Every affiliate keeps track of his day-to-day profit and loss.

This involves tallying up total commissions and deducting total ad spend. The number you’re left with is the number that gets bounced around forums as “$X/day earnings“.

If you want an advantage over the competition, here’s a novel idea:

Don’t include new traffic sources in your spend column.

Record them under a monthly allowance as ‘Research & Development’ instead.

Why does this work?

Because it stings to lose money.

And losing money is guaranteed when you venture in to new traffic sources.

Instead of letting these losses affect your daily totals, you can assign them to a separate Research & Development allowance, which is just that: an allowance.

The amount you’re willing to spend on R&D should be set in stone at the start of the month. It’s an amount that you’re happy to lose in the name of scaling your business.

Whatever happens, it’s your duty to spend every last penny of that budget on testing and researching new markets.

Any money you make from the traffic can offset your R&D spend, but it shouldn’t go anywhere near your daily stats.

The effect this has is quite dramatic.

1. It gives you permission to lose money regularly, which is the fast track to making money quickly.

2. There is less emotional sting in new campaigns and more incentive to experiment. After all, you’re not collecting commission. You’re collecting insights.

Here’s the problem with most affiliates:

There are two points I want to highlight from this fine piece of JPG (the best you’ll see today, I’m sure).

1. Successful affiliates quickly learn that losing money is a prerequisite for scaling their businesses.

2. Unsuccessful affiliates turn short-term failures in to long-term loss of profit by letting their emotions get the better of them.

I feel like I’ve let myself down with my artwork, but fuck you. It’s an important point.

How many times have you abandoned a traffic source because the first campaign bombed completely?

Chances are, you bailed because you didn’t like the effect it was having on your daily profits.

So remove those campaigns from your daily totals.

Give them a separate budget:

A Research & Development budget.

At the end of the month, look at your progress.

Do you have a profitable campaign? If so, start recording the totals.

If not, be grateful for your allowance. You might not have profit, but you do have data.

Data is one step closer.

Data is what runs through the veins of every successful affiliate.

Recommended This Week

• Volume X is now the bestselling release in my entire Premium Posts series. If you haven’t picked up a copy, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?

• The volume is sponsored by Adsimilis, a network that does a better job of appealing to affiliates than most. Register an account if you haven’t already.