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What should I focus on? (18)

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Hey Guys,
I am currently a newbie and I am doing Facebook ads since four months I can say. Before that I was in it like reading blogs and STM about Affiliate Marketing and doing various course so yes I did theoretical stuff for almost 1 and a half year. So my question was that should I only focus on Facebook ads or should I study for Email marketing parallelly too? Like yeah I love doing Facebook ads but my concern is to learn that too. So will it distract me from my main focus which is Facebook or is it okay to do?

I really appreciate your help!!

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As far as email marketing is concerned, i don't see any harm in learning it, infact, most people run FB ads to collect email leads and then convert those email leads to paying customers. And email marketing is no rocket science, it can be learned easily.

Also, whatever you do, just focus on 1 traffic source. There is a saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. Make sure you stick to one thing (FB Ads for now) and not get tempted in trying too many new things.
In my early days, when i was not getting results, i was changing traffic sources every month, and at the end i didn't learn anything and just ended up wasting my time.
So, stick to one thing.

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It's actually not the best time to be focusing on FB now, especially if you're just starting out and choosing a focus.

Ever since the IOS14 privacy policy changes, FB has been scrambling to make its advertising as effective as before those changes took place. Advertisers have been reporting the same issues:

-Difficulty in attributing conversions

-Traffic prices through the roof (which is exacerbated by the typical Q4 competition levels)

-Retargeting has gone to shit - not resulting in nearly the same conversion rates as before

And then there are the usual difficulties since before the IOS changes: Difficulty in getting campaigns approved, accounts prone to getting shut down (especially when running affiliate offers, but even completely "legit" businesses are getting accounts banned), that sort of thing.

So it would definitely be good to have a Plan B. And if possible, try to run from an agency account - you can probably get campaigns approved more easily, and not have to constantly deal with account bans.



Amy

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Hey Amy,
Thanks for the input. When I started first I got my 4 accounts shut down and now I think I am quite stable in relation to accounts. I am currently running CPA offers in India and I am having negative ROI but I have decided that I wont give up on Facebook until I succeed I know that it is quite difficult but though I wanna make it work for me.

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I admire your tenacity! There are many people that are still making FB work, so it's definitely possible!

As long as you're aware of the possible issues and are prepared to figure things out.

Best of luck and do update us on how you get on when you get a chance!


Amy


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums

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Also you said that you were promoting CPA offers in India.
Isn't payout of CPA offer(in India) too low? Also, it's very difficult to sell something in India, because people in India don't like to spend money.

If i am testing an offer, i usually like to start from European countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands. Because these people have lot of money and competition is also low.

But at the end it's your choice. Go with your gut feeling.

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Nordics are amazing markets, NL as well... but I'm not sure about the competition levels being low I guess it's also different from one vertical to the next, but those that I focus on are quite competitive in the mentioned markets. But then again, competition is everywhere, so we need to learn to live with it and adapt

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I know that in India people don't like to spend money and the same I can see on my dashboard. The flow of my offer is quite complex the leads get confirmed when the user says on call that they gonna buy the product. The offer payout is $8 and in this 15 days I got 200+ leads but the confirmation is just 22 leads. So yes, this is what I am struggling with right now. And my concern behind selecting India to promote the offer was because the cost is quite low in third tier countries and also in first tier there are giant affiliates so being a newbie I wanted to spend being in my budget. But yes I am trying hard to make it work.

Also can you guys please suggest me some networks with best offers for second and third tier countries.

If you guys have any suggestions for me then please let me know. It is really appreciated

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How do you like Netherlands? I heard that cost of lead may be very high.
As for me its better start with a cheaper geo ( Not India ofc, but ) and to scale.
Actually if the guy is a newbie - it would be much easier to investigate everything with something smaller than Nordics.
But still these are cool geos!
Feel free to discuss

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Do you guys have any suggestions for newbie to choose geo which can be cheap to start on Facebook

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Eastern Europe can be interesting, there are some high population countries where the clicks aren't that expensive yet. But it also depends on the vertical and current competition levels. Poland worked well for me a few times, Czech republic can be a nice GEO too, Hungary is another one...

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Traffic is not cheap in NL and definitely not in Nordics either... but on the other hand, the lead quality tends to be quite high, especially in countries like Norway or Denmark. So while these GEOs might not be the best choice for a fresh newbie, these markets can be VERY interesting

To give you an example, NL was my best GEO in dating for quite a while... I thought the GEO was too small, but I ended up sending as much as 500 leads per day for quite some time, even more on the best days

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I also had some success with dating in NL and was surprised that this small country can be so worthwhile.

But that was in 2009 or 2010 or so, no idea how it´s nowadays.

NL however was also good for Casino some time ago

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Wow, never seen anyone in the business for that long. People usually have their golden days(in affiliate marketing) and then move on to different businesses or start their own networks.
Just out of curiosity, out of last 12 years, which year has been your best year(in terms of revenue). Or does revenue keeps increasing year on year(everytime)?
Because i am still new to affiliate marketing, and if i were to make this as my career(long term), i want to know how does it plays out.

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I started affiliate marketing even in 2005

To be honest, pushing offers as an affiliate is best for me.

Of course it can be great to start something own or so but when it comes to flexibility and freedom combined with as less responsibility as possible there´s nothing better than promoting affiliate offers.

Seriously, I can´t tell what year was best.

For example I had times where I made up to $1k profit per day with absolutely no work, 100% automated.
The only work I had was to check once a day how much money I made.

That lasted for some time, then it stopped working.
Instead of investing the money to make more I rather stopped working completely for 9 months or so and lived only from my profits.

When the money was gone I sat done and started working again.

I could definitely have made much more money during the months where I took the break but that´s not important for me, I don´t do AM for maximum profits, I do it for maximum freedom.

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Yeah, that is for sure. Actually we are working with other verticals but still average Lead cost is very expensive.
But still traffic looks very potential there, so after several dozens tests it shows not bad performance!

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I registered my first account with an affiliate network at the end of 1998 )

I had my ups and downs too, even total crashes to pretty much $0 revenue... but somehow I always come back Building a company or network isn't for me either, I don't like to be responsible for other people and I value my free time too much to be able to sacrifice it for the sake of growing a company.

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Grandpa of AM

Yup, I also was literally down to $0 from one day to another few times but I always came back stronger then.

That´s probably one of the most important skills you can have when it comes to the good ol´ Adapt or die.

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