If I Was To Start Affiliate Marketing Again (Knowing What I Know Now)

I know a post like this is a real cliché, but in my previous post a reader left a comment. Because it was in a nice way and not completely retarded, I’ll answer it as best I can. I don’t want this to be another sack sucker blog tagging meme and I don’t want it to sound like I’m entering some douchy MLM blog post competition so I’ll cut out as much of the bullshit as I can.

Before I start, I would like to point out that I have left out the obvious. Only poor people buy ebooks, only complete retards ask basic questions on affiliate marketing forums (most have an FAQ and there is a fantastic online tool called GOOGLE that allows you to search the ENTIRE WEB to see if your question has already been answered).

The question was as follows:

What is the best way to get started and “learn the basics”? Please be honest. Tired of reading countless websites with holes in their propositions so big you could fit a $%£^& through it. I have the theory just need a helping hand to know where and how to get started.

1) Stop Reading. The secret is NOT out there.

Blogs, forums, ebooks, membership sites etc. are not going to give you the secret sauce. If you had a way to make even just $10,000 a month that only you and a few others (your competitors) knew about, would you want others to know about it? Damn fucking right you wouldn’t. Nobody is that stupid. People who sell those $97 ebooks prey on people that can’t accept that.

2) Forget about Google adsense

Seriously, adsense is great for those interested in a few hundred dollars a month. If that’s all you want, fine. If you want a little more than that, forget it. Adsense sucks up too much time, resources and website real estate for penny payouts. The only contact you should have with adsense is as an advertiser.

3) Market something you are interested in.

I know this one should be included in the bullshit that doesn’t need mentioning above, but this one is really fucking important. How long can you market dating, green tea, glitter makers and ecards before you lose complete interest? I can tell you now, not very long. When you promote something you love, you don’t care as much when the market lulls and you can keep going regardless.

You became (or are becoming) an affiliate marketer because you want to quit your day job, the rat race and actually enjoy what you do. Marketing auto loans, ringtones and worthless clickbank products is EXACTLY the type of thing you were doing in your day job.

4) Have a fucking budget.

While it is very possible to get started with no budget, you would want to be one really REALLY hard working chump to get started with no budget. Seriously, sell your car and throw up all your old crap on ebay. Get yourself something nice to work with. I would not recommend starting with anything less than $20,000 if you are serious. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this one, but that’s their prerogative.

5) Stay away from the usual suspects.

We’ve all heard of those who either got lucky or are making piss poor returns on those “major” affiliate networks. We’ve all seen those $250,000 checks but a lot of people fail to remember that those checks cost money! I have personally witnessed a $295k payout (seriously, who gets checks these days?) from one of the well known networks to an affiliate who would be ashamed to put details online because she spent almost $280k to get it! With these well known networks, because they are well known, you are up against so many more people competing on the same offer. Why not compete in a niche that has FAR less competition and MUCH greater returns like say, fiber optic test equipment *hint* *HINT*

6) Create something sustainable.

Seriously, when you eventually get bought out by a larger company or affiliate are what are they actually going to buy? A set of landing pages and a PPC campaign? Of course not. You need to create something of value. While there is indeed a lot of money to be made with fly by night CPA programs, having something that is at the mercy of Google’s quality score is completely retarded. Aim to build something that does not rely on Google at all. You’ll thank yourself when you see all those “Anyone else get slapped” threads in those gay affiliate marketing forums. Create something sustainable (for some reason Firefox and Google think that site is dangerous but it’s not) that you love, a good example is an affiliate product blog.

6) Learn PPC.

Affiliate empires don’t grow overnight. In the meantime, there’s PPC. Learn how PPC works. Become intimate with using PPC to generate traffic. Wall Street would kill (literally) to have the returns possible with PPC marketing. Don’t buy an ebook, use 80% of your budget on this one. While you are learning and losing money, read the affiliate playbook over and over.

7) Affiliate networks need you more than you need them.

Once you’re producing volume, either negotiate better payouts with your affiliate manager or go directly to the merchant. The step after this is selling your particular site to the merchant or better yet have multiple merchants bid against each other for your site. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve found out that I am a merchants single biggest source of business. That is a powerful position to be in.

Track your nuts off.

I know this sounds obvious but so many people either don’t do it or don’t do it right. Track ALL traffic down to source and individual keywords. If you don’t know what keywords are converting and what ones are not, your flying blind. Use network subid/customid tracking or use a pre-made solution. I cannot stress how much a difference granular tracking can make to a campaign’s success.

9) Just do it!

Get out of your comfort zone. It’s actually quite liberating once the irrational fear of losing the security of a job subsides. Ignore your family and friends, most of them don’t have a fucking clue what they are talking about. That’s why they sell insurance and work in retail You are GOING to lose money, but that’s the price you pay to get into the lifestyle you wanted in the first place. The easy life doesn’t come easy or free. This point has been beaten to death but rightly so. It’s the most important.

There, I didn’t even link to a stupid flip camera or ipod touch blog competition. I wrote this all by myself.

Note: For complete newbies, I would highly reccomend the black ink project by Jeremy Palmer. The “course” is completely free and the content is pretty much spot on. If he actually charged for this, I would still reccomend it.

** Edit: The Blcak Ink Project is no longer free but it’s still worth your while. Sorry, I don’t do affiliate links.

Comments

• 
  

• About

  This blog is my personal venting chamber. I'm a little pissed off sometimes. If you have a problem with that, tough. I don't sell ebooks. I don't run membership sites. I don't want your money.

• Recently Written

  • Stealing For Charity Is Still Stealing - Linkshare?
  • If I Was To Start Affiliate Marketing Again (Knowing What I Know Now)
  • Off To Affiliate Summit East
  • How To Minimize Risk On Your First Online Media Buy
  • Why Chosing Pepperjam Over EPN Is Stupid
  • How I Made $95000 In Two Months With Adsense Referrals
  • Who Am I?

• Categories

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • General Ramblings
  • Ideas
  • Online Marketing

• RSS Stuff

  Subscribe by Email