Finch Sells | Affiliate Marketing Blog

Stop Thinking Short Term, You Stupid Fuck

Dec 23 2009

I apologize for the inevitable tantrum that’s about to unravel. If you’d spent the last several days battling with Linux viruses and Chinese fucktard organizations, you’d be equally pissed off and ready to go all Scrooge on the world.

This is something that has been grating at me for a while now. It’s quite common that I’ll be emailed a simple question like, “Have you tried pushing acai on Facebook?”

Yes, I have. And yes, I stopped.

Not so long ago, I was talking to an affiliate manager of a network that will go unnamed. I was told that Offer X in the acai niche would sell really well if I cloaked it and ran it through Facebook. I’m not stupid enough to do something like this personally. I have actual campaigns that are profitable on Facebook which I would rather not lose. More to the point, I believe in the theory that you’d be an absolute retard to burn all your bridges to chase a few extra dollars of profit.

What really concerned me was the idea that affiliate managers are actually pushing this advice on their publishers. Are you out of your fucking minds?

It’s easy for a network to sit there and tell a publisher to go compromising a personal account by selling a prohibited product through Traffic Source X. But it shows a massive lack of respect to the naive affiliate who’s trying to earn an honest wage. What happens when the affiliate gets shut down? Sure, there’s some personal responsibility attached. But I’d be tempted, knowing what I know, to tell any affiliate manager who pushes advice like that on me to go fuck himself. Which is, ironically enough, exactly what I did.

What I’m trying to say here, is that if you’re a hard working affiliate, you need to look out for yourself and take what a network throws at you with a pinch of salt.

I’m forever opening my inbox to see messages that read like this:

“Well, why don’t you try Offer X. It’s really taking off and seeing big volume right now.”

Network wide volume means jack shit to me. Profitability is all I care about. I couldn’t honestly care less if an offer is blowing up and seeing thousands of leads per day. I would much rather push through one lead that gives me a return on investment that I’m happy with. This is where networks will try to fuck you over and fill your inbox with false promise.

But, hey, you can’t hate on the networks for doing their jobs. The more experienced you get at this game, you better you become at being your own judge of an offer’s viability.

What really gets on my tits is the outrageous attitude from certain affiliate managers who believe that because they’ve been placing your pixels for five minutes, they somehow know what’s good for the long term success of your business. Telling an affiliate to go and try acai on Facebook is no better than Google turning around and saying “Thanks for the money, now go rot in a hole somewhere.”

Or “We appreciate your leads…while they lasted.”

“Teehee, motherfucker. This is the sound of us banking on your banned and blacklisted ass. Refer us to friends though, right?”

Before you ask, no I haven’t been banned from Facebook. But I’ve heard a lot of stories from people who’ve suffered that fate. Much of the blame must rest on the publisher. I’m not for a moment suggesting that a network is responsible for an affiliate going out and breaking the terms and conditions of a traffic source. This is more of a rant against stupidity.

Let’s say you decide to push acai on Facebook.

It’s profitable and there’s big money to be made there. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read that much. With some simple targeting, a cloaking redirect and a slice of luck – you can probably ride the fat loss waves well in to 2010 making some good bank. But there is your problem.

You might not make it in to 2011 with Facebook account in tact.

We’ve seen the backlash from Google and we’re seeing a similar backlash from Facebook. It’s possible to get a new account after being banned, but it’s about as pleasurable a process to follow as a gentle fist up the jacksy.

You can enjoy a few great months of addictive profit and life changing ROIs, but when the screws come unhinged, you’re left without a Plan B. And whatever Plan B you might have had is going to be severely compromised by the fact that Traffic Source X now has you blacklisted and wants nothing to do with your business.

Is that the way forward for an affiliate marketer?

Some of you are crazy sons of bitches who will simply ditch the wife, change your birth name, move to Alaska and open up a new advertising account. Whatever puts the notes in your pocket, right? That’s one way to do it, I guess. But you’re going to be forever searching for loopholes while I would rather be kicking back on a sunbed and enjoying a legitimate long term business growth.

Here’s the greatest catch of affiliate marketing. You don’t have to be clever to make money. Any affiliate with balls the size of Texas can bend the truth far enough that it lines his pockets with the dollars he craves. But at some point – today, tomorrow, maybe next year – you’re going to have to deal with the hand you’ve been dealt.

I’ve spoken to some truly shady black hat Internet marketers in my time. Not just affiliates, but “entrepreneurs” who will completely reinvent the rulebook of what’s acceptable if it’s financially suitable to them. You know what nearly all of these guys have in common? They all WISH they could have the same success on the straight and narrow.

Many of them are incredibly smart and more than capable of carving a long term business. But they get blinded by the short term riches and choose paths that I’m sure, in many cases, will eventually come back to haunt them.

You can base your business decisions on what will line your pockets today (slinging acai on Facebook, pummeling bizopp on Google)…or you can keep a level head and try not to burn all of your bridges in a few short months.

When you come back down to earth and realize that affiliate marketing is a full time career and a full time responsibility, it’s probably going to dawn on you.

You’ve got work to do.

Christmas Can Kiss My Balls & Other Affiliate Tips

Dec 16 2009

So, Christmas.

I feel like I should be showering my blog in tinsel, crooning festivities, and embedding an MP3 of Jingle Bells in to this post. You know, just to lose subscribers. Every single advertisement on television is littered in reindeers, snowmen, poxy smiling children and mince fucking pies. I don’t consider myself a Scrooge, but I’m about ready to shove a Christmas tree up somebody’s arse. Instead of allowing a December depression to get the better of me, I’ve been channeling my energies in to working hard (and drinking harder).

On the subject of tinsel, though, here’s a quick Facebook tip for you.

Take whatever it is that you’re advertising. Create a 5 pixel “tinsel” border. Crowbar a reference to Christmas in to your ad text. Enjoy a better CTR.

Just don’t target it to 21 year old male Londoners with “moody bastard” in the keyword targeting. That shit will get X’d and X’d hard. I’m ready and waiting.

I could sit here and write fairytales about how affiliate marketing becomes such a walk in the park over the Christmas period. In reality, I’d be talking out of my arse. This is the first December I’ve spent as a full-time affiliate. I do not have a clue how the market will vary. I am adjusting to the unknown just as everybody else has to – no smart head can buy experience.

You can’t dispute the obvious, though. There are a number of reasons why affiliates should be working extra hard through December. The sheer amount of money being spent online should be reason enough. But you can also factor in demand for plenty of other niches.

I love working the dating niche and I’ve seen good conversions through the month so far. You have to keep an open mind to how your market is going to respond through the different seasons. My first instinct was to liken my own situation to the market.

I thought to myself: “Christmas is coming, what’s the last thing a guy needs right now?”

The answer was obvious.

“A girlfriend to buy presents for.”

I’ve made no secret of the fact that December to March is off-season for dating in Finch’s world. I don’t enjoy commitment over the festive period. Partly because I’m a no strings kinda guy and partly because it’s fucking expensive. After Valentines Day has passed, I mysteriously append “and looking” to my vibes on the dancefloor. Although a fat chance of success those give me…

I was on the verge of taking this attitude in to my marketing exploits, assuming that dating would decline as a niche over winter. But then it dawned on me that the rest of the world actually has some feelings.

Dating remains a strong niche, but there are other products that are really starting to take off, seeing some of their best performing weeks. I don’t put it down to Christmas. I see it as a knock on effect of the marketer’s wet dream otherwise known as a New Years Resolution.

Basically, people who make New Years Resolutions are fucking retards. Why would you need to wait for a new year to start working towards your goals? If you really want to shed the flab from your gut, you’d stop shoving your face with calories at every waking hour. I pity those who can only muster the strength to face up to a challenge when the date reads January the 1st. It’s a sign of great weakness.

But judgments aside, people WILL make rash unusual decisions to splash the cash if they see a product that coincides with their fantasy vision of “Me in 2010”. Whether it’s an acai diet trial to lose weight, a bizopp to get a new job – or even a language learning course. Yes, there are people out there who see that it’s January and think holy shit I better learn Spanish.

As smaxor suggested in his post Explosive Formula for Affiliate Marketing in the New Year, it’s quite convenient for an affiliate marketer that New Years Resolutions reel off like a “what’s hot” of the CPA world.

People will want to lose weight (“I’ll just devour these saturated fats for 2 more weeks and then it’s definitely over”), just like they’ll want to find a business opportunity to avoid getting another year older without getting any closer to that American dream. The good news if you’re working the continuity product market is that it doesn’t make shit all difference to you if they give in to their cravings on January 7th or January 8th. By then the lead is a signed and sealed deal.

The time is now to cash in. I’ve stressed several times the importance of creating an urgency in the consumer’s mind. Normally we have to create this urgency with our own persuasive sales copy. Things are a little different over New Year because people are conciously looking for ways that they can change themselves. There’s a sense of desperation about a New Years Resolution. It’s a moment of strength sandwiched by a year of disinterest in making those changes.

If you decide to put your feet up and party away the rest of 2009, you’re going to be caught cold. There is serious money to be made over the coming weeks – just as there always is. The only difference is you’ve been given a priceless headstart. You KNOW that people are about to attempt lifestyle changes, and you’ve got access to many of the products they’d bend over backwards to try. Get your Christmas grind on and forget about living by some shitty resolution to take action in 2010. That’s the mindset of the weak.

The successful affiliates decided to take action yesterday, not tomorrow, so you’re already playing catch up if you’re delaying what needs to be done until 2010. I’m taking minimal time off for Christmas this year. I’ve never been so busy in my life and I intend to stay that way until I’ve achieved my goals.

For what it’s worth, I’m not actually as bitter at the world as I portray myself to be.

Have a fantastic Crimbo. Stay safe, keep reading my shit, and tap me up in March if you’re sexy.

The Challenges Of Full Time Affiliate Marketing

Dec 09 2009

Here comes another entry to my Affiliate Marketing Lifestyle series. Or as PPC.bz’s barman so elegantly put it:

“Dear Diary,

BAaaaaAAAaaaaaAaaaaahhhh!”

I would save myself from the reputation as the emo voice of affiliate marketing, but I think this is something that doesn’t really get spoken about enough. The number of part time affiliates far outweighs the number of us monkey riding this industry for a day job. I get the chance to speak to a lot of relatively new affiliates. Many have aspirations to jack in their 9-5’s and they want to know the best way to get there fast.

I find myself juggling between the advice of “fight for your dreams” and “you fucking retard, get back on the checkout desk, you’re gonna starve”.

I’ve said over and over again that a career in affiliate marketing is just that – a career. It’s not some casual job description you pin on your badge while sunbathing in the Caribbean. Your lifestyle will change completely in those first few months that you decide to go it alone.

Many affiliates forget that for whatever success they’ve been having with one hot shot campaign, it doesn’t come close to the guarantee of a monthly pay cheque. No matter how insignificant your work wages may seem in comparison, they are guaranteed.

When I first started making significant money with CPA marketing, you would find me sitting in coffee shops with a scrapbook. I’d sit there calculating how much cash I’d have earned by Month X and Month Y if I continued earning X ammount per day. This is the single most dangerous thing you can do as a part-time affiliate – especially if those numbers are pinned on a small handful of volatile campaigns.

You only have to look at the recent Google account bannings to see how a money spinning regime can collapse overnight. I’ve rattled on about diversifying for months now. If you’re serious about doing affiliate marketing full-time, you should be comfortable moving in to any niche and working with any traffic source.

People ask me how much money I think they should be making before they give up their day jobs. Firstly, how the fuck should I know? And secondly, basing your career decisions on current earnings is like deciding to climb K2 because you fancy a workout. You’re going to run in to the unexpected, you absolute psychopath.

I know this because I’ve made some pretty drastic decisons with my own career. I quit my day job having branched out in to only two traffic sources, and a handful of offers. By all accounts, I should be slapping myself with naive disgust right about now. I’m not because I had the initiative to learn quickly when I saw the danger signs.

If you’re going to move in to this industry full-time, here are the immediate challenges you face.

Managing your time – What is the point in going full-time if you’re simply going to wake up at 11am and watch your stats all day? You should have just stayed in the day job and enjoyed your temporary riches with the security of a guaranteed pay cheque to underline it. Hell, if you’re doing that, you CAN afford to splash out on the luxuries in life.

This is a challenge for affiliates both experienced and new. Assuming you saw your success as a part-time affiliate, you’ve probably become accustomed to the idea of seeing a return on a few hours of work. It’s not so easy to motivate yourself when you know that riches are such a beautiful sight to watch when they’re flowing like gold from a tap. Unfortunately, for all of the three hours it took you to setup that initial jackpot campaign – you could spend the rest of your lifetime trying to find the next one.

If you expect to be able to turn on profit like a tap, you’re digging your own grave.

Instead of being entranced by the money I saw beginning to flow when I first hit success, I chose to remember the many hours and desperate times where shit hadn’t gone to plan. As hard as it may be, you have to turn your back on the allure of whatever riches you’re earning and get back to work. Otherwise when the tap runs out, you’re back to square one.

Social sacrifice – Do you really understand the true involvement of running your own business? If you’re managing your time correctly, you are going to be busy. If you don’t feel that you’re busy, you’re probably not doing enough to stay ahead of the pack.

Nothing prepared me for the personal burden of becoming entirely responsible for my own finances. I used to be socializing at every opportunity. Down the pub on Monday, drunk in a club on Tuesday and travelling out of town by Friday.

These days, a night out rarely passes me by where business is not somewhere close to the forefront of my thoughts. Some would see that as a prison. I’m passionate about what I do though and working has always been an enjoyable experience.

Whatever social gain you think you’re going to find by quitting your day job, rest assured that it will be neutralized by the sheer weight of responsibility that comes with slinging shit full-time.

Staying positive through hardships – I’ll be the first to admit that when I worked for other companies, I was never shy of a bitch or moan. If something went wrong that I was personally accountable for, I could play pin the blame and deflect attention from my own failures.

The biggest challenge for me over this last year has been embracing a new attitude. You simply have to be prepared to smile at the shit that gets thrown in your face. It happens every day. Every morning I open my email and instead of forwarding various tasks to my colleagues like I used to, I add them to my own to-do list. There are constant tests of your character. It may be an email that your Adwords account has been suspended, that an offer has been pulled, that your server was down for a few hours last night.

You can’t nonchallently forward these issues on to your boss. You ARE your boss. And your pay cheque will be the one taking the hit if you don’t stay on top of them.

There have been nights in recent memory where I’ve been sat at my desk, eyes aching, wondering just how I can turn a campaign around or get back on track. A part time affiliate would probably think “eh, was good while it lasted”, and that’s exactly where you have to stay strong. The industry is so volatile that if you stick to what you know you do well, it won’t be long before you see a return on it. Just be prepared to lose money and take a battering to your confidence in the process. It can be a lonely struggle.

I’ve already written several posts about how you should be investing for the future. It’s the single most important thing you can be doing to alleviate some of the stress. Short term fast burning affiliate campaigns are a recipe for long term unrest if you’re not moving methodically towards a more sustainable business.