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How do you get to the point where you're making more than you're spending?

by ncloud
10 replies
How did you get the point where you're making more money from your list then what it cost you? I'm probably spending $60. per month for internet access, web hosting fees, and an autoresponder. And it's also costing me $2.00 - $3.00 per subscriber. I don't get enough sales to even cover the cost.


  • Did you have better luck in one niche than another?
  • Are you using Google Adwords Display Network for you traffic?
  • How much does it cost you per subscriber on the display network?
  • What is your conversion rate (sign up rate)? I heard you really need a conversion rate of 25% or more, meaning 1 out of 4 people that click on your ad signs up. Is that true? My conversion rate is much much lower.
  • Did you write your emails yourself or outsource them?
  • Can you be making more than enough to cover your costs with a short email series of like 24 emails?
#making #point #spending
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  • Profile picture of the author Isaiah Jackson
    My two step formula for you (for free yay)

    1. Build your email list
    2. Mail it daily with an offer

    The important thing is mailing daily with an offer.

    Doesn't matter how much it costs either.

    When I had 188 subscribers that list made me close to 1500 in about 30 days or so.

    So start mailing your list daily with an offer that can truly help them and you believe in.

    To answer your questions:

    1. No. I only operate in one niche but can easily branch off into other niches using the above "formula" I gave

    2. No.

    3. N/A

    4. Not really. I've had traffic sources that converted like crap I'm talking like 15% but it didn't bother me at all because those 15% were interested enough to get on my list to begin with.

    5. Write them myself

    6. Email daily. I have 1 email in my followup with the thing I said I would give them. After that its a daily email.

    Isaiah
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    Send Emails, Get Paid - My business summarized in four words. For the how-to go here
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  • Profile picture of the author Bizopboost
    I Think The hole process needs to be optimized...
    * Better niche selection profitable and evergreen
    * Targeted Traffic
    * Copyrighting ..Squeeze pages and sales pages
    * Split testing...and tracking
    * LIST SEGMENTATION
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  • Profile picture of the author helisell
    Originally Posted by ncloud View Post

    How did you get the point where you're making more money from your list then what it cost you? I'm probably spending $60. per month for internet access, web hosting fees, and an autoresponder. And it's also costing me $2.00 - $3.00 per subscriber. I don't get enough sales to even cover the cost.


    • Did you have better luck in one niche than another?
    • Are you using Google Adwords Display Network for you traffic?
    • How much does it cost you per subscriber on the display network?
    • What is your conversion rate (sign up rate)? I heard you really need a conversion rate of 25% or more, meaning 1 out of 4 people that click on your ad signs up. Is that true? My conversion rate is much much lower.
    • Did you write your emails yourself or outsource them?
    • Can you be making more than enough to cover your costs with a short email series of like 24 emails?
    Show us your:

    Ads

    Landing page(s)

    Offers

    Then maybe someone here can help you.

    No chance of helping if we don't know what you're doing.

    If you don't want to give away your 'secrets' I understand BUT.....

    Your 'secrets' are not working so you have nothing to lose.

    Over to you.
    Signature

    Making Calls To Sell Something? What are you actually saying?
    Is there any room for improvement? Want to find out?

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  • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
    There are no "secrets" in email marketing.
    The reason why most people fail at doing it is just like every other internet marketing area.
    People are lazy, dont want to learn, and wont put in the time or the significant investment needed to learn the lessons in order to be successful.
    There is a large misconception that doing email marketing successfully is easy. Its not, its hard af, takes plenty of time and perseverance, and always having to adapt to an ever changing landscape.
    What works today, does not tomorrow.....
    Signature
    EMAIL & SMS MARKETING | DATA & LEADS SALES | SYSTEMS SETUP | EXPERT CONSULTING
    LeadsPlusData.Com | PM For Skype, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, And More....
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  • Profile picture of the author DURABLEOILCOM
    Do not forget to use free sources to grow your list like Craigslist, Backpage, Quora, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Forums. Try using Bing Ads as well it far cheaper than Google Adwords.
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    Ready to Be The Bo$$!?!

    Start Your Own Business Today!
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  • Profile picture of the author ncloud
    The important thing is mailing daily with an offer.
    I'm not mailing my list every day, more like every 2 or 3 days, but most of them do have offers.

    Doesn't matter how much it costs either.
    When I had 188 subscribers that list made me close to 1500 in about 30 days or so.
    Really, is that pretty typical results for the rest of you too? What traffic source or sources do you use to get such results?

    Show us your: Ads, Landing page(s), Offers
    One of my top performing ads read like this:
    Title: Survival Kit Items
    Description: Free ebook reveals what items to put in your survival kit

    I think I only got like 9 subscribers from spending $50.00 on the display network. Is that bad? My conversion rates (sign up rates) were showing that I was spending between $2.00- $3.00 per subscriber, but some of them never confirmed their subscription in the email I sent them.

    Here's my landing page: https://www.smartprepping.com/sign-up-form/
    That is what my landing page looks like after making all the changes to it that they said I needed to make to it on the google adwords forum. I don't know if it needs to be better or not.

    Here are my conversion rates:
    Ad 1 = 37 clicks/5 conversions
    Ad 2 = 26 clicks/2 conversions
    Ad 3 = 142 clicks/12 conversions

    I originally assumed those are bad conversion rates, but then I read this article which says the average conversion rate on the display network across all industries is 0.77%. That's not even 1% (less than 1 person out of a 100 clicks), so that's even worse than my conversion rates. So are my conversion rates really that bad?

    Do not forget to use free sources to grow your list like Craigslist, Backpage, Quora, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Forums. Try using Bing Ads as well it far cheaper than Google Adwords.
    I'm not interested in creating more content (articles/posts), so do any of those free traffic NOT require content? I've tried my hand at SEO with the articles on my website and I couldn't get any of them to rank well. Now it's not possible to get them to rank well because the keywords are now difficult to rank for. I'm one of those people that would rather spend money to make money than to spend time (creating content) to make money. I just need to figure out how to get to where I'm making more than I'm spending.

    The reason I focused on learning google adwords was because I heard Brad Callen say in a webinar that most internet marketers who are making more than a million dollars per year make most of their money from google adwords. It's their main traffic source. And once you get to where you're making two dollars for every dollar you spend you can scale up as much as you want. But, unfortunately I'm spending more than I'm making for some reason, and I'm not sure why. Are my conversion rates bad? Do I need a better landing page? Do people not want the free ebook? Does the display network traffic not work well for the prepping niche? Do I just need to spend however much it takes to reach 200 subscribers and then it will pay off like Jackson mentioned?
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    • Profile picture of the author rritz
      Originally Posted by ncloud View Post

      Are my conversion rates bad?
      Do I need a better landing page?
      Do people not want the free ebook?
      Does the display network traffic not work well for the prepping niche?
      Good questions - take them and turn them into a system for optimizing conversion.

      Seriously, your stats show you have 200 ad click so far ... that's nothing really. You need some data to optimize.

      So you have a funnel, running traffic from goorgle to your landing page, you collect emails, you send a free report, you send email follow up right?

      Ok, so start with your ads. Test them. Run a handful of them, until you get a decent number of clicks.

      Keep the good ones, dump the bad. Set up new ads and try to beat your best ad's performance.

      Ok, say you have some decent ads (good CTR) - now test your landing page.
      Try different angles. Make a list of all the benefits your free report offers. Make one landing page headline out of one benefit, throw up three or four landers. Split test them.

      Run 500 clicks to each lander. Choose winner.
      Take winner, and test it in variations. Different background. Different sign up button color. whatever.

      Next, when you think lander is decently converting, test your email follow up.
      Split test your welcome email.
      Test different subject lines, test different body copy.

      and so on ... throwing up a funnel and running 200 clicks through it is not marketing. That's gambling.

      Now if you have a good insight into what your niche wants and you know how to talk to them you will maybe start with better results than if you know little about your niche.

      But even the best marketes who know their niches in and out do some testing to get better conversion rates.

      And they wouldn't base their decisions off 200 clicks.

      I am no adwords expert and have no idea how your ads are structured. But first thing I would do is weed out all the keywords and search terms that are useless for you.
      No idea what these may be in your niche, but he, just look into the search terms. Anything totally unrelated to your offer? Anything indicating the person is not looking for what you offer?

      Like I have a recording studio. I sell recordings. I do not offer any jobs in my recording studio.
      So the search terms that include "job" go to my negative keyword list.
      Some search terms are obvious, some I did not even know existed before I saw them in my adwords account. They are eating my money, so I exclude them asap.

      Just one example of how you can optimize. And for optimizing you need data.
      Yes, data costs money. A lot more than 50 bucks.

      Take your questions, and turn them into tests. Run traffic to see what the test outcome is. Question answered, next test. And so on.
      That's a way to optimize.

      Other than that, you'll have to do what helisell said, and take your funnel and show it to some more experienced marketers, they may be able to tell you what you can improve without you having to test it.
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  • Profile picture of the author ncloud
    Actually I have spent more than $50. on ads, that's just with my best performing ads. I have tried a number of ads before that, but I narrowed it down to about three that seem to preform the best. I really don't know how to improve my ads any further or if I even can. I don't know if I even need to because I still don't know if those are good or bad conversion rates because nobody can seem to tell me. I would have thought paying 2 - 3 dollars per subscriber was bad, but if the average conversion rate across all industries is 0.77% on the display network, then maybe they're not that bad. But what is bad is that I'm spending way more money than I'm making, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep putting money into it if it's going to continue this way unless I do something different.

    You mentioned testing different headlines for your landing page. The bullet points on my landing page pretty much mention the topics that are talked about in the free ebook. I suppose I could try different landing pages using headlines that I pulled from my bullet points. One of my bullet points is : The 13 Things that are CRUCIAL to stock. So I could have a headline that says "Discover the 13 Things you MUST have in your survival kit" or something like that. But, if I do that, then I would have to go back and change my ad description to say something similar wouldn't I?

    I do not offer any jobs in my recording studio.
    So the search terms that include "job" go to my negative keyword list.
    Some search terms are obvious, some I did not even know existed before I saw them in my adwords account. They are eating my money, so I exclude them asap.
    Are you talking about the search network or the display network? I'm using the display network. I'm not sure if this applies to the display network or not.
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    • Profile picture of the author rritz
      Originally Posted by ncloud View Post

      I don't know if I even need to because I still don't know if those are good or bad conversion rates because nobody can seem to tell me.
      I can't tell you either. You would have to post in the main section or the conversion rate optimisation section and specifically ask people who do what you are doiing - ie running adwords to a landing page in your exact niche.

      I understand you want to be reassured that you are moving in the right direction. I can't help you there. I can only tell you that if you keep doing tests and optimisations you will get there one day.

      In the end, all is good if the ROI is good. And still you'll always run tests to improve.

      If you can't think of any ways to improve your ads then move on and try to improve your landing page.

      In my experience the things that affect conversion of a lander the most are the copy (headline, subheadline, CTA text), the placement of your CTA and form, the background image / color and the loading time of your lander.
      If you get a lot of mobile traffic the loading time and usability of your lander on mobile will have a heavy effect - in my experience.

      You may not have to change your ads when you change the headlines or bulletpoints. Because if people click on your ad and then do not opt in, it stands to reason that your lander does not deliver what the ad promised.
      People may land on your page and be disappointed cause they expected to see something else from your ad copy.

      Also, you can experiment on your lander without changing the copy outright.
      Put a stronger call to action in your headline and CTA button, reword your bullet points.
      Maybe you have to move the sections around a bit, take the optin form up above the bullet points, move it from right to left or vice versa, ...
      Or you just try to take one bullet point and turn it into the headline as you said below, and leave the rest untouched.
      Originally Posted by ncloud View Post

      Are you talking about the search network or the display network? I'm using the display network. I'm not sure if this applies to the display network or not.
      yeah, I was talking about search, slipped my attention that you were on display. There are no keywords in display.
      You might look at the placements of ypur diplay ads though if they can be optimized.
      But frankly I have no idea how you would do that. Never run ads on display before

      Have you tried text ads / search / keyword based at all?
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  • Profile picture of the author ncloud
    Have you tried text ads / search / keyword based at all?
    I actually do the responsive ads on the display network, so there is actually text and an image. And there is keywords. I have selected a group of keywords that relate to my ad and I think the way it works is that my ads show up on webpages that are related to the keywords that I picked. But, I think you're talking about the search network. I have never tried the search network because I was told that traffic cost even more on the search network.
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