Advise a Newbie to Reach First Profits (9)
[Backstory]
I joined STM in 2016 , i took action many times , never committed to one thing and made it work.
I went to AWA twice in 2016 and 2018.
Always too much thinking and not enough doing.
I have been just sitting and Killing my life one day at a time , for 3 straight years.
Ages 20 to 23 , have been destroyed forever.
No friends , no fun , nothing productive .
Currently i am extremely overweight , in very bad health overall , and supremely low on confidence.
But i am EXTREMELY determined to break out of This shell.
I have decided to clean up my act .
Going to Gym every single morning , Clean Diet. That's a start i guess.
Starting from 2016 , i have thought and dabbled in the following.
Amazon FBA , Dating on Exoclick ,Carrier Billing on Exoclick , (
Fast forward to 2019.
I did try to get to get into Botting using jarvee , proxies and a VPS, multiple instagram accounts and sending traffic to Cloaked Affiliate offers.
Failed to make any profits.Not completely out of it , but again lost hope.
Thought to start an SMMA , but US clients aren't exactly thrilled about Onboarding an Indian.
besides i never Came across anyone doing that successfully.
I want to try BH with Facebook , but Can't think of anything as to where to start ,
What i Do have knowledge about , Social media automation using Jarvee , Creating Ads.
Creating Store , Basic Site Setup Tasks ,Cloaking .
If anyone is looking to hire , i Promise if given a chance , won't let you down.
There's no way , in text to explain how serious i am.
But the worst of cases of people , ended because finally they decided , no more , time to make a change.
It would mean the world to me , if anyone could suggest any plan of action whatsoever , in which it's possible to reach $100/day.
I know there's no guarantees , and it's my job to believe.
but even a little sense of direction would be amazing.
Like go there , that's a good place to see first profits.
Overall , i would like to stick to ecommerce offers , Nutra , a lot of people see success with that.
Thanks a million to anyone who reads This.
Ankish
Skype : live:ankish.c10
Hey man, I know how you feel. It has been overwhelming and I haven't even started yet.
I've been thinking about this for a long time and the guides on STM and forum members are immensely helpful in answering questions i've had.
I know a lot of people say to "just start" but I'd like to get the thoughts of the experienced marketers on here on how I can tweak my plan to fit my situation and the current 2019 environment.
Quick background- Im in early thirties working regular job in FP&A doing 50 hours a week. Got a family Id like to dedicate hours for as well which leaves me around 25-30 hours a week to do Affiliate marketing on the side.
My plan is to do whitehat campaigns on FB, as it seems its only going to get harder to do BH onwards. Just want to know that if there's a reasonable chance I can reach consistent profits going strictly off of publicly available offers (not exclusive offers) in affiliate networks or if the whole thing is basically throwing darts at a board if you don't have a large starting budget (planning to use $5k). The reason I say this is because 1) FB ads are more expensive, and most affiliate offers have low payouts and combined with FB getting consistently harder with BH it seems like using FB to promote public network offers will be impossible to make consistent profits off of. Is it worth it to try this strategy with a $5K budget and possible to get to profitability with enough data or experience? I am completely willing to go all in with available time and a set budget. But before I start I want to know the hours and Budget don’t get spent in vain getting random sets of data I can’t form a pattern or gain any insights from that i cant get in a coursel. Is it possible to get any sort of insights to become competitive in using FB to advertise WH offers off a limited budget of $5K? (not the type of insights we get on twitter or courses but real profitable insights people wouldn't sell until it's no longer working).
Mindset is critical and i apologize for coming across as skeptical or asking too many questions, but as someone who has seen too many Get rich quick gurus, and even well meaning posters i've seen that its actually even HARDER for us newbiews than it's made out to be. Even with the perfect manual (thanks to all the depth manuals on here) provided by great people on this board we still fail due to different circumstances (starting too late, not enoguh money to test enough etc.) Just want to get your honest opinions that starting affiliate marketing on the side in 2019 is still worth it or if there's better avenues for newbies to make cash on the side when considering all factors.
I completely feel where both of you are at and where you're coming from. It's always hard in the beginning. Many people don't "make it", and some only do after years of jumping around.
Some degree of jumping around is good just to experience different things to find your groove, but it's important to realize that certain things will take a LOT of testing to get off the ground, with a mix of sufficient experience accumulated plus testing enough offers/products.
I'll come back to jot down more thoughts later today. Not at the computer ATM.
In the meantime I have a question: Have you guys not had a SINGLE profitable campaign EVER? If that's the case, I may have something for you.
Amy
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app
Thanks Amy! Yes have not been profitable before when trying it on my own, having issues with identifying a good offer. Either its not a good offer or its just not converting for me, but often caught between sticking it out and quitting and jumping onto the next one.Will read through the guides again on basic strategy, but mind is going a million directions deciding whether to work on something else part time and invest my money there or continue with paid traffic marketing. Trying to figure out the right system to orgnaze all this data and form patterns around whats working and whats not with all of the different variables.
I have had , few pockets of profits here and there but none of campaigns profitable enough to scale.
@ankish @jowman Sorry for the delay - I've been writing this post on and off since yesterday.
I'll start by saying that you two aren't alone in how you feel - countless newbies have been in your situation.
Ankish has hit the nail on the head with this observation:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-are-some-tips
The "What's Working" report mentioned in that thread: A new one has been published for this year. You can get it here if you haven't already:
https://stmforum.com/whats-working-2019/
Ages 20 to 23 , have been destroyed forever.
No friends , no fun , nothing productive .
Starting from 2016 , i have thought and dabbled in the following.
Amazon FBA , Dating on Exoclick ,Carrier Billing on Exoclick , (
And I wouldn't say you've wasted the 3 years. It sounds like you've dabbled in a ton of stuff, and have knowledge and experience in many areas.
And based on the wording you use, I would encourage you to shift your perspective a bit. "Unprofitable" is only because you didn't stick with it long enough to see profits. "Failed" is only because you stopped before finding success. Refrain from letting these words define who you are and the extent of your capabilities.
Also: Often, things need to get worse before they'll get better - like for expetroleumengineer here:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...fe-has-changed
It's awesome that you've made up your mind to buckle down and take some serious action. Taking care of your health is a great start! May I also suggest adding meditation to your regime? I can't stress the importance of meditation enough, and many of the most successful people do it daily - this member for example (their story makes for a really motivating read as well):
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ccess-Secrets)
As I've suggested in the "Analysis Paralysis" post, read some of the recent case studies, success stories, and follow-alongs!
Here are just a few examples...
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...26%23129297%3B (Casino apps on Native.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...00-Revenue-Day (Mostly push traffic with some pops on the side. The offers were CC submits and a smaller amount of SOI offers in the sweeps and adult dating verticals. Also note how the OP had to go through a period of having nothing work out before attaining success.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...on-Subscribers (Building a push subscribers base and monetizing with offers.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-with-push-ads (Similar to previous thread.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ith-Voluum-DSP (Running Nutra on Native.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post368201 (Another one on Nutra+Native.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...rting-with-500 (Some advice on starting with push on small budget.)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-General-Store (FB+
There are more such examples. These are just some of the threads from the last 2 months or so. Look through the weekly newsletter (which you should have been receiving, but you can also find back issues at https://stmforum.com/blog/) and do additional digging here on the forum to find more.
Plus: Read the "What's Working" report, chat with your AMs, and do some browsing in spy tools. Look for trends! If several experts all said the same thing, then there'd a good chance that there's a good opportunity there. And don't think "oh everyone must have read this report by now so all the opportunities are saturated" - because there are enough great tips in that report to go around, plus not everyone would read the whole report, and even the ones that do won't take action on all of them (if any).
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...th-ecom-offers
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ce-cpa-network
Also do a search for "nutra" in this forum and you'll find a ton more.
Lastly, you can search for "nutra" in the directory here as well:
https://stmforum.com/affiliate-directory/
1)Soak up knowledge on how to run FB camps. And take notes. Read STM threads. Join some FB groups where marketers talk about how to run on FB.
2)Subscribe to an FB spy tool or two for inspiration. Get some ideas on what types of offers can work with what types of ad angles. But don't copy creatives - innovate based on them. Also keep in mind that there's a ton of stuff you'll need to test in terms of targeting and bid etc. etc.
3)Test test test!!
Your question on whether affiliate marketing is still worth it - everybody's answers would be different I'd imagine. It's just not an easy question to answer because it's so general.
Do many people make it very big? Not that many.
Is it still possible to make a good living from it? Absolutely!
Will you be one of them? THAT is the question you'll need to ask yourself. Because your success will 100% depend on your beliefs.
If you're constantly looking for reasons why AM won't work out for you - e.g. you're starting too late, competition is too great etc. - then it won't.
If you focus on looking for reasons why AM WILL work out for you, you'll find more and more of them, until you're so sure that you'll find success eventually, that nothing can stop you from looking and testing to reach eventual success.
This is why so many top marketers (and top performers in ANY other field) have touted the importance of MINDSET. It truly IS everything and more.
The law of attraction tells us we create our own reality - that stuff's real.
I'll tell you right now though, that you will not find a step-by-step guide that you can follow to consistently bank day in day out. Because:
1)Nobody in their right mind would reveal a currently-working campaign they're still making major profits from.
2)Even if they did, it would likely be saturated the next day. (Think: Same offer, same traffic source, same creatives, same targeting.)
So there will always be a gap between guides and major success. Some testing will always be involved - whether it be offers/products, and/or banners, and/or landing pages, and/or campaign targeting.
But newbie guides will make it a LOT easier to learn the basics, so they have an important place. That's where I would start. This would be Stage 1 in an affiliate's journey to success.
Next thing you do is get a spy tool - those are essential these days - spend time going through them (make good use of the STM-exclusive discounts available in the "discounts" subforum!) See a)what kinds of offers are being run on the type of traffic you're working with, b)what kinds of banners/landers/angles are being used to run them, c)make note of whatever targeting information is revealed, such as geo, gender/age, language.
Of course you won't know which campaigns are profitable and which ones aren't, but again, the trick is to look for TRENDS. The longer a campaign has been running, and the more often it's been "seen" by the spy tool, the more traffic volume it's likely received, and the more probable that the campaign is profitable (because it would be rare for someone to continually dump money into an unprofitable campaign).
If you absolutely need to save on costs, here's a great method to spy manually:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-Manual-Spying
So from all the spying, you'll come up with a list of things to test. An idea could be as simple as "sweeps on push", to "cc sweeps on push", to "cc sweeps on push in tier 2 geos" to "cc sweeps on push in Denmark using [angle x]".
Of course, the next step would be to test some of the items on that list.
At first, you may just be complacent to stick to the creatives you find in spy tools. This can work for certain traffic types but not others. A good rule of thumb is you can use the same landers but not the same banner ads - definitely churn out new ads. And innovating on landers a bit can't hurt either.
In this stage you'd mostly be "imitating" the best campaigns from spy tools. This would be your best bet if you don't yet know what you're doing. I'd consider this to be Stage 2 in our journey to success.
Once you have all the basics down, AND have identified one or more areas you feel are promising enough to pursue, you'll want to figure out how to consistently get profitable - this is the part where many people will give up before seeing success. This would be Stage 3. (If you haven't found anything you feel confident enough to focus on, go back to stage 2 - keeping in mind that certain things will require more grinding in the next stage before you'll see profits. So if you keep finding yourself stuck in stage 2, that may be your issue.)
What this stage will typically involve:
-Identifying all the different variables you can tweak to product a profitable campaign, then doing a ton of testing to improve on those variables. e.g. Offer (this is the biggest element for a campaign's success/failure), banner angle/text/image, landing page angle/text/images/etc., bid, targeting options, etc. etc. etc.
Design tests with definite goals in mind so you'll learn from every dollar you spend. Whether it be to split-test offers to find the winner, or whether bidding twice as much would give you higher or lower ROI. (i.e. Don't keep pumping money into a campaign without changing anything significant, praying for it to turn green.)
-Be able to innovate significantly based on creatives you see in spy tools. This is where reading some books/blogs on marketing, consumer psychology, and copywriting can really help.
-Investing a ton of money into the various testing. This is where having money come in from a different source of income will help. Knowing how much you can safely spend every week/month without expectations of returns is also important.
-Running offers that are available to most affiliates (exclusive offers will come later), at street payout (the smallest amount networks starts new affiliates off with).
-Learning to get more done on less time by using optimization/automation tools, and/or taking on human help (employees or freelancers).
-If applicable: Scaling to multiple traffic networks to tap into greater traffic volume.
This is the "grinding" stage and can last anywhere from several weeks to several months to several years (depending on too many factors). But if you stick with it long enough, you should eventually be able to break-even or make profits consistently. At around this time, you'll be in Stage 4.
My description of Stage 4:
-You have solid knowledge of one or more verticals, in one or more traffic types.
-You have the ability to take any offer (in a vertical you're familiar with) and run a quick test on it using proven creatives that you KNOW work, and be able to scale to significant traffic volume if you see fit.
-Cashflow is no longer an issue. You've negotiated short payment periods with aff networks and lines of credit with traffic networks.
-Since you've proven your ability to generate volume, you get the best service from networks. From aff networks: Exclusive offers, caps to best offers, best payouts, minimal shave/scrub rates, responsive AM. From traffic networks: Dedicated manager, premium traffic (that may not be available to the public), discounted pricing (since you're buying in bulk), tips on targeting (your manager will know where their best-converting traffic is) and even the best creatives (they're not supposed to, but they do).
-Working with direct advertisers would be much easier because you'll get accepted more readily with your track record. Also because cashflow is no longer an issue for you (direct advertisers tend to have longer payment cycles).
-A network of other affiliates you're in contact with to stay in the know on what's currently working. (In fact it would be good to start building this network from the beginning. Our masterminds subforum is perfect for this. Also if you start a follow-along and/or make other useful posts, you'll start building a name for yourself. Going to conferences and meetups to meet people in person would be even more awesome.)
Things will be a lot easier when you get to stage 4 - the trick is to stay in stage 3 and do enough grinding UNTIL you make it to stage 4.
I just came up with those stages based on personal experience plus observations, so YMMV. But they should still serve as a pretty good rough guideline on what you can expect going forward.
This post is turning into a novel - apologies for that - but I want to suggest one last thing which I feel may be the most important one of all.
I've been spending a lot of time reading "spiritual" or what many people call "new age" books - especially in recent months after a spiritual experience I had several months back. If we ever meet feel free to ask me if you're curious.
One of the major things I learned is that we all have a Higher-Self that's connected to the collective energy that includes everyone and everything in the Universe.
Our Higher-Self has access to all information to everything. But very few people are connected to their Higher-Self sufficiently to benefit from its guidance.
Everyone's looking for a mentor or life coach to tell them exactly what to do - meanwhile we all have Higher-Selves sitting in the cockpit waiting to guide us if we'd just get connected and listen.
Your Higher-Self knows what you want, how you can get what you want, and will do all the work in the background to make it happen.
When you learn to get connected and listen, you'll notice some of the following after a while (this is based on personal experience):
-Good ideas just seemingly pop into your head from out of nowhere.
-You start to come across people and things that can help you succeed, seemingly "by random" and "out of the blue". Information, tools, other resources, etc.
-Things are more effortless and go more smoothly and less problematic.
-Opportunities approach you without your having to go out to look for them.
-Serendipity, synchronicity, coincidences - all become the norm rather than the exception.
Meditation can help a TON in connecting us to our Higher-Selves. There are a lot of other methods you can learn and practise - google's your friend. I don't want to turn this into a new age post - I'm starting a blog on that so will save it for posting on there.
Plus I'm still learning how to be more in touch with my own Higher-Self - but the guidance I've received thus far has been nothing short of phenomenal.The very last thought I want to leave with you guys is this: Affiliate marketing is not the only way to make a living. Everyone has an optimal path in life that will bring them true happiness and satisfaction. You may not need to chase the big money to be happy. And anyways affiliate marketing isn't the only way to make big money.
I would encourage everyone to do some soul-searching to find out what you TRULY want to be doing. Something that makes you feel excited to be alive. Something you'd gladly do for free for as long as you have enough money to thrive on. The FOMO can be so powerful that it makes us fixate on a single path as the only road to our desires - when there may be many other roads that can take us there, that may make for a happier journey. Not saying affiliate marketing isn't a ton of fun - it can be and IS for many affiliates - but if it isn't fun for YOU then why bother.
Hopefully I've provided some food for thought. Hang in there guys - if any of you would like to chat further in this thread, I'll be here.
Amy
P.S. I just wrote an extremely simple step-by-step newbie guide that we'll be selling for $1 probably starting later this week or early next week. It's a fun and cheap way to get some experience running pop, and if you use a traffic network other than the one I cover in the guide you can avoid the competition to very possibly make your first profits. @ankish may be too advanced for this, but @jowman you may want to give this a try. Reaching your first profits can be such a big motivator that can propel you to the next stages. Like the STM FB page and keep an eye out for the announcement later this week.
Thanks a Million . You are a God Sent. I wish there was a super like button.
Update : I have been offered a job for working with IG Automation.
So , the conflict , perhaps i Should stick to what i know about already and is valued fairly well.
Maybe take on clients for IG management.
It's 8$/hr, i start tomorrow. It's remote .. So i got access to some testing budget.
I concluded the following for newbies on a limited budget.
---Never try to think about playing with FB accounts ..I have a solution to accounts for now , but , Lack of funds is the main issue .
TO get a fair shot needs decent budget. Otherwise better off doing something else.
---Push is the best option.
Need to look into this more.
So far concluded , high payout offers work just as well , need to have proper cutting rules in mind before beginning.
CC submits work.
Megapush is major traffic source.About to look into this more.
The best plan of action seems , to commit 500$ to spending on Push.
Throw a huge net out there , Spending like $0.05/offer/LP/Placement.
Something will stick consistently .
Scale.
Repeat.
---Debt/Mass Appeal offers on Snap Ads.
Originally Posted by ankish
So , the conflict , perhaps i Should stick to what i know about already and is valued fairly well.
Maybe take on clients for IG management.
It's 8$/hr, i start tomorrow. It's remote .. So i got access to some testing budget.
Will you be allowed to take on jobs outside the company you work for? Or did you have to sign a non-compete clause?
If not, it would be amazing to start your own thing on IG in addition to what you do at work. $8/hr is a good start for a freelancer, but my guess is that your final goal would be to own and grow your own business.
IG is 19% of internet users worldwide accesses IG more than once a day, and IG's monthly active users reached 1 Billion last year:
(Reference: Internet Trends 2019 report by Mary Meeker. You can download the entire set of slides here.)
You can start a following in almost any niche, grow it and monetize it. But you probably know the potential better than I do - you're the expert on that topic.
At any rate, congratulations on the job!
---Never try to think about playing with FB accounts ..I have a solution to accounts for now , but , Lack of funds is the main issue .
TO get a fair shot needs decent budget. Otherwise better off doing something else.
I agree with you though. If you don't have a decent budget, it would be challenging to get a BH operation started. But for WH campaigns that are done right, it shouldn't require too many accounts too often, as bans can be appealed and accounts reactivated most of the time.
Need to look into this more.
So far concluded , high payout offers work just as well , need to have proper cutting rules in mind before beginning.
CC submits work.
Megapush is major traffic source.About to look into this more.
Imagine cutting 100 placements at 2x payout each.
This is why it can be cheaper to run a well-converting low-payout offer to weed out the bad placements first, than run the high-payout ones.
Throw a huge net out there , Spending like $0.05/offer/LP/Placement.
Something will stick consistently .
You can't conclude how good a placement is (or even get the roughest idea!) after spending $0.05 - unless you're using an offer that has a PAYOUT of $0.05.
If you're going to try to minimize your budget, this may be a better plan:
1)Target cheaper geos.
2)Use pop to identify 2 good lander+offer combos - one for a low-payout offer, and one for a high-payout offer, preferably in the same vertical.
3)Launch the low-payout offer + lander on push to weed out non-converting placements and sources.
4)Launch the high-payout offer + lander.
Amy
Hey Ankish-
Great thread.
Wanted to add a few thoughts from more of a macro perspective.
1) If 100$ a day would change your life and your goal is self-supporting income, you might try providing services on Fiverr. It's not as romantic as IM, but it's vastly easier to make 100$ a day doing that. People get into paid traffic to make 5000$ a day, and that's why it's so difficult to make anything, let alone 100$. But there are easier ways to make 100$ a day online than paid traffic. You're obviously a very smart, talented dude, and you've built up a lot of skills in the last three years, so why not sell those skills for money? That would then give you all the money you need to then master paid traffic anyway
2) Regarding the depression/health/fitness/friends stuff, check out some of the following Youtubers, I think they'll have a tremendously positive impact on you:
-Alex Becker
-Jordann Peterson
-Jocko Willink
-Charisma On Command
-Art Of Manliness
Good luck!
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