Getting started : Option 1 or 2 ? PLS HELP!

Option 2 is faster and better as long as you have some money to work with (for website hosting, traffic, etc.).

If you, like so many failed marketers before you, insist on doing everything for free, go with Option 1 and we'll see you in a couple years (maybe).

Option 2 would be perfect. Good luck!

First option is quite simple and there is nothing to lose. It will cost you about $100 and few days of work. And from then if you have done research part well it will take you hour or so a day to maintain and you can see some revenue quite fast. Of course at first earnings will not be ground breaking, but there is ways to scale.

Second option can bring you faster to your goals, but paid traffic have some learning curve and you need some funds. With out $2-5k for start I would not recommend this option.

I'd go with Option 2 if I were starting over. Build that email list, manage it well, and you have a pool of willing prospects for pretty much any reasonable offer you care to make.

Unless you can generate serious volumes of visitors, ad sales can be a tough way to make more than pocket change. And making affiliate and/or CPA offers can be even tougher.

I'm sure someone will jump in and tell you how easy it is, especially if they have a course in their signature, but the bald truth is that making money from cold traffic can be very difficult.

Much better to build your own list(s) and market to willing prospects.

Neither one is where I would start.

I would begin by doing some market research to identify the niche that I was going to tackle. Locating demand that is already in the marketplace, where people are already seeking solutions, should be your first order of business.

Steve

As I always say to these either/or questions. Do Both

al

Too many variables to just pick a number out of the air. It depends on what your predicted return per subscriber is. Which is a function of how many products people buy over what period of time. Also on how much those products pay you per sale.

What you need to do is take a SWAG (Scientific Wild Assed Guess) at the average value of a subscriber. You can pay up to that amount for each subscription.

That number will also be refined over time as you collect your own numbers.

As a rough rule of thumb, though, I like to calculate subscriber value for a brand new project based on the commission on the first product sale and my expected conversion rate. Sorry I can't be more specific.

This leads me to:

My comments assumed that this step was already complete, but I forgot where I was...

Option 2 is faster, but why not do both simultaneously? Either option can be done with a low budget - even at no cost to an extent.

Option 2 is best to start doing affiliate marketing if it is done correct. Start with small. When you get results. Rinse and repeat and scale it. It's learning process. I really appreciate that you have business mindset (not free). How to do affiliate marketing with option 2? Here below I am sharing my way of doing affiliate marketing.

Note:- I am not considering here myself as expert or gurus. I am like you. I am still learning but I am sharing whatever I know.

First of all before starting affiliate marketing we need to understand these things first.

1. Always have positive mindset, this is very important. We need to believe from our core that affiliate marketing works and we have to make it happen. Say big NO to Negativity.

2 Always have business mindset (not free) that you have already. Every business needs investment. Whether its small or big, it depends on our size of business and our goal. Investment requires for our own education to learn about the business or affiliate marketing or this investment requires for our business or affiliate marketing to make it run. (I am here talking in the context of affiliate marketing)

3. Always take action. We don't take action and waste our time thinking whether this will work or not. Stop thinking and start taking action. There are so many articles on blogs and training on you tube that we can learn about affiliate marketing but finally it is we have to take action. No body will come and take action own our behalf. Right.

In affiliate marketing there are some other points to consider.

1. Know our Why. Why we want to do affiliate marketing. Everybody knows what to do and how to do but no body knows Why we are doing?.

2. Choose a Profitable Niche. Choose a niche which is profitable. There are four evergreen niche we can choose 1. Health it can be anything related to health but weight loss is very lucrative 2. Dating 3. Make Money Online 4. Insurance. There are so many profitable niches or field or sub-niches out there in which we can go according to our taste, interest and passion. It is up-to to us. But above four are broad niches. We can drill-down them. And here mine is make money online.

3. When we have chosen our niche then we choose a product that solves the problem of people. Choose a product that something we really believe from our core heart that it will solve the problem. Product must have customer support. Product must have great commission. Product must have big competition too, mean to say lots of people selling it. But before promoting any product It would be better to purchase the product first and then come to the conclusion about it. And for that we can go to ClickBank | A Global Internet Retailer, JVZoo.com - Instant Commission Platform for Sellers and Affiliates, CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction), www.warriorplus.com and ShareASale. For a product to promote we have to go one network out of above said affiliate network and we have to create account. Its a simple process to fill up the form.

4. After choosing product we need strategic funnel/selling system. We need a true system that works. We need strategy that works. It must have zero resistance point of entry. It must engage visitor. It must have multiple streams of income in a strategic way. System must sell without selling. What comes in strategic funnel/selling system or what we need for this?

1. Great Product. It must be great product as described in detail above.

2. Lead magnet. Lead magnet is something valuable related to interest of visitor that we can give away for free in respect of getting name and email or only email of visitor when he lands on our landing page). Lead magnet can be in the shape of ebook, cd, dvd, video training etc. It can be our own or we can outsource it from www.fiverr.com or some other places.

3. Landing page or squeeze page. A landing page when a visitor first time lands on our web page. For professional landing page we can go to https://www.leadpages.net/, https://www.megaphoneapp.com/, OptimizePress - Create Landing Pages, Sales Pages & Membership Portals — OptimizePress etc. It can be webinar page too.

Note We also need Thank you page, bonus page or download page. But it depends.

4. Tracking tool. There are so many out there but I will mention only that I use and that is ClickMagick - Track And Optimize All Your Marketing, All In One Place. Through this tracking tools we can track all over visitors, sale, conversion etc.

5. Autoresponder. We need autoresponder for automated email follow up sequence and to make a further relation with our customer, lead, client etc. Some of best autoresponders are Email Marketing Software & Autoresponder from GetResponse and Email Marketing | AWeber.

6. Targeted Traffic. When we create our landing page then we need targeted traffic that converts. We can divide it into two part.

1.Paid Traffic. This include PPC (pay per click) such as google adwords, yahoo gamini, bing ppc, facebook ppc (social platform), media buying such as https://www.buysellads.com/, BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice., twitter advertising platform, Instagram advertising, youtube video marketing it can be free too. Solo ad such as Safe-Swaps - email ad swaps
and Buy Solo Ads | Udimi

2. Free Traffic. This include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but it takes time and requires patience. Forum Posting such as warriorforum.com which I am doing, https://forums.digitalpoint.com/ etc. Facebook posting, guest blogging, blogging, article marketing. Youtube videos by creating your own.
Note:- This type of traffic you will have to need when you will choose option 1 in near future.

Thats it. Always provide immense value to customer, visitor or client, whatever the case. Always keep providing value column first in making strategy to promote product or services. Don't just go and pitch for sale. Help as much as we can. Always be authentic marketer. I hope this will somewhere help you to start doing affiliate marketing with option 2. Best of luck.

Combine option 1 and 2. In doing so you will be able to make some short-term cash with option 2 while building a long-term income stream with option 1.

If you have to choose one, then I'd go with option 2 since you mentioned "squeeze page" and I highly recommend anyone who is starting an online business should focus on building a list.

Normally i would say option #2, but how will you earn continual income from each affiliate sale you get?

You sound new. You should look into creating your products, and then using the "recurring income affiliate marketing model" as a form of a continuity program that makes money for you whether you wake up in the morning or not.

As you can see, you've gotten a variety of answers - Trey Morgan gave a great response.

If I had to pick one, for the sake of being focused on one thing first, I would go with Option 2 as it will help you get your first few sales much more quickly.

You can then re-invest your earnings into building a high quality niche site.

Regards,
Daniel

Start with option 2 first.

Option 1 is a very good idea anyway and just set it up as you go along. Spend some time in letting people know about you and another place to put banners for your offers and links. Its not that expensive for hosting and plenty of free help out there to set up your site which is not so difficult to do in Wordpress..


Option 2 is the quickest you don't need a web set up as you will just be sending people to already posted landing pages as an affiliate to CB etc. and you won't need to set anything as they have already set them up for you. Just get some traffic and lists and sent them to the links.

I go for option 2. It is more narrow and target-oriented. However, there is a need to put out a lot of effort to promote your squeeze pages for your intended market to see. Once you get their emails and know how to manage and provide quality content to your subscribers, you get a better chance promoting your product. Goodluck!