Benjamin's Affiliate Marketing Journal

[freedom1972]

Internet Marketing has almost an endless sea of areas, which caused me to wander about learning the various methods of how people make money.
......So, what I would have done different is to focus on 1 way to get traffic and 1 market with 1-2 monetization methods and worked at it until it was profitable.  What I ended up doing is trying a lot of different methods & markets and never focused on one.

can I relate! I started with PPC, when the first round of big google slaps was coming out. then, I began to look into SEO specifically BH SEO - that was a lot of investigation (glad I found syndk8 early on). After experimenting with PPC, SEO, linkbaiting, etc. and multiple methods including adsense, adsense arbitrage, affiliate marketing, my own products, etc.  I finally have settled into PPC marketing / a specific niche.

I still spend a lot of time reading Syndk8, WF, and other great boards. Now, instead of jumping ship to a new method, I simply ask myself is there something I can learn from this that applies to what I am doing right now?

I still have diversions (facebooks new system is like crack as the impressions / clicks can come so fast), but the majority of my time and focus is on a very specific marketing method and monetization strategy.  It makes me much more relaxed, and much more open to the possibilities of success. I know others are doing it, so I can as well.

down the road, I will either learn the other areas I wish to explore or outsource to people who are competent and willing.

[dink]

Great post Freedom.

The idea of staying on one method is great.  The focus will help you if/when you decide to branch out.

[prouthier]

Dear Benjamin,

I want to apologize for the length of this post, but there is no way I can say what I have to say without a serious amount of writing.

All I can say thanks for the education!  It was only 48 hours ago that I decided to check into affiliate marketing and I’ve been glued to this blog ever since.  I feel as if I’ve lived your life for the past year and I was hanging on every post.  Over the years, I’ve utilized tech forums, white papers, and newsletters to help develop applications for my clients.  I’ve never really offered anything to help anyone else on the forums.  I really believe that I had nothing else to offer beyond what had already been said.  But in this case, I feel compelled.

First of all, I want to commend everyone on this site!  Coming from the dog eat dog world of business consulting and technology, I’ve never seen a group so willing to help each other out.  Benjamin, you are a credit to the human race.  Not very many people could put their trials and tribulations on an open forum.

Prior to reading your post, I decided on the same market that you did.  The health and fitness market!  I went to ClickBank, created a new account, picked the product, and then did the same with Adwords.  This was all of course after I read a very expensive eBook proclaiming the ease of the Internet Marketing.  Of course, I was just running a quick little test to see how easy it would be.  Obviously, I had not performed any research prior.  I just reviewed the proclamations of this wonderful eBook and applied the techniques.

When I started my keyword research, I realized that the amount of money I had to pay for each click would far outweigh the amount of profit on any products sold.  I immediately stopped my test.  This may seem as a newbie mistake to you guys, but from my experience in the call center industry, I knew that I have about a one in 200 chance of closing a deal.  Basically, I need 200 people on average two clicks through my site to convert one sale.  Problem here: At a $29.00 commission, I need to pay around 11¢ per click.  I’d put the list of about 500 keywords up and not a one of them came in under a dollar.  That just about floored me there!  At that point, I realized the economics don’t work.  At least in the way this eBook had explained them.

So, it was time to sit down and do some research.  I think I have hit every blog on the Internet, but this one had the most to say.  Without a doubt, it illustrated some inherent problems with the Internet Marketing model.  The question isn’t whether affiliate marking works or doesn’t work; obviously it does to a certain extent.  Some people have made bucket loads of money doing the affiliate marketing and marketing Internet products in general.  Most of the people who have made a big bucks started out in late 2003 early 2004.  The market was wide open at the time and there were lots of people looking to make a quick dollar.  The current market has matured, it is savvy, and has lots of choices. 

Truthfully, that isn’t a problem.  It’s an opportunity for niche players!  The real question we should be asking ourselves is: who is our market and how do we find them. This is not a question Google or any other service is going to answer for us.  We need to ask our current customers and prospects.  I know, it sounds like I am writing an E book.  Now, all of the blogs that I’ve read and all of the research that I’ve done has given advice from a primarily technical perspective.  I have read very little on actual tried and interesting marketing techniques.  Yes, there has been talk of capturing the e-mail address and sending out offers via the mail, but I have heard no one actually contacting their perspective client and asking them any questions.  There is one truth and only one truth in marketing and sales:  People buy from people they like and trust.  The inherent problem with this Internet Marketing model is that people do not get the opportunity to like and trust you.  Therefore, a click through does not convert very easily.

The bottom line: this is a sales process!  One of the steps I see everyone missing in their sales process is what we called discovery.  Discovery allows us to define who our client is, find out what they like, and then bring it to them.  This will allow us to create a relationship with our client and best of all it will create recurring sales.  Can it be done over the Internet?  I think so, in fact I know so.  Wouldn’t it be nice to double your conversions without spending any more money!   Stop concentrating on the tech and start concentrating on building relationships with your customers. Think about it!

Thanks, and I’m really sorry that this was so long.

Paul,

Proven:  It costs 1/10 as much to sell to an existing cutomer as it costs to recruit a new one.

[Benjamin_Maker]

Freedom - I agree with Dink, great post.  For someone like me who gets distracted too easily with new things, focus has been a problem.  You hear people making huge amounts of money in certain areas utilizing certain methods, and to be honest, it gets my attention and it shouldn't.  I have gotten much better as the year has progressed at focusing, but I am still working on it. I wish you much success in 2008. 

Prouthier - You are gentleman and a scholar.  I appreciate your kind words and I am glad that you have found this thread both useful and entertaining.  Not being from a sales background in the least, I am slowly learning that what you have said is the truth.  There are plenty of people that make money on the Internet.  Some do it for a quick buck and others have a longer time frame in mind.  I think to achieve the lasting, sustainable success, we have to remember to serve the customer.  (although there might be some black hats out there that would laugh at that.    )

I heard a man speak this year at a conference who started in the early 2000's and has grown his business to over 20 million dollars per year in revenue with 70 virtual employees.  There was one thing he said that made an impact on me that changed the way I think about this business.  He said:

"To be a millionaire is easy.  All you have to do is give someone something that has a value of $100 to them and ask for $10 cash in exchange.  You will never run out of customers."

His point was very similar to what you are saying.  Basically, give the customer something of value to them (ie. what they want) and ask for less money in exchange than the perceived value to the customer.

For me, this rang true and I changed my outlook on Internet Marketing, because quite honestly I was going for quick bucks without any concern for what the customer really wanted.  We have to remember that behind every "click" is a human being with real needs, problems, and desires.  The way to really make money is to figure out how to give them what they are searching for in a way that makes them appreciate what you are doing enough to give you their money in exchange.  (Which is what you said more eloquently   ).

Journal Update

I wanted to update everyone on the status of my campaign.  I had mentioned that I found a product that seemed to convert well and I was doing the PPC thing to drive traffic to it, plus build an email list.

Here is how the campaign is going:

Getting approximately 300 visitors per day to my landing page with an avg. cost of .13 per click.

On the landing page I have 4 ways to monetize it.  I have 2 cpa offers (one pays $1.25, the other pays $4 per lead) that are very targeted to my niche.  I have an email newsletter sign up (to market on the back end) and I have adsense.

The layout of my landing page is the following:

-Header Image
-cpa offer($1.25 email submit) - (opens a new browser window if they click on it) (I have a small image and text of the offer)
-Text about what they get for signing up to my newsletter
-Newsletter signup (first name & email only)
-cpa offer($4.50 payout on 3 fields, name, phone, & email) (opens a new browser if they click on it and is below the fold) (only text)
-footer with legal info, contact, privacy, etc.
-horizontal adsense banner at bottom


I have been running this since Nov. 15th this way and here are my results:

PPC Traffic & Costs
4,119 clicks to landing page from PPC with a total spend of $516.96

Earnings
$1.25 cpa offer -  879 clicks on offer, 345 conversions (39.18%) for a total revenue of $431.25.

$4.50 cpa offer -  72 clicks on offer, 22 conversions(30.56%) for a total revenue of $99   - (this has only been running the last week of the two weeks and also they shut this offer down, but I found it on another network and have started it again but it only pays $4, so I have to see if I can get it higher.)

Email List Signups  -  358 double opt-in

Email Marketing Product sales commission - $85.05

Adsense - 153 clicks for a total of $16.64

Total Revenue: $631.94

Net Profit:  $631.94 - $516.96 = $114.98 (since Nov. 15th) or an average of $8.21 per day


Summary

My net profit is not earth shattering, but it is a profit (which has been something I have been unable to generate until now..lol). 

The good news is that I have PLENTY of room for improvement in my PPC campaign, my landing page, and my email autoresponder series.

Just looking at the $1.25 cpa offer, I am only getting an 8.3% conversion rate based on the number of total clicks to my landing page.  If I could increase that conversion rate by 4%, I could generate an extra $200 in profit (assuming that didn't affect the other conversion rates),which would give me an effective ROI of 50% on my PPC spend.

Another way I might can increase my ROI is that the $4 cpa offer I am using is offered on another network I found for $6.50 (same offer).  I have applied to that offer and I am waiting for approval.  Once approved and I change my links, (assuming the same conversion rate as I currently have) I will generate an extra $44 for a total of $159 net profit or a 31% ROI on my PPC spend.

Conclusion
I have proven to myself that my campaign is profitable and now the fun part begins of squeezing out the profit until I reach at least a 60-70% ROI (hopefully more).  Once I have this campaign up to that level, then I will expand my keyword list to drive more traffic (and have to tweak ROI performance again) until I am making $30-50 per day (hopefully).  Then move on to the next one. ;-)

Best Wishes,

Benjamin

[dink]

As always, Benjamin, well done.  Glad to see the fruits
of your toil are coming home.

Welcome prouthier.  Very nice intro post.  Looking
forward to many more from your perspective.

[markus]

Benjamin

Congrats on your continued success. Glad to hear things are turning around for you.

You may want to invest some of your time in SEO these days, as the SERP's visitors convert as well as the PPC ones, but without the additional expense.

Start with optimizing for search terms that are 4 - 5 keywords.
Work on some longtail traffic for a couple months, then start focussing on optimziatiob for 2 - 3 keyword phrases.

In a few months, depending how hard you work at it, you could double your traffic.

Hope you have a blog on your site... 

[SEOidiot]

Good advice as ever matey