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Why Are YOU Failing Online? Do the MATH!

by tommygadget
23 replies
I see this happen all the time. People working their tails off and getting discouraged and finally giving up. So, the pressing question is:

Why am I failing online?

Do the math and you'll see. Let me explain. Around 18-24 months ago, I remember seeing a post by Jeremy Kelsall saying that he was killing it in a specific hot niche with a ClickBank product. I remember how impressed I was because he had over $1K in sales in a single month if I remember correctly. Now I sent him a PM and told him that I actually was in the same niche and I didn't make a dime so I thought it was a bad niche for me and I dropped it. I thought I was bada$$ because I had written 20 high quality articles and distributed it to the top 20-30 article directories. I was going to make BANK, I thought Anyway, after that dismal failure, I asked Jeremy about it and I asked him about his articles. Turns out he wrote over 1,000! HAAAA! I wrote 20! OK, well, I failed because I didn't do the math!

So, before you go on thinking that you've failed, just remember, DO THE MATH! Sometimes it takes a few thousand visits to get a sale. Figure out how many articles you need to make that happen. I say articles because if you don't use a free promotional method, you can lose your shirt with PPC.

Now, go out there, make some money!

TomG.
#failing #math #online
  • Profile picture of the author EA
    Great post TomG. It's a numbers game and by the way Jeremy Kelsall is a great guy
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    • Profile picture of the author tommygadget
      Originally Posted by John McEachern View Post

      Gee Tom, with all those Adsense sites you have, I would have thought you blitz out tons of articles as well. I do think I recall the niche you are referring to - is it personal information stuff like email addresses, phone numbers, backgrounds reports and such? I can't speak for him, but (from a post I recall of his last year) I think Jeremy blitzed out about 1000 articles each for the reverse lookups, emails, and something else related - credit, background and social disease checks for potential girlfriends, I think.

      By the way, that Adsense course of yours was very well done!
      Yes, you are correct John, for a long time I followed the massive numbers, small return/site model. Come domain renewal time, I was faced with MASSIVE renewal fees. Had to let a lot of those go. So yes, you are correct with respect to Adsense. I was referring to when I wanted to get into affiliate marketing and I thought I would bust a move with a handful of articles *sigh*! Oh, thanks for the props., I appreciate the feedback!

      Originally Posted by EA View Post

      Great post TomG. It's a numbers game and by the way Jeremy Kelsall is a great guy
      Yes it is and Jeremy is a cool guy. He had no issue telling me the niche. And I had no problem not pursuing it after he told me

      TomG.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mehak
    yep you are definitely correct, it's all about persistence and determination. Afterall it's an online business and we have to get the message across. We do this through different marketing techniques, I normally suggest people try 5-6 consistently.

    Remember you can outsource people to do the work and automate your business too.
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  • Profile picture of the author LauraJames
    Thank you for posting this. Persistence and determination, along with good perspective, are hugely important. Add in doing the math (no pun intended) and your chances of success certainly improve.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary King
    Hey TomG,

    I'll push the Thanks button!

    Thanks for sharing - refreshing to hear a real situation vs a made up "I made a zillion without doing anything" story.

    All success!

    Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author scorpio007
    Thanks! Thats a good inspiring story
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    • Profile picture of the author Liam Hamer
      This is a great point, and things can really fall into place when the penny drops like this. Like you Tommy, it took me reading the words of another warrior for it to drop for me. I remember reading a post by Stephen Wagenheim on here maybe a year ago where he explained you need to be aware of what numbers you need to generate to get certain results.

      For example, if you get on average 1,000 visitors per week and 400 of them click the link to the product you are promoting, you have a 40% CTR. If 100 of those 400 that clicked through actually buy the product, you are converting at 25%. And so on.

      I have a site myself where the product converts at between 4 and 5%. So I know that generally speaking, I should get a sale every 20-25 clicks or so.

      It's very important to keep track of numbers like this, it makes things clearer in your head and if your numbers are down, you know you have to step things up in certain areas
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      • Profile picture of the author NateRivers
        Originally Posted by Liam Hamer View Post

        This is a great point, and things can really fall into place when the penny drops like this. Like you Tommy, it took me reading the words of another warrior for it to drop for me. I remember reading a post by Stephen Wagenheim on here maybe a year ago where he explained you need to be aware of what numbers you need to generate to get certain results.

        For example, if you get on average 1,000 visitors per week and 400 of them click the link to the product you are promoting, you have a 40% CTR. If 100 of those 400 that clicked through actually buy the product, you are converting at 25%. And so on.

        I have a site myself where the product converts at between 4 and 5%. So I know that generally speaking, I should get a sale every 20-25 clicks or so.

        It's very important to keep track of numbers like this, it makes things clearer in your head and if your numbers are down, you know you have to step things up in certain areas
        Is that on your own products? That's an awesome conversion rate.
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        • Profile picture of the author Liam Hamer
          Originally Posted by NateRivers View Post

          Is that on your own products? That's an awesome conversion rate.
          No, it's a product I promote as an affiliate. Yeah, I'm really pleased with that conversion rate
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        • Profile picture of the author ehotbid
          Banned
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          • Profile picture of the author gocasinos
            Great post, and I'm embarassed to say it took me a long while to figure this out Once I started to upscale my efforts my commissions started to rise accordingly. I was writing 10-15 articles, I wasnt very smart at picking keywords and I was sitting back and wondering why I wasnt making any money. D'oh
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Great post! It is all a learning process for us and its true, numbers play a big part.

    X amount of visitors for me = X amount of sales
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  • Profile picture of the author onlytim
    I get it. Great advice, but... there is always but.

    How do you know when you are just barking up the wrong niche?
    How do you know that 1000 is not enough and if only you would have written 1001...(Writing 1000 articles is a pretty bold commitment )
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    This was exactly my problem!

    I've actually been doing this for quite some time and have always been a big article writer but back years ago when I started, you actually could write 20 articles and get decent traffic/money.

    Somewhere along the line I started flipping websites and forgot to pay attention to the whole article marketing part of the online biz. Then when I wanted to get back into making and promoting my own sites I still thought I only needed that many articles and was wondering why so many of my projects failed.

    Then about a year ago (maybe a bit more) I took a course, ironically from Don and Jeremy, and that opened my eyes to the same thing - you need a lot more than 20 articles!

    So, you are right on the money with why people fail and you see it all the time in the posts here with people who have written 10 articles and want to know when the money will roll in.

    The hard part, especially if you are writing them all yourself, is having the patience to stick with the project until you do get a massive amount of article distributed.

    Lee
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  • Profile picture of the author NateRivers
    It is totally a numbers game... that's not to say that quality doesn't matter... but you need to find a balance.
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  • Profile picture of the author majidmaskat
    It depends on the product, sometimes it takes 10 hits to make a sale and sometimes 1000, it is all about converions
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    • Profile picture of the author tommygadget
      Originally Posted by majidmaskat View Post

      It depends on the product, sometimes it takes 10 hits to make a sale and sometimes 1000, it is all about converions
      The product is important, but the best product in the world won't sell to the wrong audience. Here's an example: A top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz marketed to poor villagers in the outback. You need to match the prospect with the right offer. ALL the pieces must line up. It's the total picture.

      TomG.

      PS - Lee, you are correct, there was a time when the space wasn't so crowded that 20 articles was enough to test a niche. Now, I see authors with 100-200 articles on the same exact thing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis-White
    Great share and so very true!... Its all in the numbers and in the math, the longer you do something with the more amount of work you've put forth will show in the math... Words to live by
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    • Profile picture of the author KatieWilliams
      Hey Tom,

      Thanks - can't be reminded of this too often.

      I love the quote, "the harder I work, the luckier I get"... it's easy to think the successful people have some magic formula, but actually that formula looks a lot like hard work.

      Katie
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  • Profile picture of the author TZ
    Very good post Tom.

    No matter how we earn from our web properties, it always amazes me how much traffic we have to get to actually earn.

    Gotta really pound in the traffic to make a full time living.

    Back to pounding.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnyeo90
    1000 articles were just too too too much for me!
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    Great post, Tom. This just underscores the fact that especially with certain IM methods/techniques like article writing, massive action is an absolute must to experience any tangible results.

    Don't think you can spend just a few hours on something and then start earning money, as you'll be sorely disappointed - this rarely ever happens in IM. Massive focused action is an absolute must in order to get things going, and it can be very hard work in the beginning (and this is one of the reasons why we see such an abnormally high failure rate in this industry).

    Paul
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