Help me make my first sale!

14 years ago

Hi Sam

First of all don't be discouraged - its not as easy as writing a few articles and posting on forums.

You've already done more than 75% of other people who try affiliate marketing.

You probably need a bit more traffic to see get a better sampling of your conversion rate.

If the product is good then you'll need to expand your marketing activities -

this includes link building, web 2.0 link wheel, consistent forum posting, consistent article submission (with a tested resource box that converts), amongst many other techniques detailed in this forum.

It might be worth re-visiting your keywords and if you invest in anything get a good keyword tool such as Market Samurai.

You seem like a guy who is prepared to take action so half the battle is won - just keep testing and keep going.

wh

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2 replies

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Barry Unruh 14 years ago

Hi Sam,

Quick question, how long did it take you to get this amount of work done? Especially the EzineArticles.

10 articles is barely a start. 20 clicks is not even enough for testing.

You have the basic structure started, now keep going, but on overdrive. Add several articles per day, social bookmarking each one.

There are people who do 10, 20, and more articles per day as part of their article marketing campaigns. I recently read someone say their magic number was 140 articles before they had a sale.

Are your articles getting ranked highly on Google?
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NicheHunter 14 years ago

Hi Sam,

Do you have a website? If I may be so bold, what is the affiliate product your working with as well as the cost your asking for? The way I read your email is, your trying to get sales thru a link via articles, facebok etc. Its pretty hard to help and give you ideaas with the small amount of information you gave.

You sound like a hard worker and I bet you make it to where you want to be. Just stick with it and keep learning.

I am just launching 2 websites after studying for nearly 2 years. I did put up a site to practice with, but it was not meant to be a serious site.

What I have been doing the last 6 months is working for free for a marketer to learn more. Nothing like hands on. :>)

Give some more information and lets see how many people can get here and give you some ideas.

Gary
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dsmpublishing

14 years ago

Hi sam

you really need to carry on with what you are doing as this is not many articles by far.

Also if you want to make money as an affiliate marketer a good idea would be to set up a blog or at least squidoo lenses. Also dont forget twitter for traffic as there is plenty to be had in there.

kind regards

sam
X

Thanks
1 reply

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NicheHunter

14 years ago

Originally Posted by dsmpublishing

Hi sam

you really need to carry on with what you are doing as this is not many articles by far.

Also if you want to make money as an affiliate marketer a good idea would be to set up a blog or at least squidoo lenses. Also dont forget twitter for traffic as there is plenty to be had in there.

kind regards

sam
X

Hi Sam <dsmpublishing>,

You have some nice sites. Who did your copy and graphics? Nicely done.

Gary

Thanks
1 reply

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Tasso Pepi 14 years ago
Hey Sam...

Mate you sound like you are going full steam ahead.. which is great!

There are a few things you need to take into account
- A good conversion rate is 2%... so if you have 20 clicks through to your site you can see that it only works out to be 0.4, so you can see you need to get more traffic and more time...
Like someone said in one of the replies, that is not even enough clicks to test with..
Have you thought of creating a PPC campaign, you will get a quick burst of traffic to your site and then you can get email addresses of the people who visit your site and so if they don't buy off you straight away you can work on a Autoresponder sequence to sell to them down the track
- It would be good if you can test some of the methods of traffic generation you are getting, a simple way to do that is just set up a few clickbank id accounts and use the seperate id's for the different methods you are using... (that is if you are selling a clickbank product of course)
But you are still in the early stages of this product and using free organic search engine traffic techniques is always going to take a bit longer then paid (PPC) traffic which gives you faster traffic but unfortunately costs you more...

I hope this helps...
Good luck and keep at it. If you have any questions, just PM me..

tas
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- Apollo-Articles 14 years ago
  
  Thanks alot for the info so far, I am testing a clocked .com link, and I have a small website/landing page created however after submitting the article for this site I was told ezine would not allow due to them not currently allowing articles based on what I was writing about (Games copying for back-up purposes), so that was a lost cause :/
  
  In terms of ctr for my original niche its (on ezine) currently 6.3% I seem to get more profile views than clicks!
  
  I want to try more free methods, before I invest in PPC again, since this can cost so much!
  
  I get the impression I will have to work with my orginal niche, through developing more articles.
  
  Can I ask what keyword research you guys use in order to determine if the keyword is worth writting an article about?
  
  Also at what point, do you believe its worth outsourcing for article writers?
  
  One thing I am is determined! Problem is, as I imagine I am in the same boat as others when I say i don't have much time at the moment, due to final year studies, further hobbies, and a long distance relationship. Still its all worth it
  
  I just feel like online marketing, could provide be with a great potential lifestyle, so I am keen at achieving.
  
  Thanks again,
  
  Sam
  
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Not So New

14 years ago

Hey Sam,

Sounds like you have done a lot, but I know how frustrating it can be when you put in all of this time at the beginning the results are minimal. My suggestion would be to write up a quick little report on a topic in your niche and give it away for free in exchange for the prospects name and email.

If you can set up a little squeeze page and autoresponder account, you will be able to follow up with your potential customers more than just once, which definitely increases your chances of making a sale.

Hope this helps.

Sid

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neodarth

14 years ago

Every "Guru" I know tells you how easy is to make money on line, that you can make 5 figures in a month... If you do a quick read of the treads of this forum, you will realize that never is that simple, never is that fast. It takes time and dedication.

You are in the right track, keep the good work, if you want to do article marketing, then write articles like crazy! and when you're done, write some more.

After 50 articles posted to many article directories I made my first sale.

You may consider to use a squeeze page as your article landing page, and the affiliate page as the thank you page. This way you can start building your list.

Thanks

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talfighel

14 years ago

Sam,

I am no expert in article marketing because I have tried it myself and it did not work too well for me.

You would rather be better off if you have someone online who has been there and done that in terms of advertising. Would you consider earning residual income with some sort of a program and having a coach teach you the ins and outs?

I know this sounds like I am trying to sell something but I really would love to help you out if you want.

Send me a PM through this forum and I would love to help you out and guide you.

Tal

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yst

14 years ago

Originally Posted by sam132

Hi there!

Looking for help in making my first affiliate sale!

I have tried facebook PPC, but had zero sales - even with CPA links.

I wrote ten articles on EZINE, 316 views, 20 clicks but no sales, (all the same niche), posted around 18 answers on yahoo, providing the cloaked link - getting around a 72% best answer rate.

I submitted one of my articles on 5 more article directories, and pinged it.

I wrote on a few forums.

But no sales

What am I missing?/ Doing wrong here? I carried out good (or so I thought) keyword research and always used an applicable affiliate product.

I have previously tried adsense, but since I received so little in terms of vistors count, I figured I would try affiliate marketing.

Sam

How long have you been doing this?
Marketing is an investment, remember

.

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zoobie

14 years ago

@sam do you have an targeted email list? This is the most important part if you want to make affiliate sales. If you are going to do ppc or facebook ads, make sure you have a squeeze page to collect leads.

Businesses after all is the game to reduce costs and increase revenue. Collecting leads is basically doing that.

Thanks

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Apollo-Articles

14 years ago

Hi there,

The affiliate page on the thank-you, seems like a good idea. Can anyone show me an example of a good squeeze page, since most opt-in offers I see are page-overs.

This is an excellent strategy, its just my traffic figures again aren't high.

@yst - not long!

@ talfighel - I would consider this, but not if their were high membership costs ect, since before investing further, I want to make some money on my own

Sam

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Barry Unruh 14 years ago

Sam,

You really have me chuckling. Because EzineArticles told you they will not accept an article you give up on a niche? What about GoArticles, ArticlesBase, ArticleDashboard, and the host of other article directories which could all get you ranked?

Niche and Keyword research varies for all of us. You want to shoot for the lowest amount of competing pages with decent traffic. I've seen many different guidelines, but the one I shoot for is to make sure there are less than 30,000 competing pages for the phrase match.

I look at the number of backlinks the pages on the first page of Google have, the lower the better, I like to see some with less than 20 or 30 backlinks, but if it is a little higher I may still go ahead if the rest of the factors look good.

Hopefully the first page of Google includes a couple articles or Web 2.0 sites.

When all of those factors look good, I'm ready to write an article. I don't have anything to lose but a little time.

You can find squeeze pages everywhere. Just search for "subscribe to my newsletter" on Google. You should have a few million squeeze page examples jump out at you.

No matter what method of monetizing you choose, you will still need to have a traffic strategy. Article Marketing is a traffic strategy to drive traffic either to an affiliate landing page, or to your own landing page/opt-in page.

No traffic, no opt-ins.

The strategy to create a list is excellent advice, and one you should start on, but don't get to hung up on that component. Your sales are going to happen through traffic, either way.
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lulu25

14 years ago

Hi Sam,

I understand how you feel. Am a newbie too. The advice I can give you is to focus and continue to put your energy into it. You also need to write good content something thats makes the reader feel like you care about them.

Wish you all the best and don't give up.

Thanks

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Apollo-Articles

14 years ago

Hey all,

Checked my Clickbank, and made my first sale yesterday

@KansasDragon sorry for the late reply, but I decided to not promote that product, since I felt it was a little unethical.

Thanks so much for all your replies, I took it all in.

Sam

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Intrepreneur

14 years ago

Originally Posted by sam132

Hey all,

Checked my Clickbank, and made my first sale yesterday

@KansasDragon sorry for the late reply, but I decided to not promote that product, since I felt it was a little unethical.

Thanks so much for all your replies, I took it all in.

Sam

You need a perpetual marketing system not what you're doing as you explained. One sale isn't enough to make it

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mr1018

14 years ago

Hey Sam,

Congratulations on your first sale! I was there too...All that work and little return. Now the first sale must get you energized and keep on moving forward.

Trevor

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ILUVCA$H

14 years ago

Congrats on your first sale ! I think others are right in suggesting you double up your efforts and coun't on that 2% mentioned in the thread as your CPA conversion rate to consider.

In terms of when to outsource I think after you get a feel for how much work and what type of methods resulted in sales then I think you could try hiring a team to double your efforts.

If that pans out double it again and so on !

Also you should test different CPA offers or even have them on an A/B split on your site.

-Hope that helps ,

Luke

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IM: LukeMotive
SKYPE : lukejSmith1

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gsuccess 14 years ago

Hi Sam,

You are doing a good job, please do not be discouraged. My suggestion is to look at this business long term.

The best thing is to start building a list by puting up opt-in form on your website to capture your visitors names and emails, you could offer them a free ebook or report to encourage them to opt-in.

You then keep communicating with them with follow-up messages, this way you win their trust and they will be more likely to make a purchase.

Money is in the list. Imagine yourself in future with thousands of people in your list. you could recommend any good product and make lots of sales even on a daily basis.
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Apollo-Articles

14 years ago

Hey guys,

Thanks for the encouragement,

Yes one sale certainly isn't enough! My next goal, is thirty sales in a month.

Since my old method, insists on too much commitment, I am working on a long/medium term list building method.

Sam

Thanks

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Nicholas Kemp

14 years ago

Well done on the first sale! You are gonna have a wonderful and wacky learning curve to enjoy. It gets easier with experience and failure. You soon learn what works and what doesn't. The hardest thing is staying focused and not expecting immediate results.
Hope you make those 30 sales real quick.

Thanks

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Help me make my first sale!

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