big red "APPROVED" sign as the initial hook.^^
For some reason I have a paranoid suspicion that this could be an issue but want to check with you guys first.
AD COPY:
The structure of the Ad copy I'll be testing first will be as follows:
Question (exacerbate the problem)
Benefit
Benefit
Benefit
Scarcity
Call to action
I'll also be adding in five "star" emoji's to the headline and/or the copy as I've heard this adds credibility and boosts CTR's considerably.
Here is some of the more aggressive copy for the benefits that I would like to use:
- Get a Car loan in minutes!
- Same Day Approval
- Bad Credit Welcome
- No fee's or obligations, get a quote on your dream car for FREE today!
Let me know if you guys think any of these look like it will raise the Facebook police eyebrows at all.
( To add, this is what I've found on the company's landing page, so these claims are not made up by me)
Also, please let me know some of the words I should avoid completely on the ad eg YOU, YOUR etc.... are these still considered a no-no or is it all based on context?
Or do the FB bots flag it regardless of context?
FUNNEL
My strategy here is to create a questionnaire funnel and take the lead through some micro-engagements before they land on the submit form.
The quiz will contain 4/5 steps (will split test this).
I'll be using Unbouced to create questionnaire funnels as I was told it has considerably faster load times than Clickfunnels and some other landing page builders.
I also looked into using Outgrow for quizzes and want to split test with them at a later stage, their pages look nice and professional.
Let me know what page builders you guys are using and why.
This weeks mission-critical objectives are as follows:
1. Set up FB pixel and an on-click event fire.
[I'll be learning to use Google Tag Manager to do this as I have heard that it is the easiest option, however I'm open to suggestions.]
2. Create 2 Funnel variations [questionnaires]
3. Create 3 creatives myself and hire another video editor
4. Learn how to structure campaigns and manual bid effectively[Tim Burd Mastermind Replay, iStack FBML]
Almost forgot to mention, for those of you thinking of buying Charles Ngo's Lead Gen Engine, I would not recommend it.
Even though I have only gone through 5 modules I think I have a good feel of the course quality so far.
In my opinion, the course lacks depth and Charles Ngo hands the training off to the Day Brothers shortly after the first module.
The second brother (that teaches the email part) often repeats redundant information, and most case studies he shows are from campaigns that didn't work.
To add, the course is in a very strange order and does not make sense from a logical flow standpoint [again my opinion]
This is not a bash on the creators of the course, just want let noobs know before investing a big portion of their budget on something that I feel does not deliver value - which could end up being a nail in the coffin of their affiliate career [if its their only course budget].
For the experienced bunch out there, I think you will be highly disappointed....so just a heads up for guys you too.
To conclude I would highly appreciate any feedback and criticism of my tactics above.
Anything I'm forgetting? What can I do better/differently? What should I not do at all? Any questions?
I'm all ears
Anyways guys, thanks for reading if you have come this far.
Have an UBER WEEK!
Hey bro. If I were you I would start with BH actually and cheap traffic source. l would also choose vertical that has relatively low payout but high CR. You need "events" (as in data science sense) to be able to analyze your data. Events would be conversions in this case and they cost money to acquire -- something that converts once every $350 spent would be much more expensive to collect statistically significant amount of data of than somth that converts once every $0.10. I think AM currently is a data science game in a lot of ways (when u tune your camps you do what a data scientist does on a basic level even if you dont realize it) and would become even more so because accessible tech is driving it
Anxiously awaiting follow-up post. great detail sounds dead-on based on everything i've read.
Question. are you generating accounts or buying them? i understand your WH but pretty sure you will need to create some aggressive angles which will get a few accounts banned.
Damn you're really off to the races. Whitehat + FB definitely sounds like the way to go for you.
Facebook, Google, and native ads are where it's at. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time bouncing around all these small traffic sources for years. Better to be a small fish in a big pond as they say.
My buddy also bought Charle's Ngos course and from what I've seen so far, it's very basic and not that useful, but I do think the concept is sound. But generally it's better to take the thousands you'd spend on a course like that and instead put it to ads, and simply network with people doing well on that platform. If you can get good at making email funnels work, then you should be able to dominate as basically nobody in this space is doing them, and only playing the front-end arbitrage game.
But anyway looking forward to seeing your progress. I'm going after email leadgen also but on native.
Ahoy @mediabuyr !
Thanks for the comment, really appreciate the input
I still have 5 accounts from my 2nd business manager so had no trouble as of yet, however, I do understand that this may be an issue if I start to use some aggressive copy. [1st BM was shut down with BH stuff when I started 2 months ago]
I do have a spare personal Business Manager that I haven't warmed up, but will only be touching that one when I know the whole deal with User Agents, IP's, onion over VPN/Double VPN's etc.
Facebook is not stupid, I want to cover all my bases before buying and generating accounts.
Once I do get to that level, I plan on having one "burner" BM for experimentation, Health/Nutra offers and one BM for strictly WH offers and even perhaps a Real Estate Lead Gen agency one day.
Gonna deal with that issue when I run into it, but right now I'm hyperfocused on learning Facebook Ads and optimization.
Ciao!
Originally Posted by thedudeabides
Figured it would be the best way to get my feet wet and master a traffic source that I could scale with different offers at a later stage.
No doubt, Charles Ngo's/Day brothers concept is most certainly sound, but I found the execution of teaching and lack of depth[instruction wise] wasn't that great for a newbie to follow.
Essentially could have summed the entire concept up as " Drive Traffic to WH offer and collect emails, then market similar products to your list.
Thanks for the comment, interested to about hear your progress too!
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