4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month.

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 01:54 PM

I, Tyler DeWitt, am a super affiliate who promotes affiliate product. In addition, my company offers a wide array of online marketing services. I have built out advertising campaigns that have reached as high as ~$40,000 dollars per month in profit. Most of my revenue has been through search engine optimization and pay per click. However, I do work in the media buying world as well.

I wanted to cover some important aspects of affiliate marketing. You will find out sometimes affiliate offers are not what they seem to be. You can not be naive in the affiliate game. The reason being for is because it's hard telling who you can trust; what offers are profitable; and what your told is not always true. I am going to go over this with you.

Rule 1 (Don't Be Naive With Your Affiliate Manager): You should always be very careful when you are selecting an offer. Before I say this, no disrespect to the affiliate managers out there. You have to understand, do not be naive with your affiliate manager. They will tell you anything to get you to promote an offer (some of them, not all of them).

For example, some affiliate managers will tell you that they have affiliates promoting through certain advertising networks. They will tell you to check certain areas out and you'll see the other affiliates. Sometimes they could be telling the truth. Then you just have some affiliates managers that will tell you anything. Thus, your time is being wasting and your losing money if you believe this.

When you check into or find these areas, you will see their is affiliate landing pages (with affiliate URL's). However, you have to be careful sometimes these are not affiliates. Some affiliate companies will manage affiliate programs in house. They will use their own tracking platform.

In this case, they are generally working on a huge margin. The margin allows them to promote in highly competitive areas. As for the affiliates they would never become profitable in these segments because of their payout. The affiliate companies will work deals out with their clients. However, keeping the affiliate paid so much, so it doesn't screw their economics up from a profit stand point. You have to remember this is just business, business being done wisely.

Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced): Do not always promote what offers you hear are hot. If you do, you need to think outside the box. Just because an offer has a high volume trend in your control panel. Does not mean your going to make money off it. Some people that are promoting it might have some killer resources established. Resources that allow them to advertise for very cheap such as through co-reg e-mails. They could be collecting these e-mails through a built funnel they already have (that is already profitable).

The idea is to think outside the box. You have to find new traffic sources that no one else knows about. From my experience, this is how I have made some mega bucks. I tapped into areas that a lot of people were saying was not profitable. You have to be careful, do not get socially influenced by what everyone is saying.

Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage): Negotiating payments is as important as well. Some affiliates out there might be doing very well due to their payout. There are some companies that offer extremely high pay outs to only a certain amount of affiliates. This allows them to advertise in competitive areas. At the same time, these affiliates are able to produce huge amounts of profits and volume.

For you to get these type of payouts. You have to prove your worthy, knowledgeable, and experienced. You have to negotiate, negotiate to win (as Trump always says).

Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer): Do not waste too much time on one particular affiliate offer. If you have a great deal of experience in marketing online. You should be able to make a rational decision somewhat fast.

You should only have to spend a few hundred dollars. If you spend $200 dollars and you know through experience your campaign is properly structured. Then chances are throw it out, it's not profitable.

An affiliate offer that is profitable will make profit or break even. Then your optimization comes into play. If your affiliate offer makes slight profit, start optimizing it. Affiliate offers should be selected by what they make from the beginning.

Conclusion: You have to be wise in the affiliate game. You have to remember no one out there is going to do a better job then you can. You should always go with your own instincts and judgments. Or at least take advice from someone you can trust.

The main key to being successful is perseverance. You fail to become successful. I am no where near perfect. I have made some of the biggest mistakes online. However, I learned through persistent and not giving up. That's why I wanted to share this with you.

I'd be glad to answer any questions. In addition, see my signature to get information on my book.

williamrs · 12-08-2010, 02:12 PM

Thanks for sharing. There is great value in your post. However, I disagree with 2 points.

About the first rule, it can happen when working with some new, small networks, but your affiliate manager won't mislead you when working with big networks. You wouldn't make money and the network would lose your trust. The affiliate manager doesn't get anything by misleading affiliates.

At least, my affiliate managers have never lied to me just for me to start promoting an offer with the wrong traffic source.

You should only have to spend a few hundred dollars. If you spend $20 dollars and you know through experience your campaign is properly structured. Then chances are throw it out, it's not profitable.

I understand that things can work this way for you, but I don't think that everybody should do it. If I had followed this advice I would have never found one successful campaign. Sometimes I do get conversions after spending just $20, specially when promoting lead gen offers on FB, but my expenses are always higher than my earnings. In order to break even and then turn a positive ROI I always need to do some optimization and spend more than just 20 bucks.

William

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 02:23 PM

William,

Thanks for your feedback as we all have different perspectives. To me, it's not the network that has to due with misleading. It's more of the individual person as the affiliate manager. The network size and popularity has nothing to do with it if you ask me.

As I stated, not all affiliate managers are like this. However, there are ones out there like this. You know they might not even being doing it on purpose. They might just assume it's lucrative from what they see on their stats. They are no even aware this program is being managed in house as well.

As for $20, wow thanks for correcting that. I meant to say $200 dollars. Damn you'd have to be extremely good with $20 dollars.

airpr23 · 12-08-2010, 03:04 PM

Where and what exactly are media buys? I keep hearing about them all the time.

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 03:13 PM

Media buying is the process of buying banners (ads) from news sites. You can check out PUlse360.com, BurstMedia.com, Adblade.com, and etc. You'll find out some people consider social networks as media buys. I just consider them social advertising. Generally media buys come from news sites. Your best bet would to contact small niche news sites (for each city). You could then buy media ads from them a lot cheaper. If you go with Pulse360.com and etc you will be paying a lot. It will be very difficult for you to expand in them areas.

Kenster · 12-08-2010, 03:27 PM

Interesting thread!

Here are my thoughts...

Rule 1 (Don't be Naive with your Affiliate Manager):
I agree more with William here. Affiliate managers can deceive and be shady but for the most part they are straight. They WILL try and get you to push all yoru traffic through them (of course) but as an affiliate its common sense that you must cross network split test. Affiliate managers can be extremely helpful but of course thye only make money with your traffic so they naturally dont want you working with other networks...this is the same for any business and any relationship in the supply chain.

With that said, you are right that you as the affiliate shouldnt be naive, but just having a good business sense should be just fine!

Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced):
You are absolutely spot on here. Just like jumping around from the hottest product and software to the next, you will get nowhere if you dabble in every offer that you come across that is hot. I can assure you people are making money from nearly ALL offers out there that have been up for any length of time...thats why they are out there. Sure there are certain offers that may be hot at particular times, but for the most part, the offers are pretty stable (except for seasonal type campaigns).

You really need to dig out your place within the industry. Do well in a particular niche or do well with a particularly traffic strategy...thats where the focus should be. Remember, CPA is a monetization strategy, not a strategy in itself. The heart of any CPA campaign is traffic...that is the hardest part and that is the bulk of the campaign, so focus there

Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage):
Neogtiating payouts is good. Of course this applies more for people already making money and pushing volume. If you are new and aren't pushign traffic to offers, you will likely be stuck with the street payout, but at that point it matters much less. For example, the different between getting 17 and 19 on an offer is much less significant if you are doing 10 leads a day than if you are doing 1000 leads a day!

Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer):
Not sure I totally agree here either. As I said, all the offers that have been out there for a while have been out there for a reason. Just because an offer is good, doesnt mean you will make money from it right away. I have plenty (too many perhaps) of circumstances where I knew an offer converted but it took me a lot of testing dollars and a lot of time before I even broke even. Competitive offers normally take more money before turning profit (such as doing PPC). You can certainly test much smaller at under $200, and that's what I did when I was starting out.

But this is very dependent on your particular campaign. Some people test with hundreds or thousands of keywords so $200 in testing budget really tells you nothing about the overall campaign. Of course if you work with just a few keywords testing can be small.

At the end of the day, I agree with most of your points here and newer marketers will gain a lot from understanding these hints and common misperceptions!

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 03:38 PM

You need to learn to invest small portions of income. Then you expand based on return. You have to look at it in a micro economical way. If you think you have to have $100,000's of dollars you are incorrect.

We have launched campaigns in larger amounts. I think the largest amount I spent was around $1,800 dollars before it became profitable. I was able to determine this though through experience. However, I have many campaigns I manage. They either break even or profit from the get go.

I do agree with you to the about common business sense. You are correct. I prefer people to be sophisticated. That meaning, learning how to make money with small portions. As your capital grows then you can take bigger risk. You know, where you can invest into web properties that will take a few years to make your money back.

This is how we even start our clients out. We start them out spending small portions of money. There again, depends on what type of marketing campaign we are launching. Some campaigns might take more up front cost. On the other hand, you can start some campaigns with $200 dollars. Some offers work very well in all areas. That meaning, it profits for almost every keyword or breaks even.

Aussie_Al · 12-08-2010, 03:47 PM

What sort of landing pages convert best for you?

Opt ins?

Review pages?

testimonial pages?

Any other factors we should look at to increase conversions to the affiliates sales page?

Matthew NY · 12-08-2010, 03:48 PM

Thanks to Kenster, William and the OP for all of the great input. I always value the stuff you guys write in these CPA forums.

I'm starting my CPA campaigns using the Bum method, so I don't really understand too much about the media buy, traffic buying stuff. Or yet at least.

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aussie_Al

What sort of landing pages convert best for you?

Opt ins?

Review pages?

testimonial pages?

Any other factors we should look at to increase conversions to the affiliates sales page?

What sort of landing pages convert best for you?

Pages that look credible. Pages that have testimonials (real ones). Your landing page has to look like the real deal.

Opt ins?

We collect e-mail data if that's what your asking.

Review pages?

I'm not a big fan of review pages. However, they do work well. I have had some and made them work very well. You have to be careful using these through Google AdWords though.

testimonial pages?

Yes collect testimonials.

Kenster · 12-08-2010, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdd1984

You need to learn to invest small portions of income. Then you expand based on return. You have to look at it in a micro economical way. If you think you have to have $100,000's of dollars you are incorrect.

We have launched campaigns in larger amounts. I think the largest amount I spent was around $1,800 dollars before it became profitable. I was able to determine this though through experience. However, I have many campaigns I manage. They either break even or profit from the get go.

I do agree with you to the about common business sense. You are correct. I prefer people to be sophisticated. That meaning, learning how to make money with small portions. As your capital grows then you can take bigger risk. You know, where you can invest into web properties that will take a few years to make your money back.

This is how we even start our clients out. We start them out spending small portions of money. There again, depends on what type of marketing campaign we are launching. Some campaigns might take more up front cost. On the other hand, you can start some campaigns with $200 dollars. Some offers work very well in all areas. That meaning, it profits for almost every keyword or breaks even.

Yes, your testing budget is really determined by what you are doing and how much testing capital you have. If you have more testing dollars (and know what you are doing) then you can test faster, and we all know time is money for hot campaigns. With that said, I am a huge fan of starting off small and building a campaign out after optimization instead of the flood gate approach...which I reserve for more time sensitive campaigns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xwgpx55

Thanks to Kenster, William and the OP for all of the great input. I always value the stuff you guys write in these CPA forums.

I'm starting my CPA campaigns using the Bum method, so I don't really understand too much about the media buy, traffic buying stuff. Or yet at least.

Nothing wrong with that. When I started, I was flyering, I was bumming chat rooms, I was doing incredible amounts of work to make some small cash with offline marketing with video marketing and classified marketing.

A good entrepreneur knows you won't always be doing what you want to be doing. Most entrepreneurs build their fortunes by rolling up their sleeves and getting down and dirty when they are first starting out.

As you make some money bumming...then reinvest in paid traffic online!

tdd1984 · 12-08-2010, 06:00 PM

@kenster: Keep your motivation up, it will pay off. You seem to be a very motivated person.

CPATrendPhil · 12-08-2010, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by williamrs

About the first rule, it can happen when working with some new, small networks, but your affiliate manager won't mislead you when working with big networks. You wouldn't make money and the network would lose your trust. The affiliate manager doesn't get anything by misleading affiliates.

At least, my affiliate managers have never lied to me just for me to start promoting an offer with the wrong traffic source.

I've had AM's lie to me, but like you said that was just with small networks. Personally though, I've always been an expert with a traffic source before choosing an offers -- so I knew/know which offers would convert with my traffic source -- which is what I recommend every publisher does. Perfect a traffic source, then choose offers, not the other way around.

Just to agree with you again, speaking for myself and other AM's I know.. sure I want my pubs to run offers, however, I never want them to lose money. As a network owner, I work for the advertisers AND the affiliates, so if everybody isn't making money, everybody loses. The goal of an affiliate network is to make a win-win-win situation, where the affiliate, the network, and the advertiser profits from any given campaign.

So to tell a person a lie as to what's working will just backfire and turn into 0 leads for the network, losses for the affiliates, and 0 leads for the advertiser -- which makes the network look terrible.

.

jeffrey73 · 12-08-2010, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdd1984

Rule 1 (Don't be Naive with your Affiliate Manager): You should always be very careful when you are selecting an offer. Before I say this, no disrespect to the affiliate managers out there. You have to understand, do not be naive with your affiliate manager. They will tell you anything to get you to promote an offer (some of them, not all of them).

I would have to agree with this statement 100%. And to the people who say the smaller networks are the ones to worry about are wrong. It's the BIG ones like Copeac and MaxBounty that hire affiliate managers that DO NOT do any type of affiliate marketing. They even admit it. These are the type of managers that refer to PPC as "gambling", and don't have a clue on what offers convert and where. It's not their fault though, they don't understand any aspect of affiliate marketing.

And I'm not saying MaxBounty or Copeac doesn't have good, knowledgeable AM's, because they do. I've just noticed that they both hire inexperienced people a lot of times. I think it's one of their requirements.

mtmjohn · 12-09-2010, 04:14 AM

Wow, this is a really interesting thread, and I'll make sure your thoughts get seen by the people who deal with affiliate marketing just recently.Thanks for sharing your experience. tdd1984, Kenster, William and Phil. You guys rock.

tdd1984 · 12-09-2010, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffrey73

I would have to agree with this statement 100%. And to the people who say the smaller networks are the ones to worry about are wrong. It's the BIG ones like Copeac and MaxBounty that hire affiliate managers that DO NOT do any type of affiliate marketing. They even admit it. These are the type of managers that refer to PPC as "gambling", and don't have a clue on what offers convert and where. It's not their fault though, they don't understand any aspect of affiliate marketing.

And I'm not saying MaxBounty or Copeac doesn't have good, knowledgeable AM's, because they do. I've just noticed that they both hire inexperienced people a lot of times. I think it's one of their requirements.

Jeff,

I don't really think they mean to mislead people. I think what's going on is that their not aware it's not an affiliate. This is what I was told from someone at an affiliate firm. They look at the stats, not realizing that is being managed in house. However, you are correct, the affiliate managers are just there for support. They are not search engine marketing experts.

Kenster · 12-09-2010, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdd1984

@kenster: Keep your motivation up, it will pay off. You seem to be a very motivated person.

Already has

Hard work and perseverence almost always pays off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdd1984

Jeff,

I don't really think they mean to mislead people. I think what's going on is that their not aware it's not an affiliate. This is what I was told from someone at an affiliate firm. They look at the stats, not realizing that is being managed in house. However, you are correct, the affiliate managers are just there for support. They are not search engine marketing experts.

I think the consensus is that there is a wide range of affiliate managers out there. Many are pawns just going through the motions of monitoring accounts with no real knowledge or understanding of the industry and how it works. I have asked affiliate managers questions and they come back to me and say...I have no idea what that question even means.

At the same time, there are other affiliate managers who are well versed and experienced. I have had AMs that have blown me away. In fact, sometimes its the smaller networks that have the best AMs because they are affiliates who have done well and have decided to open up their own networks as well!

tdd1984 · 12-09-2010, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenster

Already has

Hard work and perseverence almost always pays off.

I think the consensus is that there is a wide range of affiliate managers out there. Many are pawns just going through the motions of monitoring accounts with no real knowledge or understanding of the industry and how it works. I have asked affiliate managers questions and they come back to me and say...I have no idea what that question even means.

At the same time, there are other affiliate managers who are well versed and experienced. I have had AMs that have blown me away. In fact, sometimes its the smaller networks that have the best AMs because they are affiliates who have done well and have decided to open up their own networks as well!

Thanks for the positive feedback. You made an interesting point about the pawns. They are just there, there to manage the affiliate program.

tdd1984 · 12-09-2010, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtmjohn

Wow, this is a really interesting thread, and I'll make sure your thoughts get seen by the people who deal with affiliate marketing just recently.Thanks for sharing your experience. tdd1984, Kenster, William and Phil. You guys rock.

John,

Do you own affiliatepaying.com, is that your site?

Mike Morgan. · 12-10-2010, 12:02 AM

I am really happy to see such good topics. Such kinds of topics are very helpful for marketers, especially for those who are new to CPA marketing.

Let me put my observations:

Rule 1 (Don't Be Naive With Your Affiliate Manager):

It is true that everything you get from affiliate managers could not be correct. Because , It is logical that an affiliate managers could not be perfect in all aspects of CPA marketing like PPC to CPA , PPV to CPA , Media buying , Social Media and lots of others .

So, there is high probability to tell you things the wrong way (Not necessarily lie you) .

I would always prefer to get ideas from multiple affiliate managers and then use your common sense to identify what is really works.

You also have to be aware that it doesn’t mean that every idea you get from affiliate mangers would work. Until you test it, you don’t exactly know what would work for you.

The wrap is …

1. Affiliate manages could tell you things in a wrong way.
2. It is always advisable to contact multiple affiliate managers and cross check their idea
3. Once you get an idea from your affiliate mangers , you need to Put your own spin to the idea
4. Test and verify the idea yourself …

Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced):

I would definitely agree that thinking outside of the box is very critical in CPA marketing. If you do things like everybody is doing, you are not going to exploit CPA marketing.

So, always think outside of the box and implement things in a unique way.

Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage):

By the time you start to generate significant amount of leads, you need to contact your affiliate manager for higher payout. I am sure most of affiliate mangers would accept your proposal.

Don’t scared, the worst thing that can happen is …no.

Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer):

I definitely agree with your idea that you don’t need to invest long time in researching CPA offers.

Get idea from your affiliate managers, analyze successful affiliate so as to know what works and test .

Hope it helps.
Mike

Kenster · 12-10-2010, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdd1984

John,

Do you own affiliatepaying.com, is that your site?

I know this isn't directed at me but the answer is Yes it is!

Cash37 · 12-10-2010, 10:15 AM

Another one of these posts? Seriously... the act is getting old

tdd1984 · 12-10-2010, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenster

I know this isn't directed at me but the answer is Yes it is!

thanks Kenster

likewhoa · 12-10-2010, 07:00 PM

This is my first post and it couldn't have been made on a better thread than this one which motivates and inspires you. Thanks Super Affiliate; I should be joining this club in the near future

tdd1984 · 12-11-2010, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by likewhoa

This is my first post and it couldn't have been made on a better thread than this one which motivates and inspires you. Thanks Super Affiliate; I should be joining this club in the near future

Thanks for the positive feedback

CPApromoter · 12-11-2010, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CPATrendPhil

I've had AM's lie to me, but like you said that was just with small networks. Personally though, I've always been an expert with a traffic source before choosing an offers -- so I knew/know which offers would convert with my traffic source -- which is what I recommend every publisher does. Perfect a traffic source, then choose offers, not the other way around.

Just to agree with you again, speaking for myself and other AM's I know.. sure I want my pubs to run offers, however, I never want them to lose money. As a network owner, I work for the advertisers AND the affiliates, so if everybody isn't making money, everybody loses. The goal of an affiliate network is to make a win-win-win situation, where the affiliate, the network, and the advertiser profits from any given campaign.

So to tell a person a lie as to what's working will just backfire and turn into 0 leads for the network, losses for the affiliates, and 0 leads for the advertiser -- which makes the network look terrible.

.

Phil makes a great point, for an AM to lie to a publisher, it creates a lose-lose-lose situation. As far as being naive, it's naive to listen if someone tells you "Yeah, Run offer 187, you can't lose!" Of course you can lose.
Work with an account manager who you have built trust with. Outline your plans to promote the offer, and get your AM's feedback on it.

As mentioned above, this is always going to be most helpful when your AM is an experienced marketer. Don't get me wrong, I love my AM at MaxBounty and we talk daily, but as ALSO mentioned above, she's not a marketer, and thinks pretty much everything is a good idea. But when dealing with an affiliate network run by affiliates, I have received some damn good advice from my AM's.

So being Naive aside, Working Closely With Your Account Managers is really the best thing you can do!

12-08-2010, 01:54 PM	#1
tdd1984 Search ;) Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 61 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. I, Tyler DeWitt, am a super affiliate who promotes affiliate product. In addition, my company offers a wide array of online marketing services. I have built out advertising campaigns that have reached as high as ~$40,000 dollars per month in profit. Most of my revenue has been through search engine optimization and pay per click. However, I do work in the media buying world as well. I wanted to cover some important aspects of affiliate marketing. You will find out sometimes affiliate offers are not what they seem to be. You can not be naive in the affiliate game. The reason being for is because it's hard telling who you can trust; what offers are profitable; and what your told is not always true. I am going to go over this with you. Rule 1 (Don't Be Naive With Your Affiliate Manager): You should always be very careful when you are selecting an offer. Before I say this, no disrespect to the affiliate managers out there. You have to understand, do not be naive with your affiliate manager. They will tell you anything to get you to promote an offer (some of them, not all of them). For example, some affiliate managers will tell you that they have affiliates promoting through certain advertising networks. They will tell you to check certain areas out and you'll see the other affiliates. Sometimes they could be telling the truth. Then you just have some affiliates managers that will tell you anything. Thus, your time is being wasting and your losing money if you believe this. When you check into or find these areas, you will see their is affiliate landing pages (with affiliate URL's). However, you have to be careful sometimes these are not affiliates. Some affiliate companies will manage affiliate programs in house. They will use their own tracking platform. In this case, they are generally working on a huge margin. The margin allows them to promote in highly competitive areas. As for the affiliates they would never become profitable in these segments because of their payout. The affiliate companies will work deals out with their clients. However, keeping the affiliate paid so much, so it doesn't screw their economics up from a profit stand point. You have to remember this is just business, business being done wisely. Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced): Do not always promote what offers you hear are hot. If you do, you need to think outside the box. Just because an offer has a high volume trend in your control panel. Does not mean your going to make money off it. Some people that are promoting it might have some killer resources established. Resources that allow them to advertise for very cheap such as through co-reg e-mails. They could be collecting these e-mails through a built funnel they already have (that is already profitable). The idea is to think outside the box. You have to find new traffic sources that no one else knows about. From my experience, this is how I have made some mega bucks. I tapped into areas that a lot of people were saying was not profitable. You have to be careful, do not get socially influenced by what everyone is saying. Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage): Negotiating payments is as important as well. Some affiliates out there might be doing very well due to their payout. There are some companies that offer extremely high pay outs to only a certain amount of affiliates. This allows them to advertise in competitive areas. At the same time, these affiliates are able to produce huge amounts of profits and volume. For you to get these type of payouts. You have to prove your worthy, knowledgeable, and experienced. You have to negotiate, negotiate to win (as Trump always says). Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer): Do not waste too much time on one particular affiliate offer. If you have a great deal of experience in marketing online. You should be able to make a rational decision somewhat fast. You should only have to spend a few hundred dollars. If you spend $200 dollars and you know through experience your campaign is properly structured. Then chances are throw it out, it's not profitable. An affiliate offer that is profitable will make profit or break even. Then your optimization comes into play. If your affiliate offer makes slight profit, start optimizing it. Affiliate offers should be selected by what they make from the beginning. Conclusion: You have to be wise in the affiliate game. You have to remember no one out there is going to do a better job then you can. You should always go with your own instincts and judgments. Or at least take advice from someone you can trust. The main key to being successful is perseverance. You fail to become successful. I am no where near perfect. I have made some of the biggest mistakes online. However, I learned through persistent and not giving up. That's why I wanted to share this with you. I'd be glad to answer any questions. In addition, see my signature to get information on my book.
	Advertising Campaigns Netting Around ~$40,000 Per Month (that would be me). Click Here to get my book

12-08-2010, 02:12 PM	#2
williamrs Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Brazil Posts: 3,496 Thanks: 174 Thanked 1,159 Times in 614 Posts	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Thanks for sharing. There is great value in your post. However, I disagree with 2 points. About the first rule, it can happen when working with some new, small networks, but your affiliate manager won't mislead you when working with big networks. You wouldn't make money and the network would lose your trust. The affiliate manager doesn't get anything by misleading affiliates. At least, my affiliate managers have never lied to me just for me to start promoting an offer with the wrong traffic source. You should only have to spend a few hundred dollars. If you spend $20 dollars and you know through experience your campaign is properly structured. Then chances are throw it out, it's not profitable. I understand that things can work this way for you, but I don't think that everybody should do it. If I had followed this advice I would have never found one successful campaign. Sometimes I do get conversions after spending just $20, specially when promoting lead gen offers on FB, but my expenses are always higher than my earnings. In order to break even and then turn a positive ROI I always need to do some optimization and spend more than just 20 bucks. William
	>> STOP... << Stop struggling alone. Stop wasting time. Stop being scammed. Only 1 SPOT LEFT - CLICK HERE

12-08-2010, 02:23 PM	#3
tdd1984 Search ;) Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 61 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. William, Thanks for your feedback as we all have different perspectives. To me, it's not the network that has to due with misleading. It's more of the individual person as the affiliate manager. The network size and popularity has nothing to do with it if you ask me. As I stated, not all affiliate managers are like this. However, there are ones out there like this. You know they might not even being doing it on purpose. They might just assume it's lucrative from what they see on their stats. They are no even aware this program is being managed in house as well. As for $20, wow thanks for correcting that. I meant to say $200 dollars. Damn you'd have to be extremely good with $20 dollars.
	Advertising Campaigns Netting Around ~$40,000 Per Month (that would be me). Click Here to get my book

12-08-2010, 03:04 PM	#4
airpr23 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Hollywood, Ca Posts: 238 Thanks: 4 Thanked 21 Times in 20 Posts Contact Info	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Where and what exactly are media buys? I keep hearing about them all the time.

12-08-2010, 03:13 PM	#5
tdd1984 Search ;) Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 61 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Media buying is the process of buying banners (ads) from news sites. You can check out PUlse360.com, BurstMedia.com, Adblade.com, and etc. You'll find out some people consider social networks as media buys. I just consider them social advertising. Generally media buys come from news sites. Your best bet would to contact small niche news sites (for each city). You could then buy media ads from them a lot cheaper. If you go with Pulse360.com and etc you will be paying a lot. It will be very difficult for you to expand in them areas.
	Advertising Campaigns Netting Around ~$40,000 Per Month (that would be me). Click Here to get my book

12-08-2010, 03:27 PM	#6
Kenster Krazy Kenster War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 5,111 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 672 Thanked 2,009 Times in 885 Posts	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Interesting thread! Here are my thoughts... Rule 1 (Don't be Naive with your Affiliate Manager): I agree more with William here. Affiliate managers can deceive and be shady but for the most part they are straight. They WILL try and get you to push all yoru traffic through them (of course) but as an affiliate its common sense that you must cross network split test. Affiliate managers can be extremely helpful but of course thye only make money with your traffic so they naturally dont want you working with other networks...this is the same for any business and any relationship in the supply chain. With that said, you are right that you as the affiliate shouldnt be naive, but just having a good business sense should be just fine! Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced): You are absolutely spot on here. Just like jumping around from the hottest product and software to the next, you will get nowhere if you dabble in every offer that you come across that is hot. I can assure you people are making money from nearly ALL offers out there that have been up for any length of time...thats why they are out there. Sure there are certain offers that may be hot at particular times, but for the most part, the offers are pretty stable (except for seasonal type campaigns). You really need to dig out your place within the industry. Do well in a particular niche or do well with a particularly traffic strategy...thats where the focus should be. Remember, CPA is a monetization strategy, not a strategy in itself. The heart of any CPA campaign is traffic...that is the hardest part and that is the bulk of the campaign, so focus there Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage): Neogtiating payouts is good. Of course this applies more for people already making money and pushing volume. If you are new and aren't pushign traffic to offers, you will likely be stuck with the street payout, but at that point it matters much less. For example, the different between getting 17 and 19 on an offer is much less significant if you are doing 10 leads a day than if you are doing 1000 leads a day! Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer): Not sure I totally agree here either. As I said, all the offers that have been out there for a while have been out there for a reason. Just because an offer is good, doesnt mean you will make money from it right away. I have plenty (too many perhaps) of circumstances where I knew an offer converted but it took me a lot of testing dollars and a lot of time before I even broke even. Competitive offers normally take more money before turning profit (such as doing PPC). You can certainly test much smaller at under $200, and that's what I did when I was starting out. But this is very dependent on your particular campaign. Some people test with hundreds or thousands of keywords so $200 in testing budget really tells you nothing about the overall campaign. Of course if you work with just a few keywords testing can be small. At the end of the day, I agree with most of your points here and newer marketers will gain a lot from understanding these hints and common misperceptions!
	Six Figure Alliance Training/Coaching Course... Kenster's Six Figure Mission Blog \| Kenster's Six Figure Alliance \| WarriorJV - WSO Launches

12-08-2010, 03:38 PM	#7
tdd1984 Search ;) Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 61 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. You need to learn to invest small portions of income. Then you expand based on return. You have to look at it in a micro economical way. If you think you have to have $100,000's of dollars you are incorrect. We have launched campaigns in larger amounts. I think the largest amount I spent was around $1,800 dollars before it became profitable. I was able to determine this though through experience. However, I have many campaigns I manage. They either break even or profit from the get go. I do agree with you to the about common business sense. You are correct. I prefer people to be sophisticated. That meaning, learning how to make money with small portions. As your capital grows then you can take bigger risk. You know, where you can invest into web properties that will take a few years to make your money back. This is how we even start our clients out. We start them out spending small portions of money. There again, depends on what type of marketing campaign we are launching. Some campaigns might take more up front cost. On the other hand, you can start some campaigns with $200 dollars. Some offers work very well in all areas. That meaning, it profits for almost every keyword or breaks even.
	Advertising Campaigns Netting Around ~$40,000 Per Month (that would be me). Click Here to get my book

12-08-2010, 03:47 PM	#8
Aussie_Al Advanced Warrior Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 689 Thanks: 46 Thanked 135 Times in 87 Posts	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. What sort of landing pages convert best for you? Opt ins? Review pages? testimonial pages? Any other factors we should look at to increase conversions to the affiliates sales page?
	Tattoo Kits Zombie Films

12-08-2010, 03:48 PM	#9
Matthew NY Digital Entrepreneur War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: New York Posts: 423 Thanks: 41 Thanked 128 Times in 77 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Thanks to Kenster, William and the OP for all of the great input. I always value the stuff you guys write in these CPA forums. I'm starting my CPA campaigns using the Bum method, so I don't really understand too much about the media buy, traffic buying stuff. Or yet at least.
	Want to see $500 days? Click Above! I will guide you the whole way there.

12-08-2010, 06:00 PM	#12
tdd1984 Search ;) Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 61 Thanks: 3 Thanked 10 Times in 5 Posts Social Networking	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. @kenster: Keep your motivation up, it will pay off. You seem to be a very motivated person.
	Advertising Campaigns Netting Around ~$40,000 Per Month (that would be me). Click Here to get my book

12-09-2010, 04:14 AM	#15
mtmjohn CPA Networks Reviewer War Room Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Pandora Posts: 3,183 Thanks: 1,352 Thanked 712 Times in 559 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Wow, this is a really interesting thread, and I'll make sure your thoughts get seen by the people who deal with affiliate marketing just recently.Thanks for sharing your experience. tdd1984, Kenster, William and Phil. You guys rock.
	>> Affpaying.com -- 700+ CPA Networks Reviews -- 42,500+ CPA Offers Listed & Compared! << >> Affdaily.com -- Keeps You Updated On The Latest Affiliate Marketing News! -- Fully Customizable! <<

12-10-2010, 12:02 AM	#20
Mike Morgan. Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 2,688 Blog Entries: 42 Thanks: 569 Thanked 827 Times in 274 Posts	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. I am really happy to see such good topics. Such kinds of topics are very helpful for marketers, especially for those who are new to CPA marketing. Let me put my observations: Rule 1 (Don't Be Naive With Your Affiliate Manager): It is true that everything you get from affiliate managers could not be correct. Because , It is logical that an affiliate managers could not be perfect in all aspects of CPA marketing like PPC to CPA , PPV to CPA , Media buying , Social Media and lots of others . So, there is high probability to tell you things the wrong way (Not necessarily lie you) . I would always prefer to get ideas from multiple affiliate managers and then use your common sense to identify what is really works. You also have to be aware that it doesn’t mean that every idea you get from affiliate mangers would work. Until you test it, you don’t exactly know what would work for you. The wrap is … 1. Affiliate manages could tell you things in a wrong way. 2. It is always advisable to contact multiple affiliate managers and cross check their idea 3. Once you get an idea from your affiliate mangers , you need to Put your own spin to the idea 4. Test and verify the idea yourself … Rule 2 (Do Not Get Socially Influenced): I would definitely agree that thinking outside of the box is very critical in CPA marketing. If you do things like everybody is doing, you are not going to exploit CPA marketing. So, always think outside of the box and implement things in a unique way. Rule 3 (Negotiate Payouts to Your Advantage): By the time you start to generate significant amount of leads, you need to contact your affiliate manager for higher payout. I am sure most of affiliate mangers would accept your proposal. Don’t scared, the worst thing that can happen is …no. Rule 4 (How to Find a Profitable Offer): I definitely agree with your idea that you don’t need to invest long time in researching CPA offers. Get idea from your affiliate managers, analyze successful affiliate so as to know what works and test . Hope it helps. Mike
	Copy The Exact Formula I Use to Make $150 Per Day With Amazon - Newbie Friendly ...

12-10-2010, 10:15 AM	#22
Cash37 Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: North Carolina, USA. Posts: 2,134 Thanks: 153 Thanked 182 Times in 108 Posts Social Networking	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. Another one of these posts? Seriously... the act is getting old
	How to Sell Art Online

12-10-2010, 07:00 PM	#24
likewhoa Warrior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: USA Posts: 2 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Contact Info	Re: 4 Essential Rules from a Super Affiliate (me), Hitting Profits as High as ~$40,000 Per Month. This is my first post and it couldn't have been made on a better thread than this one which motivates and inspires you. Thanks Super Affiliate; I should be joining this club in the near future