Marketing Budget

[hustleroxc]

Hi Everyone,

1st I want to say that this is a great forum!!
I'm an affiliate for Dish Network and I want to have an idea how much money do people usually spend on marketing and how long to see results and when to quit if not profitable?

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi hustleroxc,

I couldn't even begin to give you any absolutes - everything could vary depending on your niche, your ad writing skills your keyword selection your landing page and the merchant's conversion rate - and several other things in-between.

Assuming you have a good niche that's not too competitive and are great at all the above - IN GENERAL, the more traffic you can afford to buy, the faster sales will happen. Whereas if you had 0 budget and had to build up traffic from natural search, it could take a lot longer.

When to quit is a really personal decision. The mistake many affiliates make is pulling out of a PPC campaign too quick and not giving it enough time. It's kinda like watching the stock market - if you're not skilled as soon as you see the slightest movement down or don't see movement up newbies want to just pull their money out of the market and try something else. They can't weather the ups and downs.

I think some affiliates give it a certain # of clicks (realizing it could take 50 - 300 clicks to get a sale) or they have a $ cut off loss stop point. But if you don't stick to what you set up as a limit and check stats 20 times a day, you could be tempted to pull out the 200th click and click #205, 212 and 220 could all produce sales, so had you stayed in you could have made 3 sales in 220 clicks. So you need to give it enough time and clicks to have the data to be able to judge.

That was a long answer I guess without giving you anything specific, sorry.

 

[gobbo mon]

No it's a good answer. I think the idea of having a cutoff point is a good idea. Because we all have the tendency to pull out as soon as things are going down but some of the most successful people have made money by sticking it through the hard times.

 

[cherie27]

For me, i make use of free marketing methods like blogging, writing article and submitting them to article directories, submit posts to forum.

As i don't have much budget, therefore i am using the free marketing methods.
But the free marketing methods are normally for long term.

 

[yollyp]

The budget, the purpose, the timeframe - all should be taken into consideration to come-up with a realistic budget. But for me, why not start with the process of promoting your business for free. Then if you already have the liquidity to start with, jump up to a paid advertisement scheme.

 

[sam1]

Hey the topic of discussion is a good one.. and the replies were interesting...

I feel the amount allocated to marketing would depend on the kind of product or service that is being marketed.. if the product is a new launch or service then the budget would be a little high.

And moreover the waiting time is a little more and need to focus on breaking even atleast..

and i think the waiting period should be so much until when the business breaks even atleast. if its not even breaking even then its a a time to take a call.

 

[ladyflguru]

I also use free marketing right now and cut back on paid alot down to one program. It may take alot more time and energy but its been paying off for me so far. The set up with free advertising takes a while, just keep pushing and you should be alright. I also find that if you make up more than one article and ad its good to be prepared.

 

[Anomaly]

currently i use free methods ...

but when i was trialling ppc, my philosiphy was that the cost per sale should be less than the benefit per sale ... i.e. if was getting sales for less than i was spending to get them to buy, then that was in my favour ... you know, as long as you are at least making some profit, then you can keep tweaking it further until you are making a decent profit ...

i read all the time about people saying you should spend $500 on ppc before you give up ... but i think that is silly ... i think starting off sensibly with a small ppc campaign and adjusting up or down as you see or don't see results is the way to go