Banging my head against wall - top notch dating product, can't get traffic

I'm in the same field.... PM me your site... I just started but I know and have guidance from some people who are hugely successful (making a living off products on dating) .. don't judge my pitch yet.. it is just a pitch to get approval and get the product/download page/etc. launched on clickbank...

I'd remove Blog Commenting, Article Marketing & Guest Posting for your type of offer. Facebook seems to be a nice place for your product (more if you can apply a viral strategy).

Do you have an affiliate program? If not it's easy to set up through Clickbank. Then there is other PPC like Bing and 7search (prepare to lose money before making it). And if you want to bend the rules a little but absolutely kill it, classified ads.

Thanks. PM sent.

As I mentioned above, Facebook doesn't let me advertise my site as they say it violates their terms.

Affiliate program is already in place with higher than average quality tools. Could you elaborate further on your strategy for "killing it" with classified ads?

Well there are a bunch of ways to go about it with dating but I'd start simple, post some ads in the dating section of a certain ginormous classified ad site. It get's a little more involved if the straightforward way doesn't work. Do you mind sharing your sales page? If it's as good as you say I'll sign up and get you a few hundred unique visitors to test the conversion.

Mike,

Have you tried media buys through places like Sitescout or a host of other sites you can do bigger buys?

Another thing, you can spend a while on Google, finding sites that your product would be a good match for.

And call/email the site owner and see if you can buy ad space directly.

I used to do that in the fitness niche, I'd spend hours on Google, finding high trafficked sites that my programs would be a good fit with, and I just contacted the highest trafficked sites and asked to buy ad space right from them.

Hugely profitable for me... because although it took some time to find these sites, and many turned out to be duds, the ones that did work brought heaps of traffic.

so, those are my top 2 methods... media buys and finding sites that would be a good fit for yours, and ask them directly if you can buy banner/ad space.

Do you have a FB Page for this Product/Niche? If so try the FB paid ads again sending visitors there - you never know!!!

Donald Wilson has just brought out a FB Ads type Course which looks VERY good! Received the info from Warrior+Plus today - try looking at that up!

Agree with Devid. + It's easy to dominate long tailed keywords with videos (many times you may see them ranking within hs).

Yup, YouTube is your best friend right now.

People are killing it by just providing regular, "ghetto" videos (i.e. you're just sitting in front of the camera giving away free, valuable advice that covers ONE subject. No green screen. No script. Just an outline of what you want to say and natural execution.)

Personally...

I'd go through Clickbank and hit up the business owners in your market. Ask them if you can run a solo ad on their lists.

I'd also post your sales letter in the copywriting forum. Get some pro advice on what you might be able to tweak.

One of my clients used Plenty of Fish ads and killed it. So I'm curious how well your copy really converts.

Mark

Definitely start an affiliate program..

If U have something that converts, people will be banging at your door to promote it..!!

Dont' Hesitate..!!

You've spent thousands on traffic and only made 62 sales? Something is definitely wrong. I'm also in the same niche, have been for years. Are you only marketing one ebook? Are you building a list?

PM me your website and I'll take a look at it and give you an honest assessment.

RoD

Here's an idea..

Find people who are actively building a list in this space. Buy solo ads from them..

I'm pretty sure there's plenty of people running dating blogs / websites that use mailchimp, aweber, getresponse.

Contact them, offer to buy a test run. If it converts well for you, you can send them extra money, show them the results and ask them to be your affiliate (at this point they should be able to see that it's more profitable to be your affiliate).

Also, you said "I usually end up losing $20-30 per $100 spent." ; that's because you're only selling the ebook. Add an upsell, like a hand holding program or a monthly membership of sorts. If you do it right, your campaigns will be profitable.

Try to grow your list. For instance, PPV might be a very good choice for you. Once you have a bigger list, you can swap / promote other people with similar products. You can interview them, provide value to them and they will reciprocate.

David de Angelo has a monthly membership program interviewing other dating gurus...

-Gabriel

@Mike Bradson I have a dating site that gets traffic. Do you have an affiliate program for your ebook?

You should try Bing Ads. How about starting your own forum and blog?

Need an ice pack.

@Clix - PM sent. Thank you.

@shaunlebrun - I've contacted HUNDREDS of site owners with this very proposition. 90% of the time they don't respond. Any site with a good amount of traffic (such as blogs catered to men) offer advertising but it's insanely expensive. Most common quote is 2-3k/month. I just can't afford that right now. When asked if they would be my affiliate, they always refuse. (I offer 75% which is CB's max.) I can't comment on media buys as I've never tried them. But they seem sketchy. If I can't make PoF work, it doesn't give me confidence that this will work either. Sitescout wants $500 upfront. A little steep for a trial run in my opinion.

@Devid Farah - I know what you're saying but if I can't get visitors to my sales page, how am I going to get them to my video(s)?

@Malcolm Thomas - Like I said above, almost all dating/pua forums don't allow links in their signatures. Blogs with decent traffic either don't respond to emails or want insane amounts of money to advertise. None agree to be my affiliate.

@Mark Pescetti - Conversions are not my problem, traffic is. I've contacted many people in the dating niche via the CB marketplace. Like I said above, they either a) ignore my message or b) will only mail for me if I mail for them but then refuse when they find out my list is only 1k in size. None agree to solo ads. They are only interested in me promoting THEIR product to a list of at least 25k (which I don't have).

@Johnny Night - I do have an affiliate program (with higher than average quality tools I might add) - trust me, people do not bang down my door to promote it. I have however received emails from people interested in my affiliate program, but every single one of them never follow through with their campaigns. It's like they lose interest after a day or two.

@Rod Cortez - We've actually spoken before. You were awesome. PM sent.

@LuisBSBS - PM sent.

It looks like you have tried a lot of stuff. Marlon Sanders has a traffic dashboard that gives you a step-by-step method for really getting traffic, PM me if you need a link.

I know this will feel like a step backwards, but you need to be developing your own list.

Are you an affiliate for any other dating products?

Work with the little guys in your field, search for complimentary dating products on Google, and check out each one for an affiliate program. Sign up to be an affiliate, then try a list mailing swap with those people, not the big guys.

But, create a short report on the biggest problem in the dating arena right now. Spend your time trying to give that report away to build your list--you will get more conversions for just an email address.

Now with the email campaign, try to establish a relationship, tell your story, get some sympathy, then try to sell them on your product in email 4 or so. Then put in occasional plugs for affiliate products. You will build your list faster, then have a chance of exchanging emails with larger suppliers.

Hope this helps.

Sign up with TrafficJunky.net

Design banner ads for sites such as PornHub, YouPorn etc.

Randy men > dating product > $$$

If you're only going to market one ebook, you're going to need either a bit more targeted traffic or lots of untargeted traffic (think media buys).

I looked at your website and it has a catchy URL and a decent headline. You'll need to create a sales page with NO opt-in form for your potential affiliates. If I was going to market your product and I saw that opt-in form I would ask you to set up a sales page and URL without one.

Questions for you:

1. How many headlines did you test? Your current headline is good, but it could be better.

2. I'm confused: you say your offer converts like gang busters but you weren't able to make POF work for you. What am I missing here? My offers do really well on POF, then again I'm focusing on collecting their email addresses and I market over 20 products and services to my list cycling over a period of at least a year.

Hint: I make MOST of my money on the back end.

You might want to test this out: don't call your product an ebook. Call it a course or something else. Some people have taken their ebooks and have put the content onto a membership website platform. It's not that hard to do or you can have someone do it for you. A membership website has higher perceived value and the bonus is, if someone requests a refund you can disable their access.

Traffic: you've gotten some great suggestions here on using videos. Another suggestion would be you should learn about sources of traffic. Have you tried using Bing PPC? What about media buys? Google Charles Kirkland and Jonathan Mizel and learn from the masters. Your offer should be able to convert pretty well there.

Now on your non-affiliate sales page, you should have a more prominent opt-in form. Use a red arrow or something similar to point to it. It's not very noticeable, especially with your white background and the opt-in form is kinda small.

Have you tried using just a video opt-in form and seeing if that works?

RoD

Sounds like your problem is Converting traffic, not traffic itself. I think you should begin with your sales process and drive small amounts of traffic to minimize your cost. If you can't get 1 - 5 sales just sending 100 visitors to your site then the problem is your sales process.

62 sales since 2011, you probably need to revamp your whole sales funnel. I advise you start there.

if Facebook doesn’t not accept your sales page, how about directing the link to associated article and from there directly to the sales page. It usually works for me

I have no doubt it's a very good ebook, however, your product creation process (if you have one) needs to be changed big time. Sometimes you have to do a lot of testing and that can take months, but 3 years for this type of ebook? Too long.

That's 62 more sales than the people who have done nothing.

Not bad.

It's difficult to make any kind of assessment without looking at the ad and your marketing funnel.

You should have a page to sell and another website entirely just for SEO if you're going to do SEO. Also, I don't know what those WSOs were and how far you went to implement them.

What approach did you take? Did you have your conversion numbers ready? Did you have tools like banners and broadcast emails that your affiliates could use? Did you have a separate sales page with NO opt-in form so it wouldn't rob affiliates of their sales?

Google is VERY picky about what websites they allow on their PPC platform. Personally, I think they focus more on their corporate clients and could give a fig about the smaller marketer. Have you tried Bing?

Have you asked them how you can change it to meet their needs? You might need to set up a webpage just for FB.

Do any of them allow guest comments? You can start there. Do any of them have opt-in lists? Show them first that you want to build a relationship and then they'll get back to you.

Can you PM me the e-mail you were sending them?

I'm not an expert on this so let's keep on moving.

Submitting to directories died a couple of years ago. Marketing using articles has changed a lot. I've gotten better results from my own authority sites. You're better off turning those articles into videos and ranking them. It's a lot easier, especially with certain keywords.

Those are usually a waste of time unless it's YOUR forum.

You're already deciding it won't work before hearing people out, that's a mindset issue, not a traffic issue.

Yep, you're onto something here. Have you tried the Warrior JV forum?

You're in a very specialized niche that has a TON of competition. Look at one of the market leaders, Dave Miz (not going to plug his URL here). He's written articles for Playboy and other men's magazines.

One of my secret weapons is the yearly hardcover book called THE WRITER'S MARKET. Very few people in your niche even bother going the offline route. The thing is, all you need is ONE article to get published in a national periodical and you're gold.

Now, this is a lot of work, but some people are killing it on radio. One of the best resources out there is over at RadioPublicity.com. Alex Carroll is the freakin' man! And he actually answers his own e-mails.

You've got a great product, now it's time to roll up those sleeves and keep on truckin'!

RoD

I have plenty of dating traffic. do have an aff program?

Hi Mike,

Okay... 62 sales so it is sellable... from what I've read of your problem with all of the advertising mediums you've tried they do not like your ads due to unbelievable claims.

What I would do is forget about trying to sell the product as you are, obviously that isn't working as far as the traffic sources for reasons I mentioned above.

What I would do is create a squeeze page offering something really specific in online dating like "How to spot fake profiles" or "How to get more dates online" or something to that effect. You'll have to excuse me because I don't know what your product solves specifically so I can't get too specific but that's okay because you can probably see where I'm going with this.

Essentially, take a very specific problem online daters have, create a free guide, video, audio... whatever (or all of that) and offer it for free and build a list.

Then allow your email autoresponder series do the selling.

In your autoresponder series you need to have different modalities. Meaning, send them to your website for a free video, send them to specific articles on your site, allow them to listen to an interview, etc... People respond to different modalities so you need to cover that.

Now, drive traffic to that squeeze page for your amazing free offer. It should be easier to get your ads approved this way and let your autoresponder do the selling.

Next, scroll back up this page (or just click on the link) and read what shawnlebrun has advised. Use that source to drive traffic to your squeeze page. Test two variations until you get a solid converting page then pay attention to your email open rate and adjust the messages to try to get a better open rate and so on.

You need traffic, but you need targeted traffic. Right now all free traffic generating methods are problematic because of Google’s updates.

You could try Bing ads, which are cheaper than Adwords. I read that many Warriors had good results with Bing.

I believe you should stay far from pornography because it will ruin the image of your website and the traffic your website may get won't convert. Be careful with this matter.

I know a way to market almost any site on Facebook. Worked for me with a few dating CPA offers. Just couldn't figure out the formula for getting people to join. Maybe when I have more resources.. PM me if you're interested..

but you could also do some professional YouTube videos. Maybe a 3 part series diagnosing the problems guys are facing when it comes to dating...

You know them better than anyone.

Next, Create a short entertaining but NEGATIVE video that shows the BAD side of just what happens to guys who need your course..

1. Freeze up around beautiful girls
2. Jocks get the girl while they get the homework.
3 Go to the club and post up on the wall while everyone else gets laid...

You know. You could create a slew of them. From there do paid YouTube advertising (open another adwords account and use only for Youtube).

From the video you can:

1. send them to a squeeze page with picture of hot girl telling them she wants to give them the secret to getting girls like her in bed (just an idea).
2. Send them to the 3 part video series on your site ( I would use LeadPages for this)

and/OR

1. Upload 3 part series to YouTube. Send all traffic from mini episodes mentioned earlier to the video series and give them some free tips but keep it vague never revealing the juicy details.

Because you're going to have so many guys watching the entire video series, youTube is going to rank your video SUPER HIGH in the YouTube search engine which will bring more organic traffic to your channel and ultimately your list and product.

I love working with youTube.. LOL.. That's what I would do if I had your resources at the present moment.

PM me a link to your site too. I would like to check it out.

Dennis "the Marketing Menace"

You've mentioned this...

.... I know what you're saying but if I can't get visitors to my sales page, how am I going to get them to my video(s)?

Google >> Loves YouTube Videos. Just google some keywords and you'll see.

The idea is to prepare a video per keyword that you want to target.

> Don't know your niche, just will put an example <

Suppose that this month you want to target australian people. Ok, you can pick
a list of cities from wikipedia:

List of cities in Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then prepare a list of keywords....

Dating in Sydney, Australia
Dating in Albury
Dating in Armidale
Dating in Bathurst
Dating in Blue Mountains
Dating in Broken Hill
Dating in Campbelltown
Dating in Cessnock Australia
Dating in Dubbo
Dating in Goulburn
Dating in Grafton
Dating in Lithgow
Dating in Newcastle
Dating in Orange Australia
Dating in Parramatta
Dating in Penrith
Dating in Queanbeyan
Dating in Tamworth
Dating in Wagga Wagga
Dating in Wollongong
Dating in Adelaide
Port Augusta Dating
Port Pirie Dating
Port Lincoln Dating
Victor Harbor Dating

... And the list goes on.

>>> Please Remember That I Don't Know Your Niche. Just Take The Concept <<<<

Then Create 1 Video Per Keyword To Target, Using Your Keyword In The Title, Description and Tags.

I've added keywords using the format [City] + Dating. Change a little on each submission.
Example:

Dating in Albury, Australia - Free Signup.

Keep an Excel of Campaigns / Ranks. First surprise may come within 24 hs.

Now, if then you want to attack a specific city....you can also try with GROUPS of interests

Study population (wikipedia can also help you), popular religions per city etc and do a
subcampaign.

Example:

Christian Dating in Albury
[Another Religion] Dating in Albury.
etc...

Tip To Increase Conversions: When creating a video, try to add the keyword
in the first slide of the video. This is NOT for SEO purposes but to show your
viewer that have a targeted offer for he/she.

Month Per Month Monitor Your Conversions / Stats, and Move To Another Country.

This is 100% Targeted Traffic. You have to see Videos like Google "Adwords" Ads
but Free (and with features that help to convert even better - music etc), and soon
you'll be loving this great source of traffic.

Best Regards,

Diego.

Firstly... You took 3 years to get just 1 ebook out. That's a product creation sin. You always want to sell the minimum viable product, and then slowly update it with your existing customers. That way, you can update it and raise the price, do testing and all sorts of stuff. Most importantly, your brand could have become far more prominent over the 3 years. But let's not cry over spoilt milk.

The main type of traffic you want to generate here is "brand search" on Google. In my experience, about 20-40% of any organic traffic driven to a site is based off typing the actual name of the site in Google.

What does that mean? I'm not saying other forms of traffic generation are useless. It's all about the "buzz" instead. You want to get customer evangelists of yours (current buyers) to go out there and refer other people. In forums, youtube reviews, blogs, Yahoo answers, etc. How else would you be exposed to a program like that, if it wasn't through rumors or an ad?

You might need some kind of refer-a-friend strategy. Or get yourself a presence... Like Facebook pages, etc. Start giving out free content as teasers - Youtube, infographics, pictures whatever.

You might also want to think of a strategy to market through Youtube. There are tons of successful Youtube marketers like Sixpackshortcuts. It's a massive traffic generator, being nearly the number 1 search engine in the world.

And then shawn and Rod had great suggestions on media buys. That's another one you'd want to test. The problem here could be bidding since you're new to it, but just watch the training videos (there usually are), and maintain at least some sort of profitability in the front-end.

Also, it's really bad that you got on the bad side of Adwords. You could try to set up a separate landing page, and conform exactly to what they want.

To see what I'm talking about, take a look at view into a current dating success company:

Or their community site:
They are currently advertising on the keywords "need a girlfriend" on Adwords:
Yeah, they run offline marketing as well - bootcamps. I don't see why you can't run webinars, though.

Organic traffic, definitely will be slow in growth. Focus on the viral strategies that build rumors for now. What you can do for now is to reverse-engineer strategies for competitors that worked in your market.

Type a competitor's name in google. Put up google alerts on them. See where all of these names/product names are popping out and why. Some examples of competitors sites...

Besides, are you monetizing your backend with your current customers? It sounds too sad that you're just selling 1 ebook (or did I get it wrong?). You do have upsells, don't you? Most people breakeven from front-end ad costs in the FE product, and get profits through the BE.

James Fame

Whoa! Thanks for all the love guys. There's a lot of solid info in this thread.

I'm going to go through it all and digest it.

Also, thanks to everyone who sent me a PM - much appreciated.

You guys really do know how to push me (in a good way)!

Mike

Ok, first of all I belong to this niche. And I do want to say its one of our best, people since the dawn of time, have craved for this stuff. Even cavemen with a club. LOL. haha.

Instead of get frustrated, you need to ask yourself, NOT HOW CAN I GET TRAFFIC, that is the wrong way to go about things!, What you should say to yourself is SELF..... Where is my most likely candidate / prospect hanging out right now???

Your answer will be in FORUMS, BLOGS, etc etc.

I do well by going to forums and paying for banner ads at the top of their sites.....it can be very expensive, but there is no better quality client you can get for you money worth!, I also do some solo ads and leveage off bigger players in this niche with very large lists that have 300k to over 1million in their database. LEVERAGE is key in this niche, and once you open your eyes to it, you will see a whole different world.

Really PLENTY OF FISH isn't working for you? POF.com ™ The Leading Free Online Dating Site for Singles & Personals

-go to POF
-it's cost per view
-finely target your audience
-upload your ads (two calls to action and two irresistible offers)
-run ads and see what is performing the best (you will lose money but you're paying for info)
-lose the underperforming ad and replace it with an optimized version of the winning ad
-repeat this cycle

BEST OF LUCK TO YOU!!!

Mike

First off there are many factors involved, i didnt see your sales page and dont know your sales funnel(if you have one) but if you are not getting visitors to it, it might depend on the fact that you are not investing enough time to drive traffic to it or are using wrong methods. Maybe it doesnt really convert well. Id hire a professional copywriter.

Ok you said conversions is not your problem but you should always build 2 different sales pages, each one with a different design, different position of the order button, 2 big headlines with different fonts, colors etc.. and run split tests to see which one converts better. Or create 2 identical sales pages and start with different headlines and different position of the order button. Id put a video on the top, videos(especially with epic music on the background) convert incredibly well and boosts the effectiveness of your marketing.

Then buy some traffic. Test and test. Make all the possible tweaks and see which one converts better over a course of 300/600 clicks, depending on how much money you can spend on traffic.

Super affiliates want a list of BUYERS and PROOF of conversion to get really interested and attracted by your offer. Plus id focus on building a big list and promote their offers as an affiliate first before even thinking to get in contact with them. This way you'll build the perfect relationship.

Plus, did you offer affiliate tools? Stuff like email swipes, product graphics. banners, ecovers, pay per click ads etc?

The more subscribers you have the better. Build your list as bigger as you can and a relationship with your subscribers. Build an army of RAVING fans.

Regard youtube i dont really know if you got my point entirely.

You are not creating videos on "How to open a door", you are creating videos on "how to pick up girls". This is a desperate niche where guys are desperate to know how to pick up chicks.

The reason i told you to fully expose yourself is because if you have the skills you'll
automatically attract lots of views to your videos. I can tell you most people spend most of their time(even days) watching videos on youtube and that topic is super hot there. Take advantage now. I have a friend in the pua niche literally banking.

Of course this is not for everybody, you must be a confident person, not shy, have some sort of charisma and personality. You can be sure that if your videos are BADASS, people will share em and you gonna be famous pretty soon.

Then the sky's the limit here... i gave you already some ideas for your videos.

Picture this;

You have a book on online dating. Look how many videos you can create on just this topic:

"How to find real love on a dating site"
"How to meet a girl on a dating site and have sex the first night"
"How to find sexy girls on facebook"
"How to get your first date online"

Now, if you create another book on how to pick up girls in general... you can create a video series on how to pick em up in clubs, bars, subway, beach, streets... everywhere lol. You'll need a partner here that can film you.

You can show people how to pick a girl in a club or how to get a girl's number, how to pick up models, actresses etc...

As i said, if your videos are badass, youtubers will beg you to crank out video after video lol.

The trick is to brand yourself and put links to your offers/books under every video.

The more videos you'll create the more traffic and sales you'll get.

So my advice here is do not overcomplicate things, just go out and change your plan. You tried already many ways and they didnt work for you in a way or another.

Winner mentality.

Now, focus on youtube.. it could be your next money making method.

Give it a try,

Best.

Hey Mike,

I'm a product creator in the seduction niche too and am acquainted and/or friendly with many very successful 'gurus' in the space.

A few thoughts:

1. Get some 'big' media exposure.

It isn't hard to go on the radio, on TV or even to pull some antics and get into Jezebel or something. One big TV spot and a bit of a controversial angle and you'll have a ton of credibility/authority to leverage on #2....

2. Media buys.

I listened to an interview with Paul Janka where he said his business really exploded after he hired a full time ad buyer. And that's after he went on Dr. Phil, Tyra, and got regularly written up in local papers and online publications. Which tells you that media exposure in and of itself will only get you so much business. It's the credibility of having been on "big" shows that helps to sell the product, improve conversions, etc.

3. Blog

This might suck if you hate writing. You're not going to outrank anybody for terms like "how to pick up girls" but if you do some basic keyword research and write good articles, you WILL get long tail traffic. For instance, I did a review of the Thai Dating website ThaiFriendly.com on my set and now I'm sitting the #1 spot for a couple of longtails. (And cute thai girls message me who searched thai friendly on google and found my site lol)

4. Self publish a book or two

Write a book about online dating. Or daygame. Or whatever. Make it great. Publish it on Kindle and createspace.com (the paperback outlet). Bam - you're a published author!

That's a lot of credibility for relatively little work. The trickle of traffic you get from Amazon is small but again, you'll be a published author on the topic of women and dating.

Might help land media gigs, guest posting opportunities, interview opps and more. Most people don't realize that self-publishing a book on Kindle and createspace is ridiculously easy but will still respect the fact that you're published.

5. Buy coaching

I'm going to take my own advice on this one as soon as I have the funds. There are plenty of successful, down to earth, cool seduction/pickup dudes who might be willing to share key business insights in this market for a fee.

They've already been through all the stuff you're going through in terms of getting consistent, targeted traffic. So why not pick their brains if it's in the budget?

Anyway, just my 2 cents Mike. Keep hacking away man. If you have an awesome product that provides great value and helps men improve their dating lives, you'll eventually break through.

You could JV to a super affiliate. What is the price of the ebook?