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Viable or no? Affiliate model

by SamJC
8 replies
Hi Warriors,

Thanks in advance for reading and responding.

I have a background in copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce, and a little PPC.

As a side experiment, I'm curious about affiliate marketing.

The usual strategy seems to be:
1. Create content-rich blog (load with quality, SEO'd, high-value information)
2. Slowly develop organic (free) traffic over time
3. Monetize through native links and banners

WHAT IF you did this instead?
1. Create a LEAN, product-centered website with one "presell page" per product (examples of product-centered affiliate sites: https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ and
https://thewirecutter.com/)
2. Write one VALUE-ADDED "presell page" per product (initially, the site may only have 10 pages or less--all product-focused)
2. Master Google Adwords and build profit ONLY with paid traffic sent directly to the presell pages, which contain the magical links

In other words, no authority blog, no 50+ pages of content, and no SEO.

Just trying to arbitrage CPC and commissions.

Secret sauce would be:
1. Adwords mastery (finding super cheap clicks)
2. On-point copywriting on presell pages
3. Carefully-selected offers

In other words, is it possible to:
* Avoid building a content-rich blog
* Depend solely on CPC arbitrage

For those of you who HAVE done affiliate marketing...

Viable or no?

Follow-up question...

Why?

Thanks SO much for your time and thoughts!

Sam C
#affiliate #model #viable
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  • Profile picture of the author Amit Patel
    Yes it is viable if you know the CPC game really well.

    The reason people use the slow and steady approach of writing a blog or creating youtube videos is because of the risk of losing money. But this methods mean that you are already competing with millions of other blogs and youtube channels.

    The advertising model is different. You are not competing with just 4 people on a particular search result. If you know search or banner advertisement. You can quickly get in front of people and get good leads for your offer.

    Since you already are good at Copy Writing and Autoresponder madness. You will be ahead in your learning curve as you move people step by step into your funnel. Starting with your one page or two page or three page offers.

    But certainly if you have a budget like $20 a day. Then your PPC can start bringing leads that you can convert in the backend using email.

    I always use the 2nd model. After I failed in creating a good blog after 6 months of trial and error. Though occasionally I would write blogs just for the fun of it. Who knows one of my pages rises to the top and makes much more than the PPC thing.

    But to start I would go with PPC.

    Best of luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author SamJC
      Thanks for taking the time, Amit! YES seeing now that lead capture to email series is the way to go here.
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  • Profile picture of the author SiteNameSales
    It's certainly possible. Have you tried to Google Ads yet. They have a number of restrictions and are no known for having a high regard for affiliate sites.

    It would probably be best to shop around for the best ad platform. Bing is much more affiliate friendly and they have special set-up for ecommerce advertising. Plus, they are a lot cheaper that Google.

    Facebook should not be overlooked either. They are consumer oriented have a lot of ways to target potential customers.

    In other words, you can certain try Google but, if it gets too expensive and your tweaking the parameters doesn't bring better results, try some other platforms.
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    Borrow my Business!...
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    • Profile picture of the author SamJC
      Thanks for the Bing idea! Appreciate your help.
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  • Profile picture of the author IGotMine
    2. Master Google Adwords and build profit ONLY with paid traffic sent directly to the presell pages, which contain the magical links
    Which makes it a "bridge" page which Adwords won't allow.
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    • Profile picture of the author SamJC
      I appreciate your response! Yes--just saw this in the Adwords policy.

      Better strategy seems to be lead capture with (again) valuable email series backed by a blog.

      Of course, always seeking to serve the searcher by making the purchase process more painless and fun.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    To borrow against an old movie title, it's all about the Benjamins.

    There are two things to think about:

    1) Can you make more than you spend? If yes, it may be viable. For many people, the answer is no, so they do things they can do - the authority blogs, etc.

    2) Can you stay within the PPC vendor's TOS? All the expertise in the world will do you no good if you get shut down and banned. And when Google says 'banned for life', they ain't playing.

    Since you've decided that lead generation and email is the way to go, I'd recommend picking up a copy if Ryan Deiss' book "The Invisible Selling Machine."
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    • Profile picture of the author SamJC
      Beautiful--thank you, John! Great guidance.
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