Long Time Affiliate, Finally Making Push to $100/day Consistently

[Maxin]

Hey @Nicheme! Thanks for checking out my journey. I have been doing affiliate marketing for a long time as a sideline thing.

The list of products and services I have sold would fill at least one department in Walmart!

I started in affiliate marketing a long time ago but it took some time to get my first $0.10 in on Adwords. Then I kept building sites and made my first real money ($225 in a week or so) on Clickbank. Then I built truly lousy commerce sites, some decent sites around my hobbies (motorcycles, building stuff, and a bunch of other things).

I shifted to CPA because my other campaigns were to up and down and not scaling well because I primarily used SEO methods.

Now I am buying my traffic typically and working CPA offers because the conversions CAN be easier.

Picking a product or offer involves matching your traffic source, your landers, the networks you are working with, plus known conversion rates if you can get them, plus EPC to figure out what you can pay for traffic. Test, test, test!

Hope this helps...

 

[Maxin]

Back to my journey...
About to smash my laptop because I keep getting a Fatal Error line 139 when I attempt to configure my Prosper202 install. Not happening yet.

Ticking me off majorly, but working through it.

My mobicow campaigns sucked. I think it was a problem with where I was linking to...needed a much better landing page. Was a lazy effort - not doing that again.

Back to building high value pages for a new offer. Getting worn out working on one offer where my CTR through my lander is fantastic, but the offer never converts. Buying a lot more traffic may get me a conversion, but the offer is probably not converting well enough.

Going to get back to more "I absolutely need this" types of offers rather than the "this may be useful" offers.

Launching another two offers this weekend where I can get serious traffic.

 

[Maxin]

Back to more strange results. 28 clicks with 0%CTR to the offer after I removed my survey system from the landers. Turned the surveys back on and got a much higher CTR around 30% to the offer, but 0 conversions. This is almost the same offer where I have had 30% conversion days. One thing has changed, the requirements of the offer for age went up. Not sure if that would cause a drop off to zero.

Decided to run a hybrid campaign of both the surveys and my lander. Instead of sending visitors directly to the offer after the survey, I am including much more content and more explanation prior to sending them over to the offer. I think that may be the issue.

 

[davidfrost]

I think that makes sense. But please update us once you found the cause for this. Still learning here myself.

 

[Maxin]

Hey @davidfrost ! My results from the same lander and same campaign have been random. Some days I get 2-5 conversions (5 did not happen often), and many days now, 0 conversions. I have to think something in offer has changed. Fortunately my per click prices have dropped 50% for some reason, maybe quality score improvement. I don't mind losing more money to get this campaign converting again.

Going to install another conversion factor either later tonight or tomorrow to get visitors motivated to sign up. At least am getting those that land on my site to get to the offer finally.

Meanwhile, I am building another authority page for an offer from the loan niche. Will get that rolling plus a few other campaigns this week. Not going to bank on my current campaigns to get me to my goal.

Despite feeling frustration, I am continuing the battle. When ever I get ticked off because something failed to drive conversions, I buckle down and build more value into the lander, build another campaign...keep turning the frustration into action!

Not sure when I will bust the door down to success, but I know I am going to keep banging on it hard.

 

[Maxin]

Another day where I have not had one conversion, and my CTR from my lander to the offer is about 20% - very low.

I am building out another campaign using a different landing page model, though not as mobile optimized perhaps the CTR will rise.

I am also adding a real time chat module to my pages to get more information about site visitors. We shall see if I learn why my sites have gone from decent converters to non-converters.

Because my form of campaign requires setting up fleshed out pages with articles and the appearance of a full fledged site, it can take me a few days to get the site ready for approval. I learned that I need to have decent articles to get my quality score above 7 for Bing. Adwords is much, much harder to please.

Also I realized that after my vacation, I have not been working as hard and consistently as I was before. Changing that right away. I love creating campaigns and need to keep my 4 hours per day minimum schedule that I was using before. I am sure when I dial my effort back up, I will get better results, be able to test more campaigns, and get all the details right to make my campaigns profitable again.

Next steps:
1. Create 5 more ads for my formerly profitable campaign in the dating niche.
2. Clean up the landers again - testing remade surveys vs not surveys.
2a. Get the chat box live and chatting to figure out what I need to do to get the site converting.
3. Get Prosper202 installed. I have been getting a db error when I go through the configuration screen. If anyone here is a Prosper202 guru or has a clue why I am getting this error after entering my username, db name, etc. on the config screen, I would really appreciate the help.
4. Build out the new campaign site. Going to take me about 2-4 hours.

That is enough for the next day or two. Back the to grind..

 

[Maxin]

Wahoo! Got a conversion after a $2 ad spend..giving me a 120% ROI for a nice reversal.
I accomplished a lot of my list of tasks. Need one more day to finish my new campaign site. Actually chatted with site visitors..very cool.

Also, Bing has stopped sending traffic out of nowhere. No warnings, alerts, or anything just no more traffic for at least 12 hours. Weird.

I am about ready to focus on Mobicow for mobile offers. So slick a system and I have gotten conversions with Mobicow doing everything wrong. I love the speed and easy format of their ad setup. I said this well before I knew Mobicow was a sponsor here or gave rewards.

Also, I am not sure if I won the $500 with Mobicow or not. I see a gold star but not sure if that is the award. I know I will be spending that money with ads on Mobicow!

Making tomorrow a big day with a few new launches!

 

[Maxin]

@Stano asked me a question about budget and also about persistance.

Hey Stano,
The only way to get successful in affiliate marketing is to keep pushing through the testing and get to something that works. 95% of starting affiliate marketers will give up, and I am committed to being in the top 5% that push through.

I remember reading about a guy in Mexico on his journey with the Black Hat forum. He had two or three different journeys, each about 4-6 months long, before one day he made his money. So I am really just getting rolling. Also, I had a lot to learn about tracking, creating responsive pages that worked well on mobile, and working with a bunch of new types of offers. Even though I had more traditional - organic, SEO, and PPC - affiliate marketing experience, CPA affiliate marketing appears to be faster paced by far, more technical, and more wide open.

My budget varies somewhat, but I started out ready to spend around $500 with Bing to get something profitable. That amount worked (only spent maybe $200 of it) with one campaign pretty well when I reached about $21.50 per day with it. Then I changed something and the conversions disappeared. It has been a battle getting back to both the traffic level and conversion level I had before.

Meanwhile, I am building new sites and making sure I have at least 5-8 campaigns going. With that number of campaigns running and tracked, I can figure out which ones are worth focusing on to scale. Right now I really have two campaigns going, neither one running enough traffic to do much.

Solving the lack of high volume campaigns starting tomorrow with the launch of my new offers.

 

[Rvfamily]

@Stano asked me a question about budget and also about persistance.

Hey Stano,
The only way to get successful in affiliate marketing is to keep pushing through the testing and get to something that works. 95% of starting affiliate marketers will give up, and I am committed to being in the top 5% that push through.

I remember reading about a guy in Mexico on his journey with the Black Hat forum. He had two or three different journeys, each about 4-6 months long, before one day he made his money. So I am really just getting rolling. Also, I had a lot to learn about tracking, creating responsive pages that worked well on mobile, and working with a bunch of new types of offers. Even though I had more traditional - organic, SEO, and PPC - affiliate marketing experience, CPA affiliate marketing appears to be faster paced by far, more technical, and more wide open.

My budget varies somewhat, but I started out ready to spend around $500 with Bing to get something profitable. That amount worked (only spent maybe $200 of it) with one campaign pretty well when I reached about $21.50 per day with it. Then I changed something and the conversions disappeared. It has been a battle getting back to both the traffic level and conversion level I had before.

Meanwhile, I am building new sites and making sure I have at least 5-8 campaigns going. With that number of campaigns running and tracked, I can figure out which ones are worth focusing on to scale. Right now I really have two campaigns going, neither one running enough traffic to do much.

Solving the lack of high volume campaigns starting tomorrow with the launch of my new offers.

@Maxin

I really enjoy your thread, and the way you detail what your doing. I couldn't agree more with you that the secret is having enough campaigns going to test which ones work and then scale. I too like the fast paced nature of CPA (although I'm pretty new) and the opportunity it creates for those who stay at it long enough to make something. If you're doing one campaign at a time, you'll probably struggle to make real money.

All of sales is a numbers game. It's just getting offers/creatives in front of enough people to see what works. Keep up the good work.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

Back to my journey...
About to smash my laptop because I keep getting a Fatal Error line 139 when I attempt to configure my Prosper202 install. Not happening yet.

Ticking me off majorly, but working through it.

My mobicow campaigns sucked. I think it was a problem with where I was linking to...needed a much better landing page. Was a lazy effort - not doing that again.

Back to building high value pages for a new offer. Getting worn out working on one offer where my CTR through my lander is fantastic, but the offer never converts. Buying a lot more traffic may get me a conversion, but the offer is probably not converting well enough.

Going to get back to more "I absolutely need this" types of offers rather than the "this may be useful" offers.

Launching another two offers this weekend where I can get serious traffic.

@Maxin,

Have you looked at what types of traffic sources convert for different types of offers? I'm not sure if this is even something to spend time on, but I have read in some blogs that different traffic sources seem to convert better for different types of offers.

For example, I have read in two places that 7Search traffic seems to convert well for low entry offers (email/zip submits, single page offers), while TrafficVance seems to convert higher paying offers (free trials and per sale offers that have a higher price tag and commission). Have you looked to see if there is anything out there detailing how the traffic your using seems to work for the offers you're promoting through it?

I have been doing some reading on this, and if interested, will post some links here. Just a thought.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Rvfamily]

Yeah @marketerbybirth small changes caused havoc on my results. @RobEnvyus warned me to make only one small change at a time. And my "optimizing" destroyed my results. One major lesson learned - keep every version of landing pages with the results from each page. I blew it because I could not dial back my changes.

After about 6 hours of work including playing around with Artisteer and returning to Thrive Content Builder - I finally have a lander that works well for both mobile and for desktop. My problems began when I mistakenly built my pages focused on full screen appearance. My mobile version was way off and my results tanked. Now both versions look good enough with the mobile version almost exactly as I want.

Artisteer looks more powerful than Thrive Content Builder. I returned to Thrive because I came up with a work around for getting most of the content I wanted into a small space.

I dialed back my daily ads spends for testing this new lander template. I was getting $500 invoices per week from Bing and have pulled that back to get my campaigns on solid footing before I over invest in traffic.

Really glad to be back with live campaigns, getting data, and adjusted to the mobile traffic. Getting up every morning to a few conversions is a habit I was enjoying!

Tomorrow I will get @JakeMA campaign rolling again using this same template. I am also planning on switching up traffic for this campaign. Going to be an exciting week with more numbers rolling in!

How I am thinking now:

@Maxin,

Just curious about how you think TCB and Artisteer compare. I have recently started using TCB, but have struggled with certain aspects (the fact that you cannot just simply drag and drop to a specific spot for example). Did you go back to TCB because you were already familiar with it and didn't want to spend the time to get as good with it as you are with TCB? Sorry, just curious about your experience. Thanks for the great and informative thread.

As Always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Maxin]

Hey @Rvfamily, welcome to my journey!
Yes, different traffic sources certainly convert better with different offers. Adult oriented traffic sources are tailored for adult offers, mobile for apps, downloads, games, and my primary source of traffic is through PPC, suitable for almost any kind of offer except adult.

As it happens, I decided to run my first adult campaign as a test today. Decided that I needed a brief break from Bing and PPC traffic to set-up a PPV campaign offering the main thing the web is focused on adult sites. I am not planning to run a lot of adult offers, but needed to test the waters and get a campaign up today.

My KPI's, key performance indicators, include posting at least 5 campaigns per week. I have been hammering my existing campaigns with occasional success, but need to add more campaigns to have a shot at finding one that works.

My next campaign will be run on Go2Mobi. Need to get my tracking really dialed in for his one, but the funds are there. Once I choose my offers, I will create a checklist for setting up the offer correctly the first time. Go2Mobi takes a while to approve campaigns, so I will have to wait at least 2 days before they run it.

The great thing about Go2Mobi and the other networks like it, is I don't have to worry about getting traffic like I have been struggling with on Bing.

I am going to now work on another major lander for the loan niche, a vertical I am somewhat familiar with. Then I am going to go after insurance, per @RobEnvyus suggestion. I expect to have these campaigns up this week.

 

[Maxin]

The Popcash.net adult campaign experiment was not worth much. I doubt popcash.net even showed most of the ads because the numbers don't add up. Posting another bing campaign tonight for an oddball offer. At least I know those visitors are mostly legit. Will have some numbers by tomorrow night on this campaign. One conversion will be all I need because the offer converts for $45.

Now I have a better feel for how to get my quality score up with Bing, dropping my costs and increasing my traffic.

 

[Maxin]

Posted another bing campaign today with a simple video lander and an article to get my quality score above 7. An oddball offer in a popular vertical with a strong demographic. No tracking with it because I cannot get my pixel into the affiliate page - at least until I start hitting it with some traffic or conversions. Will check with the merchant to get a conversion pixel loaded once I see if the offer converts at all.

Thought I would take care of this tomorrow. I am a day ahead now and can work on my other offer site for financial leads. I will finish that tomorrow and turn it on by evening.

Feels good to have some campaigns running again on a daily basis. I am going to get at least 5 campaigns running that have a shot at conversions, then whittle them down to a few positive ROI and repeat the process.

@Rvfamily I think I forgot to answer you question about Thrive Content Builder vs Artisteer. Artisteer appears to be more flexible, especially for creating mobile pages. I am sticking with Thrive Content Builder because I can fly with it now. I can create a reasonable lander or site with TCB in minutes for the basic design. Then I can add content quickly and focus on all the normal details of a good campaign. It is not a tool for PPV because wordpress is too slow for that method. But for PPC, TCB is working for me.

 

[Maxin]

Not enough action from my latest bing campaign to determine if the offer does not perform but I am leaning that way. Have roughly 50 visitors to the offer and not one order form hop. I will keep the campaign alive until tomorrow night, then pull it.

Going back to finish my loan lander and turning that campaign on tomorrow night.

 

[Maxin]

Did not get my financial vertical page ready yet. Got distracted researching competition - and there is a ton of it. Also researched a keyword list. Will hit it harder tomorrow and finally post the page and launch the campaign.

I am falling behind on my goal of getting 5 campaigns going per week. Need a format or process for making campaigns faster than my system now. Will ponder that tonight and get a new system.

 

[Maxin]

I built a new lander from the ground up. Made it both mobile friendly and much more thorough for one offer for desktop or tablet. Bumped up my bids a hair and turned the ads back on. Probably the cleanest landing page I have created so far, but not sure how well it will convert.

Looks like it takes about 90 minutes or so to create a lander. Throw in some keyword research, creating ads, coming up with an angle, getting images, researching for an offer, setting up tracking, and the campaign creation process takes me about 2.5 to 3 hours if all goes well for one lander, one offer, and about 4 ads. As usually happens, there are some problems to deal with and the entire process could take a full 8 hours.

I am calculating the time it takes to create a campaign because I want to turn up my productivity to get another four campaigns going. If this new page shows promise with a few conversions by tomorrow, then I will have my template.

Now the goal is to get another 4 campaigns rolling in the next four days.

Feels good to get a campaign back up and have the hope of seeing conversions by morning. I miss that joy of seeing some of my efforts pay off. Especially on the days when the conversions went into positive ROI.

 

[Rvfamily]

@Maxin,

Keep it up! I enjoy reading your story. I just finished reading "The Rise of Ngo" on Charles Ngo's blog. A very insightful read that talks a lot about campaigns and how they fluctuate (and how your emotions can fluctuate with them). I feel I have a much better understanding of how quickly campaigns can turn (positive or negative). If you haven't read it already, I recommend it.

Let us know how it's going for you.

As always,
Here's to your success!

 

[Maxin]

@Rvfamily Thanks for the support!

Bing has classified me as an Adult advertiser after I was accepted into their Adult approved advertiser system. Turns out that was a bad move on my part. I now can't get support from the normally amazing Bing support team, but get shuttled to black hole of the Adult advertiser specialists. Hurts my results.

The good news is my CTR on my ads has risen to over 1% because I kicked the content network off. This is a low CTR, but better than before. Need to get over 1.5% or even 2% to get a lot more traffic.

Early to say for sure, but my new cleaner, simpler, one offer lander does not appear to be doing nearly as well as my earlier, busier, multi-offer landers. Experiment and learn. I will add two landers into the rotation today and see how it goes.

Also launching my new financial offer campaign today. Won't be fully formed but close enough to test the angles.

Haven't posted earnings lately. This is a summary from about 6 weeks of effort and a lot of dry days.

 

[Maxin]

My new lander is holding steady at about 20% CTR. Not the worst, but not where I want to be. Also, no conversions yet. I think there is something going on with the offer. My lander is informative to the point that anyone clicking through should be signing up, at least one out of 5. But they are not. I think maybe the offer has something else going on. I know they changed the age range up making it more restrictive.

Researching my competition for my next campaign launch...and they are strong. A tough vertical - financial - but a popular one with plenty of traffic all over the place.

Putting together a simple lander to get started and adding an email opt-in for a change.

Using a checklist on this campaign for a change. At least the traffic issue that I am suffering from on my other campaign will not be an issue with this one.