[AMA] $25m+ in affiliate mktg revenue & exiting the game: Ask me anything.

[nitroheadz28]

One thing, that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread, is that you know how to market products and services. When you start your own business, this will be HUGE for you.

This is exactly why I've started out in AM now. As I mentioned in Nosferatu's AMA (the other beginner one thats been up for a couple months here), a LOT of people coming from AM have gone fastlane after having mastered how to market properly through various traffic sources and niches. While the business in itself sucks, IMO it can give one a worthwhile experience if one takes the time to explore all sides of the business and become proficient at them. Of course not only is this a sort of "training" for someone who is starting out in online business, but if you're half decent you can "earn on the job" and start scooping up a nice chunk of change to fund your actual fastlane ventures once you're ready to fully commit to them- pretty much what the OP has done except he's been in the AM game for longer than most

 

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[apax999]

Interesting answer.

I want to play devil's advocate for a minute. Since you do not think it's worth it to get into affiliate marketing, why did you end up trying it instead of starting your own fastlane venture?

Just trying to understand the mindset of successful people like you.

Thanks -- I don't consider myself 'successful' just yet. That's a fully-loaded word. Whether or not I truly am successful with a real business remains to be seen.

I started dabbling in AM over 6 years ago when I was in college. I just wanted something to pay the bills at the time. My priorities were TOTALLY different back then. Back then it was just "how much can I make?". My priority was stuffing my bank account with no concern for exit strategy, building a tangible asset, longevity or passive income.

Now, it's about building something sustainable and passive to set me up for the rest of my life. Married, a house, first kid on the way. Priorities are just totally different at this point. I no longer want to hop from one AM campaign goldmine to the next. The gold is coming harder and harder to come by.

One thing, that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread, is that you know how to market products and services. When you start your own business, this will be HUGE for you.

While I won't recommend AM as long-term fastlane business, I can't stress enough how grateful I am for the connections I made and all the things I learned along the way. I'm hoping if my past experience is put to good use I can hit the ground running w/ my own products.

 

[apax999]

This is exactly why I've started out in AM now. As I mentioned in Nosferatu's AMA (the other beginner one thats been up for a couple months here), a LOT of people coming from AM have gone fastlane after having mastered how to market properly through various traffic sources and niches. While the business in itself sucks, IMO it can give one a worthwhile experience if one takes the time to explore all sides of the business and become proficient at them. Of course not only is this a sort of "training" for someone who is starting out in online business, but if you're half decent you can "earn on the job" and start scooping up a nice chunk of change to fund your actual fastlane ventures once you're ready to fully commit to them- pretty much what the OP has done except he's been in the AM game for longer than most

Good luck. Once you master an offer or vertical do what took me 6 years to realize: de-construct the offer and build it yourself. Don't get sucked into the vortex of hopping from offer to offer. Master one offer, dominate that offer with several traffic sources, then build it out yourself and own it.

 

[PaulWS]

My friend, you ARE successful. Success comes in many forms. Just because you have not built a fastlane business does not mean you are not successful. You found success in another area. That counts!

I appreciate the answers. I see what you mean. I have a few decent relationships with website owners with legit products and services. I'm thinking about becoming an affiliate with one of them to build up some more cash and learn more marketing skills. I want to start a fastlane business as well.

 

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[Hong King Kong]

Hey, just wanna say thanks for the AMA, I'm always amazed at people who make it in affiliate marketing... its super competitive and gruelling, especially at the volume you were doing, I could only imagine how stressful that was, very impressive.

 

[theBiz]

I remember earlier you speaking about how important testing the proper sales funnel is when using PPV/CPV but with:

I don't run this. But the person who is is most likely making around $1.60 - 1.75 per install.

These chrome and mozilla installs... what is the sales funnel, is there one? It seems they literally just try to model what chrome or mozilla is doing and the install happens one click off of that pop up. If so, that would mean you could go to whatrunswhere, find his popup, copy it, and get the same download conversion ratios hes getting because there are no complex sales funnel to figure out/test. Im not sure but im also assuming hes not personally grabbing the emails to build a list either, correct?

 

[apax999]

I remember earlier you speaking about how important testing the proper sales funnel is when using PPV/CPV but with:

These chrome and mozilla installs... what is the sales funnel, is there one? It seems they literally just try to model what chrome or mozilla is doing and the install happens one click off of that pop up. If so, that would mean you could go to whatrunswhere, find his popup, copy it, and get the same download conversion ratios hes getting because there are no complex sales funnel to figure out/test. Im not sure but im also assuming hes not personally grabbing the emails to build a list either, correct?

Sales funnel is on the backend, kind of. The advertiser is paying affiliates up to 1.75 per install (more likely around 1.50). When the user installs the software, the advertiser has a ton of ways of making more money from cross-installing more crap software, to serving ads (more likely) etc. It's an interesting example to dissect. As far as copying this campaign verbatim for your own testing, there would be a couple obstacles to get around.

- these offers are banned on most platforms, and are becoming increasingly more banned due to their deceptive nature
- if you approach a network without having any connections and with just this offer you most likely won't get a reply or a callback
- let's say you found the source he's running on and approach them, 1 of 3 things will happen. 1, they will not let you run because of their lucrative relationship with the other existing advertiser. 2, the other advertiser is the offer owner/direct advertiser so he naturally has more lee-way on the CPA and the network has no interest in your business. 3, the network will let you run in direct competition with the existing offer.
- if you do get the offer live, you are still just the affiliate. you are at the mercy of the offer getting scrubbed or going down. if the offer own likes your traffic source he'll come in and advertise himself with his stronger CPA. but this is the name of the game with ANY cpa offer.
- if you get the offer live on the ad network the other guy has been running on for XX months or X years, keep in mind the user base may be becoming banner blind to it. your performance (and his) will always be on a slow decline. his campaign has also been optimized and perfected (placements and creatives). yours has not.

as you pointed out there is no sales funnel to be figured out on the front-end here. this is a RON (run of network) offer that can appeal to any demo of traffic, for obvious reasons.

 

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[theBiz]

Thanks man, thats all logical stuff most people including myself probably wouldent think of, especially the connections part.

if the offer own likes your traffic source he'll come in and advertise himself with his stronger CPA. but this is the name of the game with ANY cpa offer.

Yeah thats tough, but as you said you deal with it daily. Im sure host gator wouldent copy you if your brought them sales, but host gator would ban you as an affiliate most likely due to your aggressive tactics. When dealing with these grey lined products like mozilla installs, the owner is probably some tech/advertising savvy guy who can replace you once he sees your source.


Back to the main point though:

as you pointed out there is no sales funnel to be figured out on the front-end here.

For that profit your speculating, it really is some pretty amazing stuff. The back end doesnt concern the affiliate at all, if you want to copy them and open your open business, surely it does but in the meantime the process seems 10x less intense than having to monetize a list yourself to make a profit (which is where almost all fail).

If the process is someone downloading software 1 click off of a landing page.... it seems honestly just spending money, testing many different popups, and seeing which one gets clicked more. Im assuming the downloader is supplied by the business owner so you cant edit that or anything... in this offer style it looks like its all about spending money, testing popups and trying to get a higher CTR. Seems these RON (run of network) offers are awesome to quickly identify a profitable source, but will die out quickly due to the competition/decreasing click through rate.... im sure when you hit the right one your making some serious money for a few months. Considering RON's are not targeting a specific type of consumer, id say it takes a good marketer to be effective here.

***edit: I understand this was a while back so it may not be as relevant, but can you share how much you spent advertising overall before you saw a profit, or at least a break even point?

 

[apax999]

***edit: I understand this was a while back so it may not be as relevant, but can you share how much you spent advertising overall before you saw a profit, or at least a break even point?

I lost at least $5-10k before I finally found something profitable. Honestly don't remember the exact amounts. I remember for many months, I was spending and only getting back half that spend in revenue. Then the revenue slowly climbed as the weeks went on. 60% back, 75% back... then breakeven.

My very first offers were between the period of Halloween and the holiday season... pretty much right now 6 years ago. I was running holiday branded email/zip submits. "Get a $250 halloween gift card to walmart!" etc. I think my one big offer back then was an email submit for "free" Six Flags Fright Fest tickets.

 

[theBiz]

I lost at least $5-10k before I finally found something profitable.

Thank you, that's funny ive heard around $5,000-$7,500 from multiple sources ive asked (actual online businesses, not affiliates)

I was spending and only getting back half that spend in revenue.

That's also a scenario we all see so often, the tough part is knowing when to keep going, or throw in the towel because it simply will not work.

 

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[Daniel A]

Thank you for posting this thread apax999! I've been reading your posts but have not had any questions that I thought that were good come to mind. Now I do...

Here in the forum there is a someone paying to have thier ad up. The ad was mentioned a few days back and I always see it so I finally clicked on it myself lol. I clicked the close button soon after BUT, he's a trickster, he knows his stuff! :eusa_clap:

So I can tell you what happened or you can see for yourself and try to answer. I'll try to tell you first.

...I clicked the ad and after a few seconds I wanted to leave the page so I clicked close. That's where the fun came in. A box popped up warning me not to leave the page, a graphic telling me what to do to stay on the page appeared at the top right of the page, and I was not able to leave. This happened for what seemed like 3-5 times after clicking close.

If you know what I am talking about, do you know how to do that? It seems like a pretty effective strategy.

Here is the link to see what I am talking about yourself. I tested it out again but this time it closed out the first try though.

This is an affiliate link, Not mine, It's most likely Vick's...the guy in the video and who is most likely paying to have it up on the forum. Used for the example. Don't buy his stuff. It's actually for the Empower Network I believe :nono: Haha

http://bigideamastermind.com/accidental710k/?id=bimaccess

How can I have pages that prevent viewers from leaving immediately after they click the close button?

Thank you again!

 

[apax999]

I don't know where he got that exact script, but Google "exit JS pop script" and you'll find some basic ones. Not all traffic sources will allow these. Pretty much all pop/cpv/ppv sources ban these.

 

[eStan]

Hey apax,

I'm glad you went through with the AMA after all. Plenty of golden nuggets here, awesome thread.

Congrats on your huge numbers. It still amazes me sometimes to see the possibilities we have today, especially online. I mean you literally made millions working from home in a few years. I know you don't consider it fastlane but it still is an amazing achievement my friend.

Anyway, got a few questions of my own too.

As I understand you made most of your money with PPV? I didn't know it was this big. I've heard of people doing 30k/day but very rare.

Have you managed to successfully convert higher paying offers on PPV? Like diet, skin care, etc. trials or sales?

Did you have any problems with scrubbing? I saw you made a good chunk of money with email and pin submits and those get shaved a lot.

You said you consider yourself a mid-sized affiliate. Hell then what is a super affiliate for you in terms of revenue? What's the most you know or heard about other affiliates making?

On a more personal note, any lavish purchases you made during these years? Perhaps a Lambo?

That's about it. Make sure you take care of your health. Being in the same industry I hate having to stay in front of the computer for so long.

All the best in your future ventures. May the next Sensa or Force Factor be yours

 

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[apax999]

Hey apax,

As I understand you made most of your money with PPV? I didn't know it was this big. I've heard of people doing 30k/day but very rare.

Have you managed to successfully convert higher paying offers on PPV? Like diet, skin care, etc. trials or sales?

Yes. I still do. It's one of the few active campaigns I still tend to, so unfortunately I won't be able to discuss further. I also drive PPV traffic into co-registration paths.

Did you have any problems with scrubbing? I saw you made a good chunk of money with email and pin submits and those get shaved a lot.

The moment I sense something odd with an advertiser in terms of conversions/scrubbing, I let my affiliate manager know. I cut the offer and usually the advertiser comes scrambling back apologizing. Don't let the adv control YOU, you control THEM. Money talks and bullshit walks. If you have the revenue potential they won't screw with you. Scrubbing is theft and I do NOT tolerate it well.

E-mail/zip submits are notorious for this. I recommend cutting out the adv and building out your own co-registration path instead. Coreg was and is my bread and butter.

You said you consider yourself a mid-sized affiliate. Hell then what is a super affiliate for you in terms of revenue? What's the most you know or heard about other affiliates making?

As far as I'm concerned five figures per day across at least a few totally diverse campaigns and traffic sources--CONSISTENTLY--as in 6 straight months or more makes you a super affiliate. Running 1 campaign on 1 traffic source scoring a sweet $15k a day isn't "super affiliate". It's "super lucky". I know people who made $100k profit /day for 5-6 months back during the flog/acai boom of 2008-2009. A lot of guys did.

On a more personal note, any lavish purchases you made during these years? Perhaps a Lambo?

Hah. Two nice houses, one of which became an investment property when we up-sized. No Lambo. More of an Audi guy. Audi S6 for now. Wouldn't mind getting my hands around an R8!

That's about it. Make sure you take care of your health. Being in the same industry I hate having to stay in front of the computer for so long.

Thanks, and totally agree. It's the most important thing of all. I know too many people who have burnt out their bodies physically and mentally from being in front of a computer 12 hours /day. At some point, you really need to ask yourself if the trade-off is worth it. Good luck.

 

[GuestUser113]

You mentioned you have never touched mobile advertising or adult. Why? I had thought about starting AM - adult media buying. I found a few useful tools - imobitrax and adultadspy.

 

[apax999]

You mentioned you have never touched mobile advertising or adult. Why? I had thought about starting AM - adult media buying. I found a few useful tools - imobitrax and adultadspy.

Don't get me wrong there are guys who have mastered mobile, but for me it was 3 things keeping me away:

1) focusing on and more interested in my web-based media buying

2) lack of tracking software for mobile buys. for web-based buying, there is a ton of off-the-shelf software for tracking that all works great. this doesn't exist yet for mobile. you either need to use a custom setup or modify web-based tracking software for mobile--both of which result in huge click loss (20-30%). i know several big groups are working on launching true mobile tracking software, so we'll see. but this is wide open opportunity for any developers out there.

3) not a fan of the mobile ad networks. there are no standards and no accountability with these guys. "oh, we billed you for 2000 clicks but you only got 1200? it's just a discrepancy with [insert carrier name/handset model/mobile operating system/OS version/intl geo]"

As for adult, just no interest. I never pushed dating offers, which for many is the gateway over to adult.

 

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[Yussef]

Is the money really in the list? Or do you even utilize a list?

 

[Phillipbro]

I've noticed the green coffee bean market is extremely competitive but rewarding. How much do you think those guys are doing daily?
Also it doesn't look like the barrier to entry is as complicated as it seems...

 

[Vespasian]

I've noticed the green coffee bean market is extremely competitive but rewarding. How much do you think those guys are doing daily?

In EU markets 100k in sales per day is doable (in one country).

Also it doesn't look like the barrier to entry is as complicated as it seems...

Just to give you an idea what it's like to be on the sellers side:

• Bullet proof company setup (you don't want to get busted when somebody dies of your diet pill, happens all the time)
• Bullet proof, high risk merchant accounts / payment processing. Can't replace frozen accounts? You're done. Good MIDs are not easy to get.
• Customer service / dealing with chargebacks
• Shipping is a pain in the a$$ because you ship without tracking numbers = lots of lost packages = lots of work for your customer service dep
• Reputation management, otherwise you'll hurt sales.
• CPA pricing. There are competitors that have been active for years and therefore have their offer pages and sales funnels optimized to the max. If your offer is not competitive in terms of epcs, no big affiliate will promote your offer.
• Where do you get your sales from? Affiliates? Prepare to either prepay every network (they won't give you better payment terms if you have no contacts and no reputation in the industry) or to handle payments for dozens of small affiliates (have fun processing 100 x $100 payments).
• If you fail to get affiliates, you get to enjoy your $20k inventory of diet pills all by yourself.

If you were talking about promoting green coffee diet pills as an affiliate, well add 20 more bullet points and problems to the list.

 

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[theBiz]

As Vespasian said, my biggest concern is always getting dropped by a merchant, i think its a huge part of the success. Some guys go to trade shows and link up with the right merchants to do high risk, not sure about how most companies go about this though. Also, some companies alternate between merchants, so it processes 20 sales with merchant A, then the next 20 get processed by merchant b, etc. Not sure its that simple, especially because most credit card processing companies that are referred by your bank make you sign an exclusive contract where you can ONLY process your sales through Your LLC with them. So if they drop you, your out. But ive heard some people are doing that.

 

[Mbc]

If you guys wanted an example with how out-of-hand some of these offers have gotten in the past 1-2 years, and the kind of stuff you need to go up against, look no further then this landing page I see floating around:

View attachment 5962

I don't run this. But the person who is is most likely making around $1.60 - 1.75 per install.

Edit: here's another that popped up in my morning snoop session.

View attachment 5963


...and one last edit. Dug up this guys ad server. One of the networks I work with quite a bit. Asked my rep about this guys account and spend on this campaign. In September:

- average spend of $16,500 /day
- average number of conversions (installs) per day = 15,000

$1.10 CPA for a $1.60 payout = $0.50 profit per install or $7,500 profit per day. $200k+ in September. Not a bad paycheck!! All for the small cost of living in constant fear of, oh you know, Firefox, Chrome or Google or a regulatory body coming after you and everything you love.

Welcome to affiliate marketing ladies and gentlemen!

I don't get why there is an exchange of money there.
Who is paying to download a free update? Chrome and Mozilla?
Why is there an exchange of money for an open source software like Mozilla?
Are those real updates?
Hope you don't mind the newbie question.

 

[apax999]

I don't get why there is an exchange of money there.
Who is paying to download a free update? Chrome and Mozilla?
Why is there an exchange of money for an open source software like Mozilla?
Are those real updates?
Hope you don't mind the newbie question.

Hey Mbc,

Affiliates are using those trademarks without permission on the landing page and advertising collateral. Chrome and Mozilla have nothing to do with those updates. I wouldn't be surprised if the end user who downloads that .exe even gets an update.

The .exe is chock full of adware that will insert toolbars and advertising into your browser. That's where the exchange of money takes place. Companies are buying advertising on the back-end in the form of popups, contextual, banner injection and in-text advertising among others.

You might get 1.40 per lead, but the lifetime value of advertising earned per install is likely far greater than that.

It's an interesting business model.

 

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[Mbc]

Hey Mbc,

Affiliates are using those trademarks without permission on the landing page and advertising collateral. Chrome and Mozilla have nothing to do with those updates. I wouldn't be surprised if the end user who downloads that .exe even gets an update.

The .exe is chock full of adware that will insert toolbars and advertising into your browser. That's where the exchange of money takes place. Companies are buying advertising on the back-end in the form of popups, contextual, banner injection and in-text advertising among others.

You might get 1.40 per lead, but the lifetime value of advertising earned per install is likely far greater than that.

It's an interesting business model.

Oh I see. Who puts the adware "package" together?
Does the AM guy get someone else to make a .exe for him?

Very interesting indeed.
I never even thought of something like that as AM, he's marketing someone else's...marketing

 

[kidlex]

A few Questions

Hey Apax999 Thanks so much for this AMA...

I had a few questions come to mind as perused your string on the forum..

1. You said you outsourced development etc. What types of development
did you need outsourced, was it any special software etc? Or was it mainly
landing pages. I just want to get a clear picture of what I will need to outsource.
I figured since it was CPA that we would not have to outsource too much.

2. Why do you need to know someone at the CPA networks, it is to get approved?

3. You had mentioned taking a co-reg path

"E-mail/zip submits are notorious for this. I recommend cutting out the adv
and building out your own co-registration path instead. Coreg was and is my bread and butter"

Can you explain what a co-reg is please.

Thanks

 

[raynoldcj]

Hi, Do you really need a blog to be an affiliate marketer?

 

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[raynoldcj]

Not at all. I have no blogs, no personal fan website, no glitzy Facebook page where I post all my awesome pics.

The guys with blogs are typically the small/medium sized guys in my experience. For a lot of them, "John Chow" comes to mind, their only revenue comes from being a blogger.

Last minute edit to say: I consider myself a medium size affiliate. The big guys push revenue that make jaws drop.

How do you promote without a blog?

Sent from my GT-I9100G using Tapatalk now Free

 

[theBiz]

Go back to page two. He pays for advertising, he also gave a big list of places he buys advertising from.

 

[raynoldcj]

Go back to page two. He pays for advertising, he also gave a big list of places he buys advertising from.

I've read that thread, but I didn't quite understand. It means it was done without actually having a blog?

Sent from my GT-I9100G using Tapatalk

 

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[apax999]

raynold -

I don't think you follow what affiliate marketing is. I would try to spending some time at an affiliate marketing forum. Good luck.

 

[raynoldcj]

raynold -

I don't think you follow what affiliate marketing is. I would try to spending some time at an affiliate marketing forum. Good luck.

I know very little about affiliate marketing. Sorry about that my friend.

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