General Affiliate Marketing | Finch Sells

How to Grow The Balls For Bold New Campaigns

Aug 23 2012

Here’s an important lesson for affiliate marketers:

The best time to launch a new campaign is when the last one is still making you money.

If you haven’t read it, Charles Ngo (Dr_Ngo) recently posted an excellent guide on how to make it in Affiliate Marketing. He raises a lot of good points, but none more so than this:

Affiliate marketing is very psychological. One important principle is what I call “money momentum.” Lets say you’re making $1k profit a day. If you test out a bunch of traffic sources and lose money, it doesn’t hurt too much because you’re still profiting overall. When money’s coming in, you can afford more risks. And some of those risks are going to pay off.
What if the same guy didn’t start launching new campaigns until his old ones die and he has no $ coming in? He’s going to get more emotional with the money loss.

There’s a lot of truth in this.

The easiest time to be laying down hundreds of dollars on new campaigns is when you have a buffer against the loss. It doesn’t have to be another profitable campaign. It could be the money that comes from your day job.

There are two reasons why I advise those making only ‘decent’ money from affiliate marketing to avoid chucking in their day jobs.

‘Decent’ money is not enough to guarantee your future success. Affiliate marketing is so volatile that you really need to have at least six months of living expenses in the bank before taking the plunge – more if you have a mortgage (or kids! …or a partner for that matter!).
The psychological advantage of having a guaranteed pay cheque will reduce the friction that is associated with churning out bold new campaigns. You will stomach greater losses than the affiliate marketer who has to conjure bread from his returns.

This brings us to an industry paradox.

The affiliate marketer who has other business assets, other sources of income, is likely to have much greater risk tolerance, and is therefore more likely to invest in bold new campaigns that open the door to rapid wealth growth.

Affiliate marketers who hang their entire careers in the balance by living pay cheque to pay cheque on skinny arbitrage margins… well, it’s easy to understand how they end up in a wheel spin, isn’t it?

They know that they need to gamble on bold new campaigns (and alien traffic sources), but their risk aversion prevents them from throwing balls to the wind and doing so. They can’t stomach the loss.

If you recognise these symptoms and can’t bring yourself to launch the campaigns that will springboard your career to the next level, here are the logical steps you can take:

Slash your living expenses and save more pennies for your campaigns.
Seek guaranteed stable income as your fallback – both emotionally and financially. This could be in the form of a part-time job, or in local clients that pay you a fixed monthly retainer to be their digital marketing whipping boy.
Use your skillset (e.g. writing, design, coding…) to earn ‘disposable income’ on freelance sites like Elance.
Focus on building web assets that generate traffic you don’t have to pay for.

Each option makes sense. Personally, I am a big fan of building my own web assets.

How much money do you spend on advertising? How much of the risk in affiliate marketing is associated with arbitrage? Building your own traffic source removes the stress of calculating and tracking margins. You can then reinvest your profits in to more scalable traffic sources without the emotional resistance to losing money.

What do you think? How do you deal with the risk of creating new campaigns on new traffic sources?

Recommended This Week

Have you read Premium Posts Volume 6? Grab your instant access to the PDF, print it, turn off your computer, and read my shit. Thank you please.
Be sure to check out Adsimilis, the official sponsor of Premium Posts Volume 5 & 6. Adsimilis is one of the most effective networks in the world for a CPA marketer to sink his teeth in to. They are particularly dominant in the dating vertical, with industry leading payouts. If you are a dating affiliate, you need to be on Adsimilis. Simples.

How to Work With a Designer

Aug 15 2012

The following is a guest post by Jesse Freund of LandingPower.com. Jesse has been active in the affiliate marketing world since 2008 and has had plenty of experience catering to the needs of affiliate marketers. LandingPower.com is a great option for high quality design needs.

For the past few years, I’ve worked as a designer catering specifically to the needs of affiliates. You’d think the process would be very straight forward, but in reality, there are practices one should use to ensure the end result is a success and that money isn’t wasted. Today, I’ll give you some pointers when you work with a designer.

Don’t Be Vague

First thing’s first: you’re the affiliate, not the designer. If I had a nickel for every time I was told, “I need a high converting landing page” or “I need a banner that has a high CTR“, I’d be rich enough to sit around all day on a yacht surrounded by Brazilian models.

OBVIOUSLY, one would want a high converting landing page, or a banner that gets a high CTR. Before you said that, I wasn’t going into the project thinking, “I’m going to design a landing page with a moderate conversion rate so this guy will never come back“. Now granted, there are certainly practices that help increase conversions and CTR. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to be specific. You’re still the affiliate, so it’s important to use your expertise based on the traffic you’re targeting and other factors to offer the designer a clear idea of how to maximize conversions and CTR.

So, here’s an example of being vague:

“I’d like to promote this dating offer, here’s the offer URL. Please create a high converting landing page that matches the offer.”

Finch: Have you hacked in to my sent messages? This is uncanny.

While this wouldn’t result in a complete travesty, it would result in a very generalized result since you failed to offer any specific taglines, or any specific qualities (example: I’d like an area for geo-targeting, I’d like to target ages 40 and older, etc.)

Now, let’s look at an example of how to properly convey an idea. We’ll stick with a dating niche:

“I’d like to promote this dating offer to black males, and I’m targeting ages 30+. After researching, I’ve noticed images with older women seem to convert better, so I’ve attached the images I’d like to use. I also have included the code for a geo-tracking script I’d like to use, which should be easy for me to adjust. The color scheme should be light and should match the offer page with blue as the base color. All text should be editable in HTML so I can test different terms.”

See the difference? This was only a generalized example of how specifics can really change the outcome of a page. Depending on the designer, had age range or specifics not been mentioned, you may have received a layout with stock photos that end up looking unrealistic and lowering CTR. Without mentioning you wanted a geotracking script up front, you may have received a layout where adding it as an afterthought would offset the whole design.

There are ways to even go further beyond, such as offering a wireframe, specific examples, etc. Designers should be thought partially as an extension of yourself, to be used to bring your idea to fruition.

Come Prepared

Now that we’ve been through how important it is to be specific about what you want, we’ll go through the steps you should’ve taken before ordering.

1. First, do some research. Try to figure out which pages are converting. If you see ads for a long time for a specific offer or page, you can assume it’s doing ok, otherwise money wouldn’t be wasted on testing it any longer. Make a list of pages you think are doing well, and/or build your own wireframe from certain elements of each page for the designer.

2. Decide on the specifics, from color scheme, to taglines and copy. Again, YOU’RE the affiliate. It’s up to you to think up those winning taglines that ensure the offer or product is going to sell.

Now, depending on the designer, there will be a varying level of affiliate marketing knowledge, so it doesn’t hurt to ask for advice, but it would be foolish to rely completely on a designer because you have then forfeited control over your potential success or failure. Even when starting out, you need to trust yourself with thinking up ways of selling your offer or else you’ll never learn what works and what doesn’t.

3. Provide as much as you can. Design is based partially on personal taste. What you think is a good image to use, may vary from what the hired designer thinks is good. With that said, you should certainly include as much as you can in terms of logos, stock photos, etc. This will ensure that your design uses as many elements to your liking as possible.

4. Be positive about your offer. If you’re promoting an offer, be certain it’s actually a high converting offer. When it comes time to order a landing page, for example, you’ll want to ensure you get the most bang for your buck. That means if you hire a designer to make a design that is tailored specifically for an offer that doesn’t end up converting, you’ve just lost not only the funding spent on testing but also the cost of the design. Sometimes you’ll have a landing page with a great CTR but if the actual offer doesn’t convert, it means nothing, so be sure.

Finally, it’s time to order!

Once you’ve gotten all your info together, it’s time to get the ball rolling. I’d say it’s pretty much down hill from here (we hope), but let’s go over a few things to keep in mind during the actual process of having a design put together.

Have a good attitude. If the roles were reversed, how would you feel having to deal with someone that easily gets frustrated and offers rude responses instead of constructive criticism? I’m sure you’d be trying to get the job done as fast as possible with little to no consideration for detail or going that extra mile to please someone that was respectful and well mannered.

Sometimes coming up with a winning design can be a frustrating process, but there are worse things in life, so take a deep breath and keep your composure so you can focus on success, rather than risking arguing that will ultimately only result in a waste of time.

Offer constructive criticism. Sometimes I’ll get a response that’s simply, “No, sorry, I don’t like this.” That does nothing to help either one of us. An example of what DOES help, would be something like, “I’d like the blue header to be red, the text to be a little smaller, and I’d like you to use this image instead.” Basically, be specific about what you don’t like, rather than lazily responding under the assumption that the next revision will miraculously be the design of your dreams.

You’ll be able to tell right off the bat if the designer is even capable of doing something close to what you have in mind. In the case of them possessing the skills but not having a solid understanding of your specific idea, take a time out and draw up a wire frame or find an example that’s 80-90% of what you have in mind. We designers are visual people, so a picture is worth a thousand words whereas an attempt at articulating your idea in an email may end up being worth only a misunderstanding.

Work towards functionality, not eye candy. I’m not saying you want a design that was sloppily thrown together, but it’s important to always keep your eye on the prize, which is conversions.

As a designer I’ll come across an affiliate that’s more interested in having something that “looks nice” rather than something that “performs nice”. New affiliates would be surprised to see some of the pages that actually convert amazingly. If those pages were judged by their design, they would be among the worst, most repulsive creations to ever be uploaded via FTP.

The reason behind this is the fact that the average consumer has absolutely no concept of what good design looks like and only looks at a landing page in the most simplistic of ways. Keep yourself inside of your targeted consumer’s mind while working with a designer. A 50 year old consumer is going to interpret a design in a much different way than an 18 year old.

So there you have it. Before you risk wasting money on hiring a designer, work on making sure you’ll get the most out of your money while avoiding a nightmarish experience. I hope this will help you avoid wasting your money and time. Good luck!

Recommended This Week

Now that you know how to get the most bang for your buck out of a designer, hit up Jesse’s LandingPower.com for a wide selection of rather swanky lookin’ design services.
Be sure to check out Adsimilis, the official sponsor of Premium Posts Volume 5 & 6. Adsimilis is one of the most effective networks in the world for a CPA marketer to sink his teeth in to. They are particularly dominant in the dating vertical, with industry leading payouts. If you are a dating affiliate, you need to be on Adsimilis. Simples.

“Do Affiliate Marketers Ever Feel Guilty?”

Jul 24 2012

One of the dumbest questions I get asked is “Do you ever feel guilty?”

It’s the inquisition that follows my brief and ambiguous description of what I do for a living.

“You’re making money from other people’s misery and false expectations…” goes the moral line of questioning.

Yep, that’s about the size of it.

I sit at my desk wearing horns as a dual-screen flickers with fire and brimstone. Somewhere in a distant land, my digital lambs are being lined up for the slaughter. And for what? Another $5 in my pocket? Don’t I ever feel guilty about that?

Guilty, no.

I feel about as guilty as a fish for shitting in the sea.

Dirty… always.

Why I don’t contribute to ‘share your office’ posts.

As long as advertising guidelines are being followed, there’s no reason to feel guilty that consumers are doing what consumers have always done.

People love investing in their dreams as much as they hate waking up and realising their own naivety for believing in another ‘magic button’.

While I would never advocate products that scam and steal money, there’s a huge misconception of what constitutes a scam in this business. In the majority of cases, users scam themselves.

They buy in to bullshit because they want to. It’s easier than facing reality. Nobody wants to be sold reality. And that’s okay.

It’s the way it’s always been.

Advertising provides an endless stream of placebos to cure emptiness and unease.

Affiliate marketers – driven by arbitrage and the waft of desperation – chase the same ends with less finesse.

It’s this unfortunate lack of judgment that cops a media firestorm; the bad press and FTC booty lashings soon follow. The actions of a few cast the entire industry in a negative light.

“Oh, you little affiliate marketing urchin, I’ve heard about your kind.”

What irks me most is the idea that some affiliate marketers are ‘above’ the business of advertising.

There are a lot of hypocritical voices in this industry who will speak down on anything remotely attached to CPA, while running reviews on their own sites about products and services they haven’t touched in their lifetimes. I would feel guilty if I was that full of shit.

All affiliate marketers are created equal, but some are clearly more equal than others.

I said that I don’t feel guilty, but I do feel dirty.

So, how is it possible to have a clear yet dirty conscience?

Well, there are two forms of guilt. There is the kind that arises from scamming and ripping people off, which affiliate marketers are often mistakenly diagnosed with.

And then there is the self-inflicted guilt that our time could be spent more productively on helping individuals rather than guiding them further in to delusion.

I don’t feel guilty that I make a lot of money from affiliate marketing, because it’s a legitimate industry and I need to put dinner on the table. That much is fact.

But I do feel dirty that my own talents aren’t going to a greater use. It’s psychologically unsustainable, for me personally, to spend the rest of my career in an industry that breeds such contempt.

Just one hour lost to lucrative campaigns is one hour that could have been spent on objectives I personally believe in – those that excite me. They are projects I can discuss around a dinner table without faceplanting my gravy in shame.

Thankfully I’m in a position where I’m doing well enough to be able to work on both campaigns and my long-term objectives. Yet affiliate marketing is still my job.

I don’t feel guilty about that, and no ‘regulation-abiding’ affiliate should.

Recommended This Week

If you haven’t downloaded it already, make sure you grab a copy of my freshly brewed Affiliate Marketer’s Survival Kit (add your email below for access). It’s 50 pages of up-to-the-second info on what currently works in affiliate marketing.
Be sure to check out Adsimilis, the official sponsor of Premium Posts Volume 5. Adsimilis is one of the most effective networks in the world for a CPA marketer to sink his teeth in to. They are particularly dominant in the dating vertical, with industry leading payouts. If you are a dating affiliate, you need to be on Adsimilis. Simples.