wiredniko

I made a pretty big mistake. I read too much about affiliate marketing...so now I have too much theoretical knowledge and no practical knowledge. I am stuck thinking about stupid shit.

So please help a newbie. This is PPC based, if it makes a difference.

1. Do I go after an affiliate promo that is making a lot of money in the market or a smaller niche? According to my AM acai is doing the best for the network...but if I do that am I committing suicide?


2. When is it the proper time to start your own company? Is it as soon as you make some profit? Once you hit a specific number?

3. Get a VPS or buy regular hosting? When is the time to get a VPS? A dedicated server?

4. Is it better to work on something profitable (ex. acai) in a smaller pond or a smaller niche in a big pond? (big pond = google, fb, pof / small pond = smaller sites or more specific keywords in bigger sites)

Please lords of wickedfire help me.

Chianti

I'm in the same position. In fact, I won't get around to applying to networks for a few weeks yet (having to take home too much work from my 9-5).

> Do I go after an affiliate promo that is making a lot of money in the market or a smaller niche?

In the beginning I intend to find products that I can get really behind and make a good website about...

Firstly, I can't empathise with the mouth-breathers who fall for the berry rebills, so I wouldn't have a clue how to advertise to idiots like that - I've no idea what the hell is going through their tiny minds. One day I will, but at the moment I can't fathom it.

Secondly, the top acai competition are making thousands a day and have been doing it for three years. The money is not in selling berries, but in the rebills and email lists. How can we possibly compete with that? Also, since credit card companies have recently stopped rebilling, I've no idea how that will affect berry slinging. Most people are probably moving onto other things now? No idea.

Thirdly, it seems like Google are slamming thin sites now, so I might be looking at creating 20-30 pages for my first site. I doubt I could do that for berries.

My first site is going to take me a long time to create, set-up tracking on it, and split test (being a noob everything takes ten times longer than it should), so I'm going to pick products I can enjoy selling and be sincere about. However, the keywords also still need to have high search volume and low competition, so I can't just pick anything.

This isn't really advice; simply what approach is going through my mind at the mo'.

> When is it the proper time to start your own company?

I'd like to know this too. Don't some networks ask for a tax id?

> Get a VPS or buy regular hosting?

I've got a VPS for other stuff, but I don't intend to use it for IM.
Not until I know what I'm doing, anyway.

Cheers and good luck

wiredniko

Am I getting no replies because my questions are dumb?

patrick24601

1. Do I go after an affiliate promo that is making a lot of money in the market or a smaller niche? According to my AM acai is doing the best for the network...but if I do that am I committing suicide?

Niche

2. When is it the proper time to start your own company? Is it as soon as you make some profit? Once you hit a specific number?

You started your own company the day you decided to make monies online. Don't worry about the formality (S Corp, LLC, etc) for now. You are wasting time on something that does matter. Call yourself "ABC Marketing Company", use your SSN in all signup forms, and start working. If you ever start making a good chunk of money then you can worry about forming a "formal business"

3. Get a VPS or buy regular hosting? When is the time to get a VPS? A dedicated server?

-- Regular hosting only for now and move up later. You will switch hosting alot over time.

4. Is it better to work on something profitable (ex. acai) in a smaller pond or a smaller niche in a big pond? (big pond = google, fb, pof / small pond = smaller sites or more specific keywords in bigger sites)

After you typed "profitable" I stopped read. Duh. It is only acceptable to work on something profitable. Don't touch anything else.

wiredniko

Thanks for the reply Patrick.

pickledegg

wiredniko,

you spend too much time procrastinating, even your avatar is of a chimp procrastinating.

Stop thinking about all this shit and just damn well do something.

Don't sit there thinking, 'hmmm, is this the right way long term?' just fucking do it.

Then you find that it either works a little, or totally fails. You have to learn by doing, just like everyone else.

Harsh but true.

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Otinsdale

I agree with pickledegg. I'm still new to all this too but reading is only gonna get you so far. There's stuff you are only going to learn by trying, testing, failing, and succeeding.

I've only done a few campaigns so I'm definitely not that good yet and lost a couple grand on my first campaign but have paid it all off with my second and have it profitable but consider the first one to be my best campaign because I learned so much.

just grab some shared hosting to start with. Pick an offer you feel you can work with, don't sit there and worry about what the epc is or what's working for others because right now you still need to learn by doing for a bit.

don't worry about any sort of company.

burning some money for a bit on ppc will teach you a lot more than reading threads all day.

1.pick offer
2.make page
3.put on tracking info
4.make lots of keyword adgroups so your ads will be more tailored to what the person is searching for instead of just having a couple huge groups that are broad. This will help your conversions and increase your ctr lowering your cpc.
5.split test your page to find the right layout and copy. this will take a bit of time and money but will teach you a shitload. I did this on a small scale recently and after thinking my first page was awesome, I found out there were way better pages for my clickers.
6.now figure out which page works best for which traffic stream. I found for the campaign i'm working on I had better results when having good pages on certain campaigns and on others I needed shitty looking advertorial pages.

bottom line is you have to jump in and learn for yourself so get to it!

write down a short term set of goals like have a page up by tomorrow and get to it asap! It doesn't take long to do any step in the list above and once you do a couple you will be able to pick and offer and have it up and running soon after without really thinking much about it.

offersmacks

Otinsdale is right you should just pick an offer and dive in. Just apply for a network and make it happen. Being an affiliate isnt easy but what in life is?

Otinsdale

oh yeah, pickledegg has good landers to buy for a great price! I grabbed a pack and it payed itself off x10 in a day or two off one of the pages in the pack.

snorkal

Thanks for that Otinsdale.. I feel like I just got a swift kick in the ass to get movin'!

wiredniko

Thanks for the words of..uhm ass kicking? I know, you guys are right I just need to start doing stuff...its in my nature to contemplate too long.

Also huge LOLs on even your avatar is sitting. I would rep but I am all out

pickledegg

best of luck wiredniko, just keep at it and you'll succeed, same with anything eh?

PS thanks for the kind words about my landers Otinsdale, really motivates me when I hear shit like that

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mgarg

Pick an offer that you know is making money for other affiliates. After all, that is what you're in this business for, right?

VanDurston

Take this with a grain of salt as I am a mouth-breathing newb myself, but it seems like your first offer or two should be KNOWN money makers.

You are going to make a shitload of mistakes your first couple of campaigns anyways(I am currently), why not at least have a slight chance of "accidentally" succeeding if you manage to not screw up too much.

The initial point is to do, learn, and re-apply.

yuriko

Dude, I was in the exact same position. "Paralysis by Analysis" is the industry term. The solution is Just Do It. You won't know unless you try and fail.

I am in the process of doing.

I think Acai Berry's are dominated by bigger guys who spend insane amounts in their PPC campaigns. It's very difficult to compete with the bigger fishes. (off topic: didn't the berry thing get sued or indicted ?)

You won't need to register as a company unless you are making significant income and seeking to protect your personal assets. We are affiliate marketing individuals, so we won't be initially be making large figures.

By regular hosting, I assume you mean shared hosting. It's suitable but there's a risk in that because resources are shared across many users, there can be times when your website loads slow. VPS these days are very cheap. Personally I use linode.com. Smaller packages are sufficient, unless you are getting high 4 digit visitors daily or consuming lot of bandwith.

I am curious about question number 4 as well but my common sense tells me it boils down to competition. I would think that with bigger ponds like Google, you would have a lot more competitors. Naturally, it requires relatively increased intellectual effort to find the right keyword strategies. However, because it's quite big, you can get more creative with your keyword strategies and quite confident there's always a small niche to be discovered. I don't know of which small ponds you are talking about.

VanDurston

I thought this was affiliates who were using Oprah/R.Ray/Dr. Oz creatives with no licensing or approval to do so?

yuriko

Oh I see. Thanks for clarification.

greenkawasaki

My only advice is to just get out there and start doing anything. Even if you have to keep it limited to a very small budget, you'll learn tons.

wiredniko

Already on it: Wiredniko's Journal - Adventures of the Newbie