I've made millions online - ask me anything!

[naesm]

******A WORD FROM ANOTHER 7 FIGURE MARKETER IN AM ********

This is my first post on this forum. First of all would like to say what a great place with tons of great info.

I am also at a crossroads in my business, I feel like I could be the one writing this as it's exactly my experience in AM.

I definitely haven't done the volume that limitup has done but am approaching seven figures since 2013. I also focus on paid traffic arbitrage. I started in dating, moved on to nutra, and then began doing high volume toolbar installs.

My best month so far was in Aug where I netted about $80k. At the time it felt great, but then I was at the mercy of the network and advertisers and other issues (offer conversions dropped, updates on how google handled app installs, payout drops).

So even with making all this money it didn't feel good and here's why. At the end of the day when you are promoting someone else's offers especially with an affiliate network, if I'm not working or an advertiser decides to kick me off the offer my business literally evaporates over night. Like MJ says, this violates CONTROL, I really have none.

Now my business is back to not doing much (october revenues of about $50k and netting about $20k, I am feeling stuck and not knowing where to go from here. I am a little tired of AM, the emotional roller coaster of crushing it one day and the next making nothing can you hard on you.

It's an interesting time when you don't really have to work anymore, but you still really want to build wealth so you never have to work again. I could quit working for years and live the same lifestyle I have now but the fear of not having enough creeps in.

I remember in December 2013 I was setting my goals for the upcoming year. My first goal was to make $100 per day.

The reason I came here was to get new ideas for businesses, opportunities etc. Right now I have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in a checking account not knowing what to do with it earning nothing in interest and losing money inflation adjusted. I am not saying this to brag but to paint a clear picture of my situation. I know that I have to put this money to use. My risk tolerance is pretty low. I have been looking at real estate in Mexico and other business opportunities but can't seem to pull the trigger on anything. It's hard to take a 10% cash on cash return on a piece of property in Mexico when you are used to doubling your money everyday in AM.

Thanks again for the awesome thread

 

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[Manu]

Hey are you Sean? I'm on your FB group.

Assuming you are, great to read you here. Limitup's thread helped me a lot, as well as your follow-along on STM. Both gave me a few golden nuggets that helped me make more money in AM.

Sadly I ran out of funds and I'm building something more stable now, but always have the idea to get back into paid traffic. So actually your words confuse me a little, but it's my problem, not yours

Obviously the worst part of AM is the lack of control.

Or is it something with the industry, or you just don't want to play the AM-paid-traffic game anymore?

Don't you think with everything you have achieved so fast, if you push a little harder you can reach, let's say, a higher level?

 

[GuestUser116]

How does one make huge $$$ of a product presented with a sales page?

 

[naesm]

How does one make huge $$$ of a product presented with a sales page?

- Choose a product and write a sales letter

An answer as vague as your question.

 

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[naesm]

Hey are you Sean? I'm on your FB group.

Assuming you are, great to read you here. Limitup's thread helped me a lot, as well as your follow-along on STM. Both gave me a few golden nuggets that helped me make more money in AM.

Sadly I ran out of funds and I'm building something more stable now, but always have the idea to get back into paid traffic. So actually your words confuse me a little, but it's my problem, not yours

Obviously the worst part of AM is the lack of control.

Or is it something with the industry, or you just don't want to play the AM-paid-traffic game anymore?

Don't you think with everything you have achieved so fast, if you push a little harder you can reach, let's say, a higher level?

So much for my anonymity Yea that's me.

I can't bad mouth AM at all, there of course have been frustrations and a lot of irritations along the way, but at the end of the day it has been my limitless ATM for years now giving me the freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want. (writing this from my ocean front condo in Playa Del Carmen Mexico looking at the ocean).

Manu, what did you learn from your failed campaigns and the things you were doing that caused you to run out of funds? That's what you really need to look at. If you don't have the exact answers your won't be able to fix anything. I also didn't have infinite funds to start with when I began again with paid traffic. When I started again in about Nov of 2012 I had been living in Eastern Europe for over a year and was getting pissed at myself at the prospect of having no direction and that I would be broke soon. It was a dark time for me, several failed business opportunities and being in a freezing cold climate in a foreign country where I didn't have a good support system. This was my motivator, broke for me was being down to about $10k with no idea or direction on what I was going to do. I made a decision that this wasn't acceptable and I was willing to do whatever it took to make this work or at least try until I completely failed.

I also didn't have credit cards to work with at the time. Because of a couple of bad real estate deals in the past my credit was shit (another very long story). I was forced to use debit cards for all of my funding on my accounts. Point being there are always challenges and obstacles to your success you have to find solutions to overcome them.

Yes if I push a little harder I can reach a "higher" level, but I don't know what that means for me. When it comes right down to it, everything is about desire (especially when you already have money). If you don't have the desire and tenacity to build something or work on something it's not going to be successful or profitable, unless you hire or JV with someone that has this desire and still that is questionable. Because really IMO it is very rare that someone else values your money the way that you do. I have also ran a lot of JVs and campaigns with other guys and my role was just to fund the traffic and give advice on how things should be ran (especially optimization). Some of these were successful and some weren't.

 

[titanium777]

This is the BEST forum thread I've ever read.

I've read Wickedfire, WaFo, BHW, paid forums…and no thread has as much value as this.

A couple questions:

1) which programming language do you recommend in Lamp development?

It seems PHP is standard, but there's many other options (Python, Ruby, Perl).

Do you know all/one of them? Do you see one being the future?



2) How did you manage accounting/cashflow?

Typically, a full accountant may be used for big money.

With dealing with 6 figure months, I'm sure the cash-flow got a bit tricky. Especially with some networks paying weekly, others paying monthly, etc.

ie: You'd have your offer on Aff network xyz, but you would need to get paid from either the same or other networks for the traffic you're generating. The inflow and outflow of cash seems like a lot of work.



3) What are you up to now?

It seems like you're MIA from posting, but I'd love to know what you have been doing. You mentioned chasing some fastlane projects, how are those coming along?

 

[naesm]

2) How did you manage accounting/cashflow?

Typically, a full accountant may be used for big money.

With dealing with 6 figure months, I'm sure the cash-flow got a bit tricky. Especially with some networks paying weekly, others paying monthly, etc.

ie: You'd have your offer on Aff network xyz, but you would need to get paid from either the same or other networks for the traffic you're generating. The inflow and outflow of cash seems like a lot of work.

Not sure if he is posting anymore but thought I would comment on this one. You have to make sure you are working with reputable reliable networks. One of my networks after about $600k in revenue has never paid me late once and I get paid weekly. The only time there has ever been any delays it was a holiday and the delay was 1 to 2 days at the most. I tried to go direct with my biggest advertiser, but after all the hassles and a payout actually lower than I was getting from my network I decided to pass. They also only paid monthly so this was not a good fit for me. But in the past I have went direct and it was much more advantageous.

I also do all of my accounting and P&Ls without an accountant. It's very straight forward. I use a simple spreadsheet in Google docs that tracks my revenue and costs for every day of the month and also aggregates my profit loss daily and for the month. I try to do my accounting every day so I know exactly where I am at. Doesn't always happen and sometimes I put this off for a week. This is generally only when my campaigns are very profitable, when margins are thinner I try to do it everyday.

Cash flow is not a problem. I use an Amex gold card that doesn't have a limit. I pay the card off in full every month but I get paid weekly. If you are working on a cash basis it is a little more of a challenge. But if your campaigns are very profitable after a couple of weeks you should have a nice chunk of money for funding your traffic. Once I broke through this I never really looked back.

 

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[twdavis]

I looked at doing AM earlier this year but my credit rating is shot for the moment, so no limitless Amex cards for me lol

 

[naesm]

I looked at doing AM earlier this year but my credit rating is shot for the moment, so no limitless Amex cards for me lol

My limitless Amex is not even mine.

 

[debitandcredit]

@naesm

I think email capture is a great asset using squeeze page for real estate. I actually am taking real estate license exam in new york, my intention was to save comission when buying selling house.but now I am very interested using the list for myself

 

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[debitandcredit]

I rather use that list myself than selling to rei companies or working for them. Just thinking about it these days.

 

[twdavis]

My limitless Amex is not even mine.

A friend's? lol

 

[Leo Hendrix]

..

marketing skills + basic techie/programming skills = M-O-N-E-Y

If you think you have the mind for it at all, I highly recommend that EVERYONE give PHP and mysql a try. You'd be surprised at how quickly and easily you can learn the basics of LAMP development, and how big of a competitive advantage it can give you.

Would you say this is still relevant today?

Thanks for the thread, I need to pay for my INSIDERS sub ASAP if there are more Gems like this thread there.

 

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[Matt33]

******A WORD FROM ANOTHER 7 FIGURE MARKETER IN AM ********

This is my first post on this forum. First of all would like to say what a great place with tons of great info.

I am also at a crossroads in my business, I feel like I could be the one writing this as it's exactly my experience in AM.

I definitely haven't done the volume that limitup has done but am approaching seven figures since 2013. I also focus on paid traffic arbitrage. I started in dating, moved on to nutra, and then began doing high volume toolbar installs.

My best month so far was in Aug where I netted about $80k. At the time it felt great, but then I was at the mercy of the network and advertisers and other issues (offer conversions dropped, updates on how google handled app installs, payout drops).

So even with making all this money it didn't feel good and here's why. At the end of the day when you are promoting someone else's offers especially with an affiliate network, if I'm not working or an advertiser decides to kick me off the offer my business literally evaporates over night. Like MJ says, this violates CONTROL, I really have none.

Now my business is back to not doing much (october revenues of about $50k and netting about $20k, I am feeling stuck and not knowing where to go from here. I am a little tired of AM, the emotional roller coaster of crushing it one day and the next making nothing can you hard on you.

It's an interesting time when you don't really have to work anymore, but you still really want to build wealth so you never have to work again. I could quit working for years and live the same lifestyle I have now but the fear of not having enough creeps in.

I remember in December 2013 I was setting my goals for the upcoming year. My first goal was to make $100 per day.

The reason I came here was to get new ideas for businesses, opportunities etc. Right now I have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in a checking account not knowing what to do with it earning nothing in interest and losing money inflation adjusted. I am not saying this to brag but to paint a clear picture of my situation. I know that I have to put this money to use. My risk tolerance is pretty low. I have been looking at real estate in Mexico and other business opportunities but can't seem to pull the trigger on anything. It's hard to take a 10% cash on cash return on a piece of property in Mexico when you are used to doubling your money everyday in AM.

Thanks again for the awesome thread

Thanks for posting this, it's cool seeing another affiliate on the opposite end of the "cycle". I'm a 17 year old who got into mobile affiliate marketing a few months ago and just hit my first 200$ day yesterday (exponential growth this month ). My plan is to grow my cash reserves and knowledge with AM and start an actual company a few years down the road (during/after college), so I guess my goal is to be you in a year or two lol.

 

[naesm]

A friend's? lol

It's my dads card and yea he's my friend He also has gotten about 700k points this year which equals about $7k if you use it on travel.

 

[twdavis]

It's my dads card and yea he's my friend He also has gotten about 700k points this year which equals about $7k if you use it on travel.

Nice!

 

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[Chazmania]

@naesm

What resources would u recommend to somebody looking to learn about IM? Is STM good for beginners?

 

[naesm]

@naesm

What resources would u recommend to somebody looking to learn about IM? Is STM good for beginners?

Yes STM is a great resource for getting started, the theory in this game is pretty much always the same, just the tactics that change. I haven't spent much time on STM recently. To me it's not quite as good as it used to be. There are a ton of forums and resources out there. Pick one and don't get distracted.

If I were to do it all over again, I would try to find someone that would mentor me I knew was doing big numbers and I wouldn't pay for it. Make someone an offer to do anything for them, work for free, if you can code tell them you will code for them, clean their toilets, whatever it takes. (no I am not that guy). I have mentored a few people in the past, problem was when they understand everything there is nothing keeping them from leaving and doing it on their own. This is also my fault for not being clear upfront on the rules of our relationship.

But like limitup said I was kind of the secret sauce to making things work. Most of them failed after they left, but you have to have the tenacity to keep pushing.

 

[EdenE]

Ask you anything? I believe a persons environment , and social networks, play a crucial role in the mind set of an individual. What if you woke up one day and awoken to the fact that your peers, ( friends, family ) were all willing to work for 12.00 an hour, 9-5, and it seemed they had no ambition, and were ok with this lifestyle but you wanted more, you deserved more. You wanted to sit down and dig into the minds and hearts of highly successful people,on the inside and out? How do you change who you surround yourself with, and more, apply this to real life, not the internet, Though I appreciate this forum exists as I can start here. Kinda feeling out of place in the real world.

 

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[Natasha Dao]

Thanks for your time and in helping our online and marketing queries.

Appreciate if you can give me any 'expert' advices to market or get online survey respondents for my targeted market research validation for the buddying entrepreneurs and students interested in a new entrepreneurship education. Also the survey will help to understand the current problems in entrepreneurship education to improve for a development of a new entrepreneurship course/program.

Appreciate your help.

 

[BeGreat]

Thanks for posting this, it's cool seeing another affiliate on the opposite end of the "cycle". I'm a 17 year old who got into mobile affiliate marketing a few months ago and just hit my first 200$ day yesterday (exponential growth this month ). My plan is to grow my cash reserves and knowledge with AM and start an actual company a few years down the road (during/after college), so I guess my goal is to be you in a year or two lol.

Thats great youre starting young. No doubt you will be where you will want to be at a very young age. Im just getting started myself but I surpass you by almost a decade. Do you mind sharing some resources you used to start learning aff marketing? Thanks a lot

 

[Pete799p]

The reason I came here was to get new ideas for businesses, opportunities etc. Right now I have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in a checking account not knowing what to do with it earning nothing in interest and losing money inflation adjusted. I am not saying this to brag but to paint a clear picture of my situation. I know that I have to put this money to use. My risk tolerance is pretty low. I have been looking at real estate in Mexico and other business opportunities but can't seem to pull the trigger on anything. It's hard to take a 10% cash on cash return on a piece of property in Mexico when you are used to doubling your money everyday in AM.

Not super familiar with the Mexico real estate market, although I have quite a few clients who own in either Mexico or other Latin American countries and seem to be very happy with their investments. Plus I also don't know if that is where you currently reside or are from etc. but I am still seeing a lot of commercial real estate properties in the US that you can do better then 10% cash on cash or at least very comparable. This of course depends on your location, chosen asset class, risk tolerance, or if you are buying for appreciation etc.

That being said there are a lot of ways to skin the cat with varying degrees of personal involvement, management, and risk. I have seen returns substantially higher then 10% with IRR's between 20%-30% frequently, even 50%-100%. There are ways to invest that would require no management or participation on your end if you are simply looking to park cash and don't necessarily involve you personally owning a specific property as well. However, as an investor vs. real estate entrepreneur you will most likely not see the kinds of returns you are currently achieving in your business.

 

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[HighestVantage]

Manu, what did you learn from your failed campaigns and the things you were doing that caused you to run out of funds? That's what you really need to look at. If you don't have the exact answers your won't be able to fix anything. I also didn't have infinite funds to start with when I began again with paid traffic. When I started again in about Nov of 2012 I had been living in Eastern Europe for over a year and was getting pissed at myself at the prospect of having no direction and that I would be broke soon. It was a dark time for me, several failed business opportunities and being in a freezing cold climate in a foreign country where I didn't have a good support system. This was my motivator, broke for me was being down to about $10k with no idea or direction on what I was going to do. I made a decision that this wasn't acceptable and I was willing to do whatever it took to make this work or at least try until I completely failed.

I hit that point yesterday.

I know a realtor who just sold her property in Mexico. She might know more about the market, it's investment potential and whatnot.

 

[BeGreat]

It's really hard for someone like me to answer these kinds of questions for you. If your first goal is to make $800-1000 a month that shouldn't be hard to do at all, and there are literally 1000 different ways to do it.

The key is whether you make the required effort to learn what you need to learn, and then execute on it.

There is huge money online in promoting health and dating related products and services. These are 2 of the most competitive "niches", but that's only because there is so much money to be made in either.

I would say pick whichever one you know the most about and/or most passionate about and focus on that.

As far as the specifics of what to do to get started, again there are 100 different ways to go forward. I firmly believe there is no one size fits all answer to any of this, and a HUGE part of it has to do with finding something that works for you. In the beginning I "failed" at a bunch of different things while experimenting to find what I liked and what I was good at.

So honestly I recommend you just pick one of those niches, then start searching google for things like "dating affiliates", "dating affiliate marketing", and that type of thing. Spend a week or however long it takes reading up on everything you find.

If you have a little money to spend on ads, probably the quickest way forward for you would be to promote dating offers on POF.com. So if you want to do that, in addition to the other stuff also search google for "advertising dating offers on POF" etc. and you will honestly find all the info you need. There are people with blogs, etc. who have written entire ebooks on promoting dating offers on POF.

When it comes to either of these niches my absolute best advice is to make sure you get really niche with it. Think sub-niches. And even sub-sub-niches. Do not just promote generic dating offers to generic dating traffic. What you want to do is target sub-niches like Jewish dating, fitness singles, nerd dating, dating sites for animal lovers, etc. There are sites and offers for all of this, and much more more.

By really zero'ing in on a sub-niche like this you'll see lower advertising costs, higher conversions, and higher ROIs.

Also search google for things like "niche dating" etc.

Im not sure who is still following this amazing thread. Im wondering: is promoting dating offer for POF.com still a viable option in Jan 2015. I know its only been a year or 16 months since these posts but that could be an eternity in internet years. I am eager to get started with IM and have little capital at this time, so I can plan to start learning/acting upon POF.com promotions....like now. Please let me know if you think this is a good idea or not. I hope to hear from you, Limit Up. You are a great soul.

 

[ThinkDifferent]

My questions:

Dont u feel like a f boss after all uve achieved?

and

What are your goals now for the upcoming 2 years?

 

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[limitup]

My questions:

Dont u feel like a f boss after all uve achieved?

and

What are your goals now for the upcoming 2 years?

I did for awhile, but I was young and stupid too.

I wasted tons of the money I made, and also lost a bunch in investments I had no business being invested in.

Fortunately I made quite a bit during my affiliate days so I still had a nice chunk left.

I've since started a SaaS business that is going great. I was actually going to create another AMA about it the other day but someone else had just started a SaaS AMA thread so I figured I'd hold off a while...

 

[ThinkDifferent]

I did for awhile, but I was young and stupid too.

I wasted tons of the money I made, and also lost a bunch in investments I had no business being invested in.

Fortunately I made quite a bit during my affiliate days so I still had a nice chunk left.

I've since started a SaaS business that is going great. I was actually going to create another AMA about it the other day but someone else had just started a SaaS AMA thread so I figured I'd hold off a while...

See it from a positive light. You didnt lose all (like many) and learned a tremendous amount.

Amazing man, SaaS, it can be very fastlane. Wish you the best of luck

 

[Cornellb504]

I did for awhile, but I was young and stupid too.

I wasted tons of the money I made, and also lost a bunch in investments I had no business being invested in.

Fortunately I made quite a bit during my affiliate days so I still had a nice chunk left.

I've since started a SaaS business that is going great. I was actually going to create another AMA about it the other day but someone else had just started a SaaS AMA thread so I figured I'd hold off a while...

@limitup,

So I have been learning AM for a few weeks now and I notice the guys that make the awesome revenue hate SEO. lol. My question is as I know it takes money to make money does it really require a large bankroll to start (paid traffic). and if I dont have enough money to buy alot of traffic, would it be smart to just chuck it up and start a blog or a product (ebook) that will generate some type of revenue to dump into the paid traffic. Probably answered my own question but would like to get your thoughts on that.

 

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[Chitown]

Basically I just created a really high paying job for myself. I've had employees off and on over the years, but *I* was the "secret sauce" that couldn't be outsourced.

@limitup

I know of which you speak! I'm getting out of a similar situation this year.

 

[John ray beltran]

my sister introduced me to MLM with a very in-demand product and can make an impact. she paid for my registration, my question is, do MLM deserve my energy? and how can i market the said product?