Earning a living from CPA marketing

[Leif W]

If you don't mind if I ask a question...
From where you are today, what one piece of advice would you provide to yourself from two years ago, that would have the greatest impact to shorten the learning curve in this business?

Biggest mistake I used to make was going offer first and then looking for traffic that would convert it - the longer I am in this game the more I realize that traffic is the key. Master a traffic source, get personal connections with the people who sell it, offers are a dime a dozen.

 

[T J Tutor]

The second photo is your WHM and not your CPanel.

This is your Web Host Manager, a program that allows administrative access to the back end of cPanel.

 

[Rvfamily]

Biggest mistake I used to make was going offer first and then looking for traffic that would convert it - the longer I am in this game the more I realize that traffic is the key. Master a traffic source, get personal connections with the people who sell it, offers are a dime a dozen.

@Leif,

I appreciate the feedback. I hadn't quite thought of it that way. For clarity, what you're saying is develop relationships with the traffic provider (7Search rep, Bing rep, etc.) and as you develop that relationship, you'll be better able to understand your traffic source. Because of this, you will probably have higher conversions and better ROI. The offer doesn't really matter, as there are hundred if not thousands to choose from. You just pick one that best suits that traffic. Is this a correct assessment of your statement?

 

[Rvfamily]

@tjtutor,

Thank you for the insight. I guess I'm having trouble figuring out how to get the individual site set up through the WHM. In my email link from Mocha, they have a link to the domains you create, but I have been, as of yet, unsuccessful in getting those set up. This will be a valuable lesson for me I think.

Here's to your success!

 

[T J Tutor]

@tjtutor,

Thank you for the insight. I guess I'm having trouble figuring out how to get the individual site set up through the WHM. In my email link from Mocha, they have a link to the domains you create, but I have been, as of yet, unsuccessful in getting those set up. This will be a valuable lesson for me I think.

Here's to your success!

You should not be doing this through the WHM, you should be doing this through CPanel. The WHM is for other types of management of your hosting.

 

[Rvfamily]

You should not be doing this through the WHM, you should be doing this through CPanel. The WHM is for other types of management of your hosting.

Well, that would explain a lot! @tjtutor, I can't thank you enough. I have spent hours on this trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. So simple. Well... lessons learned. Baby steps

 

[Leif W]

I appreciate the feedback. I hadn't quite thought of it that way. For clarity, what you're saying is develop relationships with the traffic provider (7Search rep, Bing rep, etc.) and as you develop that relationship, you'll be better able to understand your traffic source. Because of this, you will probably have higher conversions and better ROI. The offer doesn't really matter, as there are hundred if not thousands to choose from. You just pick one that best suits that traffic. Is this a correct assessment of your statement?

Yessir, that is a good recap. On a typical day my Skype and email are hammered by people pushing offers - traffic is the key.

 

[Rvfamily]

Let me preface by saying that what is written below is how, as I understand it, all of this works. If there is anything incorrect here, I would appreciate it if someone would let me know where I am in error. I write much of this, thinking that there are others here trying to get started in CPA who are equally new to the technological side of things. Here is what I've learned in the last few days

Ok, after several days of total frustration I finally got over the hurdle that was the WHM (Web Hosting Management) software interface. I feel like I have a better handle on it now, thanks in large part to @tjtutor and some additional help from Mochahosting support.

The problem was that I didn't understand that WHM is a software set designed to help you manage your hosting (for personal or resellers) space. It has a completely different function from Cpanel, which is the next step down in the digital management hierarchy. You have to create the accounts for Cpanel (websites), within your WMH software GUI. You can have several sites running Cpanel, within your WHM space.

I moved away from the very cost effective VPS hosting I had before because it had no Cpanel or WHM software, and I have no programming/coding skills. For someone like me, I needed the GUI- graphic user interface, to be able to work with it.

So this time, I purchased the larger space with WHM for the admin of the server and Cpanel for the admin behind the website. I believe in some instances the hosting company will set up your websites with Cpanel already set up (not completely sure about that). In my case however, you need to set those up yourself.

In order to do this, you go into your WHM software as shown here to the section called Account Functions and scroll down to the section entitled "Create a New Account":

As you can see, once you've done this, you are able to set up your domain through this page. You simply enter your information and then you will have your website framework created. You still have to go into Cpanel and set up the back end of your website. In my case, I had a free license for Softaculous, but this did not allow me to set up things like WP. I went to Softaculous and purchased the upgraded license to have full access to the app installer (as stated, this is necessary for people without programming/coding skills).

Now it's just getting my DNS servers pointing to the right spot. I have done this before, but for some reason have been having trouble this time.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

After much trial and error, I have finally gotten the nameserver to point to the domain I have set up lindseymarketinggoup.com. However, when I type it in to the address bar, I get this screen:

I am not sure how to get this directed properly. If anyone can provide insight, I would be grateful.

Since I bought the Thrive membership with TCB- Thrive Content Builder, I have the ability to create landing pages easily. I have an idea for a lander in the coupon/freebie vertical.

Question: Can you send a single traffic source (7Search) to a single lander and then direct that traffic to two different offers to see which one converts better?

I will be looking to set up prosper202 for the first time to track conversions for this campaign and I will post here how it goes getting it set up.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[T J Tutor]

After much trial and error, I have finally gotten the nameserver to point to the domain I have set up lindseymarketinggoup.com. However, when I type it in to the address bar, I get this screen:

View attachment 4944

It's because you have installed wordpress into a subfolder of the folder that domain is assigned to.

IMPORTANT: Your primary domain should be installed directly into your public_html folder. Your Addon domains should then be installed into sub-folders as you will see in these images.

Follow these images:

CREATING ADDON DOMAIN FOLDERS AND ADDING THEM TO YOUR HOST THROUGH CPANEL

This is your Domain Manager Page. When you hilite a domain, you can see the details to the right and it includes the name of the folder it is assigned to. You will notice that and Addon Domain shows the folder to which it is assigned.

YOU WILL NOTICE THAT ON THE PRIMARY DOMAIN, IN THE IMAGE BELOW, DOES NOT SHOW A SUB FOLDER. THAT IS BECAUSE ALL OF ITS CONTENTS, FILE, AND FOLDERS ARE DIRECTLY INSERTED INTO THE "public_html" folder.

HERE IS A SNAPSHOT FROM AN FTP FOLDER TREE OF THE PRIMARY FILE AND FOLDER STRUCTURE. YOU WILL NOTICE THE "public_html" FOLDER. YOUR PRIMARY DOMAIN SHOULD BE INSTALLED DIRECTLY INTO THIS FOLDER AND NOT INTO ANY OF IT'S SUB FOLDERS.

THE IMAGE BELOW IS INSIDE YOUR "public_html" FOLDER. ALL OF YOUR PRIMARY DOMAINS FOLDERS AND FILES ARE TO BE LOCATED HERE. IN ADDITION, ALL OF YOUR ADDON DOMAIN FOLDERS ARE LISTED HERE AND YOUR ADDON DOMAINS WILL BE INSIDE EACH OF THEIR RESPECTIVE FOLDERS.

So, your primary domain needs to be installed directly into your "public_html" folder and your addon domain folders are then nested into the "public_html" folder.

 

[Rvfamily]

It's because you have installed wordpress into a subfolder of the folder that domain is assigned to.

IMPORTANT: Your primary domain should be installed directly into your public_html folder. Your Addon domains should then be installed into sub-folders as you will see in these images.

Follow these images:

CREATING ADDON DOMAIN FOLDERS AND ADDING THEM TO YOUR HOST THROUGH CPANEL

This is your Domain Manager Page. When you hilite a domain, you can see the details to the right and it includes the name of the folder it is assigned to. You will notice that and Addon Domain shows the folder to which it is assigned.

YOU WILL NOTICE THAT ON THE PRIMARY DOMAIN, IN THE IMAGE BELOW, DOES NOT SHOW A SUB FOLDER. THAT IS BECAUSE ALL OF ITS CONTENTS, FILE, AND FOLDERS ARE DIRECTLY INSERTED INTO THE "public_html" folder.

HERE IS A SNAPSHOT FROM AN FTP FOLDER TREE OF THE PRIMARY FILE AND FOLDER STRUCTURE. YOU WILL NOTICE THE "public_html" FOLDER. YOUR PRIMARY DOMAIN SHOULD BE INSTALLED DIRECTLY INTO THIS FOLDER AND NOT INTO ANY OF IT'S SUB FOLDERS.

THE IMAGE BELOW IS INSIDE YOUR "public_html" FOLDER. ALL OF YOUR PRIMARY DOMAINS FOLDERS AND FILES ARE TO BE LOCATED HERE. IN ADDITION, ALL OF YOUR ADDON DOMAIN FOLDERS ARE LISTED HERE AND YOUR ADDON DOMAINS WILL BE INSIDE EACH OF THEIR RESPECTIVE FOLDERS.

So, your primary domain needs to be installed directly into your "public_html" folder and your addon domain folders are then nested into the "public_html" folder.

@tjtutor,

Once again, I owe you debt of gratitude for taking the time to help a newbie. I hope I can pay it forward by helping others who are facing the same techie challenges that I have struggled with (as well as the operational challenges). Truly... thanks. I appreciate it.

I have set up WP on my new site, and will have my new landers completed in the next day or two. I'll post them here as soon as they're up and operational. Then I will set up prosper 202 on them and begin my campaign by the end of the week (I was thinking that it would be better to begin the ads for the coupon/freebie vertical on the weekend as that's when that activity is frequently handled and top of mind).

I plan on setting up two different campaigns with different landers and offers from different companies to see which seems to be working better for the traffic source I am working with (7Search).

In addition, I will have my landing page back operational for YT traffic I have been generating and I will provide the details here. I hope to get back to posting things that are more operationally focused and less technologically focused.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

Well after weeks of technical issues, I have been able to:

1. set up my VPS hosting service and get a basic understanding of how WHM UI works
2. set up my website with wordpress and cpanel as the framework and back end; and get a basic understanding of how they work
3. set up Thrive themes and TCB to be able to set up my landing pages for offers

After about an hour on liveperson with the good folks at mochahost.com, I was able to reboot my server so that I had root entry (not quite sure how I screwed that up).

I realize that much of this could have been outsourced with much quicker results. I just want to have an understanding of how it all works, so that I am better able to function in this as a business. The technical side of things is part of the business, as I see it. With an understanding of how it all works, I

In addition, after several days of trying to make filezilla work my host (unsuccessfully I might add), I figured out that you can actually upload files in the "file manager" section of cpanel. It pulls up a separate window for you to work in and in this window (shown below) you can upload plugins or other files you want in your root directory. This enabled me to set up the Thrive Content Builder plugin so that I have a true WYSIWYG editor for the landing pages I'm creating. For some reason, the TCB wouldn't load through the front end of WP. See the image for the steps to upload through your cpanel file manager:

I know this is really basic stuff, but I have read a few post where people said they had no experience with any of this, much like myself before starting. As bad as it sounds, this took me many hours to figure out. I post, in the hopes that any other newbies might save those hours I spent.

It has felt like, with each step, there was some other technical challenge to overcome. Now that I have this done, I can finally focus on the part of the business that creates the revenue. See new landing pages to follow in next post.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[mradjoy]

Ok @Rvfamily, really enjoyed your follow along so far big thumbs up bro. , sorry I came in a bit late to this thread as a new dojo member, I would have love to help you set up those challenging WHM,WP thing as this is what I do everyday, but thank God you'd finally figured it out yourself and with the help of tjtutor and co. The good thing is you're now more confidence than before in doing some tech stuff now.

I am interested and still following this wonderful and educating thread, please keep it flowing.

Success is Sure!

 

[Rvfamily]

Ok @Rvfamily, really enjoyed your follow along so far big thumbs up bro. , sorry I came in a bit late to this thread as a new dojo member, I would have love to help you set up those challenging WHM,WP thing as this is what I do everyday, but thank God you'd finally figured it out yourself and with the help of tjtutor and co. The good thing is you're now more confidence than before in doing some tech stuff now.

I am interested and still following this wonderful and educating thread, please keep it flowing.

Success is Sure!

@mradjoy,

I appreciate you taking the time to read here. My goal really, is to do my best to add value to the community. I'm not sure if this is the side of the business many are interested in seeing threads about (the technical side), but I know from reading many post here that there are a lot of newbies. I must admit, it's not the thing I want most to post about, but if I'm struggling with it, surely there are others in the same boat.

Sorry for the ramble.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

OK, so it's been a while since I have posted the stats from my YT channel. I went a while without a landing page connected to the offer in the description on YT, so I didn't have any traffic to the offer. However, even though a competitor had a few of my videos knocked off, the views and exposure of the channel have continued to grow at a good rate. Here are the stats so far:

Total Channel Views: 12109 total exposures
Total Number of People Who Convert from Landing Page: 23
Total Number of People Who Convert from Sales Page: 5

It's a little disconcerting that I missed a few thousand views where I had no landing page set up, but I guess this is a lesson learned. Have backup/redundancy so that you are protected.

The number of searches for this keyword term, channel and product is on the decline, but I did receive one click through to the landing page today after just getting the link to the lander set up yesterday.

Here is a link to the lander if you want to take a look (or offer some pointers ) Here

Working on the landers for the coupon/freebie offer. Should be able to post those tomorrow.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[crysper]

I congratulate you for not giving up, many newbies give up when they face the technical difficulties of setting up a server, landing pages, etc.

 

[seeqer]

However, even though a competitor had a few of my videos knocked off

Have you try contacting youtube about it? You are not the first person to whom this was done.
This is the form for that ---> YouTube


Also you could put your logo on your video to make it obvious it is yours. Put that logo on your website as well. This is what many youtubers do to protect their videos.

 

[Rvfamily]

Have you try contacting youtube about it? You are not the first person to whom this was done.
This is the form for that ---> YouTube


Also you could put your logo on your video to make it obvious it is yours. Put that logo on your website as well. This is what many youtubers do to protect their videos.

@seeqer

Thanks for sharing. The problem is that like many for this offer, I'm simply using the company's testimonials edited slightly for the videos in my channel. I guess that's part of the deal when you're working like this.

As always,
Here's to your success1

 

[Rvfamily]

Are you taking advantage of what is one of the best aspects of this forum? If you're not reading the archived Experts series, you should be. Here is the link in case you have missed it.

Here

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

This is a bit of a long post. You've been warned I have been working a lot at the regular job, and time has been at a premium. Although this is true, truth be told, it's not the real reason I haven't had anything to post over the last several days. Look, I'm a WYSIWYG kind of guy. My wife says I'm an open book (too open and trusting for her taste sometimes). Because I feel like these are things that many people entering into CPA might deal with, I'll share with you (hope you feel it has relevance and value).

So I finally got access to my YT channel again. After a few weeks without that access, and struggling with learning enough of the technical side of the business to move forward, I finally felt like it was time. I've talked a lot about a paid campaign, and I have even invested some money into 7Search (make sure you take advantage of the bonus they offer to Fix members).

I thought before I create the new paid campaign, I need to go through and re-create my landing page for the offer I had been promoting through my YT channel and then connect it through GetResponse. I could see that there was a decent amount of traffic to the channel, and once I got it all connected I began to see a little trickle to the offer.

I have read in a couple of places that you don't want to have double opt-ins for your landing page/autoresponder because it will reduce your CTR and conversion rate. However, I have had some trouble getting it set up to work properly in a single field. So I just left it as a double opt-in. More on this in a minute.

Once this was done, I found myself struggling internally with how to proceed. I mean, I had created a little (very little) success with the YT channel and the single offer, but nothing outside of that. Like so many, I have been working on a very small budget and I just didn't want to waste the small amount of money I had without making sure I was giving myself the best odds of success. So, for several days, I did nothing except read blogs and forum posts about CPA marketing. I went back to the material from some of the courses I bought, analyzing how to pick the best offer and get started.

I've just been frozen, consumed by fear of losing the small budget I had and feeling like I don't know enough (sound familiar?). This, even though I've been taking action and making small progress.

So what's changed in the last day or two? A couple of things. I was reading through the "Ask the Expert" series, and decided to visit the blogs of some of the experts who were contributing. The first one is Charles Ngo (I've mentioned him above). As I went through his story, and a second article that he linked to, a few things crystallized in my mind.

1. Campaigns can turn on a dime. You can be riding high one day and have things dry up overnight. This can be because of any one of several reasons. The flip side of this is also true. You can be struggling mightily one day and crack the code the next, and find yourself making "dreamed of" money (this of course requires that you keep going, keep learning and keep testing).
2. You can't succeed long term in this business on an island. You've got to network with other affiliates, with your AM's and with your reps from the traffic sources you're using.
3. And finally, you've got to take consistent action. I know, I know, I've mentioned it before. But even when you've been having some success, you can still hit a patch where you have a crisis of confidence.

Through Charles Ngo's blog, I was introduced to the blog of Malan Darras (link to the article that was my kick in the pants). The post is about three types of affiliates (who don't succeed and why). As I read his post, I was struck by my lack of activity over the last week or so (sometimes, to look honestly at yourself in the mirror is both required and hard!). So who are these "marketers" who don't succeed? Are you one of them? They are (quoting directly from his post):

1. The Researcher-
   The Researcher has never launched a campaign. He spends hours per day reading blogs and forums. He’s very active in forums, mainly asking questions.
   He even bought some eBooks and video courses on how to do affiliate marketing but has never used them.
   
2. The Scientist-
   The Scientist did very well in school, he’s very smart. He heard there are a lot of guys that are dumber than him making a lot of money online and thinks he should do it too.
   He will spend the next 4 years developing the perfect scientific formula which he will use on his first campaign – that will never launch.
3. The Quitter- The Quitter really wanted to be an affiliate marketer. He even had a campaign one time. He got everything set up and spent $20 but he didn’t make any sales.

Do any of these sound like you (or me )? In the post, he goes on to describe how he is a person of action and how it has shaped him and allowed him to realize success. He talked about how if he got an idea he took action right then, to see what happened.

In line with the comments of @Leif above, he states that in order to give yourself the best chance of early success, you should pick a traffic source and then ask your AM's what is converting well on that traffic source.

I was inspired. I've already made the deposit with 7Search and have been ready to go. So, I pulled up the contacts for the three Aff networks I've gotten approval to work with and I emailed my AM's to ask them what offers are converting well with their network from 7Search traffic. I'll let you know what they tell me.

To conclude this post, I'll go back to my story about setting up my autoresponder with GetRespose. As I stated, I just left it a double opt-in because I didn't have the time to fix it right then. Since getting my connections back in order and my landing page back online, I've had about 6 visits to the offer from my YT channel.

Previously, I was capturing an email conversion about every other visit and was converting the offer about every third or fourth visit to the landing page. The traffic has seemed slower (perhaps the offer is petering out, not sure), but even though I know I shouldn't hang on such small numbers, I was discouraged that I had only one email conversion (and they were not able to see the offer as they were from France, and I didn't have geotargeting).

As things go though, I went to work this evening and towards the end of the night, noticed I had an email from GetResponse. I quickly pulled up my MB account and saw that I had finally gotten another customer to convert the offer. WooHoo! Hooray for small victories. My stats for the channel are as follows; Total views for the channel- 14147, Total number of people who landed on the landing page- I'm not sure exactly, Total number of people who passed through from the landing page to the offer page- 6 (with two converting the email double opt-in), Total number of sales- 1

In closing I would like to share two small nuggets I've learned recently about landing page design. First, look at the landing page of the offer. Look at the color scheme, design and layout. When putting your page together, using complementary colors and design features can give the two pages a since of congruency that helps build trust.

Second, using colors that create a since of urgency (red for example) can help increase your numbers (CTR and CR). By the way, I had previously changed the color scheme of the landing page to match the offer page and earlier today, I changed the call to action button on my landing page to red. Impossible to know if this was responsible for the conversion, or pure coincidence. Just something to think about.

I took some vacation time next week, so that I can focus on getting my first paid campaigns up and going. I'll post here when I hear back from my AM's to let you know what they say.

Sorry for being long winded in this post, I hope you found value.

As always,
Here's to your success!

P.S. If you are planning to attend the Aff Summit West event in Las Vegas in January, I'd love to hear from you. I am making plans to attend.