My Thoughts on Affiliate Marketing & PPC Advertising

$62.08 in advertising and 0 conversions later, I’ve yet to give up on affiliate marketing. Revenue from Adsense and eBay commissions aren’t bad, but successful Internet marketing involves diversifying your income in as many ways possible. Over the past few weeks I’ve really started applying myself to the game of affiliate marketing and pay per click advertising. Despite my inability to generate a return on my investment, the experience so far has been rewarding and extremely educational. This post will outline some of the things I’ve learned, and what I plan on trying in the future.

Stop Buying & Reading E-Books

Of the 1,000+ E-books I own (no, they weren’t all purchased), I’d say 2 of the 300+ I’ve read have actually provided valuable information that isn’t reproduced a million times all over the web. I’m not saying all ebooks are worthless, they’re excellent for absolute beginners, but none of the eBooks I’ve read provide a clear cut guide to making money as an affiliate with pay per click advertising. There is no end all be all step by step guide to turning a profit - if there is, please prove me wrong. I suspect this is because once an affiliate marketer does turn a profit, the last thing they want to do is divulge their secrets/methods, which is understandable.

If you already have a basic idea of how affiliate marketing works, rather than wasting time buying and reading ebooks, just dive in and get started. Login to Adwords and make a few campaigns. Set the daily budget to something you can afford and see what happens. If you end up blowing $50 on on 1,000 clicks and don’t receive a single conversion, chances are that program/method/technique isn’t going to work. Study the stats to figure out what went wrong and try again. Bottom line, stop wasting your money on Ebooks to make some other guy rich and start wasting your money on Adwords to make YOU rich.

Affiliate Marketers Are Not Your Friends

Affiliate marketing elites are very reluctant to give out any worth while information. Even the successful ones making $10,000 a day are so greedy they’d rather steer people in the wrong direction than help someone make their first conversion. I probably shouldn’t say the following because I don’t make $10,000/day (yet), but I can assure you if someone took the time to email me an educated question, I’d damn sure help them out the best I could. If I’m able to live on the $150-$200 a day I’m making now, I could damn sure take thirty minutes out of my $10,000 days to help someone struggling just to get a single conversion. Unfortunately, the affiliate marketing business is rough, so don’t expect Shoemoney or any of the other big guys to divulge any helpful information. Just to give you an idea of what I’ve been through, here are some of the responses I’ve received.

“What are you on, crack? I’ve wasted five years of my life at this, no way I’m helping you! Figure it out douche bag.”

“You’re joking, right? You really expect me to help you? Good luck moron.”

“Um, no.”

Not really encouraging, is it? These were the responses I received from what I thought were well written questions. None of my questions involved revealing keywords or landing pages, but even so, if you’re making $10,000/day, would it really hurt to reveal one of your landing pages to a small time affiliate noob? Doubtful…

Affiliate Marketing as a Day Job

After playing with Adwords I’ve come to the conclusion affiliate marketing is not only a game, but a fun game. I could easily work 8 hour days creating campaigns, tweaking, testing, and optimizing. Despite losing money, the knowledge and experience gained is truly priceless - something an ebook could never provide. I’ll continue my efforts in hopes that one day my “day job” does become affiliate marketing.

“Get Out There and HIT SOMEBODY!”

Every game, no matter how many people I hit, my football coach would call me to the sideline every couple plays and yell, “Get out there and HIT SOMEBODY!” To this day I’m not sure why he did that and I often find myself reliving those moments. His face pressed up against my face mask just yelling at me to get out there and hit somebody, as if I hadn’t taken out two people already.

There’s no telling what that guy’s up to now, but the point is, that statement applies to almost anything in life. Rather than waiting for an opportunity, create an opportunity. Don’t sit around expecting someone to hand you the master plan, get out there and make the master plan. Sure, there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel, but if no one’s willing to give you blueprint, what choice do you have? If you haven’t already, sign up for Adwords, sign up with CPAEmpire, Azoogle, or Neverblue ads, and GET OUT THERE AND HIT SOMEBODY.