From Affiliate Marketing To Importing And Ecommerce

[hughjasle]

Just a quick update:

Just wanted to mention what a world of a difference it is when you have a quality product that people really like and enjoy versus a gimmick-like product. Have have both running, and man it is night and day. 100% I'm only focusing on high quality products from here on.

Gimmicks sell, that's why I started there. But the constant customer service was/is frustrating. Having to factor in chargebacks, deal with dumb people, returns, etc. was just a normal part of the biz.

With these high quality products I'm getting flooded with testimonials, reviews and video reviews on my FB page and elsewhere from really happy and pleased customers voluntarily doing them. I've had 0 chargebacks, and only 1 return now on 7k units sold. Man, serious, Night and day.

So learn from me, ignore the low hanging gimmick products that you know will only work a % of the time. Get the good stuff. Make your life easy and make MORE money.

 

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[#nowhere]

Hi Hugh,

congrats! Cool to hear that kind of news

Do you mean the difference between a private labelled, costumized product (quality) and the Standard goods (low quality) from e.g. China?

Thanks in advance
I'm looking forward to hear such news more often in the future!

 

[hughjasle]

Do you mean the difference between a private labelled, customized product (quality) and the Standard goods (low quality) from e.g. China?

Not really. I mean just quality products in general. Doesn't matter what you are doing, private label, fully custom unique, or selling another brands stuff. Just make sure what you are selling is high quality.

Like I'm getting LOTS of sales from repeat buyers, friends, and other organic (non-paid for traffic) now. Really opened my eyes.

Honestly, this entire experiment of going white hat with ecom has opened my eyes. So much more fulfilling and from what I can, it will be far more lucrative than affiliate marketing in the end. Pretty cool stuff. Lots of opportunity out there.

 

[DWX]

Me likes, me likes.

 

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[killa_graham]

@hughjasle thank you for sharing what has worked for you!

I'm new to FB ads but seeing what you've been able to accomplish the last few months has really inspired me. In the last few days I've created some ads and Shopify landers. Time to learn this and make it work.

Looking forward to more of your progress updates!

 

[germandude]

@hughjasle this thread is F*cking fire mate. I sincerely hope you keep us updated and MJ marks this GOLD ASAP.

 

[amanteai]

@hughjasle thanks for a great thread! This is my first post here (newb alert). Did you order the product first or take orders and then use that money to buy the product? I'm not clear on that. I've already scouted a product I want to import but, well, lacking funds. I've realized that I've purchased at least 2 things on LivingSocial that likely went this same route as it took about 6 weeks to ship, with an "out of stock, on backorder" email shortly after purchasing.

So 2 questions. #1 Do you feel it's feasible/safe to have the website made and use sales proceeds to buy the stock for the first round of importing?

#2 Would shopify/paypal hold up funds because of that tactic? You alluded to that in your post but I wasn't able to see the graphics, the links are not working.

 

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[iTrader]

Not really. I mean just quality products in general. Doesn't matter what you are doing, private label, fully custom unique, or selling another brands stuff. Just make sure what you are selling is high quality.

Like I'm getting LOTS of sales from repeat buyers, friends, and other organic (non-paid for traffic) now. Really opened my eyes.

Honestly, this entire experiment of going white hat with ecom has opened my eyes. So much more fulfilling and from what I can, it will be far more lucrative than affiliate marketing in the end. Pretty cool stuff. Lots of opportunity out there.

How long do you keep your ad? Do you think the shorter it is the better?

 

[hughjasle]

Sorry guys I've been on vacation with family all week and internet is short where I am.

@amanteai no I do not use those funds. I refund those orders. I only run ads before I have the product to test demand. That's all. Once I see there is demand and I can be profitable, I place my order with China. I don't begin selling again until the product is in and ready to ship. Shopify held my funds because I sold to much to quick on a new user account. They do that so scammers can't come in and screw with people.

@SimonGhandil - I have had both long and short text ads work well. You will have to test them both to see which works best in your case. No other way around it. Constant testing and improving is the only way to win.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[DWX]

You mentioned picking an audience and marketing different products until one/two stuck - how did you arrive at your target audience? Were they chosen at random or did you enter a market that you were familiar with/interested in?

Thanks a lot for this progress thread! Enjoy the rest of your vacation.

 

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[iTrader]

Sorry guys I've been on vacation with family all week and internet is short where I am.

@SimonGhandil - I have had both long and short text ads work well. You will have to test them both to see which works best in your case. No other way around it. Constant testing and improving is the only way to win.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Thanks. Im sure this question is all over the forum but I wanted to ask you personally. When I post Ads, they will be active but most of the time they won't deliver. Has this ever happened to you? I deleted the campaign before and it worked but when it doesn't work I'm not sure what else to do.

 

[hughjasle]

You mentioned picking an audience and marketing different products until one/two stuck - how did you arrive at your target audience? Were they chosen at random or did you enter a market that you were familiar with/interested in?

Well two things:
1. I may be changing my own personal methods in regards to picking an audience. I am expanding my products and thus new audiences. I am now selling products for multiple audiences.

2.To arrive at ultimate final audience is simple. Start broad and narrow down based on sales. Like my first product. It was a product for long hair. Obviously a product more suited towards women. I started marketing to all women. After a bunch of sales I was I able to see that most of my sales were coming from women over 45 year old. So I stopped marketing to the 18-39 year olds. Stuff like that.

 

[hughjasle]

Thanks. Im sure this question is all over the forum but I wanted to ask you personally. When I post Ads, they will be active but most of the time they won't deliver. Has this ever happened to you? I deleted the campaign before and it worked but when it doesn't work I'm not sure what else to do.

Yes it sometimes happens to me. Could be all kinds of issues with you account. Usually for new guys it's a budget thing. Better to let it sit and wait till it starts spending. Could be going through a manual review or something.

Also - reach out to FB support. idk why more ppl don't do that. I love having reasons to speak with FB.

 

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[DWX]

Well two things:
1. I may be changing my own personal methods in regards to picking an audience. I am expanding my products and thus new audiences. I am now selling products for multiple audiences.

2.To arrive at ultimate final audience is simple. Start broad and narrow down based on sales. Like my first product. It was a product for long hair. Obviously a product more suited towards women. I started marketing to all women. After a bunch of sales I was I able to see that most of my sales were coming from women over 45 year old. So I stopped marketing to the 18-39 year olds. Stuff like that.

Brilliant, thank you for clarifying that @hughjasle!

Did you uncover your buyers' age via Facebook Ads/Shopify/Google Analytics? Thanks once again!

 

[hughjasle]

Did you uncover your buyers' age via Facebook Ads/Shopify/Google Analytics? Thanks once again!

Via FB audience insights and ad targeting.




Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[jason91]

This is quite impressive... such a low acquisition cost and high margin. Not sure if you covered this in one of your answers, but is this a product customers tend to research before the purchase? And how does the price point compare with your competitors?

 

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[DWX]

Via FB audience insights and ad targeting.




Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Thanks a bunch for taking the time out of your day to answer my questions.

 

[Nam88]

Hey @hughjasle, thank you very much for your thread it's gold.

I've been selling shirt with FB for almost a year with various platform (teespring etc )

Despite the decent earning I have the same doubt as you about the fact that in the long term I won't have any asset to sell so your thread is really eyes opening.

Also lately facebook is acting up with crazy cpm and all the kind of crazy stuff.

So I would like to understand more about your business model.

Can I ask you a few question?

When you started you already switched to the new pixel? Now my main problem is to keep a constant cpa price and the new pixel is not working very good for me compared to the new one.

Are you products niche related or general products. From what you have said they seems general product, if so how come that you have just spent just 500 bucks in testing. Seems pretty low to me.

So you always start with click to website ads and then when you pixel get more conversion you start conversion web ads?

Thank you in advance.

 

[hughjasle]

is this a product customers tend to research before the purchase?

Some do some don't. Really depends on the ppl. But I have lots of products now so some might be researched more than others. However, nothing I sell is typically stuff that customers typically research.

how does the price point compare with your competitors?

In the middle. Some competitors have big well known brands and are extremely high priced. Others are extremely low. For example, my first product that I was selling for $100, a well known brand was selling for $300 and ppl on amazon were selling for $18.

 

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[hughjasle]

Can I ask you a few question?

Yes.

When you started you already switched to the new pixel?

Lately all new products I use the new pixel only. I too find it worse, but the old pixels are going away soon and I didn't want to possibly lose data in the near future.

Are you products niche related or general products.

Most are more general products. They can fit into niches, but I like general products that have massive audiences.

how come that you have just spent just 500 bucks in testing.

True cost per test varies, but really $500 covers me pretty well on most products. I'm not looking to really sell a bunch of them. I'm just looking to see if there is interest at all.

So you always start with click to website ads and then when you pixel get more conversion you start conversion web ads?

Always is a strong word. There is no ALWAYS in anything I do. But starting with website click or post engagement ads while a pixel gathers data is a good move IMO. Even better, run all three at once See what does better in the short term, long term, etc.

 

[Nam88]

Thank you very much for your reply,


Always is a strong word. There is no ALWAYS in anything I do. But starting with website click or post engagement ads while a pixel gathers data is a good move IMO. Even better, run all three at once See what does better in the short term, long term, etc.[/QUOTE]

The old rule test test test

How can you track results with page post engagement? I mean with website conversion and click to website you can make an educated guess at least but with page post engagement is quite hard. Do you use any third party tracking software in particular?


When you make the research about the products to sell which are the factors/requirements that tells you that you can test a product.
I know merchandise sell well but it has low margin, electronics are hard to import from china and usually sales in facebook are based on impulsive buying so do you have any criteria? Do you look on amazon/ebay first to see if this is already selling?

Thank you in advance.

 

[hughjasle]

How can you track results with page post engagement? I mean with website conversion and click to website you can make an educated guess at least but with page post engagement is quite hard. Do you use any third party tracking software in particular?

You can see the exact same information on PPE ads as clicks to website or conversion objective ads. FB will tell you how many people clicked over to the website, and if you set up the pixel and attach it to the ad then it will track your conversions as well. It just wont optimize for them. As for tracking software, not really. FB and google analytics is all I really use for this.

When you make the research about the products to sell which are the factors/requirements that tells you that you can test a product.
I know merchandise sell well but it has low margin, electronics are hard to import from china and usually sales in facebook are based on impulsive buying so do you have any criteria? Do you look on amazon/ebay first to see if this is already selling?

I test a lot, some things are surprising and work others I think will for sure crush fail miserably. I don't use ebay/amazon. It's more of a "do I think I can sell this? Can I come up with an ad angle that would showcase this product super well and create massive curiosity, enough to get clicks? That's it really. That's what I test.

 

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[Guest24480]

Great thread, thanks for sharing your experiences.

One question: I have about 1.5k in funds, do you think that's too little to start a process similar to yours? Should I hustle more for startup cash?

 

[hughjasle]

@holmzee depends on how comfortable you are with your marketing skills. It will be tight regardless tho, but it is possible. Might be worth it to keep an eye out for a while for something you'd want to sell while following the threads on this forum for generating more cash flow in short periods of time. Like doing the Craigslist or eBay buy sell game

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[hughjasle]

Been a while since I updated.

Everything is progressing well. I've found that scaling your own products when you own the entire process takes a LOT more time than scaling some affiliate campaigns. SO MANY MOVING PARTS.

I have a handful of products now and have moved the base of the business off Shopify onto a heavily customized Woocommerce site that my developers spend FOREVER building out. We'll see in the next few months how I like it compared to Shopify.

In doing so, I had to switch from Shopify's version of stripe to my own and have a question.


I have no idea how to make each customer of mine actually show up in the "customers created" section of stripe. They Should equal roughly the same as the "successful charges". Putting this out here to see if anyone else has had this issue but I'm reaching out to stripe as well to see what they have to say about it.

 

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[eStan]

Wow, congrats! You're doing great. Looks like you're getting close to the 7 fig revenue mark. That's pretty insane with your margins.

I was curious about your affiliate business, looks like you're doing great over there as well. Are you running whitehat or doing the classic nutra cloaking/ account farming? I noticed you promote physical products so I was just wondering what kind if you're willing to answer of course.

Otherwise a terrific thread. Gold nuggets everywhere. Thank you!

 

[hughjasle]

Looks like you're getting close to the 7 fig revenue mark

Not sure what you mean by getting close, but blew past the 7-figure per year mark a long time ago. Pushing up to the 8 figure per year mark now, but thank you

Are you running whitehat or doing the classic nutra cloaking/ account farming?

I originally was doing the later. I am working on getting WH affiliate offers working now though, but finding WH takes just as much work.

 

[eStan]

Not sure what you mean by getting close, but blew past the 7-figure per year mark a long time ago. Pushing up to the 8 figure per year mark now, but thank you

Wow, 8 figures? Holy crap that's amazing.

With the 7 fig remark I was only refferring to your ecom venture. I saw you sold 7000 units and you sell them at around 100 bucks so that was my math.

Anyway one big congrats again. And you've only been doing this for 2 years?

 

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[hughjasle]

I saw you sold 7000 units

That was only for those dates listed. And I have lots of products now, most are far less than that $100 mark now.

Also those numbers mentioned ARE just for the Ecom side of things.

Ecom I only started in around Nov. of last year and didn't really start taking it serious till this year, around Feb/March.

It's all about execution and pushing yourself daily. I have a decent sized team now compared to many other online entrepreneurs. I have 6 people working on just the Ecom biz, not including the fulfillment company(ies), and now just partnered with a sourcing company who has boots on the ground in China. I still have and do lots of internal sourcing, but that's mainly for the initial products and testing now, I will then use the big company to set things up proper and better as purchase orders are MUCH larger. I like having someone there to make sure products are made correctly (including all legal paperwork) before it is sent to me.

It's all just about execution as everyone here says. Just doing it.

 

[MakeItHappen]

Not sure what you mean by getting close, but blew past the 7-figure per year mark a long time ago. Pushing up to the 8 figure per year mark now, but thank you

Wow happy to hear you a doing so great.
Is this still just fb ads sales?
How much of your revenue comes from repeat sales/up sells/ cross sells at the moment? How much of your revenue is front end vs. back end?

Also with the traffic you are pushing you must have some really nice retargeting lists by now.