Archive for the ‘Success Stories’ Category:
Some of you have asked for monthly reports. I apologize for skipping monthly reporting for the past few months. Ever since I moved away from search marketing, I have stopped tracking my earning on daily basis. I use to keep track my ad cost and revenue on excel sheet before, therefore, making it easy for me to report my earnings. With media buys it is sort of different because you pay the total advertising cost upfront as suppose to in adwords where you pay as you go.
Someone asked me if I’m still doing search PPC. Although, I’m not doing search PPC anymore but I still have my Yahoo and MSN accounts, so I may get into it again. But for now I’m focused on media buys. Lately also trying self-serve contextual media buy platforms like adbrite. So far with the one campaign I’m testing on adbrite, it seems not so solid. I may be wrong. Anyone advertised with adbrite before?
Speaking of media buys, my highest daily earning actually came yesterday through media buys as suppose to search ppc.
These earning are pretty much focused in one niche, which obviously makes me nervous because if one of the offers happen to go, my earning and ROI % will drop, possible killing my entire income base.
I had the same problem when I was on search marketing, which was, I never put the time in diversifying my earning in different markets. I should learn from my mistakes. Although, I made a goal in the new year to make couple web properties (websites) making 20k/mo from organic traffic. Having both content websites and paid advertising campaigns and having earnings coming from both organic and paid traffic is the ideal situation an internet affiliate marketer should be in.
-G
There are about 50 or so big advertising networks like the aol ad network http://advertising.aol.com. Doing a media buy as a DR advertiser with an adnetwork can be tricky. Not only they require huge budgets but certainly you must know what you’re doing right from negotiating your buy to running it.
Recently I did a $10,000 buy with a big network with a reach of 5 billion impressions a month. I had a good tested offer which gave me consistent conversions on direct media buys and my banner very pretty optimized. Despite using my ad tags and tested campaign and targeting the ads to specific age group and gender, I still lost $2k without making a conversion.
Doing a media buy with ad network can work but it is risky. Part of the reason most ad network are not transparent. What that means is, they won’t tell you what sites they are running your ads on. You can specify all sort of targeting such demographics, gender, geo targeting and even channels but your ads will appear on 1000s of sites and most will be duds. I have heard it takes about 3k-5k to optimize a campaign on a big ad network. That means you will be spending that much before you start to breaking even.
In my case, after spending 2k I didn’t see any return and so I had my cmapaign paused. Now I’m trying get rest of my money refunded. I still don’t know what I did wrong and how I should attach ad networks. Perhaps, I should have test out multiple offers (which could take even more money to and work) or maybe try specific channels.
In case you were wondering about those big ad network. Here is the list.
Top 50 advertising networks
May was a good month in-terms of revenue but not so good in terms of profits. In may, I saw my highest revenue ever done. 5k more than my previous record. Again, nothing extraordinary but okay nonetheless. However, the profits were not as impressive as compare to the jump in the revenue.
My Numbers for May:
Revenue: $22,893
Expenses: $16,003
Profits: $6,860
ROI: 43%
In May, I spent close to $15,000 with Yahoo. What I noticed is, Yahoo traffic is a little less in quality than Google, therefore conversions rates are slightly lower than what I use to get on Google. The reason for I think is, in Yahoo you can’t accurately target keywords like in Google. In Adwords, you can define keywords match types, however in Yahoo, there is no such thing as keyword match types, instead, you can either set you keywords or adgroups to “advance” matching or “standard” matching. Advance matching will give traffic from all related keywords in your niche for that keyword in your adgroup. So, your traffic could be coming from keywords that are not even in your adgroup and never intended for.
I did n0t spend much with adwords this time. Only about $250 this month.
I won a 4GB Ipod Nano in May:
On a positive note, this month I won a 4GB Ipod nano from Hydra. I generated little over $18k with Hydra and $4k with Azoogle. Hydra rewards its affiliates every month for generating a certain number of revenue. If you do 5k a month, you will get $50 Best Buy gift-card and if 15k, then you win a ipod nano and so on.
I should be expecting my ipod in a month or so. I need to ask my AM when they mail out the rewards. I’m not really sure.
Goals of this month:
This month, I was on track to generating $30k but due to lead cap restriction on my main campaign it may be hard now. I was easily doing $1000 a day so far this month and had planed to scale up the campaign. But then I was told to not generate more than x amount of leads for this offer. That’s what’s called a lead cap, when you are told not to generate more a certain # of leads a day.
This month my biggest hurdles will be dealing with the lead cap on my main campaign and finding new offers to fill the void. Another issue for me would be my credit limit. I only have 20k limit on my CC. But my goal remains to do $30k this month and we shall see how that plays out.
-G
Hey folks, I’m few days late in posting my monthly results this time. My time is been pretty much occupied with day job and other personal things.
I had planed to get into a new niche last month but had to delay the project because of some personal commitments. I did pay $1200 to get a new landing page done including content and copy writing but didn’t launch the campaign. I decided to wait until after May when I’m somewhat free.
For now, I’m just re-launching all my existing campaigns again from scratch. Google slapped my campaigns again at the end of March. Speaking of google slaps, Google tends to slap you much faster when you put a sign-up form on your landing pages.
After May, I’m going to be more active in my affiliate business, launching new campaigns, testing, increasing my earnings and updating and monetizing this blog. I need to start preparing my self to quit my job in next year or so. Not sure if I will quit when I get up to 100k a month. Reading blogs of other people who are quitting their day jobs, I’m seeing quitting your job brings other challenges like your health suffers because you work more hours, you tend to slack off at times then your business suffers. I guess it’s part of living and learning. But definitely, I would quit in coming years and will see how I handle it and the great thing about day job is, you can apply for one again any time 
So here are the March stats.
Revenue: $14,504.98
Expenses: $7821.65
Profit: $6683.33
ROI: 85%
Reason for high ROI?
You must be wondering how did I get such a big jump in my ROI from last month? Well, previously my stats were not entirely accurate. I use to report my expenses in Canadian dollars and revenue is USD. My stats were reflection of my expenses (in Canadian dollars) subtracted from my revenue (in US dollars). This month I got a new US credit card and opened a new US adwords account. So, both revenues and expenses are in US dollars and stats are accurate.
-G
I saw a few people posting their results for the month of January and I though I should do it too.
I know some affiliate marketers don’t like to post their numbers and some people might think of this as bragging.
Motivation: Seeing others make money makes you want to make money
Actually, when I think about it, this can actually serves as an influence post for the readers. This serves as a reminder to me and is motivational to people reading that making 5 figures a month while doing this part-time is possible.
My first notable month with revenue over 1k was April 2008. In July, I was doing 17k in revenues. My results for January are pretty much the same it has been since August-September of 2008. I’m still doing 15k to 17k in revenue and my profits have been in between 5k to 7k with one exception a in July 2008 when I had 10k profits that month. That was nice
My January results:
Revenue: $15,230
Expenses: $9595
profits: $5635
ROI: 58.7%
No, I’m not pulling this out my ass. These numbers are genuine. For those who might thinking they are fake, just save your breath.
Revenue postings by other affiliate marketers
I saw two affiliate marketers update their numbers this month. I’m subscribed to their blogs.
The first post I saw about monthly earnings is by Richard Bonner. I found his blog yesterday. I’m impressed with his blog design (Hey Richard, where did you get your template?)
His Jan. results were little over $30k. Check out his post.
http://www.richardbonner.net/affiliate-marketing-results-january-2009/
Another person, who posted their January numbers were Jonathan Volk. He is one of the bigger affiliates. He is reporting his biggest month at $300k. Check out his post.
http://www.jonathanvolk.com/how-to-make-money-online/record-breaking-month-over-300000.html
It all started in early 2008
In April 2008, I was still doing ppc marketing at $20 a day budget making $10 or less a day. I was trying hard to make this one campaign work with this small budget and really didn’t have the courage to up my budget. One day I come from work frustrated and decide to just put an end to my only campaign and stop doing PPC. Not sure what happened, I decided to instead let it run for another day. I add more keywords and somehow got the courage to increase my daily budget to $50, just to see if my luck will turn around (we all live on hope.). Next morning I woke up to see I made $50 (my highest earning everrr a day) from $50 spend. Fast forward to September, I was making well over 17k+ a month.
In 2008 I saw my $100k as an affiliate. This is not my first year in affiliate marketing but certainly the BIGGEST. Congratulations to me…..hurrrrray!
What I’ve learned in this time
Doing PPC marketing for almost a year, along the way I learned a few things about myself:
1. I’m passionate about affiliate marketing but lazy at the same time (I need find a lazy affiliate marketing formula…hmmm that could my goal for 2009)…lol.
2. I’m passionate about making money but don’t crave to earn millions of dollars from affiliate marketing.
I prefer building few solid “easy to manage” campaigns bringing consistent income from month to month.
3. I really don’t like to promote shady offers. I’ve certainly tried few of those offers in the past but never went through with them.
4. I don’t like super affiliates with their hyped up products and eBooks. All they do is fill your inbox with junk followups with those junk referral links to other junk products from so called other super affiliates.
Everything you need to learn about affiliate marketing, PPC, SEO or whatever is available for free. Ever since I started, I only bought one eBook.
5. I’m also not big on following so called “industry standards” told by these ugly looking super affiliates, or going to affiliate summits and partying. I just like to do my own things and I’m really happy with that.
6. I also learned that Google keyword tool is the only tool you need to start making your first $100 a day. No need to spend your money on tools that promise to send you to the moon.
Goals for 2009
So, in 2009 my goal is to just work quietly to set foot in some more niches, creating solid campaigns which will bring return for months or even years to come. For the rest of the time, I going to chilax, update this blog and do other things (my full time job…lol).
I’ve no desire to quit my day job and do affiliate marketing full time. At least I don’t see this as goal for 2009. In few years when I need a break from my day job, I may consider.
Happy New Year!
-G
Neil is making pretty good money with facebook ads. Without sharing his exact numbers (which I think only few people know and I don’t know if he would like me telling others here), he is making four figures a day on facebook. That’s quite huge. His ad expenses are half, so he is making 80% ROI if not more.
Neil runs a blog where he shares his own tips on marketing on facebook. He has got some video tutorials as well. So check ‘em out at neilsweb.com
I’m going to give you two different examples of a campaign and you will clearly see which one will NOT die out and which one will.
Examples 1:
The first example is running one ad group with 50 or so keywords and with a budget of $30 a day.
Ad group: “online dating sites”
Budget: $30 a day
Example 2:
The second example is running more than one adgroup with 1000+ keywords. The budget is set high enough to test things quickly.
Ad groups:
dating sites
singles dating
online dating
dating personals
internet dating sites
dating websites
on line dating sites
dating single
dating services
dating service
dating website
singles sites
on line dating
internet dating
find a date online
dating online site
dating websites online
dating web sites
dating web site
online dating profiles
onlinedating
online dating web site
online dating website
online dating review
dating singles online
best online dating
top dating sites
single dating sites
dating cupid
free internet dating
online dating guide
single online dating
new dating site
herpes dating
free online dating
free dating services
free dating site
free online dating site
on line dating site
online personals sites
free on line dating
online dating service
online dating services
free online dating services
men seeking women
free online dating service
singles dating sites
online dating personals
best dating sites
Budget: $150 a day
The Difference?
Well, beside the number difference in these two campaigns, the difference you will notice after few days you run these two campaigns is that, campaign 1 with one ad group may or may not work. That’s because one ad group is NOT enough to test the niche. Even if you make that one ad group work, your profits are not high enough and you need to scale things up if you want to make more than $100 a day profit.
On the other hand the campaign 2 is bound to have few ad groups that may have less bidding and less competition and start to show some success after few days of testing. Reaching $100 profit will be quicker and easier in campaign 2.
Your Lesson
The lesson I wan you to take from this post is that, you are increasing you odds of having a successful campaign by having more adgroups and running more keywords. The more you run the faster you will see results and the more money you will make when everything is said and done.
Reference:
Also check out these posts on keywords research.
- PPC marketing: How to get those keywords to Convert
- Keyword Research: Go Deep or Going Wide First?
Today, I’m feeling extra happy and I want to share some good things with you guys…something that might change your life for good…
My Online Earnings…
Last month I made whooping $17,000+ dollars with my online business. For some big marketers, this is probably their 2 or 3 days of earnings but I’m happy to be at a point where I can now make $17k in a month coming from $0 a month.
Going from $0 to $17000+ a month is a great achievement and let me tell you people, it is NOT hard. YOU CAN DO IT TOO. It’s not hard if you stay focused. Here is a screen-shot of my AzoogleAds account for the month of July. It shows $14k. Another $3k was done with CXDigital.
Why are you sharing this with me?
So, you say, “why are you sharing this? So what you make this much money…how is that any help to me”. The reason I share this with you today is because I want to tell you that I don’t have any more extra skills than you do. You can make this money as easily as I do too. My goal is to make you realize that making money online is not a matter of knowing something. It’s a matter of doing something!
The truth is, I made this money by working hard and staying focused and by actually doing something and that’s exactly what Anik Singal says. Today I’m going to share a video clip of a man, who went from $100 in his pocket to a multi-millionaire. His name is Anik Singal. He is an entrepreneur/marketer who bags in million of dollars a year online. It all started from his small basement.
In his interviews, he said one thing which really stuck with me and that is, the only reason you haven’t made anything online is because you haven’t done anything about it. The key is to do pick something, stay focued on it and be willing to want it at any cost. In other words, you need to be obsessive by nature and aggressive in your approach to whatever you do.
After watching Anik Singal’s interview, I realized, I’ve the ability to actually make 10x what I make now and I’m going actually do something about it and that’s how I will reach that 10x figure.
So, let’s watch his video and I’m sure it will pump you up and make you realize how much potential you have too…
You know when you’re struggling, everything seems dull in life. Well, I had been struggling to make a dime online for a long long time. Its just recently things turned around for me and now I’m making $250 a day. So, if you’re struggling with this “making-money-online” thing or with anything just don’t give up and keep at it because one day luck will strike you too. Before you know it, you will see yourself in the same position as other successful people you read stories about.
This post is not about PPC strategies, or link-building strategies, adsense or website creating techniques or affiliate marketing in general but more about psychological mindset that sets the successful people apart form the losers. That’s right, its all in your head. If you’re the kind of person who thinks you can’t do it, then chances are you won’t be able to do it even when you try. People who don’t worry about consequences are the ones that get ahead in the game. Sometimes it pays to just STOP thinking and just DO IT.
I want to take this opportunity to share my experience with you, my past struggles in online marketing and how I came to my recent success. It took more than a year for me to get to where I’m now. Honestly, I could have done this year ago but I couldn’t. Why? Because I was not a risk taker, I was not a positive thinker and I was too emotional about failing. If you are one of those people who are struggling to generate even $20 a day online, then either you’re not a risk taker or always worry about failing. Its this worry that “what if it doesn’t work out” always keep you from succeeding and trying new things. Everyone works hard but not everyone works smart.
Turn your bad luck to good luck
One advice I would give everyone is that is to stop thinking and just do it. Sometimes you sit there and think why should I create a new website or why should I try this because I don’t think its going to work. You need to realize that the only reason it’s not going to work is because you’re going to do anything about it. Pick sometime and then make up your mind to stick to it and once you do stick to it, then don’t give up on it until its where you want it to be. That’s how you will break out of bad luck.
The day I stopped worrying about losing money, the day I stopped whining, the day I stopped becoming emotional about my failures, the day I said to myself, forget everything, whatever happens happens, just do it and keep doing it until you get somewhere. It’s when things started turning around for me and before I know it I went from $0 a day from $250 a day in a month.
Chances are if you had been trying to make online for a while you know more than the person who hasn’t tried it. So, you are already way head of the game. So sit down, stop worrying about everything, stop being emotional about your struggles, put everything aside and just DO IT and keep doing it until you find success.
