My first month in Internet Marketing - Statistics

18 replies
Actually, it hasn't been a full month yet. I've registered my first ever domain on 22/02/2019 in an attempt to try affiliate marketing with Clickbank for the first time in my life. I was excited, but I didn't expect much in the first few months and to be fair, not much has happened either, but I will get to that later.

I've bought hosting the following day, I created a logo, set up my website and published my first article. I chose the gambling/sports betting niche, because

1: this is the niche I'm really passionate about (helps a lot when it comes to writing articles)
2: it had some products that had around 25-30 gravity, so I figured it's a good place to start
3: I thought it had way less competition compared to some of the other niches

The big downside: I can't use paid ads. Facebook suspended my ad account within like the first 6 minutes of me trying, Google didn't let me advertise either. I was stuck with free traffic, and this is what I've been using ever since. It's probably better this way, as I don't know shit about how Facebook ads work, so that probably would have been a waste of money. So, my main methods for getting traffic are the following: posting articles to Facebook groups (got in trouble for that as well, but now I'm okay), answering related Quora questions, posting articles to Reddit. That's about it. I have a MASSIVE (lol) email list of 18 emails, I use them as well, and I also post on my MASSIVE (146 followers) Twitter account. Here are the results after almost a month.

Let's talk about the traffic first and I will go from there. So the site has about 150-175 unique visitors every day with 250-300 pageviews. Some of my Quora answers went off, that helped a lot (Quora has been the best source of traffic btw). At the time I'm wiriting this, I have exactly 944 hops (I promote one vendor only) and recently I've started getting around 60-70 hops per day. Before that it was around 25-30. My order form impression count is at 74. Order form server calls are at 10. From those 10, only 4 ended up being initial sales, 3 of those were 7 day $1 trial periods, which have been cancelled and I didn't make any money from them. The other initial sale earned me $10.59 and I also have an upsell on that which earned me $27.89, so that puts my earnings right at $38.48 after one month.

I didn't expect to make sales at all during the first few months, so this was a pleasant surprise, BUT that 5.41% order form conversion rate really bothers me. I feel like it could be better, but I don't know if there's anything I can do about it. Overall I'm satisfied, because I literally didn't spend any money on advertising, I just pay $9 a year for the domain, $22 a year for the hosting, and another $9 a year for an SSL certificate. That's it. I've spent $40 on everything combined so far, and I've already made that back in one month, and I still have 11 months before I have to pay again. Until then, I don't have to spend any money, and I'm certain I can make more money than I've made so far.

However, that low order form conversion rate really bothers me, and also the fact that I can't get paid traffic. If you guys have any advice on what should I do next, I would highly appreciate it. Since I'm a complete beginner, I appreciate every advice I can get. Thank you for reading!
#internet #marketing #month #statistics
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  • Profile picture of the author naviown
    First of all congrats of your first success! Well done.

    Secondly, about your problem/issue.
    You said you are using affiliate offers from Clickbank.
    Have you tried testing different products?
    Maybe it's not your fault or traffic fault, but the product itself.
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    • Profile picture of the author TrifeAB
      I will definitely try that. Thank you!
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  • Profile picture of the author hardworker2013
    Not bad for starters, you can boost your traffic by making a youtube channel in your niche and make videos optimized with the keywords related to the product you are promoting. Youtube is great traffic and your video will stay there for years getting traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author TrifeAB
      Thank you! I will definitely try that down the road. I was thinking about doing a video review about it, but I was thinking about outsourcing it. Either way, I will get into Youtube pretty soon!
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  • Profile picture of the author sjkstone
    You have done well. Many haven't done that well that soon. You have the right idea to stick with what you are doing. Many bounce around and don't focus on one thing causing a great stress on them.
    Stay focused and determined and I see you doing better as you learn new things. They do take time to build.
    I also thank you for this post because I never thought of Quora as a marketing tactic. Actually I hadn't even thought of the site at all. I just signed up and after the 20 minutes checking all that topics I'm interested in I made a couple of answers to topics I know a lot about.
    Thanks
    Steveo
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    • Profile picture of the author TrifeAB
      Thank you! I agree. Even though I'm just a beginner, I think the reason why most people fail is that they don't stay consistent enough or just give up. I can tell you right now, I'm not someone who gives up easily. I have one specific goal: being able to make a living being my own boss. I want to be able to leave this loop you are forced into (work 9-5 monday through friday, two days off, repeat). I know it takes time, and we are not talking months, we are talking years, but I'm willing to wait and work for it. I know if I work hard enough and stay consistent, eventually I will succeed.

      You're welcome, haha. As I said, Facebook ads or any kind of paid advertising is not something I'm going to be able to use with this site unfortunately, so I had to be kinda creative when it comes to promoting. Quora has been the BEST source of traffic by far. Since I'm answering niche related questions, it sends targeted traffic. And I think 3 of my 5 total sales came from people who found my site on Quora. The best thing about it is that an answer keeps sending a ton of traffic even though I made that answer like 2-3 weeks ago. Posting on Facebook and Reddit kinda fades away completely after 2-3 days, so you have to basically spam and post something every day or the traffic stops coming. Not with Quora though. You make an answer, and people can find that answer 2-3 years from now and click through to the site and buy. It kinda offers that automation I'm looking to achieve in the long run.

      Thank you for the reply man! I've heard about solo ads and I was thinking about buying them on Udimi, but then I've read somewhere (might have been this forum) that solo ads only work if you're in the internet marketing/make money online niche, so I backed off. I would appreciate it if you could help me with this, because I will need paid traffic eventually.

      So, my question(s): I'm a gambling/sports betting related site. Can solo ads work for me? If yes, where do I start? Where should I buy the solo ads from? Do they even offer solo ads to gambling related sites?

      Thank you very much for the help and if you can help me with these specific questions as well.

      Thank you! I would be lying to you if I said I'm not surprised myself. Especially with only free traffic and taking into consideration that I'm a newbie and I don't even know what I'm doing sometimes, I'm very happy with the amount of traffic I've been getting. There are days when I "only" get like 100 unique visitors and I start to get pissed off. I have to remind myself that I'm still doing really good on these days too. The best thing is that I see the improvement. I see the traffic increasing slowly but surely. It's not like I started advertising and I instantly got 150-175 unique visitors every day. I see gradual increase as days go by, and this is a very good sign, at least in my eyes.

      Thank you for reading and commenting! I appreciate it!
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  • You need paid traffic if you want to scale it faster. You can create a landing page and have your affiliate link inside the page. There are many types of landing pages you can use to get approved. Also, you may want to try solo ads to get quick result if you have some budget.
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  • Profile picture of the author davidlee210
    That's really, really cool. For a starter that's a big success. 150-175 unique visitors per day is awesome for a one-month-old site.
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  • Profile picture of the author kristen2540
    Well done, that very greatness message for beginners, i am really appreciated to this post include all think bring to begging and still now, you note down all about this every situations.
    Thank you very much sharing this post.
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    In addition to Quora, have you tried Facebook marketing?

    Paid FB ads can be quite cheap. Here's a screenshot of my latest campaign.



    NOTE: before you launch a full-blown campaign, make sure you do a lookalike audience test first. It saves time and money.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    Good work and good analysis.

    What are your next steps now?
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    • Profile picture of the author TrifeAB
      Thank you! With this site, or in general? To be fair, I'm kinda stuck right now. I've been looking for ways I could get paid traffic as I have the budget for it, but nothing so far. I've just been doing the same thing since it seems to be working, got another sale worth $10.59 since writing this post, so I guess I will keep doing what I've been doing so far and see where it goes from there, adapt and make changes when I need to. Generally speaking, I'm looking to get into dropshipping in the near future (next 6-12 months) but right now is at the learning (excessively) stage, I want to learn how Facebook ads and everything else works, talk to my accountant about all the legal stuff when it comes to dropshipping, and most importantly, save up a budget. I'm thinking about a $1,000+ budget to start with a monthly budget of $300. But that's the future though, my main focus right now is this site and Clickbank.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jcagex3
    Was curious to why ppl Affiliate Market with ample and often more knowledge than the brand they are marketing for? Wouldn't it payoff for you to create/source your own product so you have more overall control? Just curious your thoughts on this.

    Also, a sports bettor/gambler myself. Right on.
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  • Profile picture of the author sgalla414
    No helpful information from me (sorry). I just wanted to say that I enjoy your sens of humor ("MASSIVE email list"). Congratulations on your success so far, you are gaining traction in your first month while most people are still spinning their weels, nice work !
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  • Profile picture of the author luciesmazanska
    Wow thats a cute story! Congrats I mean with the number of follower and email list pretty good results!

    When you ise quora, you link your website inside the answer? Or not? Because if you will do ot constantly they can ban you

    Why you dont try youtube and Pinterest?
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  • Profile picture of the author hardworker2013
    Good going so far, the most important part is you made your first step, now the only way is up after this.
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  • Profile picture of the author KevinVPhilippe
    Hey man,

    Congrats on doing this for a month

    Sales form conversion ; Test everything. Really. test everything. BUT, you need enough people to analyze the results. 100 people, that's no data. 1.000 is better. As soon as you get 1.000 people on the page, tweek it.

    That's the only way to find the best combo.

    That being said, try being a costumer of yours. And go on that landing page. Would u buy there ?

    Easy tip : copy a checkout page you really like. Do it exactly the same. Color and everything (except the logo). Test that first. After 1.000 people on the page, test something else or a variation of it
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