AMA: Affiliate Marketing

[lludwig]

How do u see Youtube as a platform for affiliate marketing? Im thinking of starting a youtube channel related to Tech(coding) or stocks.Would you recommend any niches which are good to get started in 2018?

Yes Youtube can work and have a few friends that are popular on YouTube. Keep in mind though it's not as direct as a post and if anything I would create the same topic but on various mediums. ie. an article, and YouTube video, a podcast, etc...

I'm not going to answer specific niches, that's something you should figure out on your own.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

This won't be a popular question, but it's one I've mulled over in my head, and I'd be curious to get your perspective. Do you believe affiliate marketing to be ethical?

You are really asking a larger question. Is capitalism ethical??

I see this with lots of entrepreneurs and especially Millenials. I can say without question you need to figure this out in your head ASAP. Otherwise, IMHO you'll never be successful. You have mixed emotions and need this sorted out.

Yes I believe capitalism and affiliate marketing are ethical. Otherwise, I wouldn't have created my site.

If you are thinking this, how is it not ethical?

You aren't forcing anyone to purchase a product. No one puts a gun to someone else's head to force the purchase. That being said first and foremost you should believe in the products/services you are recommending. If you believe the product is shit and you are recommending it, then it's going against your own morals. If you are misrepresenting the product, again you are going against your own morals.

The value you are adding with affiliate marketing is telling others about a product/service that may not been aware of previously to meet their need. This can be executed in all sorts of ways. On Investor Junkie we had reviews, comparisons between products, promotions, educational articles that then referenced tools to use, and lastly recommended services. All of this added value to the reader and in return we got paid because they signed up to one of the services listed.

My goal was to have EVERY service listed on our site to be in an affiliate relationship. We were pretty close (around 90%). Unfortunately some of the services we liked the most didn't offer any affiliate program (ie Vanguard, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab), but still reviewed and listed them on our site.

Believe it or not, there are services we've given poor ratings and serious negative issues and you know what, people still signed up. We were honest about the service in our review, stated the negative issues about the product yet people still joined. I obviously won't recommend a firm that is committing fraud (in fact don't even review them), but if a service adds some value to the user who are we to say otherwise? Obviously, they aren't on our recommended list.

I could never get into the head of the reader, what their needs are, and what makes them purchase. What you might dislike, someone else might get value from.

If you want to follow FTC guidelines (which you legally should), disclose that your links on the page are affiliate links at the top of a page. I've found from my research, most ignore the disclaimer and don't read it anyways.

Affiliate marketing certainly can be done unethically. I've seen it done, but only because of the way it was executed, not affiliate marketing itself. Any business for that matter can be run unethically. Tesla comes to mind from another thread.

 

[Deleted50669]

You are really asking a larger question. Is capitalism ethical??

I see this with lots of entrepreneurs and especially Millenials. I can say without question you need to figure this out in your head ASAP. Otherwise, IMHO you'll never be successful. You have mixed emotions and need this sorted out.

Yes I believe capitalism and affiliate marketing are ethical. Otherwise, I wouldn't have created my site.

If you are thinking this, how is it not ethical?

You aren't forcing anyone to purchase a product. No one puts a gun to someone else's head to force the purchase. That being said first and foremost you should believe in the products/services you are recommending. If you believe the product is sh*t and you are recommending it then it's going against your own morals. If you are misrepresenting the product, again you are going against your own morals.

The value you are adding with affiliate marketing is telling others about a product/service that may not been aware of previously to meet their need. This can be executed in all sorts of ways. On Investor Junkie we had reviews, comparisons between products, promotions, educational articles that then referenced tools to use, and lastly recommended services. All of this added value to the reader and in return we got paid because they signed up to one of the services listed. My goal was to have EVERY service listed on our site an affiliate relationship. We were pretty close (around 90%). Unfortunately some of the services we liked the most didn't offer any affiliate program (ie Vanguard, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab), but still reviewed and listed them on our site.

Believe it or not, there are services we've given poor ratings and serious negative issues and you know what, people still signed up. We were honest about the service in our review, stated the negative issues about the product yet people still joined. I obviously won't recommend a firm that is committing fraud (in fact don't even review them), but if a service adds some value to the user who are we to say otherwise? Obviously, they aren't on our recommended list.

I could never get into the head of the reader, what their needs are, and what makes them purchase. What you might dislike, someone else might get value from.

If you want to follow FTC guidelines (which you legally should), disclose that your links on the page are affiliate links at the top of a page. Even then, I've found from my research, most ignore the disclaimer and don't read it anyways.

That's not to say affiliate marketing can't be done unethically. It certainly can and I've seen it done, but only because of the way it was executed, not affiliate marketing itself. Any business for that matter can be run unethically. Tesla comes to mind from another thread.

Thank you for your take on this. That definitely clarified a few things for me. I agree that I need to build more certainty around it, especially since the web app I'm working on will partially rely on affiliate marketing early on.

 

[Kelly C]

When starting out how did you tackle promotion? Did you bother with backlinks/guest posting etc or did you take a different approach to getting your content viewed?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

When starting out how did you tackle promotion? Did you bother with backlinks/guest posting etc or did you take a different approach to getting your content viewed?

When I started getting guest posts on other sites was easy. Today I wouldn't recommend wasting your time trying to get guest posts.

I would first work on building great content and content that has a unique angle and then shop around to the various news, and fellow bloggers to see if they have any interest in interviewing you on that topic. From that you typically get a backlink or mention on their site. Also just by building great content, it tends to get backlinks naturally.

 

[mikey3times]

Meaning in specifically my space what was important is making sure the visitor found the best service that fit their needs than just going for the conversion.

A new site I am working on is following this advice. I am actually stealing a bit of your funnel strategy so thanks. My competitors are going for sales and they crank out tons of content. I’m leaning toward fewer articles and focusing on quality help. It may be the wrong approach, but we shall see.

Questions:

Which direction would you build the funnel? From money articles (reviews) back or would you start with the info articles and work toward the money articles?

How did you do outreach (link building) to identify your readers and pull them in? What percentage of time did you spend on content vs outreach in each phase of the project?

Finally, what kinds of payouts would you look for if you were just starting? Would you target expensive products? Or go for volume?

Thanks for doing this AMA.

 

[lludwig]

A new site I am working on is following this advice. I am actually stealing a bit of your funnel strategy so thanks. My competitors are going for sales and they crank out tons of content. I’m leaning toward fewer articles and focusing on quality help. It may be the wrong approach, but we shall see.

No I think that is a better idea. Build long and helpful "super articles" that will more than likely beat the competition. Cranking out crappy articles won't help users and either won't rank or eventually won't rank either.

Which direction would you build the funnel? From money articles (reviews) back or would you start with the info articles and work toward the money articles?

Is your site in the personal finance space?? I would start with general education articles as they are more the lower hanging fruit in the PF space. With reviews you will be hard-pressed to rank for most just starting out. But that's not the say if you are wanting to become a review site that you shouldn't do them either. Keep in mind you are competing against other reviews already out there. What value can you add that the existing reviews don't have??? If you answer none, then more than likely they won't ever rank. Your content has to be materially better than the competing sites.

How did you do outreach (link building) to identify your readers and pull them in? What percentage of time did you spend on content vs outreach in each phase of the project?

Very little IMHO but I also networked heavy with the conference FINCON. So I know most other bloggers and vendors in this space personally.

Only in the past year did I hire an SEO firm specifically to help with outreach and more specifically PR. Most of the time was spent on content (mostly updating) and improving functionality/UX/UI on the site.

Finally, what kinds of payouts would you look for if you were just starting? Would you target expensive products? Or go for volume?

I would do a divide and conquer strategy.

I wouldn't focus on the payouts but more mass appeal/low hanging fruit. If something gets a lot of organic traffic, has a possible ability to generate affiliate revenue, yet the quality of the competing articles stink I would go for this first.

Using my site as an example. We first focused on the robo advisors, then expanded into stock brokers (which was an established area) and recently added savings/CD bank accounts into the review mix. I did banking purposely last. One was because at the time I started rates were low and individuals were going up the rate curve looking for more returns. The second reason was there were already many established players and the chances of ranking for anything with not enough SEO link equity was low to rank for anything.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mikey3times]

Is your site in the personal finance space?? I would start with general education articles as they are more the lower hanging fruit in the PF space. With reviews you will be hard-pressed to rank for most just starting out.

I’m not in PF, but still in a niche that will be hard to rank for typical reviews for the main products. They are a dime a dozen.

This helps a lot. Thanks.

I’m going to focus on building the overall information section (“getting started”) and then dive into reviews for some less popular products. Reddit has been my friend for finding some of the less popular options out there. Then I can come back to the popular products once I have some authority.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

What affiliate directory is the best to promote your own product on? AffiliateSeeking? oDigger? etc

 

[lludwig]

What affiliate directory is the best to promote your own product on? AffiliateSeeking? oDigger? etc

I can’t answer that question as I’m not familiar with either. Thought why not both?? I would be selective on who you select as an affiliate and have specific requirements and what will cause you to boot them.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[HackVenture]

Congratulations on the exit lludwig, and thanks for doing this AMA!

How long were you running the site before it had the authority to be sold for a healthy payday?

Did you go through a broker? Did the buyers find you or did you actively market it for sale?

What prior experience did you have prior to starting this?

And what's next for you now that you've exited?

 

[Tommo]

Thanks for this lludwig. You couldn't have timed this AMA better. It is a big help for me.

 

[business_man]

I wouldn't touch most Clickbank products, the payouts are very low for sh*t products that have no brand equity. I would only do Clickbank products to test my own products/services to sell to see if there's a market for it. I might use Clickbank for my own products/services though.

Hey lludwig, great thread.

So what are your main sources for finding a product? Can you walk us through a little bit about right product?

What budget would you recommend to start? With testing and the "second wave" after you done testing. I understand it varies from niche to niche, but can we talk a little bit about the beginning budgets?

You mentioned server to server tracking instead of pixeling (or complementary to pixeling). Can you open curtains a little bit on that, how to start with that?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

So what are your main sources for finding a product? Can you walk us through a little bit about right product?

It's about the vertical you are in. So if the vendor doesn't have an affiliate program we actively pursued to see if we can get one going.

What budget would you recommend to start? With testing and the "second wave" after you done testing. I understand it varies from niche to niche, but can we talk a little bit about the beginning budgets?

A budget for what? I'm not following.

You mentioned server to server tracking instead of pixeling (or complementary to pixeling). Can you open curtains a little bit on that, how to start with that?

What do you want to know?

It needs to be available via the vendor and the affiliate network. If the affiliate network doesn't offer it then you can't do it this way.

 

[lludwig]

How long were you running the site before it had the authority to be sold for a healthy payday?

December 2009 is when the site was created. So 8 years.

Did you go through a broker? Did the buyers find you or did you actively market it for sale?

I did the sale myself. There is a specific firm in my space I could have used and did speak with a few year prior, but I also know very well the valuation of these types of sites. So I didn't feel the fees needed to pay them. If the deal fell through they could have been used as they did so happen to knock on my door during the deal making process.

What prior experience did you have prior to starting this?

With affiliate marketing? I had zero prior to this. Same was SEO I have very little experience when I first started.

Prior though owned a web hosting business for 13 years and been involved in web development, design and system administration since 1993. In the mid-nineties worked on quite a few Fortune 500 initial websites including T Rowe Price, Lenscrafters, Chase, IBM, Minolta, ING Bank.

And what's next for you now that you've exited?

Got any ideas?

I'm still thinking about this. I have some ideas but nothing that's jumping out at me yet.

 

[Geekour]

In your opinion and based on your journey, what makes the difference between an amateur affiliate marketer and pro? What are the common pitfalls that the successful affiliate marketers know to cross?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

In your opinion and based on your journey, what makes the difference between an amateur affiliate marketer and pro?

Not realizing that just having a link on your site it's going generate any income. You need to build your brand/cult/following. People click on links because they trust what you have to say and it's not because of just an affiliate commission you get.

What are the common pitfalls that the successful affiliate marketers know to cross?

See some of the above answers.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Hey Larry,

I noticed you used Studiopress for IJ.

What are your thoughts on launching with the framework?

Thanks man

 

[GetShitDone]

Thanks so much for this.

I'm currently affiliate marketing a referral link to an Cryptocurrency Investment Bot (I get a Residual % of profits of my referral).

I'm doing this via Direct Marketing on LinkedIn.

How do I convince the Investor/User to use my Referral Link along with shamelessly telling them about the 5% commission of profits that I'm getting? As opposed to them signing up on their own in a new tab?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

Hey Larry,

I noticed you used Studiopress for IJ.

What are your thoughts on launching with the framework?

Thanks man

I personally love it. Though if you aren't tech saavy it can be tough. The HTML 5 and responsive design makes it very SEO friendly.

 

[lludwig]

How do I convince the Investor/User to use my Referral Link along with shamelessly telling them about the 5% commission of profits that I'm getting? As opposed to them signing up on their own in a new tab?

Well how are you talking about the referral link?? What value are you adding for the reader about the vendor?

 

[Frosting]

Wow, I just re-joined the forum after a year's hiatus and found your brilliant AMA! Thank you so much for doing this.

How much time did you spend working on the site each day (on average)?

How did you get readers initially vs later? Was it mostly SEO or ads? (seo including organic backlinks/rankings/etc)

How frequently did you publish articles/posts?

Edit: after posting all those questions, I realized they're more related to your work setup rather than affiliate marketing! Guess I got carried away - I'm just happily surprised to see your success, coming right on the heels of my thinking of a similar project, which would be a hobby for me, given that my main business is my focus for now. Because I've been viewing my project as a potential fun hobby, I wasn't sure about profitability, which is so exciting for me to see your success.

Also (more of an seo/site-setup question!) what do you think of large authority sites? I loved your numerical steps setup, starting with credit card debt reduction and incorporating "side hustle" etc, but again - if your website name had been different, do you think it would've been worthwhile to expand on those sections in greater depth, would you have done anything in particular for that sort of expansion into related niches?

And of course, congrats on the exit!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZeroTo100]

I personally love it. Though if you aren't tech saavy it can be tough. The HTML 5 and responsive design makes it very SEO friendly.

I was a long time user of thesis and I remember when thesis used to be the leader in the market. Now it seems like genesis took the lead.

When you started, what was it that was most effective in terms of traffic. What was that phase where you said “well, this works... I see a big difference in traffic by doing this.”

What was that like?

A lot of people that I know in this market really don’t like to rely on SEO for the sake of time and putting your eggs in the “google” basket. I’m guessing your focus was predominantly on SEO?

 

[AnMSo]

Hello Ludwig,

This is a great and helpful thread. The insights you have provide are truly invaluable for people who have the objective to start and become successful at A.F.

IMO it’s very helpful to newbies (like me) to start in A.F because it allows us to begin learning how to drive traffic to our website and how to sell in e-com. Instead of jumping right into private labeling or anything related.

Success stories like yours inspire me a lot and I have a few questions if you don’t mind:

How much do you think that a beginner should begin investing and spending in a venture like this? I know it can vary a lot. Perhaps the bare minimum according to your expertise.

How would you divide and prioritize (in terms of percentages) your initial budget.. Personally I know someone who invested like 60 % of its initial budget on some very good content.

Thank you for your time.

 

[laur.matache]

Congrats for the exit, Larry.

I'm curious to learn how did you start regarding the content, did you write the articles yourself, or did you hired content writers? I believe content writing is an important topic for an entrepreneur that wants to build an authority website and I'm trying to learn what's the best approach.

I understand that big articles that add lots of value are what one should look for, would you advise getting this kind of articles from iwriter for example?

Bottom line: how can one start with this business model, without having a huge budget for content writers.

Thanks,
Laur

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

Congrats for the exit, Larry.

I'm curious to learn how did you start regarding the content, did you write the articles yourself, or did you hired content writers? I believe content writing is an important topic for an entrepreneur that wants to build an authority website and I'm trying to learn what's the best approach.

I understand that big articles that add lots of value are what one should look for, would you advise getting this kind of articles from iwriter for example?

Bottom line: how can one start with this business model, without having a huge budget for content writers.

Thanks,
Laur

Initially, all the articles were written by me. As I grew I hired others but was editor-in-chief and edited everything.

 

[lludwig]

I understand that big articles that add lots of value are what one should look for, would you advise getting this kind of articles from iwriter for example?

Bottom line: how can one start with this business model, without having a huge budget for content writers.

If you don’t have the budget then start writing yourself. Keep in mind these articles can/should be improved over time. It’s NOT set and forget.

 

[Umberto777]

Thank you Larry for you help.
Why did you leave Hosting Market?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[lludwig]

Thank you Larry for you help.
Why did you leave Hosting Market?

Because it sucks. It's a commodity business.

 

[Umberto777]

How many unique daily visitors did you usually get?