Ask Me Anything Affiliate Turned CEO $20M+ Generated

[Blackfoxio]

Hey Guys,
Feel free to ask me anything regarding affiliate marketing.

A little background on me -
I'm founder and CEO of blackfox media group.
I started as an affiliate back in 2007. Dabbled in many many industries.
Promoted every and anything you can pretty much think about. Only vertical I never did much volume in is adult.

I'll try to answer as many and as much questions I can with the little time I have during the day.

 

[T J Tutor]

Hey Guys,
Feel free to ask me anything regarding affiliate marketing.

A little background on me -
I'm founder and CEO of blackfox media group.
I started as an affiliate back in 2007. Dabbled in many many industries.
Promoted every and anything you can pretty much think about. Only vertical I never did much volume in is adult.

I'll try to answer as many and as much questions I can with the little time I have during the day.

Always great to have the reps offering up their respective expertise. Looking forward to your posts.

 

[mobile99]

So you own an affiliate network?
How do your top affiliates promote your offers? What traffic sources do they use?

Which is the best way to make money? Affiliate, advertiser, or affiliate network?
Is it hard to start an affiliate network?

Is 20M+ revenue or profit? There's a big difference. A lot of people just mention revenue, which is useless. What matters is how much you actually have in your bank account.

How much money do you need to get started for each?
Affiliate:
Advertiser:
Affiliate network:

If you're an affiliate, which traffic source do you recommend starting with? high income potential and not saturated/hard.
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Media Buying
Mobile
Adult
Native ads

 

[T J Tutor]

So you own an affiliate network?
How do your top affiliates promote your offers? What traffic sources do they use?

Which is the best way to make money? Affiliate, advertiser, or affiliate network?
Is it hard to start an affiliate network?

Is 20M+ revenue or profit? There's a big difference. A lot of people just mention revenue, which is useless. What matters is how much you actually have in your bank account.

How much money do you need to get started for each?
Affiliate:
Advertiser:
Affiliate network:

If you're an affiliate, which traffic source do you recommend starting with? high income potential and not saturated/hard.
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Media Buying
Mobile
Adult
Native ads

Damn! You want @Blackfoxio to write a book?

 

[mobile99]

Damn! You want @Blackfoxio to write a book?

umm no.

Other people probably have similar questions too. So OP's also answering other people's questions.

OP said ask anything and answer as many questions as he can...

 

[T J Tutor]

umm no.

Other people probably have similar questions too. So OP's also answering other people's questions.

OP said ask anything and answer as many questions as he can...

Not complaining, just never saw all those questions asked in one post. Be patient, the real answers could each easily be a chapter of a book on there own. It is a lot of material to write.

 

[Blackfoxio]

So you own an affiliate network?
How do your top affiliates promote your offers? What traffic sources do they use?

Which is the best way to make money? Affiliate, advertiser, or affiliate network?
Is it hard to start an affiliate network?

Is 20M+ revenue or profit? There's a big difference. A lot of people just mention revenue, which is useless. What matters is how much you actually have in your bank account.

How much money do you need to get started for each?
Affiliate:
Advertiser:
Affiliate network:

If you're an affiliate, which traffic source do you recommend starting with? high income potential and not saturated/hard.
Google Adwords
Facebook Ads
Media Buying
Mobile
Adult
Native ads

Yes, I own an affiliate network its part of my advertising empire.
How they promote and what sources they use I cannot reveal I respect all of my affiliates and at the same time won't share there trade secrets.

Regarding best way to make money it literally comes down to how much time and capital you have to invest.
Affiliate is by far the easiest way to get started. Being an advertiser is more profitable however but takes time to start plus requires a significant amount of upfront capital to get started based on the business your in. Being an affiliate in my opinion is the best way to start not because of how easy it is to enter but of the core skill sets you learn.

Starting an affiliate network is not hard. Building a team, scaling up and mitigating risks are.
$20M Profit.

How much money do you need to get started for each?
Affiliate: Depends on the offer we have a ton of publishers who start with $100 on $.50 app install offers and scale up.
Advertiser: If it's a physical product I'd say around $25k to be safe if its digital could be around $5k unless your building a SaaS.
Affiliate network: Not 100% sure but I started this with $1M in the bank.

Each one of these traffic source is a different beast. From my experience
Google Adwords - its great if your landing page is compliant, and your product or commission is above $45. Takes time and money to find winning placements.
Facebook Ads - getting harder since there now more restrictive on what you can run. Seeing a great amount of clean campaigns being ran in the gaming vertical.
Media Buying - this works for everything but I wouldn't advise a new affiliate to start here.
Mobile - Another great source to get started on sweepstakes and app installs.
Adult - haven't dabbled to much in here but quality is what adv is always looking for supplements, dating offers and biz op seem to do best here.
Native ads - native ads are by far the best source for running lead gen camps (insurance, finance, etc)

 

[Blackfoxio]

Damn! You want @Blackfoxio to write a book?

haha soon!
Just noticed your in Syracuse, we're actually located in queens ny but have some employees in Albany.
I hear this winter is gonna be tough.

 

[T J Tutor]

haha soon!
Just noticed your in Syracuse, we're actually located in queens ny but have some employees in Albany.
I hear this winter is gonna be tough.

Yeah, I've heard the same from several sources. Even the geese are leaving early. Bundle up brother!

 

[mobile99]

Just to be clear...You started in 2007 and have made 20M+ so far. So you make 2-3 million per year?
How much of 20M from affiliate and how much from affiliate network?

I wasn't asking you to reveal your affiliates' campaigns. Just general info like do your top affiliates do facebook ads or mobile?

I don't like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads because they are very restrictive on what you can run. Adult is very saturated and I'm not sure if I like dealing with porn stuff...So I'm left with media buying, mobile and native ads.

Which one has high earning potential and not very hard to get into? How much money do you need to get started for each? What is everyone doing nowadays?

For media buying, I know sitescout, appnexus, etc. I think you need at least a few thousands and there's a risk of losing all your money if you don't know what you're doing.
For mobile, I know decisive, buzzcity, etc. Mobile can be a little confusing and you have to deal with a lot more stuff. Low payout offers so you don't need a lot of money to get enough data.
For native ads, I know taboola, outbrain, etc. Since you are running high payout lead gen offers, don't you need more money to get enough data?

What's the difference between banner ads and native ads? I think they both appear on the same types of websites. Banner ads standout because they look like ads, while native ads blend in with the website and look like website content.

 

[T J Tutor]

BTW everyone $M is measuring thousands and $MM is measuring millions. Just an FYI for clarification.

 

[mobile99]

A few more questions if you don't mind. Looks like I'm the only person asking you questions...So other people probably have similar questions.

Can you give us a step by step process of how you would launch your affiliate campaigns?
ex: go to affiliate network and find an offer to promote. do some research. create ads and landing pages. create facebook and mobile campaigns. run for a few days to get data. then make changes to get them profitable.

How is your business setup? LLC, S-Corp?
How do most people in this industry do their taxes...turbotax, accountant? pay yourself a reasonable salary and the rest as distributions?

Can you make a list of your monthly expenses? hosting, tracking, traffic, etc

What niches are your top offers in?

Since you've been in this industry for a while and most likely know a lot of people, can you share some numbers of how much people make? Just some examples for inspiration and what's possible. How much do top affiliates, networks and advertisers make?

 

[Til]

Very specific question and a few sub questions if we may call them like that:

1. Im running a mobile campaign on ZeroPark - PIN submit (pops). On friday I had 6 conversions, but now the conversions dropped to 0, everything is pretty much the same. What would you suggest? To burn some more money?

1.1. What do you think it would be the next PIN submit offer? (in the meaning of Whatsapp wallpapers was a trend, download now, antivirus etc.) is there anything to keep an eye on?

1.2. What would you suggest for running PIN submit offers? Traffic source? Landing pages? Offers? etc.

2. If today you are an entry affiliate with all the industry knowledge you gathered. What would you do?

 

[Eywow]

Hey Guys,
Feel free to ask me anything regarding affiliate marketing.

A little background on me -
I'm founder and CEO of blackfox media group.
I started as an affiliate back in 2007. Dabbled in many many industries.
Promoted every and anything you can pretty much think about. Only vertical I never did much volume in is adult.

I'll try to answer as many and as much questions I can with the little time I have during the day.

Hey,

we are a new content ad network, and we are currently looking for new publishers. Where do you advertise to attract new publishers? We are already using Adwords, but we are also searching for other websites and forums to advertise.

 

[LoneWolf]

*popcorn*

Yes, I own an affiliate network its part of my advertising empire.

*popcorn*

 

[Blackfoxio]

A few more questions if you don't mind. Looks like I'm the only person asking you questions...So other people probably have similar questions.

Can you give us a step by step process of how you would launch your affiliate campaigns?
ex: go to affiliate network and find an offer to promote. do some research. create ads and landing pages. create facebook and mobile campaigns. run for a few days to get data. then make changes to get them profitable.

How is your business setup? LLC, S-Corp?
How do most people in this industry do their taxes...turbotax, accountant? pay yourself a reasonable salary and the rest as distributions?

Can you make a list of your monthly expenses? hosting, tracking, traffic, etc

What niches are your top offers in?

Since you've been in this industry for a while and most likely know a lot of people, can you share some numbers of how much people make? Just some examples for inspiration and what's possible. How much do top affiliates, networks and advertisers make?

Hey Mobile99,
Just got your message.

How to launch a campaign assuming you've selected an offer -
1. Do research to find similar campaigns within the same vertical to see what kind of keywords, landers, or ads in general are being used.

2. After you've done your due diligence, select the most appropriate source. Don't give up to soon as you'll need to spend money to gather data otherwise known as statistical significance. Once you've found winning placements you'll want to test different banners and landers to achieve the best ROI.

3. Don't launch the same campaign on 10 different sources, don't test a million different landing pages before you've found winning placements, and don't get comfortable once you find a winning campaign then go on to test on different sources or a new offer altogether.

Business wise I suggest you speak to an attorney to see what's the best setup for your needs.

Top offers for us usually fall under app installs, lead gen and then health and diet.

I don't really see how sharing numbers of what others make is relevant. It's not the numbers you should be focusing on but the process.

 

[Blackfoxio]

1. First you need to analyze the source. Being that pops are mainly disruptive advertising the question is does your lander fall under a mass appeal angle?
Conversion rates always fluctuate especially over weekends. What I would do is keep the bid the same for 2 weeks to see how it performs. By week 3 you should have more data on to what times to increase/decrease bid and what days to run.

1.1. Pin Submits are here to stay 99% of the time its all the same product just different landers. Regarding what'll be next keep an eye on companies in the social space that are growing tremendously such as snapchat and etc.

1.2. Pin subs work really good on FB the only issue is trying to get it approved. Aside from that I've seen direct navigation and popunders do alright.

2. First thing I'd do is find a campaign with mass appeal, create some angles, spend some money on testing, and optimize.

Very specific question and a few sub questions if we may call them like that:

1. Im running a mobile campaign on ZeroPark - PIN submit (pops). On friday I had 6 conversions, but now the conversions dropped to 0, everything is pretty much the same. What would you suggest? To burn some more money?

1.1. What do you think it would be the next PIN submit offer? (in the meaning of Whatsapp wallpapers was a trend, download now, antivirus etc.) is there anything to keep an eye on?

1.2. What would you suggest for running PIN submit offers? Traffic source? Landing pages? Offers? etc.

2. If today you are an entry affiliate with all the industry knowledge you gathered. What would you do?

 

[andree]

BTW everyone $M is measuring thousands and $MM is measuring millions. Just an FYI for clarification.

So that means he started his Affiliate network biz with only $1000?

 

[T J Tutor]

So that means he started his Affiliate network biz with only $1000?

I'm not doing anyone's math for them. I was simply pointing out that many members seem to think that "M" represents millions when in fact mathematically "MM" represents millions.

MM is a pretty standard abbreviation for Million in some parts of the world. It comes from Latin "Mille" meaning "thousand", so MM is a "thousand thousands" which equals one million. It is often not accepted in some countries and as well in some industries. It has been credited for its' common use to the engineering, mechanical, and wall street shorthands t represent a million.

 

[Blackfoxio]

I'm not doing anyone's math for them. I was simply pointing out that many members seem to think that "M" represents millions when in fact mathematically "MM" represents millions.

MM is a pretty standard abbreviation for Million in some parts of the world. It comes from Latin "Mille" meaning "thousand", so MM is a "thousand thousands" which equals one million. It is often not accepted in some countries and as well in some industries. It has been credited for its' common use to the engineering, mechanical, and wall street shorthands t represent a million.

TJ is right. In the way I'm using it, it's grammatically wrong but I'm referring to millions.