Home > The Newbie Zone > Questions and Answers

---

I need a mentor! (12)

---

Hello, I need someone to guide me! I'm willing to pay. I've been wanting to to start affiliate marketing for almost 3 years now. I have a some knowledge but just no idea where to start, like what traffic source do I use?? And other things. I have some money to invest and time to spare and I really hate my job. Thanks!

---

Just curious to know, which job are you doing?

---

What did you try already, what did you read?

What do you plan to promote?

Great, then start to invest the money on traffic and use the time to run campaigns.

Seriously, when you don't even know yet what to run and don't even know what's a good match for you then a mentor probably won't help much.

Read about different traffic types and offer verticals, then get your feet wet and test few things to get an idea what you want to run and what not.

Not every traffic/offer vertical is a good match for everyone equally so when you just ask for a mentor without even knowing what to run you have a good chance to just waste money.

---

Thanks for the reply I have read a lot about everything. Thought about FB but seems like people are moving away from that now.

---

I was thinking about making a website and using Google ads?

---

Sorry for a million different post new to this forum. But what are networks would be effective with direct linking in your opinion?

---

@iamyouyouareme0 - If you just hate your job and want to be self-employed, I'd recommend learning all about Upwork and providing services on it. Vastly easier to replace j.o.b. income as a freelancer than with affiliate marketing.

If your ambitions are loftier than that and you really want to make serious money and really want to get into affiliate marketing (which is definitely a good choice though if that is your goal), then I would do the following:

1) spend several hundred hours reading old threads on STM
2) spent several hundred hours watching YouTube videos on IM
3) select a niche or traffic type you want to master, such as: push ads; native ads; pops; Facebook ads; TikTok: search (Google + Bing); organic traffic via YouTube channel; organic traffic via SEO/website; email marketing; organic social media; etc.
4) spend a bunch of time studying that specific niche
5) write out a 'Business Plan' that details all the steps involved in attempting it;
6) find any paid courses or groups or forums dedicated to that specific niche and join them/get them if they look promising;
7) create a business entity or dedicated 'business' bank account just for it, add money to the account, create excel sheet to track all expenses/revenue
8) execute your plan

You can also add 'Starting a follow-along thread here on STM' to it if you want This is typically extremely helpful for most folks (including me!), but you gotta have an idea of what you want to do first.

I definitely sympathize though, when you're starting out its extremely difficult to determine what path to take... it really takes quite awhile before you can see the forest for the trees and sort of start to understand the online economy and where and how all the money is flowing through everything.

I started researching "how to make money online" back in like 2013 and didn't end up selecting native ads as the niche I would dive into until about five years later... it really does take quite awhile to figure it all out...

At this point though a mentor isn't really going to help you... I think all of us here on STM discourage hiring 'mentors' in general, but especially at your stage, I would at least recommend deciding upon a niche or traffic source first



Edit: One cool trick I'd recommend is to create an account on Flippa, and just scroll through all the online businesses that are for sale. You'll get an incredble education on what kind of real, actual businesses people are running online (content sites, Shopify stores, affiliate marketing, etc), and you'll start to have lots of idea and lots of lightbulb moments like "Oh - I could do that!". Really can't recommend it enough

---

Funny you mentioned Flippa I've actually done that several times I have lots of ideas and I think that's my biggest problem all I do is think all day and never take action thanks a lot that helped a lot. And the only reason why I was considering hiring mentor is because it seems like no one really gives you real information and just tries to sell you something. Just paid for this forum last night and I'll definitely just look around and start actually implementing my ideas until I find my thing. Thanks again!

---

You can do this, but it's a long journey. There will always be a place for content creators in any niche, you just need to figure out what works for you.

People are gaining massive following by posting really crappy videos on TikTok for example, that's an opportunity we never had before. Find a niche, position yourself on social media, build a central blog or website to funnel the eyes to ... easier said than done of course, but that's a model that can work really well.

There are so many thing you can do, but as you said yourself, it's easy to come up with ideas but the hard part is actually developing these

You need to choose something and then focus on it.

---

Thank you!

---

Very cool

And yeah, STM is a gold mine of free info so you're in the right place. You gotta really go back and read old threads though that's where most of the alpha is.

But yeah.. you've piqued my curiosity now and I'm thinking about this myself...

I think if I was starting over and had very little money to invest into it... my top five choices would be:

1) learn Solidity and become a dev in EVM-compatible defi (crypto)
2) sell article-writing services on Upwork while simultaneously starting my own content sites to be monetized with affiliate marketing/ads/selling backlinks, develop a portfolio of "money sites" and "backlink sites" (this is an old strategy but there's always new areas getting search volume you can target)
3) start an anonymous YouTube channel on some boring but lucrative topic like snoring or diabetes or something and monetize with affiliate stuff
4) dive into TikTok ads and try to derive income via an agency model where you run media for other businesses
5) dive into some other traffic source and do something similar.. whether a combination of affiliate+agency in native or push, or twitter ads with agency + consulting (Upwork), or something similar.

There's a ton of other great strategies too though... those are just five that popped into my heads... there's lots of other options in coding/dev stuff, lots of other internet-marketing possibilities, all sorts of things you can do. You are right that the toughest thing is just picking something

I do really like crypto-coding, Upwork(freelancing), and TikTok as 'themes' though, as they are all growing extremely fast. Very good being in a niche that's growing exponentially vs a mature one that's already had its rapid growth in the past.

---

I can help with facebook ads https://www.facebook.com/shubham.chhabra.5817300 let's connect on facebook

---

Home > The Newbie Zone > Questions and Answers