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Quest Out Of The Cubicle

BorisQuanticoo

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affiliate
Hello everybody out there!
I am creating this thread with the following objectives:
- Document my challenges, solutions, hurdles and strategies to overcome those so others can benefit from it in the future.
- Start to engage and get in touch with like-minded people and by that hopefully be able to contribute and help others, as well as stop feeling like I am fighting a me against the world type of battle.
- Create commitment for myself to take action by posting here every day.
I would like to use this post to briefly introduce myself, as well as briefly document where I am at on my journey, and what my goal is.
My name is Boris, from Germany. Like so many others I have been following a corporate – quite successful – career, which I am still holding for financial reasons. While I generally like my job, the following reasons always nagged me about it and ultimately lead me to pursue my CPA Journey:
- Output for my input: As maybe a lot of people can relate to, I always felt some disconnect between what I am putting and what I am getting out. I’d suppose a coporate environment will entail that by definition. That being said, I always found that to be somewhat frustrating. Knowing, that if I put in the work for myself, the exchange will always be fair.
- Freedom: I love travel. I hate the winter (Germany!). I hate having my life controlled by third parties, without having influence on it.
2 months ago, upon researching in depth, I therefore decided to commit to CPA-Marketing, given I believe it combines a couple of my strengths (analytics, social demographics etc.) with the lifestyle goals I have set up for myself. My mid-term goal is to be able to hand in my resignation and allow myself to work freely, when and from where I would like to (Winter!). For this to be possible, I will have to aim at apprx. 3.500 EUR in profit per month (Germany! Taxes!). My mid-term goal is to being able to enjoy this by next winter. At this position I will reassess how far I want to pursue CPA-Marketing in order to build the lifestyle I am striving for long-term.
With respect to where I am right now:
- Budget: 2.000 €
- Networks successfully signed up with:
o Neverblue
o Peerfly
o Maxbounty
- Resources signed up with:
o Greedreports
- Technical Set-up:
o VPS by beyondhosting
o Prosper202 set-up
- Traffic Source:
o 7search (I am comitted to learning in’s and out’s there and make it profitable, no matter the nay-saying, that can be found all across the web; SUB-ID Blocking enabled)
- Offers:
o Sweepstakes : Email-Submits
o Paid Surveys : Email Submits
o Real Estate : Email Submits
è Sticking Points:
o Conversions. Yeah, I know, very original. Have spent 125 EUR on 3 campaigns, out of which only 1 produced 3 conversions (7,50 €).
o Motivation: Related to the above. It’s tough to just keep throwing money at an offer only to wake up the next morning disappointed that nothing changed.
o HTML/CSS. Will invest some time in learning this on the forthcoming weekend. I am through with rotating through absolute, relative and fixed positions only to find buttons falling everywhere, besides where I need them be.
è Current Goal: Make 5 € Profit / Day. Until 15th of June 2015.
I hope this post is helping to contribute some value, if nothing else a couple smiles and will be back tomorrow with a detailed post on my current campaign. Until then, feel free to get in touch with me, would hope to connect with like-minded people and would be very happy to do so.
 
Day #1 of my CPA Journal. Today I am looking at my campaign in order to get a step closer in what I can do to increase conversions.

What I will do today, as mentioned in my previous post is to start learning HTML and CSS in order to increase my flexibility when it comes to LP-Content Design. My Goal is to use this knowledge to increase my CR.

I have been getting some - limited to two keywords - but I can't seem to get it over the hump. I also experimented with a different LP, no change. My hypothesis still would be that given I am receiving clicks, it's the LPCTR and the CR-Rate, which Needs work, which ultimately Points toward my landing page.

I would be curious if anybody has some insights here.

Thanks in advance!

7search1.png
7search2.png
prosper.png
 
Day #2 of my CPA Journal:

Before working on my LP, as mentioned I decided to build my technical skills with respect to HTML / CSS.

Yesterday I spent 5 hours learning on codeacademy. I really, really recommend this resource for anybody trying to learn programming skills of any kind. The approach is both intuitive, user-friendly and most important highly immersive, given you are required to code along, as the training progresses.

I will continue doing so throughout the weekend and will complement with dreamweaver resources.

Also I have decided to test direct linking above campaign, collecting data. Will do so today.

One word on why I am posting this here: As mentioned in my first post, ideally if someone - at any point in the future - who finds her/himself at a similar position might be able to use this a resource and use some of the lessons I learned themselves. Next, I remember seeing old posts by super-affiliates as they were starting out: Personally this has inspired me a lot, understanding that nobody's cut from a different cloth and everybody started small. Therfore if it can give inspiration to just one person, it would be worth it. Finally I consider this as a good strategy to create comittment for myself and keep engaged by posting daily and taking action.

If course, it would be great and I am confident at some point I will, to get in touch with like minded people. Given some might think, what is this about?!, I thought to add those notes.

Have a great day everybody!
 
#DAY 3 of my CPA Journey.

What I did:

- Successfully completed the Basic Training Course on HTML / CSS on Codeacademy. Very good Quality, learned a lot and progressing well.
- Successfully began the imeditate Training course offered on the same resource. Excellent...oh pardon...<strong>Excellent</strong>.
- Successfully switched up my campaign to Direct Linking.
Stats unfortunately do not show any improvements. Additionally I am getting very odd keywords passed to Prosper, am currently in the process of figuring this out.

If anybody cares to comment on my numbers and the recommended next course of Action, that would be immensely appreciated.

As a next Action, I will complete my Training and then tweak the landing page with my new skills and continue testing.

7search.PNG
prosper.PNG
 
Wonderful documentation here Boris! The journey is worth the effort my friend. Don't give up! Remember, when life pushes you --> PUSH BACK HARDER!!! NEVER EVER GIVE UP!

never-giv-eup.jpg
 
Do you have the publisher blacklisting feature available?
If not, contact 7search to enable that feature on your account.

Start blacklisting bad pub ids after spending 3x offer payout and are not profitable.
 
Wonderful documentation here Boris! The journey is worth the effort my friend. Don't give up! Remember, when life pushes you --> PUSH BACK HARDER!!! NEVER EVER GIVE UP!

never-giv-eup.jpg
Thank you very much!

Funny how a small encouragement of a like-minded person like yours can make a day! It just did.
 
#DAY4 & DAY 5 of MY CPA Journey

No this is not one of those journals, that dies down before it even started. I am committed on getting there. Unfortunately my Computer decided to place an additional challenge upon me by breaking irreversibly (HDD). So the last couple days I was busy in restoring data, I still had, setting all my tools up again and lastly completing my intermediate HTML / CSS Training.
My go-about here is:
- Rip Offer Page.
- Use Dreamweaver to Create my own LP.


What I did:

- Reinstalled everything on new machine.
- Completed Intermediate HTML / CSS Training.
- Analyzed Data and did Troubleshooting on P202 / 7 search.

Comments / Questions:

- P202 currently broken: I am unfortunately currently facing a very nasty challenge with my tracking and the data it holds. For some - to me unknown reason - one of my filters on the Analyze Tab is producing a nasty spinning wheel of death. This is very bad, because I can't get to my data, the way I need it (it's currently filtered to just one text ad). If any of you - really desperate about it, I paid quite some money for the data - have a suggestion on how to tackle this, that would be great. I was thinking about maybe copying the db over to another instance, but this would be a lot of effort (haven't done it before) and I only wanna do this, if it's a reasonable course of action. I am trying to get help via the P202 Support Section, but so far nobody got back on it.

- Odd Keyword Data: As I had mentioned, I am seeing odd keywords being passed back from 7search to P202 (via ###KEYWORD###), this is something I had not seen before, so I am not sure, what might be causing this. One example:

a1Y0K0d3S21uaDd4RVlEdGFqSnRabjAramhITm4xZE00UHIvYk

I have contacted both 7search, as well as P202 Support Forum, so far nobody provided any suggestions.
Maybe some of you have an idea, on what could be causing this?


- Hurdles in General: So as you might notice, currently I am faced with some nasty hurdles, which are outside of my control. My philosophy on it - I try to practice as much, as possible - is that those are signs that I am progressing, correspondingly I am being tested. No way, I will fail on those tests. Those things are small challenges and will simply be solved in due course. Maybe the interpretation of seeing hurdles / challenges / little fails on the way, is a sign of progress and going into the right direction (as long, as you take your lessons out of it) might be helpful for people on a similar challenge.

In any case, I hope to be able offering a little bit more value, than asking for advice here, in the near future. Am committed to do so.
 
Do you have the publisher blacklisting feature available?
If not, contact 7search to enable that feature on your account.

Start blacklisting bad pub ids after spending 3x offer payout and are not profitable.
Thank you for your advice, highly appreciated.

The challenge I am currently facing on that, is that with 3xoffer payout, my affid's/rid's are spread across way too many instances, for me to make a qualified decision on it. In other words: Most AFFID's / RID's only have a couple of clicks.

May I briefly ask:

3x Offer Payout / Keyword? If not but per campaign, how many keywords would you go by in general?
Any thoughts on how to avoid the above? I know, that with blocking bad referrers, I will not be able to break even.


Thank you very much!
 
#CPA Journey - Prosper 202 Praise Edition

Just on a quick note: I have not tried other tools for tracking, but what I can tell you is, that the level of Support P202's founder and owner Nana is providing is top notch. My questions / problems - which by the way I caused myself - were adressed very quickly and all resolved.

Mind you, P202 is completely free. Still I was given support on a weekend.

Highly recommended.
 
May I briefly ask:

3x Offer Payout / Keyword? If not but per campaign, how many keywords would you go by in general?
Any thoughts on how to avoid the above? I know, that with blocking bad referrers, I will not be able to break even.
If the data you have collected is insignificant when sorting by pub ids then optimise by keywords in a similar manner.
 
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