Nick Brighton

OK,

First of all, this post has nothing to do with people who sell their own products and make aff sales on the backend.

It's purely aimed at the guys who teach or attempt to market aff products like CPA offers with paid advertising.

You've seen the claims...

"Make $500 per day"...and so forth, right?

Now, I'm NOT saying this is impossible, just want to throw in a dash of reality based on real numbers and maths here...

Let's say you find a typical CPA offer with an EPC of 0.42 (very common).

(for those who don't know - EPC is average earning per click across the network, for that particular product or offer)

Ok, now let's say you advertise either on a CPM or PPC basis. In the best case scenario, and usually when using CPM (cost per thousand impressions), you'll be lucky to get a CPM of maybe $0.30

Now let's assume you get 5 clicks per 1000 visitors. Again, this is based on the known average of 0.15 CTR of contextual ads.

That equals $0.06 per actual click on your ad...ok?

Now, there are SOME places where you can get around 1000 impressions per hour. So let's say you manage to find them...and you're ticking away with 1000 impressions per hour, and 5 clicks on your ad in that hour.

Now, remember we said the offer has an EPC of $0.42? Well, that means in one hour, you'd get 5 clicks bring you $0.42 each on average.

So on average, you'd be earning 5 x $0.42 per hour = $2.01
- MINUS YOUR AD COSTS OF 5 x $0.06 per click ($0.30) = $1.70


With these typical numbers, in order to make minimum wage with the average CPA offer (or other similar aff offer) you would have to get 3-4 x as many impressions and subsequent clicks...

In other words, about 3000 impressions per hour, and 15 x clicks.

What's my point?

Just to say, that earning $1000's per day from CPA, or affiliate marketing, is not always as black and white as some people make out.

In fact, the real gold (aka = truth) is in creating MULTIPLE offers, running multiple promotions and building a list to do multiple backend sales.

Don't expect to pick one CPA offer and get rich...or in fact, even make minimum wage with it.

========
* please correct me if my maths is wrong

* figures gathered from personal testing, research and stats on traffic sources and CPA networks

* this is not slating people who teach aff marketing per se, just a headsup to those about to invest their dinner money into this wild jungle

* I don't doubt that people ARE making thousands per day from CPA and other such types of offers, but again, it's not quite what you think...it's about large volume, mass admin and lots of number crunching

* yes, I fully understand that offer, different offers, different traffic sources make a difference...but I'm going off averages to make a point here

* yes, I know that your ad will make you money when you sleep, so effectively you earn around the clock, but hopefully, with the reality of how small the numbers are when you get everything right, you'll see my point about the work and volume required to make BIG money???

Peace |m|

Nick

Andyhenry

Hey Nick,

Nice post. The only thing I would have a problem with is the title (and why you're not even close) - I hate comments like that since they assume you're failing at it - which we're not all.

Nice to see you sharing such great detail to help people.

Thanks

Andy

Are you new to IM? Read this:

Nick Brighton

No problem Andy - the "not even close" thing was to signify perceptions, not results...but I'll change it, no worries.

IM Headlines

"or in fact, even make minimum wage with it."

Why not? I mean... if it's converting well, then why is it
improbable?

Personally I prefer to concentrate my efforts on one
product or one CPA offer instead on plenty of them.

Don't know how it worked out for you, but it works pretty
well for me.

Whenever I find a good product (or CPA offer etc..) I stick with
it. I start promoting it like mad with my lists, paid advertising, some
free traffic methods etc... and I make plenty of money with it. I
certainly make more than minimum wage with it.

Anyway, this doesn't mean that I'm right & you're wrong. Not at
all. Everyone experiences different results in marketing, and
everyone finds his own way to succeed.

PS: In your example you mentioned one traffic method.
Whenever I promote something I drive traffic to it
from plenty of sources. That's why I manage to make good
money with one offer or product.

Cheers
- Johnny

misterwrecker

Hello Nick,

There is a lot of truth as to what you are saying but your example is very narrow and does not represent the whole spectrum.

If you have a cpa offer that is converting at 10% and pays $10, you EPC is $1.

Now if you are paying .50/click, you are making an ROI of 100%.

I am sure many cpa marketers will agree my numbers are not far fetched and this also is a narrow example.

You do not need massive amounts of impressions and clicks to make a nice profit.

There are people that go for volume and run on slim margins but make a lot of money and others go for a higher targeted approach with less volume but a higher profit margin.


-John

Affiliit

Let's face it, network EPC is not ever accurate, it has too many variables to think that will be your EPC

Learn Affiliate Marketing - Affiliit - Learn How to Make money with Facebook, POF, CPV/PPV, PPC, SEO, etc!
Try Out Affiliit Now And See How Hundreds are Making Money Online!

Cash37

I've made a ton running one offer, on one traffic source, not capturing emails, and barely testing my LP. I actually personally don't like to run too many offers at once because you can make a ton from just focusing on a few and testing

How to Sell Art Online

Nick Brighton

I totally understand the responses, and my point really was that YES, you need to go far and wide with a good offer, not expect to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak.


Yeah, but if you really look at network EPC, that's kinda rare isn't it?

Yeah, that kinda backs up my post really...and I really think that's the hard truth which a lot of newbies might overlook (not their fault, it's just the way a lot of these courses are sold).



You probably know more about this patch of advertising than I do, so please tell me how this is so? I genuinely am interested.

Have you tested offers with a certain EPC that have in reality turned out to be much higher EPC's in your actual campaign? It wouldn't surprise me, just curious that's all.

Kenster

Thanks for the post and a lot of your concepts are true. I know you mention this as one example, but it is important to understand the scope of the internet. Yes, you need massive amounts of impressions, clicks etc but thats the great thing about the internet, especially in the paid traffic world...you can get enormous traffic. Set your budget or bids high enough and you will see more traffic than you thought possible.

And yes, most people doing well in CPA have many campaigns going, each of which may be run on multiple traffic sources, so your one cpa offer making $1.70 per hour now may be many many times more than that.


If you have a good landing page for a high paying trial offer or something and you find a good high traffic keyword that's converting, then one offer, one traffic, one campaign can be making a ton of money. Obviously its not easy to find huge winners like this, but it is very possible.


So there is a lot of validity to your statements but I think it underestimates the power and scope of the internet.

Six Figure Alliance Training/Coaching Course...


Kenster's Six Figure Mission Blog | Kenster's Six Figure Alliance | WarriorJV - WSO Launches

misterwrecker

Hey Nick,

A network epc of $1 is not uncommon at all.

As far as your title states that one offer is not enough, that is definitely the case and even one traffic source is not enough.

I don't think anybody can disagree with the fact that multiple streams of income is a must. The cpa game is very volatile and if you put everything into one offer and one traffic source, you will be playing catch up.


-John

ben565

well i know affiliates who where making $1000's per day just from the acai offer!

misterwrecker

What's the key word in that sentence?

MrCoach

10 sites that average $1.70 an hour is over $10,000/month in income. Not bad, if you ask me.

Nick Brighton

Is it just me, or does the thought of managing thousands of campaigns, tracking and conversion reports, traffic sources and budgets a real nightmare (like, a full time job!)

lol

Phobos

For many, IM is a full time job ... lol
________
TOYOTA A TRANSMISSION HISTORY

Kenster

Agreed for many it is a full time job.

If you are managing that many campaigns, then my bet is you have software or a full team managing everything or most likely both. Most people dont even wish to get to that point though. To make a few hundred dollars a day you certainly dont need thousands of campaigns. For many, that's all they are after, that is fine.


I also think its important to build your CPA business as a business and not a bunch of individual transactions.

And to some degree you are right. That is why you hear of people starting out in CPA, making a bunch of money, and then start doing other things like iphone or facebook apps or being investors in startups or making their own start ups.

Six Figure Alliance Training/Coaching Course...


Kenster's Six Figure Mission Blog | Kenster's Six Figure Alliance | WarriorJV - WSO Launches

JackBenson

I'm not sure why you are limiting the hourly impressions to 1000 or 2000??

Many affiliates match the right offer with a traffic source and it can just take off.

I have had over 2.5mil impressions a day going to ONE offer.