Where To Begin In Affiliate Marketing Right Now? (7)
Hey fellow STM members,
I've been on the forum for a few months now. I see a lot of value in the community built so far. Due to personal time constraints I haven't gotten started in affiliate marketing. I now have some free time and decent sized budgets to get started. I am just confused where I should start considering some guides and tutorials are outdated. Which guide or tutorial would you recommend for getting started at this very time?
I'd love to learn the foundations of picking the right offers and setting up the offer correctly to be able to run it through Facebook, IG & Google ads. Is there any all in one tutorial or guide that helps the beginner get started on picking and promoting products on these platforms?
It's not the Ads holding me back as much as it is picking products and setting them up correctly. I'd love to truly attempt to absorb as much as I can from the forum by executing as opposed to cancelling my subscription because of being lost where to begin and what guides to focus on that will help me now without being worried of consuming outdated information.
Thank you all for your words of advice and guidance in advance. I appreciate everything!
Originally Posted by mansourakbaryar
Here are a couple of guides that may help:
1)Caurmen's dropshipping guide may be slightly outdated in terms of
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...merce-Cookbook
Dropshipping hasn't really changed since a couple years ago which is why "older" guides are still relevant. Of course covid has thrown a wrench into things, so make sure the delivery times are acceptable before promoting a product. Point is: Don't let the date of the guide turn you off from learning the basics!
2)For FB ads here's a solid guide for beginners: https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...inner-Tutorial
In terms of set up and business models:
1)Website:
2)Storefront vs. Individual Product Site: You can have a store with multiple products, or a site that promotes one product only - as was described in this post:
I would suggest to set up a storefront and start adding and testing products. Then take each profitable product and start individual sites for each, with a great sales letter and/or VSL.
2)Dropshipping: Aliexpress and/or udroppy and/or a slew of other dropshipping alternatives, e.g. https://www.abetterlemonadestand.com...-alternatives/
Yes dropshipping is still alive and kicking! And even if you don't want dropshipping to be your main business model, it's the fastest and cheapest way to test a product. Takes all of 2 minutes to add a product to your store, then set up some ads and start driving traffic.
And for products that are profitable, you can do your math and decide whether it'd make sense to source them directly from the manufacturer.
3)Sourcing from the manufacturer: Alibaba is a start but there are so many alternatives, e.g. https://www.smart-minded.com/en/busi...-alternatives/
I would suggest to order samples from different manufacturers so you can evaluate the quality. All products look good in images - if you don't want a lot of customer complaints (which can seriously affect your FB account quality), ordering samples first would be wise.
There's something else to consider now: Where would you store the products, and how will you ship them?
4)Storage and fulfillment - a few options:
-In the beginning, if you don't mind the hassle, you can probably store the goods in your basement or garage, and make trips to your local post office. But when you're selling higher volumes and/or multiple products, you'd probably need to consider other alternatives.
-You can look into local fulfillment services that can receive and store your goods sent by the manufacturer, then package and ship your goods to customers. I live in Canada and haven't been able to find anything that doesn't cost an arm/leg unless you're doing high volumes. You may have better luck where you live. Ask for quotes.
-Or you can consider FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) if it's available where you live. Prices can be cheaper, plus shipping is fast. And if you list the products on amazon as well, you can tap into free traffic from amazon's existing customer base.
5)You can also just run ecom CPA offers. You'll find many recommendations for affiliate networks that have an ecom focus in this post (and the links therein): https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post408826
As for product selection: I would suggest to pick a NICHE first. An audience that share a common need or pain point, that are willing to spend money to satisfy that need or remove that pain.
Setting up a general store to sell anything under the sun can be good in the beginning, when you're still testing products. But once you find a good niche audience, setting up a niche store (or multiple individual-product websites in the same niche) will give you massive advantage, as you'll be able to sell multiple products to the same audience (by retargeting them on FB, sending them emails, etc.)
Also: Audience research is KEY. Do this right, and product selection will be a lot easier.
Find out where your audience hangs out - join a few relevant FB groups, niche forums if you can find them. See what kinds of products they need, what they like/dislike about those products. See what language they're using. See what age group and gender they belong in.
Go to amazon and check out relevant products and read the reviews to deepen your understanding of your audience and what they need/want.
You can then take all of this intel and work it into your salespage and ads.
Here's a small example on how to do audience research:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post408396
I also gave tips in the FB newbie tutorial linked to above.
That's it in a nutshell! I'm not an ecom expert by any means, but do have some experience. Please feel free to continue the discussion.
Amy
Hello Amy,
I appreciate your timely response and guidance. I would definitely like to get started with e-commerce as I have been looking into the different business models as much as possible myself as well. I will check out every single source you have linked to here. I think you have a great point in not letting the date of guides influence learning the basics, I appreciate that.
Also appreciate you giving such a thorough guidance and break down of all the important components of the drop shipping business model to pay attention to. I plan to dive into all of this and get started as soon as I identify some of the critical things such as audience research, niche research, product research before attempting to launch stores. I will be in touch if I have questions or obstacles upon diving into it. Thanks so much!
As much as ecommerce is appealing to me, I have personally loved the affiliate marketing model for a long time too. I would love to hear from an expert such as yourself where you would recommend to get started during 2020 for this space as well.
Are any of the onboarding guides particularly better to focus on now? Are any too outdated in your opinion? And is it still recommended to get started with push traffic first before attempting to transition into doing affiliate marketing with facebook and google etc?
Thanks so much once again. I look up to the whole affiliate community as I spend a lot of time consuming affiliate world YouTube videos as well and hope to continue taking value from this community to be able to provide it in return and help guide others just like yourself!
Regards,
Mansour Akbaryar
Originally Posted by mansourakbaryar
So - you want to explore affiliate offers too - noted.
For FB - they've gone bat-shit crazy in banning accounts. I'd be very careful about promoting affiliate offers there. I talked about some of the issues with affiliate offers in this post:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l-Introduction
(Please scroll down to the "Affiliate Links" section.)
As for affiliate offers that are suitable for promoting on FB: I've already mentioned ecom CPA offers - so that would be one possibility. Very whitehat and "legit" lead gen offers would be another possibility - stuff like life insurance and car insurance etc. etc. I heard from a veteran member a few days back that he's been running such offers stably for some time, and planning on writing some posts on STM to reveal how he's been doing it. I would definitely suggest to keep my eyes open for those!
These days though, with FB getting more aggressive as ever on banning accounts, I may even go as far as to suggest to stay away from running affiliate offers on FB altogether if you don't know what you're doing.
It would seem that having an actual ecom store or product (NOT an ecom CPA offers with affiliate links) or a legitimate service may be the safest business models to promote on FB. And the sad thing is that even the most legit/whitehat of businesses are not immuned from bans - but at least your chances of winning all the account ban appeals would be high.
Doesn't mean you don't have a part of your that dies inside every time you get an account ban, but yeah - at least you know your chances of getting the account back are good.
For Google - AFAIK they're more lenient when it comes to affiliate offers. So if affiliate offers are what you want to test, between FB and Google I'd suggest Google.
If you're wanting to stick with FB and google, you don't really need to go through the 40-day tutorial. I've linked to my FB newbie guide above. We don't have a good guide on google yet and although I have plans to write one I don't have an ETA. So if you're eager to start running google ads you may need to look elsewhere (or, do some experimentation yourself and read the best threads in the PPC subforum).
Pop and push are still exciting - people are still making money although the easy times are over. Not much thought goes into creatives or targeting or audience research. It's basically a game of ripping landers and improving/innovating on them, and then testing massive amounts of offers, and investing on cutting placements on multiple traffic sources so that you can scale winners quickly before they die. Relatively simple and you get up and running in a very short time. But I don't see it turning into a long-term business or an asset that you can sell down the road. And sooner or later you'll suffer from burn-out, from having to constantly test new stuff to find the next profits before current profits die. So - pros and cons. Depends on what you're looking for.
Native - AFAIK a lot of people are making a killing. Running affiliate offers is definitely not a problem (compared to FB) and you may be able to get away with slightly aggressive/misleading angles (depending on the network). Good choice if you have the money required. To minimize the amount of money you have to burn, I'd suggest sticking with low-payout offers (like the type I was running in my Outbrain case study).
Again - that's about it in the nutshell! Please feel free to continue the discussion!
Amy
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...n-2020-results
The other post he made on what kinds of verticals are working on FB is very much worth a read as well:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...choose-in-2021
Amy
Hi Amy,
I really appreciate your advice and input on affiliate marketing with Facebook vs Google. Thanks for your guidance on everything as I have begun the research process in hopes to follow through 2021 with some successes after executing, whether it be e-commerce or affiliate based ventures. I will be in touch with any further questions or concerns upon getting started and testing.
I'm excited to dive into these posts from yesterday. Please be well. Truly appreciate your responses and helping out community members such as myself!
Regards,
Mansour Akbaryar
Originally Posted by mansourakbaryar
And thanks for the well wishes - I'm always well because I can't help anyone unless I am, so it's always my top priority.
Amy
Home > Questions and Answers > General Questions