Advise on getting started (organic of paid search)

[Tom Miller]

Hi all,

I'm sure this question has been asked before but I'm going to ask it again. I'm new to affiliate marketing and have been doing some research over the past few weeks.

What I have understood so far is that there are are vast amount of routes I can take. If I've understood correctly here are two of them:

Option 1

Organic seo niche site - this would involve finding a niche market and creating a blog/source of information and hopefully finding some converting long-tail keywords that are relatively easy to rank for in the SERPS. Within the copy of this site would be linked to affiliates. I could also try and capture email addresses within the site to try and convert at a later date using email marketing campaign. This sounds like a good idea but I imagine it could take a few months of writing content and performing On and Off page SEO to try and my site in Google.

Option 2

PPC Funnel - This would involve finding an affiliate product or service, creating a landing page around it to capture leads and use PPC traffic into the landing page which will hopefully convert. If not we try and capture their email address to try and convert using Email Marketing.

Does this sounds like I am understanding correctly?

Option 1 sounds great but quite a lot of work. I actually struggle with writing content so I would either have to out-source this or find something I really enjoy writing about.

Option 2 sounds appealing as I would see results (hopefully) sooner.

I am willing to invest around $1000,000 (invest and hopefully not lose). Given this which option would you take first? Or would you choose another option entirely? Do you have any examples of people doing these options well?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[lumeire]

Start with option 2. The first option is much long term, it's best to do that when you already have a steady source of income.

 

[Tom Miller]

Start with option 2. The first option is much long term, it's best to do that when you already have a steady source of income.

Thanks for your advise. Do you have any advice on how "not to lose all my money"? And are there are good proven models out there or examples I could take a look at?

Which would be the best ad network to start with? Does this depend on the vertical I choose?

 

[lumeire]

Thanks for your advise. Do you have any advice on how "not to lose all my money"? And are there are good proven models out there or examples I could take a look at?

Which would be the best ad network to start with? Does this depend on the vertical I choose?

How not to lose all your money? Start with proven networks and established traffic sources. Focus and commit to your campaign until it greens out and avoid spreading out.

Proven models? Basically the model we all use is (1) run traffic 2 (2) collect data (3) filter out non-converting targets and parameters as the data would tell (4) rinse and repeat until the campaign greens out or you dry up the traffic source (5) evaluate what went wrong or scale up if the campaign is profitable.

Best ad network? It's gonna be best to ask your affiliate manager with that.

Anyway if you're still not tied up to a CPA network, you can try PeerFly. They're one of the best.

 

[T J Tutor]

Do you have any advice on how "not to lose all my money"?

You are not losing money! You are investing in data. This is a data driven business and you will spend money to get data, you will spend money for landers, you will spend money to make mistakes, you will spend money for your spy tools, your sever, your tracker, your traffic, etc.

The publishers at every level spend money everyday on campaigns that will never make it. Most of us may approach a campaign from six to ten different ways just to find a few that work, then we spend more on those to see which can be successfully scaled. It's part of the business.

You are just starting out, you have mistakes to make, lessons to learn, resources to establish, tools to invest in, etc., etc. On top of all of that, you have a learning curve to get through.

You need to plan on investing in this business, and doing that can get you into earning a steady ROI within a couple of months. A doctor goes through eight to eleven years of school to get there and invests over a million in education, a lawyer goes to school for seven to nine years to get there. You simply need to put a reasonable investment into yourself and your business and you can be earning more than the average doctor or lawyer within a year.

This is a business, not a charitable foundation. There is no "one click" method, no absolute and guaranteed strategy. I could give you my best current campaign earning four figures a day, and you would never make it work because you haven't the knowledge and experience yet to make it work.

Take your time and invest properly in your new business. Take your time and learn, as we have all done, about each facet of the business.

There are no shortcuts!

And are there are good proven models out there or examples I could take a look at?

A business model? A campaign model? Have you decided what area of marketing you plan to pursue?

Which would be the best ad network to start with? Does this depend on the vertical I choose?

Read through the Resources area here and look at some of the networks.

Open a new thread in the Newbies Helpdesk forum and title it, "Seeking Newbie Friendly Networks With Guidance". Just remember, this community has everything you need to get your new business running smoothly, and to make it reliable and replicate-able.

DO NOT TRY TO SHORTCUT ANY OF THIS!

 

[Tom Miller]

Thanks for your guidance T J it's very much appreciated.

I was talking about a campaign model. When you say area of marketing, do you mean organic or ppc? Initially I would look to spend a small amount on ppc gathering data around which of my ads/keywords have the highest ctr and convert well.

What is your opinion on ClickBank?

 

[lumeire]

Thanks for your guidance T J it's very much appreciated.


What is your opinion on ClickBank?

Clickbank is tough especially if you're new.

 

[Tom Miller]

Clickbank is tough especially if you're new.

Thanks for letting me know lumeire. Much appreciated

 

[Tom Miller]

Clickbank is tough especially if you're new.

Do you think a good place to start could be CPA rather than CPS? I'm thinking maybe something like CPI could be a good place to start given my background in web and app development.

My initial research and understanding has been looking at the following model/funnel:

Traffic (PPC such as Bing/Adwords) -> Landing Page (Offer incentive or some freebie) -> Affiliate Page -> Email Marketing Campaign

I assume if I was looking at doing CPI offers I would likely want to use some sort of mobile traffic source and use banners/ads provided by the affiliate?

 

[T J Tutor]

I was talking about a campaign model.

It's funny you use that term, it's an accurate description that is seldom used. Campaign modeling is an art, and art you will learn by mimicking others campaigns. The model you use, or develop, for a campaign is going to be determined by the type pf marketing you do, not just PPC or organic, but rather, social funnels, social ads, pop ups, PPV, PPL, PPC, native ads, banner ads, contextual ads, etc., etc.

When you say area of marketing, do you mean organic or ppc? Initially I would look to spend a small amount on ppc gathering data around which of my ads/keywords have the highest ctr and convert well.

Organic is not a good primary source of traffic for many reasons. For one, it takes a veeerrryyyyy looooooooooooong time for organic to produce anything viable as income. Secondly, you cannot track or target organic traffic. Organic traffic in our business is a secondary (at best) traffic source, and most often a tertiary traffic source.

When you say a small amount, that is a bit ambiguous. A small amount to me is certainly not what most Newbies consider a small amount. As well, a large amount to me is a possibly a small amount to some of my super affiliate friends spending $30k a day on ads.

Your budget for ads needs to be enough to carry your ad costs for 30 days. Your daily budget is determined by the costs of your traffic source to provide enough traffic for testing, split testing, and finding the relevant traffic that converts. Your campaigns need to run for at least a week in order to accumulate enough solid data to determine where the conversions come from and what times of the day they occur. There is plenty of other relevant data you will procure and disseminate from your tracker as well.

What is your opinion on ClickBank?

I do not recommend ClickBank as your first foray into this business. ClickBank can be lucrative, but it takes a bit more experience than you have to make it work. I would take the time to discuss the various marketing methods and traffic sources in the Newbie Helpdesk forum. Ask some questions that network AM's and traffic source reps would respond to in helping you make decisions to determine what is a good fit for you starting out.

I can tell you that I love content marketing, but I would never recommend that to a Newbie. You need a few skills first. You need to master a tracker, master a traffic source, and master campaigns in a specific niche. Once you do this, a couple of months usually, then you can begin to explore other areas.