Yo', name's Pablo Escobar. I've dabbled in Internet marketing for almost 2 years now and have had some success, but nothing worth bragging about. After doing a bit of self-reflection, my inability to succeed in my endeavors can all be boiled down by the fact that I give up too easily on my projects and am constantly jumping between traffic sources. So, I've decided to pick one aspect of Internet marketing and pursue it until I've become an "expert" in it. That single aspect for me will be media buying.
The ultimate goal for me is to achieve $273.97/day profit by 2012. Why $273.97/day? Because, if I can make $273.97/day I will be sitting on $100,000 after a year as long as that $273.97 profit comes in on a consistent basis.
This thread will serve as 1) a follow-along case study, 2) as a way for me to bring up any questions I have in hopes they'll be answered and 3) as a way to keep myself accountable and on-track with my goal.
Now, for the time being I will be doing direct media buys, rather than using an ad serving platform. This means I will be doing all the foot work with regards to researching sites I'd like to buy ad space from along with contacting the webmasters of those sites to approach them about buying said ad space. The reason I'll be doing this is to familiarize myself with how the entire media buying process works before I launch myself into running my ads with ad serving networks.
The vertical I will be devoting myself to will be biz opps and I will be running my traffic exclusively through EWA as both my AM and Ryan himself have been very accessible and helpful whenever I have had questions in the past and I'd rather build a relationship up with them than jump from network to network.
So far I've done the following:
1) Picked the offer I want to push
2) Researched the demo of the offer
3) Found 20 sites whose demos match that of the offer
4) Emailed the webmasters of those 20 sites
My questions so far:
1) Since I'm just getting started in media buying, I am naturally inclined to start small with regards to my buys. Small buys naturally lend themselves to smaller sites, however I don't really know how a "smaller" site is gauged in terms of unique visitors. Ryan's EWA guide on media buying suggests not going after sites who don't have traffic volume that lends itself to anything less than 100K unique visitors/month. However, in the little research I've done, I've found that many webmasters of sites who have such volume charge outrageous CPMs (one guy was charging $35 per thousand impressions) or outrageous flat rates that I can't even consider purchasing at the moment. What resources are out there to aid me in the site research process?
2) Touching on the above, what are the industry standards with regards to CPM/flat rate models with regards to volume, traffic quality, and the like? This will prove very helpful when it comes to negotiating fees with the webmasters I approach.
3) What options do I have with regards to creating the ads themselves?
4) What's the best way to split test my creatives since I am not using an ad serving platform which would do that for me easily?
The things I need to do:
1) Hear back from the webmasters I contacted
2) Ask webmasters who agree to let me buy ad space questions about their traffic, how past advertisers did with offers similar to mine have done in the past, and if I can do a test run of their traffic (which can take place through email or over the phone)
3) Follow up in a week with those webmasters who didn't respond to my initial email
4) Begin creating the ads themselves for the offer I'm pushing in sizes 728 x 90, 300 x 250, 160 x 600 and 120 x 600, as I've read (fact check, please) that these banners generate 80% of clicks when compared to the other sizes
Having said that, due to how I green I am with regards to the media buying space, I've gone ahead and got my hands on some resources on media buying, namely a seminar by Amish Shah, and eBooks/courses from Mike Morgan and Scott Rewick (yes, I am taking these with a grain of salt due to how easily misinformation is disseminated through eBooks/courses from self-proclaimed gurus). If anyone has any other good informational resources on media buying, let me know.
And, that's it for now. I'm looking forward to growing with the help of my fellow Wickedfire members and am excited to show this growth in publicly as I believe it will help if I constantly update this and stay honest throughout my successes and blunders.
The ultimate goal for me is to achieve $273.97/day profit by 2012. Why $273.97/day? Because, if I can make $273.97/day I will be sitting on $100,000 after a year as long as that $273.97 profit comes in on a consistent basis.
This thread will serve as 1) a follow-along case study, 2) as a way for me to bring up any questions I have in hopes they'll be answered and 3) as a way to keep myself accountable and on-track with my goal.
Now, for the time being I will be doing direct media buys, rather than using an ad serving platform. This means I will be doing all the foot work with regards to researching sites I'd like to buy ad space from along with contacting the webmasters of those sites to approach them about buying said ad space. The reason I'll be doing this is to familiarize myself with how the entire media buying process works before I launch myself into running my ads with ad serving networks.
The vertical I will be devoting myself to will be biz opps and I will be running my traffic exclusively through EWA as both my AM and Ryan himself have been very accessible and helpful whenever I have had questions in the past and I'd rather build a relationship up with them than jump from network to network.
So far I've done the following:
1) Picked the offer I want to push
2) Researched the demo of the offer
3) Found 20 sites whose demos match that of the offer
4) Emailed the webmasters of those 20 sites
My questions so far:
1) Since I'm just getting started in media buying, I am naturally inclined to start small with regards to my buys. Small buys naturally lend themselves to smaller sites, however I don't really know how a "smaller" site is gauged in terms of unique visitors. Ryan's EWA guide on media buying suggests not going after sites who don't have traffic volume that lends itself to anything less than 100K unique visitors/month. However, in the little research I've done, I've found that many webmasters of sites who have such volume charge outrageous CPMs (one guy was charging $35 per thousand impressions) or outrageous flat rates that I can't even consider purchasing at the moment. What resources are out there to aid me in the site research process?
2) Touching on the above, what are the industry standards with regards to CPM/flat rate models with regards to volume, traffic quality, and the like? This will prove very helpful when it comes to negotiating fees with the webmasters I approach.
3) What options do I have with regards to creating the ads themselves?
4) What's the best way to split test my creatives since I am not using an ad serving platform which would do that for me easily?
The things I need to do:
1) Hear back from the webmasters I contacted
2) Ask webmasters who agree to let me buy ad space questions about their traffic, how past advertisers did with offers similar to mine have done in the past, and if I can do a test run of their traffic (which can take place through email or over the phone)
3) Follow up in a week with those webmasters who didn't respond to my initial email
4) Begin creating the ads themselves for the offer I'm pushing in sizes 728 x 90, 300 x 250, 160 x 600 and 120 x 600, as I've read (fact check, please) that these banners generate 80% of clicks when compared to the other sizes
Having said that, due to how I green I am with regards to the media buying space, I've gone ahead and got my hands on some resources on media buying, namely a seminar by Amish Shah, and eBooks/courses from Mike Morgan and Scott Rewick (yes, I am taking these with a grain of salt due to how easily misinformation is disseminated through eBooks/courses from self-proclaimed gurus). If anyone has any other good informational resources on media buying, let me know.
And, that's it for now. I'm looking forward to growing with the help of my fellow Wickedfire members and am excited to show this growth in publicly as I believe it will help if I constantly update this and stay honest throughout my successes and blunders.
