From rags to riches (or something without holes)

[ContraAl]

'lo all!
This is a story about two people who really had some success working the corporate machine. We both worked for Fortune 100 companies, she managed customer service for Europe, Asia and South Africa and I developed and managed enterprise solutions in the financial sector. Like everyone else, fell victim to a monster called "Project Compass". The basis of the project is to rotate the workforce, and well... we got rotated. but I digress.
Dusting ourselves off, we came up with a plan! Find a way to survive and not give the corporate bean counters the power to dictate our future! She owns the business and I do the tech work. (Not quite sure how that happened)

Here you are on the ground floor of our story. Thanks for taking the journey with us.

 

[ContraAl]

Okay, so here's what I have. 10 domain names, hosting, wordpress (for link masking), 2 mobile landing pages, accounts for click traffic and a few instagram accts.

I'm looking at working mobile installs. I have an application in with Peerfly but I haven't heard back yet. (fingers crossed)

YeahMobi and AppFlood, any preference?

 

[biztime]

Both are good networks but i prefer Yeahmobi.
BTW will u be using voluum to track or a self-hosted tracker??

 

[ContraAl]

Voluum looks like a good solution but I don't have the volume to justify it yet.

Application in at YeahMobi. Just waiting for the call now..

 

[ContraAl]

Well, it's been an interesting weekend. I signed up for Instapage and created a shiny new lander! I can't wait to see how it does. Also, an interesting thing that I found out is that Instagram does not appreciate growth spurts. That's okay though, go big or go home!

To: any mobile gurus out there
Have you had better luck including videos on mobile landers? How about videos on autoplay?

 

[djcrunk]

Hey there @ContraAl welcome to the forum brother

Is freakishly awesome to meet somebody fresh out of the rat race heh. Hope you have a great time while you learn and apply some mobile marketing knowledge bombs to your business along with your partner. Very brave of you to do so. I know it ain't easy.

But honestly all I miss from working for a big corporation is wearing a suit as I do look dashing in one ... or so grandma says at least.

You'll find that being an affiliate is more like being a one man startup though (or 1 man/1 woman in this case). Unlike huge companies where every job is highly specific with tight boundaries. Here you'll have to put on many hats... designer, coder, marketing, PR., you gotta learn a little bit of all and fast. This is basically performance digital marketing... for mobile... of sorts. So it can be highly technical, but I bet that won't be a challenge to you at all given your background. Man, I'm a law major and I do alright. A lawyer is basically a sleazy salesman with a better tie lol.

Honestly I recommend you to focus on the TRACKING part before anything else, cause what you can't measure you can't improve, and this is painfully true (plus stupidly expensive) when it comes to mobile marketing. Before you ever worry about landing pages, fast cloud servers, fancy creatives and whatnot.

Feel free to contact me by PM if you need some advice, tips or simply exchange war stories, heh, I guess I do miss the watercooler talk after all.

Cheers and best of luck mate.

 

[ContraAl]

Ah ha! Another survivor from the Land of the Monkey Suits! The next time I plan on wearing one is in my coffin.

So, here's where I am today. I've run two mobile campaigns so far. The first one was a disaster. 400 impressions/0 conversions and I ended it early because the lander had compatibility issues. Not surprising since it was hand coded (boy are my web design skills rusty).

Lesson learned: coding skills = use it or lose it. Also, Triple check landers on target device.

As it sits right now, I tweaked my last attempt and it looks like 39 clicks/2 sold/ 5.1% conversion. I don't think those numbers are correct because 235 impressions were delivered.

So, I found a WYSIWYG site builder and got much cleaner results for a lander. This may be a hard test because I'm low man on the totem pole fighting for US traffic. No problem though as this will change when I get accepted on a network.

 

[ContraAl]

Oh my.. Busy weekend! My two test campaigns completed. Final result = owned. My creatives lacked creativity and I was fighting in the toughest market. That's okay though (since I didn't have much to work with). I've done a bunch a reading and got a few hurdles out of the way.

Voluum set up - done.
Tracking domain - done.
Applied to 3 networks - I think 2/3 were solid apps, the third I think I screwed up on. We'll see

 

[ContraAl]

Success! Got past the network hurdle a few days ago. Although, it's sort of like being at Disneyland for the 1st time. AKKK!! The land of opportunity and the eyes are glazing over. So may shiny things to choose from... Where to start... I find myself smack right in the middle of the Dilemma of Choice. My background tells me the path out of this situation is to find the middle and jump!

Geronimo!!!

 

[ContraAl]

umph.. Well, I jumped. Fell down. Jumped another direction. Fell down. 6 times .

I'm beginning to figure out a few things. This business is very silo oriented. (Networks, traffic sources, offers, trackers) The one thing that all of these things have in common is a lack of documentation for their own product. All of them doing their own thing. It's like trying to build a car made out of 100% aftermarket parts.

One of my Areas of Responsibility at my prison gig (corporate job) was to do end to end documentation for my enterprise products. All I have to say is if someone wants to streamline or document their process/site, PM me.

Tomorrow I going to be a busy day, lots of calls to make.

 

[crysper]

Good luck mate, I'll follow your journey. The key to succeed in this space is PERSISTENCE. Only those 2% who are persistent and don't let the small failures beat them down will succeed. I know it sounds cheesy but that's the truth.

 

[ContraAl]

Well, it's been a long week. Besides 'taking action', the next underlying advice is to master a single thing before expanding. This a very counter intuitive for me as my training has always been 'get exposure to all to see the big picture'. I've buckled down and committed to a single method. The parts are fitting together and I'm see what pieces need attention.

My motivation (name the movie)

 

[azgold]

My motivation (name the movie)

Sounds like Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

 

[ContraAl]

Winner! @azgold nailed it.

 

[ContraAl]

Damn.. It's like I'm back in school again. A quick self-evaluation is revealing that my old habits are bubbling to the top. I'm a perfectionist clutterer which is a behavior that I learned doing automotive electronics on a 100% commission basis. There is also a sub piece to the puzzle from my retail days which is... "walking the stock". That's when you check what inventory you have available for the day (because it's harder to sell what you don't have). Bottom line is that these are the things that hold me in place.

In my travels talking to entrepreneurs, an interesting topic comes up. "Risk Tolerance" or the ability to make a decision with a portion of the information like 50-60%. In the past my risk tolerance is LOW 95-98% (almost crippling). I've always said that the biggest obstacle to overcome is the the 4 inches between the ears.

The good news is that I think I found a way to manage this issue. Charles Ngo had done an article on time management which struck me like a ton a bricks. It sounded like this.

The only constant is change.

 

[seeqer]

The good news is that I think I found a way to manage this issue. Charles Ngo had done an article on time management which struck me like a ton a bricks. It sounded like this.

The only constant is change.

THANK YOU!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!

 

[T J Tutor]

Damn.. It's like I'm back in school again. A quick self-evaluation is revealing that my old habits are bubbling to the top. I'm a perfectionist clutterer which is a behavior that I learned doing automotive electronics on a 100% commission basis. There is also a sub piece to the puzzle which is "walking the stock". That's when you check what inventory you have available for the day (because it's harder to sell what you don't have). Bottom line is that these are the things that hold me in place.

In my travels talking to entrepreneurs, an interesting topic comes up. "Risk Tolerance" or the ability to make a decision with a portion of the information like 50-60%. In the past my risk tolerance is LOW 95-98% (almost crippling). I've always said that the biggest obstacle to overcome is the the 4 inches between the ears.

The good news is that I think I found a way to manage this issue. Charles Ngo had done an article on time management which struck me like a ton a bricks. It sounded like this.

The only constant is change.

Keep going @ContraAl ! Clear Skies & Following Seas!

 

[ContraAl]

Trudging along..

 

[ChrisM]

Way to go ContraAl!

 

[ContraAl]

@ChrisM Thanks for bumping my thread. I've had a few distractions in on the personal side which took my head out of the game.

Goal adjustment: check
Shiny Object Syndrome: managed
New course: fuzzy but moving