Hey folks,
For those that didn't read my intro post, I'm at a point where I'm looking to make a major pivot out of affiliate marketing (calling it 'AM' herein) into a true fastlane business. I read MJ's book and have torn through hundreds of threads in this forum. Figured the least I could do is start a question thread for those of you interested in AM.
I got into AM 7 years ago when I was finishing up college, the first 2 years of which I only ran about $50k in revenue while learning the ropes.
The last 5 years I've done between $25-30m in revenue. I've generated the bulk of this by "campaign hopping" from the hot thing at the moment, while also running some more long-term stable campaigns in the background.
Some things upfront: I don't do mobile advertising. I don't do Clickbank or Commission Junction. I don't do SE-slow. I've never done adult or dating offers or touched adult traffic sources. I only have 1 employee--me--and work from home. I have outsourced tech, design and dev teams. I've made a good chunk of this revenue from promoting PIN submit offers and another big chunk employing co-registration/regpaths.
My personal best profit days were around $30,000 /day. I am pretty fed up and burnt out from AM and will be open, frank and fairly candid in this AMA thread.
Tips / observations / random thoughts:
- This was and will continue to be an increasingly difficult business to get into. US and CA based affiliates have to comply with govt regulations in all of their marketing efforts all while competing with guys on the opposite side of the world who could care less about rules and regulations. Those guys are (for the most part) untouchable, while US based affiliates could (and do) get nailed hard.
- Continuing off of the first point, a lot of US affiliates have moved their efforts overseas targetting EU, Latam and Asia instead of US/CA. Don't be afraid to get your LP translated on onehourtranslation.com and test some offers in small, random countries. There's no better feeling then spending 1/10 the CPC and yielding double the EPC on an intl offer in a small country vs. running in US.
- This business isn't about re-inventing the wheel. It's about copying whats working (whatrunswhere.com etc), improving it and tweaking it so that it lasts.
- AM is not a fastlane business. It's a "tease" fastlane business. It's possible to keep campaigns running for months at a time with only minor creative/LP upkeep -- but eventually the traffic source will dry out, competitors will eat you, or the offer will be discontinued. There have been many months where I could get by working 1-2 hours per week. In hindsight, I wish I was actively pursuing a true fastlane business with this "free time". I am now.
- CPA networks are falling by the wayside. Whoever you work with, make sure you are on weekly wire payments regardless of your volume. If a network refuses this move on.
- Your affiliate manager at the CPA network is your best friend and potential business partner. If you can prove you can run big revenue they will share incredible amounts of internal data with you, including competitor landing pages and traffic sources. I have several affiliate managers who I've followed around from network to network quite simply because they will be my inside man and partner. Again, your affiliate/account manager is your best buddy.
- What's doing most revenue right now on the high revenue networks you ask? Nutra stuff, and within that huge vertical: rebills. Diet to be precise, followed by skin. Straight-sale nutra stuff isn't too far behind. Outside of nutra, tool-bars (notably the shady "Update your Flash player" offer) are doing hundreds of thousands of leads per day. Behind that, PIN submits, promo (win and iPad offers) and dating do huge revenue.
- Credit cards are your friends in this business. I recommend Amex Plum (2% cash back) and Amex Starwood Business (points can be worth over 0.05 per point if redeemed correctly). I've accumulated millions of points paying for my huge adspends and haven't paid for a vacation in 5 years, including weeks around Europe, first class airfare etc. It's a good perk of the job. 2% cashback on a $1.5m monthly adspend account is a nice $30k bonus. Points have also allowed me to treat family members to great vacations. Amex is incredibly receptive to increasing credit.
I know there are 2-3 other huge AM threads on here, so hopefully we can ask some original questions here. Perhaps we should keep this thread related intermediate or advanced discussion, or offer/network specific tidbits. I'll let you guys steer but I think most "how do i get started" questions have been answered elsewhere.
Lastly, I think it would be beneficial to keep any questions here and not via PM.
Look forward to chatting.
-apax
For those that didn't read my intro post, I'm at a point where I'm looking to make a major pivot out of affiliate marketing (calling it 'AM' herein) into a true fastlane business. I read MJ's book and have torn through hundreds of threads in this forum. Figured the least I could do is start a question thread for those of you interested in AM.
I got into AM 7 years ago when I was finishing up college, the first 2 years of which I only ran about $50k in revenue while learning the ropes.
The last 5 years I've done between $25-30m in revenue. I've generated the bulk of this by "campaign hopping" from the hot thing at the moment, while also running some more long-term stable campaigns in the background.
Some things upfront: I don't do mobile advertising. I don't do Clickbank or Commission Junction. I don't do SE-slow. I've never done adult or dating offers or touched adult traffic sources. I only have 1 employee--me--and work from home. I have outsourced tech, design and dev teams. I've made a good chunk of this revenue from promoting PIN submit offers and another big chunk employing co-registration/regpaths.
My personal best profit days were around $30,000 /day. I am pretty fed up and burnt out from AM and will be open, frank and fairly candid in this AMA thread.
Tips / observations / random thoughts:
- This was and will continue to be an increasingly difficult business to get into. US and CA based affiliates have to comply with govt regulations in all of their marketing efforts all while competing with guys on the opposite side of the world who could care less about rules and regulations. Those guys are (for the most part) untouchable, while US based affiliates could (and do) get nailed hard.
- Continuing off of the first point, a lot of US affiliates have moved their efforts overseas targetting EU, Latam and Asia instead of US/CA. Don't be afraid to get your LP translated on onehourtranslation.com and test some offers in small, random countries. There's no better feeling then spending 1/10 the CPC and yielding double the EPC on an intl offer in a small country vs. running in US.
- This business isn't about re-inventing the wheel. It's about copying whats working (whatrunswhere.com etc), improving it and tweaking it so that it lasts.
- AM is not a fastlane business. It's a "tease" fastlane business. It's possible to keep campaigns running for months at a time with only minor creative/LP upkeep -- but eventually the traffic source will dry out, competitors will eat you, or the offer will be discontinued. There have been many months where I could get by working 1-2 hours per week. In hindsight, I wish I was actively pursuing a true fastlane business with this "free time". I am now.
- CPA networks are falling by the wayside. Whoever you work with, make sure you are on weekly wire payments regardless of your volume. If a network refuses this move on.
- Your affiliate manager at the CPA network is your best friend and potential business partner. If you can prove you can run big revenue they will share incredible amounts of internal data with you, including competitor landing pages and traffic sources. I have several affiliate managers who I've followed around from network to network quite simply because they will be my inside man and partner. Again, your affiliate/account manager is your best buddy.
- What's doing most revenue right now on the high revenue networks you ask? Nutra stuff, and within that huge vertical: rebills. Diet to be precise, followed by skin. Straight-sale nutra stuff isn't too far behind. Outside of nutra, tool-bars (notably the shady "Update your Flash player" offer) are doing hundreds of thousands of leads per day. Behind that, PIN submits, promo (win and iPad offers) and dating do huge revenue.
- Credit cards are your friends in this business. I recommend Amex Plum (2% cash back) and Amex Starwood Business (points can be worth over 0.05 per point if redeemed correctly). I've accumulated millions of points paying for my huge adspends and haven't paid for a vacation in 5 years, including weeks around Europe, first class airfare etc. It's a good perk of the job. 2% cashback on a $1.5m monthly adspend account is a nice $30k bonus. Points have also allowed me to treat family members to great vacations. Amex is incredibly receptive to increasing credit.
I know there are 2-3 other huge AM threads on here, so hopefully we can ask some original questions here. Perhaps we should keep this thread related intermediate or advanced discussion, or offer/network specific tidbits. I'll let you guys steer but I think most "how do i get started" questions have been answered elsewhere.
Lastly, I think it would be beneficial to keep any questions here and not via PM.
Look forward to chatting.
-apax
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