[Newbie] What would you do if you were me? (6)
Hi - complete affiliate marketing newbie here from New Zealand - but not completely new to the online marketing space.
Right now, I've got a few different skillsets I think would be useful when getting started - namely being:
- Email marketing - I have a lot of email experience, especially in the eCommerce supplement space. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with list building (I work with clients who already have lists and want to get more out of them).
- Direct response copywriting
- Some basic knowledge on making landers, creatives, funnels etc.
Budget: $1k - $1.5k per month to start - would like to focus more on paid traffic as I don't have the time to make free traffic work (I work full-time as an email marketing freelancer).
Traffic sources I am currently debating on: Facebook vs. Native traffic (would love to do Push, but since it might become redundant in Feb, I'm hesitant to start here). I like the idea of native, but afraid I will burn through my budget way too quickly
Verticals I'm looking at: White Hat Lead Gen (like finance, mortgage etc.) or Nutra (but the latter would box me into native I think? FB is just way too strict with their policies for me to want to run nutra there).
- In particular, I have a lot of interest in the growing CBD space as I think it's a legit solution for a lot of people
- I don't have much exp on lead gen, but it seems like a good fit with FB. Nutra / health / diet space I already have a lot of experience selling products in that space there.
So the main question is - if you were me with this budget and skillset, where would you start?
I'm open to all suggestions and ideas! Feel free to ignore the traffic sources / verticals I'm thinking about if you have a different suggestion! Atm I want to focus on building experience and the skillsets needed - so I'm not deadset on any of these preferences. The only thing that would be non-flexible would be budget.
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P.S. Right now, I'm going through all the threads on STM and reading the "What's working in 2019" PDF guide - really good stuff!
P.P.S. I'm super excited to get started ASAP and starting my own "follow-along" post - thanks for reading!
Welcome to STM @musicas!
Looks like you're already armed with plenty of skills that will make your journey pretty smooth. 
With your current experience and skill-set you can easily start promoting eCom offers on either Facebook, Native or both. While running these type of campaigns, you can start collecting push subscribers right from your lander, then re-market them though your push subscription list to maximize your conversions and revenue.
Another option would be to use start building your own email database, then promote whatever products you'd like to your mailing list without having to worry about aggressive angles and stuff.
Looking forward to your follow along!
Welcome!
If I were you, the fast track would be to partner up with someone on a project and split everything. Ideally someone with a differing skillset, eg someone who has their own ecom product and some media buying experience, but needs help with copy, doing email, etc
Email is such a big chunk if done right, so that's a big skillset to bring to the table and manage that aspect.
Short of that, whitehat ecom offers and leadgen are a good place to start, leadgen in particular since it's easier to convert in most cases and it's easier to optimize based off ten $10 conversions than one $100 as an example.
Hi @musicas and welcome to the forum!
You have a set of valuable skills! Can definitely get somewhere if you put in the time and money. With income from your current work you're not under pressure to make this new venture work by a certain date, which really helps.
A lot of great advice has been given already. I think that with your email experience, it wouldn't be a long stretch for you to learn how to build a list.
Facebook can be a good place to do that.
You can target your specific audience on FB and send them to an opt-in page on your site where you offer an incentive for people to opt-in, then do your email marketing.
You could even just run lead gen ads on FB and collect those leads right on FB, and send them to your email service to add them to your list.
As to what incentive to offer them: An ebook with valuable content is the most common example. For inspiration, browse sites in your niche, sign up to THEIR lists to get their incentives, then offer something similar. You can even wait a few weeks to collect all the emails you get from them, and model yours after those.
White Hat Lead Gen (like finance, mortgage etc.) can also work well on FB. If you develop an FB page for homeowners for example, and gather pixel data for homeowners, you can push all kinds of offers at them. Mortgage, home warranty, refinance, windows and roofing, pest control, solar...etc. If you build out a solid website to look like a genuine business, and spend time posting content to and building followers for the FB page, FB may let your ad accounts live long enough for you to make good money.
I'm actually working on an FB tutorial where I'll lay out an example on how to do lead gen. ETA = a month from now hopefully. So if you're interested please stay tuned!
The problem with FB though is that you'll likely need to know where to get ad accounts. Nowadays even if you run 100% whitehat you could still lose accounts. You can start with your own ad accounts and worry about additional ones later though.
Push would work too - everyone's hoping the browser update won't affect things too much, but we shall see won't we?
Native - too expensive for your budget.
Hopefully we've given you enough options to choose from! Have fun!
Amy
Thank you for the warm welcome!
@platinum - yup, definitely planning to make use of email marketing
@thedudeabides - yes, for sure looking to work on lead-gen. Not too interested in partnering with someone for eCom (as I already do this with my eCom email clients) - but definitely would be interested in partnering up with someone with media buying exp to work together on lead gen!
@vortex - thanks for the warm welcome! I've already gotten tons of value from your posts Atm I am working on a simple funnel that goes FB ad -> a simple optin quiz -> send to offer on thank you page. Do people still do lead gen with free eBook offers?
I know in the physical products space, most people prefer to build their lists with buyers (so ads go straight to sale). Otherwise there's cash flow problems, not knowing instantly what a customer is worth etc. But not super familiar with lead gen! From what I've seen so far through spy tools, most people seem to be doing Ad -> advertorial + zip code qualifier -> lead gen offers. Or I've also seen Ad -> listicle with multiple lead gen offers. Not sure which will work for me, so I'm going just test both!
Really looking forward to your FB lead gen guide too.
In terms of ad accounts, I'll just be using my personal one. I've also got a few "unused" accounts that I got from my family, so hopefully that will last long enough for me to learn the ropes.
Thank you for all the tips!
I know in the physical products space, most people prefer to build their lists with buyers (so ads go straight to sale). Otherwise there's cash flow problems, not knowing instantly what a customer is worth etc. But not super familiar with lead gen! From what I've seen so far through spy tools, most people seem to be doing Ad -> advertorial + zip code qualifier -> lead gen offers. Or I've also seen Ad -> listicle with multiple lead gen offers. Not sure which will work for me, so I'm going just test both!
Really looking forward to your FB lead gen guide too.
In terms of ad accounts, I'll just be using my personal one. I've also got a few "unused" accounts that I got from my family, so hopefully that will last long enough for me to learn the ropes.
Yes people still do lead gen with free ebook offers! All free ebooks aren't made the same and the quality can matter a lot. If it contains information your target audience really wants and needs, it shouldn't be hard to "sell" them in ads to get signups.
But signups are only the first part. Monetizing your list would be another beast. This is where I see some people fail: They'd get a ton of signups but no sales. Make sure that the type of audience that would be interested in the ebook is the one and the same audience that would be interested in the products/services you're planning to push in the backend.
If you run compliant, and actively appeal deactivated accounts, your few accounts can get you far. I've just posted some tips on how to stay compliant, which may help:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...B-Account-Bans
That FB tutorial of mine will only be a beginner's tutorial.
Hopefully by the time it comes out, you'll already by way beyond that level of knowledge. I love your zeal for testing - that attitude will get you far.Do let us know how you get on!
Amy
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