[JOURNEY - CPA] $500 a day - Won't stop until I reach my goal!

[alldayallnight]

Hello,

Yes. The title sound kind of a reach, especially as I never ever worked with CPA. But I need high goals to keep me going. Lets see how much time it takes for a totally newbie to start making money in real life (yes, I will make + in 6 months - positive mindset )

I will start with a small budget: $500 (every month I add this amount and reinvest everything I earn - can't aford more).

Tracking: Voluum
CPA Network: Peerfly, Click Dealer
Offers: anything I like that pay $12 and more

Start of first campaign: 5.4.2015

The basic idea for first 3 months is to learn. I won't invest all of the money for the first time. The spread will be like this:
Day 1: $5
Day 2: $10
Day 3: $15
etc. adding $5

I Will deliver all reports, but until then I will me propping my strategy and have all the backing ready.

Things I need to take care of: (will be adding tasks daily)
1. Web Host (where to host my landing pages)
2. Landing Pages (create first landing page)
3. Banners (create my first banner)
4. Tracking System (Voluum)
5. Campaign System (How will I publish, create and manage my campains)
6. Profit/Loss Tracking (Have a good managment for making/loosing money - won't be hard at the beginning).

Goals:

1. Learn the affiliate marketing
2. Make money long term
3. Leave my 9-5 job (till October)
4. Get in shape

Lets do this!

 

[Vivadh]

Your journey is very much similar to what i was thinking . I have added it to my watching list.
Waiting for your progress.

 

[Puppet Master]

Good luck buddy!

 

[alldayallnight]

1. Web Host (where to host my landing pages)

After a research I decided for cloudways.com

Server specs:
Ram: 1GB
Disk size: 30GB
Bandwidth: 2TB
Processor: 1 core
Price: $15/month

I think it will be enough for star low volume of my traffic. Will upgrade in future when I need to.

I already installed Wordpress. Lost 3 hours of my life. The setup was easy (1 click install) but the domain DNS change drove me crazy. When I gave up and started to look for other hosting provider the site and domain started working. All it needed was time.

Tomorrow (hosting related):
- Uptime monitor (find and setup) = need to now if the hosting is running to avoid sending traffic to website that doesn't work
- Research on wordpress speed and optimization
- Fundamental backend stuff that I need (plugins etc.)

...and 3 tasks that aren't hosting related.

 

[ContraAl]

Right on Bud! run, run, run!

 

[alldayallnight]

What I have done today (and doing/mid-day report )

Server/website monitor - I used uptimerobot.com for this purpose. It is free (up to 50 monitors) and sends an email if the server/website goes down. The status in checked every 5 minutes. They offer a SMS if you pay but for now free service will do. Have my phone connected with email and will get instant notification is something goes wrong.

WordPress Landing Pages - I looked for a good plugin for creating landing pages and think this one will be a good start. I added it and it looks ok. Will have to take took around and create a demo landing page to be sure.

Landing page optimization - Pingdom.com - For testing Page size/load time and improve preformance (you have 6 locations to choose from) Read somewhere that you need a fast load time for better results. In the end every % counts. Right now my load time is 1.17s and 659.6kB in size. But will work on that when my first demo LP is ready.

What is your load time and size?

----------
As I only registered and took a look into Voluum my next step is to learn how to use it. To test it I need following things done:

1. CPA network (done)
I will start with PeerFly and then swich to ClickDealer. Reason is lower payout for a better cashflow.
2. Traffic Source (done)
Will start with one traffic source and than add another when I master this one.
3. Offer (done)
Fits my vertical and payment is in range (more than $12) - I know its harder to test but will work it trough tears if it doesn't conver fast
4. Create 2 demo banners (not done)
5. Crete 2 demo LP (not done)
6. Set a demon campain in Voluum (not done)

 

[HiGHROLLER]

Good luck! Which niche do you choose?

 

[xoxnificate]

Good Job

 

[alldayallnight]

4. Create 2 demo banners (done)
Made 4 banners. The content is the same on all of them but with differen picture. For banner creation I used Photosop and Fireworks. All I can say great tools but complicated as hell. Will have to wach a tutorial for using Photoshop right. The pictures that is saved were over 300KB but than I saw that I was saving them as PNG and changet that to JPEG. Got files that are less than 50KB big.

5. Tracking Setup - Voluum
Love that it is hosted by them and that I don't need to know anything else about backend. Now for the tracking setup. Am loosing a bit of my mind here. Maybe anybody can advise/help.

Steps:
1. Add Affiliate Network (done)
2. Add Traffic Source
I am having problems here with parameters and tokens. Do I even need this?
3. Add Offer
I can't understand the URL tokens. Do I add them at the end of the offer link? How do this tokens even work? Do I need them? Doesn't Voluum get this data (like OS, country etc.) automaticly?
4. Create Campaign (done)
Only direct targeting no landing pages created yet. In the next step.
5. Setup Postback URL for Conversion Tracking (done)

I started a small testing campain on my traffic source. Extra low volume, bids etc. to test all this tracking. Will be happy if anybody can help me with step 2 and 3.

Next few tasks:
1. Create my first landing page
2. Game plan (how many angles, lps, banners etc.)

--------------
@HiGHROLLER - I will start in Adult niche.

 

[Asaduzzaman]

Best of luck

 

[newlxx]

I am having problems here with parameters and tokens. Do I even need this?

Yes. You can the list of tokens supported by asking a rep or looking through the FAQs. Voluum also has premade templates for many traffic source for you to use also.

I can't understand the URL tokens. Do I add them at the end of the offer link? How do this tokens even work? Do I need them? Doesn't Voluum get this data (like OS, country etc.) automaticly?

You will need to pass the {clickid} variable in your offer link to the network for conversion tracking.

These should help:
Gold - Voluum - The Ultimate Guide! | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

[GUIDE] How To Set Up New Traffic Sources in Voluum | Affiliate Marketing Forum | AffiliateFix

 

[alldayallnight]

@lrs1995
Thank you!

1. My traffic source does not support and therefore made no changes to my settings.
2. I added {clickid} variable to my offer link.
(it looks like this now myafflink.com&s1={clickid}

Progress:
1. I created 4 banners and added them to traffic network. Already confirmed. Made them for testing and they are up and running. Low bids so low volume.
2. Created 1LP - 2 variatons (only changed the background). Sadly my traffic network didn't approved them yet (guess they are doing that only weekdays.

Stats for my 4 banners:
IMP: 35.000
CTR: cca. 0,3 - happy for this stats. Think this is ok for adult. What do you think?
Cost: $6

I was crazy excited when network confirmed my first ads and was refreshing my stats every 5 minutes. Wasn't able to sleep and every time I woke up I checked the stats. Love this game so far. The next goal. Creating a system for creating ads and so on. Less than a week away from my real start. Have a few bucks to spend for tracking testing and for getting a feeling for the whole process but am super excited about everything.

 

[koalahood]

@lrs1995
Thank you!

1. My traffic source does not support and therefore made no changes to my settings.
2. I added {clickid} variable to my offer link.
(it looks like this now myafflink.com&s1={clickid}

Progress:
1. I created 4 banners and added them to traffic network. Already confirmed. Made them for testing and they are up and running. Low bids so low volume.
2. Created 1LP - 2 variatons (only changed the background). Sadly my traffic network didn't approved them yet (guess they are doing that only weekdays.

Stats for my 4 banners:
IMP: 35.000
CTR: cca. 0,3 - happy for this stats. Think this is ok for adult. What do you think?
Cost: $6

I was crazy excited when network confirmed my first ads and was refreshing my stats every 5 minutes. Wasn't able to sleep and every time I woke up I checked the stats. Love this game so far. The next goal. Creating a system for creating ads and so on. Less than a week away from my real start. Have a few bucks to spend for tracking testing and for getting a feeling for the whole process but am super excited about everything.

Hey!
Good job for taking action, here's something you might want to correct:
2. I added {clickid} variable to my offer link.
(it looks like this now myafflink.com&s1={clickid}

Instead, it should be like this :myafflink.com&s1={campaignid}&s2={clickid}
always put the clickid in the s2

Cheers and continue on your journey!