when I got a site a while back that I never used I had midphase, had no problems with them, cancellation was easy and no hidden fees. I would use them again.
I doubt I'd be making money if I was relying on the Google Search network, in fact I know I wouldnt be because I lose money on google's search network (break even on content network). Also I agree on the big money being in your own product. The major point of doing the affiliate stuff first is to find out what sells and what doesnt, then create your own similar product. Your also right that this is a cashflow business and you have to build up your capital. I try to get back $18 to $25 per $100 that a I spend. The good thing is that once you have found converting ads and products you can scale up. I dont want anyone to think that anything is easy money, because it's not. You will have to work at it or it wont work for you. Where you doing the traffic arb's with a CPA network?
the key to making money on the internet is innovation Innovation in Traffic acquring Innovation in a new product/website Innovation in recurring billing/stealth billing ( very common on the internet and the most efficient way most companies make their money) Innovating in Arbing technical inefficiencies and loopholes. If you are just going to adwords, buy some ads, promote some commonly used clickbank sponsors. wheres the innovation?
I don't see any in that. I'd encourage you to stick around and see what I end up giving here. I'm obviously just introducing the concept to a group of people who have never even heard of it before, so I'm starting with some very basic things. I'd venture to guess that 99% of the people here had never even heard of clickbank until this week.
I think you'd personally would have better results if you guided them towards opening up a site they are actually interested in writing content, updating for... If they are just in it for the $ as product marketers, they will have 0 motivation to continue once thye don't see the money. But if they are running an ebook or website on how to train your dog, and they are really interested in it, at least they'll keep it going until maybe one day it has a lot of traffic. ------ I've noticed people who go into indusries specifcally to make money, like their #1 goal = make money, will give up things quite fast , even before they find out the loopholes and intricacies of how to make money. If they are in it as a hobby, they'll slowly pick things up. 95% won't pickup anything though. I rarely ever see any successufl affiliate marketers espically in non-adult, these days... very rare. The successful ones are REALLY successful, everybody else is making about $20 a day, $600 a month, can't even pay dogfood on that tpe of $ -------- The nonadult marketers are usually selling seminars as you said, holding internet teleconferences, selling $999 - $1999 packages , "how to make money in real estate mentor packages" for $5000 (a 16 year old I know actually got scammed for that) , using big opt-in email lists.'' Selling big ticket items to a few chumps with personal service. I think its good In the end I find the sellers of these items, must be convincing themselves really well "I'm not a scammer... I'm not a scammer.. " pretty hardcore
I want to adress a couple of things quick. One is easy enough and that is just that I'm not using ET to sell anything. I think that ET is a demographically similar group to a lot of folks who want to make money online, but it's far enough removed from a place like WF that most are not going to come across my work here. I think that I can get good feedback and testimonials from the folks on ET by providing them with something that actually works. The rest of this is beyond where I wanted to be at this point, but I'll go into something briefly to address the point that you cant drive traffic to non adult sites. For 93.42% of people this is going to be over your head and under your feet..(Ok, I don't know if its really 93.42%, I just pulled that number out of my ass)...if it is do not worry, just come back later when you are ready for it. When I decide to promote a product one of the first things I do is ask myself "Who is it that is going to buy my product?". (just as a disclaimer I did not invent this process, I learned it in a $2000 course from Mr Buymyshit.com (he actually has good shit) I create an avatar of my typical buyer. Who is he or she? What do they do? What is their situation in life? What types of problems do they have? Where do they hang out? What types of hobbies and interests do they have? What type of job do they have etc etc. I then try to target my ads towards this. I try to find a place that this person might be hanging out. For example, lets say I'm trying to sell a stop smoking program. Well, who smokes? I know that a lot of contruction workers smoke, and so do (statistically speaking) a lot of nurses. A lot of people over 50 (baby boomers) smoke, but less under 50 day. Diabetics are more likely to smoke then non diabetics. More people in Missouri and Kentucky smoke then any other state. Etc etc etc. I try next find a place on the web that these people might be hanging out. I'm not interested so much in having my sponsored link up with 8 other stop smoking products on a stop smoking website. I don't get much out of that, and I doubt anyone of the other ad buyers do either. Anyway, I try to go to a place that would attract these types of people and buy my traffic there. One of the best affiliates I have offered (I now own my own product in the market) was a how to pick up chicks course. I mostly did my marketing on forums frequented by computer programmers and video game geeks. A group of guys who have a hard time getting the girl if ever there was one. I try to avoid the search networks for the most part. There are some areas that I can make money using it in, esp with MSN, Yahoo and Ask (Google's search ads suck in my book, although the content network is ok). In terms of your ads the 80/20 rule applies to most things in life, and it often applies to traffic too. If I start to notice that I'm spending a lot of money each day on a particular site and getting good traffic from it I will approach the owner. Lets say I'm giving Google $200 a day to get traffic from your website. Well, Google is nothing but a middle man, they are not giving you $200, they are probably giving you about $80. About half the time if I come to you and say hey I'd like to pay you $125 a day you will say yes...if you don't I just move on. If you do say yes I just got a much better profit margin, and probably am going to get more traffic from you then I was before, also at a cheaper rate. How you setup your banners and your ads is also very important. I think when it comes to banners the uglier the better, but again that's beyond where we are right now. In terms of people giving up and moving on...well that's true of just about anything. Most people dabble and don't commit, esp when something turns out to be harder then they thought it was going to be. That's not my fault, not your fault or anyone elses, its just their choice. In terms of high end product marketers that sell shit, I don't think most of them even take the time to convince themselves they are not scammers. I think they know they are and they don't care, but I hope I'm wrong. The stuff I'm starting with right now is just a starting point, as time goes on I will get to the "good stuff" too. But I think it's just like in trading..a simple idea grows to something that actually works. The first concept I started to work with in the market was to buy 3 to 5 day pullbacks to the 20 day moving average in uptrending stops. Later I added a condition for Inside Range Days, later for gaps etc. Was I going to make a killing on a simple pullback to the 20 day moving average..no, but as I figured out better ways to refind the search (volatility and trend for example) I was going one step beyond what the typical person did and making starting to make money a step ahead of them too. Same thing on the net methinks with making money.
The short story. It was a real estate oriented web site/newsletter to specifically build an e mail list and sell advertising. This project is on the back burner for the time being.
One last point/early lesson here too. One thing I am always amazed at is how many people don't take the time to run the numbers before they start buying keywords and running ads. One bit of info I wish Clickbank would give out is how well a sales page converts, but they don't. Anyway I had a clickbank product this summer back when everyone was worried about gas and energy prices on how to reduce your energy costs for free. The e-book sold for for $39 and I paid the affiliates $22.00 per sale. My sales page converted at 2.75% at its peak when Oil was nearing $150 per barrel. At that point a smart affiliate is going to figure out the math of promoting the product. The math is not that hard really. If you bring 2000 people to the site you should see 55 sales, which would mean a commission of $1210 for you. What does that mean to you as an affiliate who might be purchasing the traffic? Well it means that your break even point is about 61 cents per click. If your traffic is costing you more then 61 cents your pissing your money away, if it costs you less you have a small profit. I've been amazed at how many people are trying to sell stuff on clickbank and when I tell them this their eyes light up like I just gave them the fountain of youth.
OK, for shits and giggles, I just got a website going at 000webhost.com Then I went to ClickBank and picked out a product to promote. 1. I get a window that says: "ClickBank pays you 75% when you sell this publishers product. To refer a customer send them to this domain name:" xxxxxxxx What am I supposed to do with that? Where do I put it? 2. Under that it says, "Cut and paste the following hoplink into your web page:" codecodecode The first webpage? Where in the webpage? I went through the FAQ Library and nothing answered my questions. I'm just playing with it while waiting for the next vid., but damn, I can't even get out of the gate.