INTRO- How to Buy a Click Once and Resell It 1000 Times (and win $1k) (9)
INTRO- How to Buy a Click Once and Resell It 1000 Times (and win $1k)
(Links to all parts: Part 1: INTRO | Part 2: Long Term Money Secrets | Part 3: List Segmentation | Part 4: Bridging the Gap | Part 5: Overcoming Duplication | Part 6: Surveying and Splintering)
Hey, it’s John Alanis!
Way back in 2014 I was doing some banner ad research on the now defunct POF (Plenty of Fish) advertising platform when I stumbled upon an affiliate forum with a name that grabbed my attention, Stack That Money. Since I’ve been a professional direct and online marketer since 1996, I know one of the keys to success is keeping current with what’s working right now because things change in online marketing rapidly- and yet they always remain the same.
I joined up, started reading the posts, and began contributing on the topic I know most about- opt in email marketing. There are many ways to make money in affiliate marketing, but I always loved list building and opt in email marketing because it’s one of the best ways to buy a click once, and resell it over and over, even thousands of times over days, weeks, months, even years.
I’m in the dating space, US geo. I started off by selling my own dating advice products (what some term “pua”- meaning pick up artist- but mine were about how to attract women by being cool, smart, and funny), migrated to promoting dating sites of all sorts, and now I’m in the business of selling clicks and email addresses of older US guys interested in meeting women (70% of my traffic is over 45, 50% is over 55 according to my Google Analytics). I still promote dating site offers, of course, but there are no lead caps on clicks and email addresses, and I have always liked being in the business of selling “money at a discount.”
I do, however, call it the “horny guy” business because, well, that’s what it is. And there are a LOT of older horny guys in the world with more arriving in the market every day. No matter if they want to get off in the moment, or meet a wife, these guys are terminally horny, and that leads to what we all love, MONEY to stack.
One thing I know how to do is build an email list, and a relationship with it. I keep the list interested via entertaining emails I write myself (writing email copy is my unique skill set that can’t be duplicated). Over time, a portion of the list stays interested, and you can build long term recurring revenue streams long after you’ve paid off the cost to acquire an email address. This leads to long term revenue, and I VERY much like “Stack That Long Term Revenue.” I like Stack That Long Term Net Profit even better.
In 2014, Mr. Green generously invited me to speak and share my opt in email knowledge at STM London 2015, and it was a fantastic event. I met many names in person I only knew electronically including Mr. Green, Zeno, Stackman, and of course Caurmen, our dearly departed friend Hugh Hancock (more on Hugh in a bit).
While I don’t post as often as I used to, for the next few weeks that is going to change. I am going to share my current knowledge and 2019 opt in email marketing model in exchange for what STM was created for in the first place- a collective online mastermind where really, really smart affiliate marketers can share (for the most part), what is working for them, and ask for the opinions of other people. I am going to ask for some expertise and for some ideas.
While I am great at building email lists and sending emails to get visitors from my list to monetization pages, what I am not especially great at is on-page design, finding more offers to promote, people to buy traffic from me on a wholesale basis, and the technical side of on-page optimization. I have a few internal landing pages I just got redesigned by a very smart landing page guy I am about to launch, and I’d love the collective input from the group on getting my page RPM (Revenue Per Thousand Impressions, also known as eCPM) as high as possible. Or, in other words, the most clicks from the page at the highest CPC possible.
Any and all ideas are welcomed.
But I’m going to go about this a bit differently than just putting up a post and asking for advice. Before I do so, I’m going to share with everyone what is working for me now and how you too can buy a click once and resell it thousands and thousands of times. They say the more you give, the more you get, and since I want to get a lot, I’m going to give a lot over the next few days.
There are many ways, of course, to be right in affiliate marketing, so this is not a “suggested model,” it’s what works for me and what I’m good at. But doubtless what I have to share will spark ideas and discussion, and all it takes is one good idea to make you a fortune, one introduction to the right person, right offer, right traffic seller, right traffic buyer, right network, or one “little hinge that swings a big door.”
All of my posts will be leading up to a contest where I will put up some “MONEY to Stack” as a prize for the top 3 ideas for improving the RPM of my internal landing pages. After all, if I can get more clicks, and get them up a few cents per click, then roughly maintain ctr and cpc, then, well, drinks are on me. And you guys who’ve met me in person know I drink the GOOD stuff (the GOOD stuff is what brought Hugh and I together).
Why a contest? The answer is simple: a contest tends to get the competitive juices flowing much more than just a post asking for advice, and everyone likes to win. It gets long term big players involved, but also “newbies” who just discovered the business involved, because you never know when one idea from a different perspective can super charge your business. Some of my best ideas have come from offhand comments by “newbies” who didn’t know any better.
I’ll put up a grand to stack, and first prize (best idea, introduction to key offer, intro to traffic buyer or seller, comment, anything that leads to money) gets $500 to stack, second prize gets $300 to stack, and third prize gets $200 to stack. Best, of course, is you get eternal glory from winning, and one of my favorite things (displayed proudly in the midst of my bourbon collection) is my plaque for being 2014’s STM Contributor of the Year, presented to me in London, by none other than Zeno (David, I still use the iPad 2 and the speakers, btw). See pictures below.
I’ll announce the exact date of the contest at the end of my final article, I’ll post the contest description and rules on that date, and off we’ll go. This will be a contest where everyone wins because the ideas, suggestions, introductions, and discussion will spark ideas and strategies everybody can use, not just me.
This series of articles will be in the general affiliate section, the actual contest opening will be in the contest section.
However, I’m not going to start with hard core marketing strategies, not yet. We’ll get there, but my next post is going to be about my friend Hugh Hancock, a man I only met once in person, yet I felt I’d been friends with for a lifetime. See, forums like STM aren’t only for great marketing ideas, they can often lead to great friendships, bringing people into your life you otherwise wouldn’t meet, people who think like you do.
If you look at the STM home page, you’ll see “caurmen” is still the top thanked STM contributor, even though he sadly and tragically passed away in 2018, close to my age now (48). I was fortunate to enjoy one remarkable night in London with this worldly and hilarious Scotsman of exceptionally good taste, and no matter how well I do with what I learn from STM, that will always be my favorite memory. I’ll share it, along with photos I took from that night, then we’ll get into the marketing. But I think sharing my story about Hugh will lend a better perspective to these articles and to this contest. After all, Hugh very much liked the idea of buying a click once, and reselling it a 1000 times…he told me so over good Scotch.
The photo below, with me in the middle, Hugh to the left, and Zeno to the right is the only photo I have where Hugh and I are together.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, Remembering Hugh Hancock.
Can confirm. Terminally horny guy here. :P
Great post. Your copy is amazing and it shows even in this post. Looking forward to the rest!
Can't wait to see what comes out of this John. I was reading through the 'What's working' guide a few days ago and your interview really resonated with me. Thanks for doing this.
sounds awesome, cant wait
"terminally horny" is too funny! Really excited to follow this along John. Thanks so much for sharing.
many mans especially the 45/60 age are the terminal horny,in my shop know more people like it because they for find every "new" girl must be cool,for be cool must dress nice.
I had an dryclean,for lucky esist this type of person whitout their we closed
The averange "Latin Lover"
dress whit good-high dress
had normally an lux wacht (some also fakes),i know an story of one gift fake wacht to nice girls...
premium sport or suv,some also biker
also whit talking whit more ,many are wine enthusiast
keep fine their hair,many put color or hair transplant
normally are employed public sector or big company whit high position,
some are smoker ,but now also smoker decrease more
this for me is very the key to find their
We are all whit terminal hungry for money ,i work 10-15 hours day i want make money,they stay fine whit their salary every month ,they want only fuck a "new" girl,
The 80% are alone ,but the married had good work and work few or make more business travel
must they go to dryclean 
My english isn't fine but hope to give an my personal view of terminal horny...
Originally Posted by wrench_turner
The first is, it’s a good copywriting phrase. It puts a specific word picture in your mind, merging two concepts (terminal and horny) that are usually unrelated. It’s also somewhat funny and entertaining, but not so much it distracts from the sales message. It gets you into the copy, and makes you want to read more. So, it’s a good, quick easy to remember copywriting lesson.
However the second reason, the concept behind the phrase is much more important. When list building, you want to select an audience you can market to for a long time, one with long term frustrations. Horny guys are “terminal” in their frustration (as you will see when I share survey data in an upcoming article), meaning they will still be frustrated many years after they are on your list. Frustration leads to profit, so picking a market that has LONG TERM frustration (or “irrational passion,” such as the golf market) is important.
An example of a market that is NOT terminally frustrated is the weight loss market (different from the fitness market). When people want to lose weight (usually via diet or fad) they are “in heat” for a brief time, usually a month or so. Now, for this brief time, they will buy EVERYTHING related to weight loss, but soon lose interest since losing weight is hard, dieting sucks, their fat friends want to keep them fat, etc. So while you can list build in that market, understand their frustration is not terminal, and they will lose interest in the topic soon. After a month or two, your list will be essentially worthless, unless you can find a terminal frustration in it. You want lists that last a long time.
Markets with long term passion or interest are the best to list build in. Horny guys will always be horny and frustrated, muscleheads will always want to sell their liver (literally) to gain a half pound of extra muscle, golfers will always want to shave a few strokes off their game, guys who think they need “enhancement” will always be in pain, etc.
So, if you are interested in buying a click once and reselling it thousands of times, think of the word “terminal” i.e. for life. And if you want to remember it via word picture and get a laugh, then think of “terminally horny” guys.
God forbid anyone Google that exact phrase. I, for one, am not brave enough- I just market to them.
Thanks for writing all this, John! Mega strong copy across the board.
One question – is this really your ad and if yes, how did it perform? https://swiped.co/file/couldyouhandle-johnalanis/
Given you're on a roll with sick content, would you also be open to us picking your brains a tiny little bit when it comes to copywriting?
In return, I can promise to jump in your contest and ruthlessly tear apart your inner pages to pieces...given you can handle harsh and direct (but constructive) criticism. (There's always something you can improve design & code-wise no matter how good you are).
As mentioned above, even your post's written in a way you just can't stop reading – any simple, quick tips or "hacks" on writing more persuasively?
But more importantly, how can I write copy faster? Are there any "secrets"... besides years of non-stop practice?
How do you remain funny, entertaining and educating without overthinking your copy as you try to write?
One advice I've heard is to just throw words on the screen, any words, whatever comes to mind, and then attempt to fix it all up later – is this a good approach? How do you write your copy?
(I think I'll stop here because I have probably more than a hundred other questions lined up, lol, no need to reply if you don't feel like it. But perhaps some of the GOOD stuff would change your mind at the conference)
Originally Posted by shishev
http://effortlesscommunication.com/johnalanisad.pdf
Sure, I'm always happy to talk copywriting, and perhaps after this series is done I can do series on copywriting, and a brand new form a pre-sell page I am currently testing. And I always love recommendations for improving internal landing page RPM (will be launching those soon when I announce the contest), especially if they come with someone who can quickly make those changes. Using IamAtilla's Banners and Landers, they do really good, fast work, so perhaps they can follow your recommendations.
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