Sharksfan

Inspired by Lemons884 - I'm putting up a journal too.

Some background - I'm a partner in a technology consulting company - 33%. I have done this for 12 years. I travel for work. Traveling is cool when you're young single and have cash but when you're married with kids it blows. LOTS. So, I've been looking to replace my income.

My biggest problem is I make pretty decent bank - I am not bragging - but that's the score. I have the "golden handcuffs" problem. In order to quit my job I have to make at least $500/day or more. Last year my net taxable income topped $250K. If I left the firm I am in I could cash out some and cut my mortgage (my only real monthly expense) enough to get the income down to the level above.

None of that is bragging. Flame me if you want but that is my real situation.

On the plus side I have money to work with while I learn. On the minus side my needs are far higher than most people's in order to maintain my standard of living (and trust me -I want to). I have a wife and kid to feed plus college to save for, etc, etc, etc.

More detailed notes follow.

Sharksfan

Okay, so now some information on specifically what I've been up to so far.

I have a background in implementing large software packages (100,000+ users) nationwide, databases, scripting, etc. I can kick ass technically if I need to. That is my biggest strength. Plus I can manipulate data like a demon. I've been doing it for a long time.

On the flipside I do not have a marketing bone in my body. So there's a huge learning curve there, espcially related to affiliate marketing. However, AM does seem very viable to me - IF - and it's a big IF - you can make it into the top 5-10% of marketers.

That said, so far I...

1.) Spent 3 months learning Wordpress, Blogs, and SEO. And for the record, that means I got my blog into the top 5 out of 10 Google spots for my niche, beating out the manufacturer of the software I consult for.

2.) Read/learned all I could about AM and all the different ways to make cash doing it.

3.) Sat on my ass for too long and tried nothing.

next....attempts so far...

Sharksfan

So far I've tried the following.

1.) PLR articles to generate traffic for adsense. I made zero dollars. Literally nothing. Killed it after a few weeks. I suck at that apparently - although I may try again eventually because that was my first attempt at anything.

2.) Niche software based review site set up on a subdomain with PPC traffic. Good news - I can get traffic. Bad news - it doesn't convert - and my CTR is very, VERY low. Not worth talking about...this needs refinement and is in the works. So far have not been able to spend $1.00 total in clicks.

3.) Domain masking/re-direct via PPC > well-known "bank" of ebooks focusing on a health niche I am familiar with. Too early to post results at this time - just set it up in the past few days.

and...

4.) Nice review site for some high-end items. I built a house last year and consequently had to buy new everything just about. In that process I have literally hundreds of things that are new from very small things to large expensive things (pardon me being vague). As part of that I've become very familiar with the quirks of a number of those items.

I set up a review site. At first I fucked it up but then I split up the products and the reviews and made the site have a bunch of interesting content. So far the SERPS results are great - I am #8 in Google for my niche and rising fast. I think this one might have legs - no commissions yet but it's getting more and more traffic every day and I'm adding content continually. Working on backlinks, etc as well. Might do some product specific PPC for this soon.

And that is where I stand right now. I'm reading/learning a lot still and I've made exactly zero fucking dollars. However, I am not in this to make a quick buck - I am in this to a) determine what works and b) scale the shit out of it and then c) lather, rinse repeat.

Sharksfan

Oh - one more thing - my time to work on all of this is limited in a weird way. Every other week I spent 3-4 nights in a hotel. Lately all I do during that time is AM stuff.

At home...it's balance sleep or affiliate marketing. Both are important to me. AM wins more often...

Despoil

Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting. Wondering how that review site will turn out.

Sharksfan

Morning update: Apparently I really suck at writing ad copy. My newest Google PPC Ad groups has two ads. Those two ads have 511 impressions and 1 click through for a grand total rate of 0.20%.

I think I'll add some ads to that group after I go research other people's ads for a bit. I have the keywords right (I think) - I only paid 0.13 for the click.

bobby_custard

It was suggested elsewhere that us technical minded people with crap sales skills read books on human behaviour and sales/marketing theory in our spare time. Ive been in this for 6 months persevering when my friends have given up and I am finally seeing a profit that is very encouraging so keep at it.
Hopefully some worthwhile reading suggestions will be forthcoming from other posters...

Sharksfan

Thanks for the encouragement. I have been doing this actually and I have seen some results. They are not financial results yet but I think about the problems differently.

I think the biggest mental switch for me was finally accepting that people ALWAYS buy what they want - not what they need.

Sharksfan

I threw up a CPA offer today on my personal blog - it's relevant to my life, etc, so it's all good. In the meantime I'm doing the same CPA offer elsewhere.

Sharksfan

Yesterday's hard life lesson: always make sure your affiliate links work.

Sharksfan

So I put a halt on my PPC ads yesterday temporarily and took a new stab at it.

I went out and re-examined who was looking for the same keywords (using Spy Foo). As it turns out most of the people in competing products were paying for 8 or so clicks/day. However, the top dog was driving 414 clicks and was paying quite a bit more.

I paused all my keywords and adds and copied his keywords. Then I copied his ad text to an editor and wrote a new ad using similar language. Then I re-enabled just a few targeted keywords with the new ad only.

No sales yet - but 10 clicks and 1500 or so impressions in the last 24 hours for a total price of $4.00 or so. I'm going to let it run for a while and see what happens.

Despoil

Wow so you actually have a tool to help you out? How do to you like Spy Foo?

Volume10

Go to a hypnotist. Most will have a "better your sales" session available. I sent one of my programmers to a local one b/c they were not understanding the sales side of our business. I find that when programmers or designers have a better understanding of the entire business they produce better work. Try it. At minimum you will get a good rest out of it and a funny story.

__________________

Sharksfan

So the first PPC campaign ran out of cash today - not that I care exactly, since it was all of $5.00 and 14 clicks. That's not enough to really test the conversion rate of course but that it was a good learning experience in terms of learning the keyword stuff, etc.

In effect - for $5 - I just had a true hands-on lesson in how to copy a campaign, match keyword pricing, and actually get clicks.

I got accepted into one of the better AM programs yesterday and I'm working on a couple of their offers on new websites I registered. These I will spend more on for PPC to see what happens.

**Edit - I got 19 hops out of those 14 clicks somehow - I must have had some cut and pastes.

MDSandB

$5 - as budget. Hmm...

__________________
Links from blogs & social bookmarking sites for higher SERP rankings - order here

Sharksfan

I put that in to start- as a n00b I know I know nothing.

However, as a fairly well seasoned business person I know the first rule in business ventures is to limit your exposure. So I did that. The intention was to increase it appropriately when applicable.

That point never hit.

Sharksfan

So I've had a bit of an epiphany the past few days. I'm pretty sure everything I have been doing so far isn't necessarily wrong but sure as hell is NOT right.

I'm going to head in an entirely new direction - and those campaigns will start Monday.

I have roughly $20K to play with if something clicks. Until then I'll be testing low dollar amounts.

Sharksfan

Honestly I think I'm the world's worst affiliate marketer.

For the life of me I can not get a single ad approved on FaceBook for a few different Copeac offers I wanted to try. I am pretty sure I'm within the alleged editorial guidelines and they keep getting rejected.

Does FB not allow any sort of those ads?

tjdaz

Getting your ads approved is probably the hardest part about AM on Facebook.

efeezy

Don't let your FB efforts discourage you. While I know Facebook is a great market, the genius' in charge of the ad dept. need to figure some shit out. You need to have some kind of fucking decoder ring to figure out what they'll approve. I got fed up trying 20 different offers and ads in a single day that I just lost my mind and quit trying.

Keep working. Sounds like you're learning a lot and you will find a niche that converts.

__________________

IonFire.Designs

FB sux balls man. Somedays, I've spent hours trying to get shit up with nothing going for over a week. Keep at it and they'll let it slide someday tho.

Sharksfan

Okay, so I haven't updated this for a few days. There's a good reason. I took a long, hard, serious look at my stuff out there and it was crap.

I took it all down and decided to focus on one thing for now until I make a sale. That said, I put a landing page up for review and got good feedback. Waiting for more feedback on that...

Beyond that I also learned how to do a double meta refresh for aff links. I was very frustrated trying to use some of the tools out there and decided it would just be better to learn it myself.

Sharksfan

Okay, so my major problems prior to this has been a) lack of focus, and b) lack of dedicated funds.

I have fixed b) - I now have $1500 in cash ready for promotions. Dropped my A4D manager an email just now asking what he would recommend to promote. I also have had a bit of an epiphany regarding a certain niche - going to do some searches on it in the next hour or so.

I am hoping fixing b) also fixes a).

Any recommendations from anyone though? If you were starting from zero (more or less) with $1500 what would you do? I have hosting, several domains, etc. I also have some very good Landing Page templates.

Lemons is kicking everyone's butt in updates...

Rage9

You sound like a fish out of water.

You keep saying your stuff is shit, why is it shit? Is it poorly designed LP's? Why not take some money and go hire a really good designer to make you a really good LP?

$5? Forget it you can't tell shit with that much, try to just go out there and spend at least $100 - $200 a day (should be no problem when you have $20k backing).

Fuck asking your AM about what to promote. They typically tell you the same canned shit. Run something popular that has a history of converting over long periods of time (dating, dieting, bizzops).

Check out your competition, what are they doing? Why and how are they making money? FB does have a nifty ad wall that lets you check out lots of ads, and if you have a wall scraper *cough*FBSpy*cough* you can gather those ads.

__________________


MadPPC.com - PPC, PHP, and other Affiliate Marketing tips. It's OK to be MAD!

nathanjacobs

Keep the updates coming, im actually interested in watching you succeed eventually. Of course in the meantime some tits would be a nice pick me up.

Sharksfan

Rage9, nathanjacobs - thanks for the comments. Unlike some people I love both your bluntness and encouragement.