Quote: (02-26-2017 01:18 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 12:28 PM)colblionel Wrote:  

Good thread

Problem with Affiliate marketing is finding legitimate products that pay well.

If I'm looking at a product, I'm looking for at least a $20 pay out.

I'll explain why below.

Best advice is promote products that you use and know.

Learn copywriting and how to write a sales page.

Landing pages still work but I have a tendency to believe blogs convert better than landing pages due to the nature of a blog.

So if you plan to do affiliate marketing I would do it as a blog.

So Here's an idea to get started with.

Find 3-4 legitimate products that actually work with a minimum payout of $20.

Start a blog based on those 3-4 products and write articles around those 3-4 products. This is where it pays to know about SEO and keyword research for google. You want these articles to rank well.

I would write 20 articles related to those 3-4 products. Once you've written those articles start running ads.

This is where it gets tricky because to make money you would have to run ads at $10 a day because your pay out is $20 minus ad cost so you make a profit of $10.

Using $10 a day you need to run ads that get you 100 visitors a day.

You will not be able to get this on google adwords or facebook using CPC as the cost of 100 visitors on those networks is easily over $100.

You will need to use other advertising networks that run on cost per impression or CPM where you pay based on many times they show your ads as opposed to how many times someone clicks on it.

This will be cheaper, but much tougher to get conversions and clicks.

as more people click on your ads and visit your website your search rank goes up in google and you get more people visiting your blog organically so it will increase your conversion.

Hope this helps.

How do you track actual sales made at the product supplier's end?

Do you both agree on a software for tracking sales, or do you trust him to report back to you?

Or do you somehow sell direct from your site, and have some kind of wholesaler deal with the supplier?

some affiliates have a tracking software that you can access to see purchases and clicks made, like the one above with amazon.

If they don't than usually they send you a notification to let you know someone brought something and how much commission you made.

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Is your SEO on point?

Start reaching out to other sites and attempt to become a guest writer to link back to your blog. PM me if you want more details.

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Focus on writing articles that target buyer intent. Say it with me. Buyer intent.

You want to write articles for consumers who browse Pinterest and love to shop.

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:45 PM)SnowHugger Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Is your SEO on point?

Start reaching out to other sites and attempt to become a guest writer to link back to your blog. PM me if you want more details.

No, I only know very very basic SEO. I got my google adwords certification but I just studied for the test and have not applied this stuff yet.

Quote: (02-26-2017 07:15 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:45 PM)SnowHugger Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Is your SEO on point?

Start reaching out to other sites and attempt to become a guest writer to link back to your blog. PM me if you want more details.

No, I only know very very basic SEO. I got my google adwords certification but I just studied for the test and have not applied this stuff yet.

Gotcha. Get a free trial of longtail pro and then cancel it when you get all the data you want. It's like 2 weeks, and they only charge you afterwards.

It lets you find a bunch of keywords around the product. Make sure you include them in your article title, headings, bold, image names, etc. When you link within your blog, have the keyword link to the appropriate blog post.

There's a limit to SEO, everything else is dependent on "juice" from other sites.

Quote: (01-27-2017 02:37 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Quote: (01-27-2017 02:28 AM)Rawmeo Wrote:  

Good datasheet. I used to study the subject a few years ago, but ultimatedly got bummed when I kept getting spam e-mails with affiliate links, and I didn't want to be a "me too". If you can do it the right way, which you seem to know, then you're a good guy.

Affiliate Marketing gets a bad rap because of how a handful of fucktards treat it. I also get frustrated when I get 5-7 emails per day from "Mikee from Youtube".

I don't do e-mail lists at all. Most affiliate marketers mouths would probably drop at hearing that as most people say its the holy grail of affiliate marketing.

I create helpful content and subtly drop links. For example, dont write a post about the top 10 blenders thats fucking stupid. Don't write a post ranting about how the nutribullet has a 20 speed motor and 4 laser cut blades.

Instead you write a post like how I lost 10 pounds juicing, you give some juicing recipes, excercise and diet tips and subtly mention to you do your juicing with the nutrijinja and link to it.

Basically my point is alot of the affiliate marketing I do is adding value and not just getting people to buy stupid shit they don't need or bombarding them with emails.

I like this. My question is - what are your sources of traffic?

I kind of have the reverse question. I work for a company with several natural health products that we sell through our website. I'd like to set up an affiliate program, and find affiliates, that would drive traffic in return for a commission. Any advice on how to find affiliates?

Quote: (02-26-2017 07:15 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:45 PM)SnowHugger Wrote:  

Quote: (02-26-2017 06:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:  

Any advice for a stone cold newbie?

I found a product that I use that sells for 150 dollars a pop. I purchased a domain and some hosting and have some articles about the product written. Gonna put it up and use amazon affiliate marketing.

Wish me luck.

Is your SEO on point?

Start reaching out to other sites and attempt to become a guest writer to link back to your blog. PM me if you want more details.

No, I only know very very basic SEO. I got my google adwords certification but I just studied for the test and have not applied this stuff yet.

Learn some basic SEO and then forget about SEO. Your not going to be able to compete with true SEO's and even if you did spend time studying by the time you master it Google will change things.

The best SEO is just a shitload of content, even to the point of being repetetive.

Here's all you need to know about SEO for what your trying to do. Youtube is incredibly fucking powerful, I rank competitive shit within a couple days, sometimes even a couple hours.

You want to catch the buyer at the end of the buying cycle right before they make their decision so focus on things someone trying to narrow down between two products would be searching. Something like "should I buy the dyson or shark vacuum" or "dyson cyclone vs shark liftaway". Things like that.

You also want to anticipate customer questions. Something like the Chrome bag which is some fucking ridiculously expensive messenger bag, maybe something like "will a macbook pro fit in a chrome bag" or will a "17" laptop fit in a chrome bag"

Anticipate questions buyers will search answers to and write articles ansering those questions with the exact question in the title. Make blog posts and youtube videos like this and you will make money.

Quote: (05-09-2017 10:00 AM)Nom_De_Guerre Wrote:  

I kind of have the reverse question. I work for a company with several natural health products that we sell through our website. I'd like to set up an affiliate program, and find affiliates, that would drive traffic in return for a commission. Any advice on how to find affiliates?

First off how are you going to manage the program? Years ago it would have been pretty confusing. One program that comes to mind is JRox or jamrox or something like that. If your using Shopify a lot of these apps make it one click installation, set your terms and your ready to go, it's much simpler. If you have a custom built wordpress site look for a plugin and you'll probably have to hire a developer to set it up. Make sure you have a payout delay or some safeguards in place so some fucktard doesn't order 100k worth of stuff on a stolen credit card, get paid and disapear or that someone doesn't order a bunch of shit, get paid and then return it or do a chargeback. Stuff like that happens if you don't have your shit in order.

Some programs to look into are refersion, leaddynmo, affiliately, omnistar, there's a bunch of others but that's a few of the bigger names.

Quote: (05-09-2017 12:36 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Here's all you need to know about SEO for what your trying to do. Youtube is incredibly fucking powerful, I rank competitive shit within a couple days, sometimes even a couple hours.

Can you elaborate on this a little more?

Also, how niched down are your sites? Do you just focus on one narrow topic/offer or a whole ton of different things?

Quote: (05-10-2017 08:52 PM)Gas Wrote:  

Quote: (05-09-2017 12:36 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Here's all you need to know about SEO for what your trying to do. Youtube is incredibly fucking powerful, I rank competitive shit within a couple days, sometimes even a couple hours.

Can you elaborate on this a little more?

Also, how niched down are your sites? Do you just focus on one narrow topic/offer or a whole ton of different things?

Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world, it's also obviously owned by Google so it gets preferential treatment in search engines. For almost any topic or question you'll get 1-3 Youtube videos at the top of search results so if you find a question or topic to cover that's not featuring a Youtube video, if you make one chances are you will rank.

With youtube again basically make a Youtube video directly answering a customer question or even stating what they may be searching. An example may be something like "why is my netflix frozen" or "nextllix showing blue screen" or "how to fix netflix blue screen". Your basically having an exact match phrase to what the buyer is searching for and in said video you basically explain why they are experiencing that problem and how to fix it. Ideally you also sell some affiliate product that can fix the problem. An example might be "one of my drones propellers isn't spinnning. You make a video about that, you know why its happening, you know what part is broken, you show them how to fix it, and then you say in description of video click here to order the part. If I show you how to fix your drone, diagnose the problem and show you where to get the part your probably going to buy it by clicking my link rather than oging on google and trying to find a similar part.

Obviously take into consideration titles tags and description, title make a title thats exact match of a problem or question. For description treat it like a mini blog post and if possible link to a product and tags put in some tags like drone, drone parts, etc as well as some longtail phrases or keywords.

That's intriguing, I've never used Youtube for traffic before. What are your main traffic drivers to your affiliate sites?

Quote: (05-11-2017 09:52 AM)Gas Wrote:  

That's intriguing, I've never used Youtube for traffic before. What are your main traffic drivers to your affiliate sites?

I think Youtube is number one by far. Other than that blogs and social media ie pinterest, instagram, tumblr, medium, etc.

Yeah, YouTube is the shit. I just uploaded a video, and it appeared in the search results instantly. I don't know if it's because of my channel's standing, but any video will show up in YouTube search results much faster than a website article would appear in the regular Google search results. This is great if you make videos designed to be discovered through searches.

Just make sure you get the viewers off YouTube and on to something you have more control over like an email list, website, etc.

Have you thought of selling your sites on Adsense Flippers? There are guys there selling 2k/mth sites for $50k and up. If you have a knack for this sort of thing you could make some decent cash quite quickly.

Quote: (05-11-2017 10:29 PM)Gas Wrote:  

Have you thought of selling your sites on Adsense Flippers? There are guys there selling 2k/mth sites for $50k and up. If you have a knack for this sort of thing you could make some decent cash quite quickly.

Do you know if those sites are actually selling or just listed for those prices? I've tried Flippa a couple times but never really had much luck with it, I just did the free ads thoguh didn't pay for an auction or however the paid ones work.

I did think about basically setting up Shopify stores turnkey stores, finding suppliers, getting some backlinks and social media setup and then selling turnkey businesses but nenver really wound up following through with it.

I have been doing Affiliate Marketing since 2004 and hit a peak around 2010 when I was clearing GBP 10k a month (I guess at the time that was around USD 15k).

I am now making on average GBP 1k a month.

How did I get to earn so much?

I found a niche in health insurance and milked the hell out of it. I was killing the google SERPS back then, at one point I had the top five positions. Ok, they were not highly competitive keywords, but the cost of the product was high and the conversion rates were excellent.

Then Google unleashed Penguin and it's been downhill ever since. No regrets though, I invested a lot of the earnings and I am on my way to financial freedom.

My advice is to find a niche and then dominate it before the big boys move in.

As we say in the UK, make hay while the sun shines.

By the way, I had an Adwords account but could never make it work. All my traffic was organic, which is probably why I earn so little from it now!

Quote: (05-12-2017 10:42 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Quote: (05-11-2017 10:29 PM)Gas Wrote:  

Have you thought of selling your sites on Adsense Flippers? There are guys there selling 2k/mth sites for $50k and up. If you have a knack for this sort of thing you could make some decent cash quite quickly.

Do you know if those sites are actually selling or just listed for those prices? I've tried Flippa a couple times but never really had much luck with it, I just did the free ads thoguh didn't pay for an auction or however the paid ones work.

I did think about basically setting up Shopify stores turnkey stores, finding suppliers, getting some backlinks and social media setup and then selling turnkey businesses but nenver really wound up following through with it.

I'm not sure if they are hitting those prices but I'm sure they are selling. I think most are sold via lower offers. Internet changes quickly so I think the valuations would be lower than most businesses.

Clean websites with sustainable cash flow are usually valued at 25x. So yes, a website doing $2k per month can definitely sell for $50k.

But, I think most buyers want to see at least 12 months of earnings if not more.

Quote: (05-09-2017 12:40 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Quote: (05-09-2017 10:00 AM)Nom_De_Guerre Wrote:  

I kind of have the reverse question. I work for a company with several natural health products that we sell through our website. I'd like to set up an affiliate program, and find affiliates, that would drive traffic in return for a commission. Any advice on how to find affiliates?

First off how are you going to manage the program? Years ago it would have been pretty confusing. One program that comes to mind is JRox or jamrox or something like that. If your using Shopify a lot of these apps make it one click installation, set your terms and your ready to go, it's much simpler. If you have a custom built wordpress site look for a plugin and you'll probably have to hire a developer to set it up. Make sure you have a payout delay or some safeguards in place so some fucktard doesn't order 100k worth of stuff on a stolen credit card, get paid and disapear or that someone doesn't order a bunch of shit, get paid and then return it or do a chargeback. Stuff like that happens if you don't have your shit in order.

Some programs to look into are refersion, leaddynmo, affiliately, omnistar, there's a bunch of others but that's a few of the bigger names.

Great response. Thanks for these suggestions.

This is exactly what I've spent the last few days researching. Right now, I'm talking to a web developer about designing it with a plug-in. But I may end up trying one of the services for a while first.

But, other than the technical details, any suggestions on finding good affiliates?

Have any of you outsourced your SEO/link-building? There are a lot of (well-reviewed) SEO 'experts' and 'linkbuilders' on Upwork but I'm curious as to where they get the links and if it actually works.

Quote: (05-12-2017 08:26 PM)soltopia Wrote:  

I have been doing Affiliate Marketing since 2004 and hit a peak around 2010 when I was clearing GBP 10k a month (I guess at the time that was around USD 15k).

I am now making on average GBP 1k a month.

How did I get to earn so much?

I found a niche in health insurance and milked the hell out of it. I was killing the google SERPS back then, at one point I had the top five positions. Ok, they were not highly competitive keywords, but the cost of the product was high and the conversion rates were excellent.

Then Google unleashed Penguin and it's been downhill ever since. No regrets though, I invested a lot of the earnings and I am on my way to financial freedom.

My advice is to find a niche and then dominate it before the big boys move in.

As we say in the UK, make hay while the sun shines.

By the way, I had an Adwords account but could never make it work. All my traffic was organic, which is probably why I earn so little from it now!

I'm not too hip to SEO, I just create a crapload of content but it sounds like you may know a bit about SEO. How has things changed? Is it tougher to game the system with backlinks and stuff? Is SEO still alive or is it really just about content creation these days?

Quote: (05-14-2017 08:30 AM)Nom_De_Guerre Wrote:  

Quote: (05-09-2017 12:40 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Quote: (05-09-2017 10:00 AM)Nom_De_Guerre Wrote:  

I kind of have the reverse question. I work for a company with several natural health products that we sell through our website. I'd like to set up an affiliate program, and find affiliates, that would drive traffic in return for a commission. Any advice on how to find affiliates?

First off how are you going to manage the program? Years ago it would have been pretty confusing. One program that comes to mind is JRox or jamrox or something like that. If your using Shopify a lot of these apps make it one click installation, set your terms and your ready to go, it's much simpler. If you have a custom built wordpress site look for a plugin and you'll probably have to hire a developer to set it up. Make sure you have a payout delay or some safeguards in place so some fucktard doesn't order 100k worth of stuff on a stolen credit card, get paid and disapear or that someone doesn't order a bunch of shit, get paid and then return it or do a chargeback. Stuff like that happens if you don't have your shit in order.

Some programs to look into are refersion, leaddynmo, affiliately, omnistar, there's a bunch of others but that's a few of the bigger names.

Great response. Thanks for these suggestions.

This is exactly what I've spent the last few days researching. Right now, I'm talking to a web developer about designing it with a plug-in. But I may end up trying one of the services for a while first.

But, other than the technical details, any suggestions on finding good affiliates?

As far as finding affiliates there's always people with some bullshit dropshipping store selling $5 items begging people on affiliate subreddits to be their affilites. They are offering like 5% commisions on $5 products so the competition for affiliates isn't that steep if you have a good product and offer a good/fair commission.

Obviously number one thing that interests me as an affiliate is a good commission, a short cookie time. Be generous, keep in mind 80% of a sale you wouldn't otherwise get is better than 100% of no sale. Long cookie times help, dont go 30 days as I feel like at that point the affiliate isn't really responsible for driving the sale but 7 days, 10 days maybe even 14 days is fair and decent imho.

The type of product you sell helps as well. Obviously money should be number one thing that interests affiliates but l notice people are really keen to promote like weed products and fun products even if they pay less than another affiliate offer but that maybe isn't as sexy or fun.

Quote: (05-14-2017 07:37 PM)Gas Wrote:  

Have any of you outsourced your SEO/link-building? There are a lot of (well-reviewed) SEO 'experts' and 'linkbuilders' on Upwork but I'm curious as to where they get the links and if it actually works.

Maybe I just don't know which ones to buy but any Fiverr type SEO or linkbuilding gig is pure bullshit and will do more harm than good for you. I used to utilize these guys and had to hire someone to do a bunch of disavowing and cleanup a bunch of garbage links.

I've also hired SEO firms from small Craigslist guys to big Indian companies that do SEO for a lot of these boutique agencies and honestly I can't say they do much. Plus unless you know a fair bit about SEO yourself you really have no way of knowing if they are actually doing anything for you or just blowing smoke about all the link building and articles they submitted for you.

For SEO I've basically decided I'm done trying to do link building, PBN's and anything that's trying to game the system. I create a shit load of content, I target longtail keywords and commonly write articles that are basically questions or answers and I leave it at that and I"m doing better ranking than I've ever done hiring a company.