I have read BHW for years and this is my way of giving back. While the covid-19 pandemic has forced a lot of people inside this side of the internet has figured out ways to make money online.
The best time to make money online was 10 years ago but the second best time is right now.
I have personally gone from $0 to consistent money making months in the last 12 months and if I can do it anyone can. I have also witnessed others hit 3 figure profit months in a matter of 45 days during lockdown. With that said there’s a lot of snake oil salesman in this industry so this is literally the most transparent step by step guide that gives you no excuses NOT to make money online with affiliate marketing.
Now unlike most of the internet let me openly address the benefits and negatives of affiliate marketing.
What are the benefits of affiliate marketing?
1. You can make money in your sleep with as little as a $10 investments 2. Your only mandatory business costs are advertising so there’s very little risk 3. You build real transferable skills (online sales) to apply to your own business 4. You obtain location independent income
What are the cons of affiliate marketing?
1. You don’t own the product or brand so you can’t make any event based income. With e-commerce or dropshipping you can build a brand that sells for 4-5x your annual profit. This is not the case in A.M as no one is willing to “buy” unguaranteed marketing campaigns 2. It is harder to gain consistent revenue vs other business models. This is the real reason you see so many “guru’s” make courses. Even for the legit guys who genuinely make 6 figure monthly profits, there is always the grind of testing out new offers. 3. Not everybody is cut out for it. You need to get competent at very different skills I.E copywriting, coding and data analysis.
It’s important you know what you’re getting yourself into and make an informed decision based on facts not emotion.
Are you still with me? Great
These are the minimum requirements to take this seriously:
-At least $200 in disposable income every month for traffic -Willingness to lose I.E invest money while you learn this skill -Ability to use google to fill in knowledge gaps (I wish this was a joke) (Optional: $200 a month for tools e.g. automation and spy software) I am not selling a course so I have no reason to lie to you. If you don’t meet the minimum criteria you’re better of getting a part time day job. There’s no shame in that and I have done that myself in the past.
Okay so you know the pro’s and cons of affiliate marketing and the bare minimum requirements… how does it actually work?
You pay to place an ad in front of a visitor in a traffic source (e.g. Facebook or Google Search), who then clicks on your landing page (optional) before going onto the Offer page which belongs to the person who owns the product or offer that you’re marketing.
Once the visitor pays for the offer page’s product or completes a desired action e.g. gives their email this get’s tracked as a conversion and you get paid – Simple! Now the reason why the tracker is so important is that it gives you data that you can use to become more profitable. E.g. Samsung users are x2 as likely to convert on your offer so by cutting apple users you have halved your spend and increased your profit margin.
For tracking software the go-to platform for beginners is Bemob. They’re 100% free for up to 1 million events which is more than enough for most beginners and unlike other “free” trackers you get full support too. You may struggle getting set up if you aren’t that technical but you’ll get there by spending hours getting to grips with it or alternatively outsource the work and begin setting up campaigns.
What is the best affiliate marketing set up as a newbie on a low budget?
Pop Traffic
You want a traffic source that is cheap, works well with offers that convert quickly and easy to run and maintain so that you don’t waste time on building landing pages or setting up servers. Traditionally newbies to affiliate marketing started with PPV (pay per view). This is the pop under or pop up traffic that you will see after visiting specific websites. The traffic can be super cheap e.g. $0.002 per view however it is known for bot traffic. There are “bot” tests that you can use to counter that.
If you want to avoid having to bot test and just use high quality traffic I would highly recommend “Propeller Ads”. I use them myself (no affiliate link) they have been around for a long time and their traffic converts. They do have a minimum deposit of $100 so if you’re on a budget you can try Popcash instead that has a minimum deposit of $5 but the traffic quality isn’t as good.
Before you could easily direct link profitably but as the space got more and more competitive affiliates created landing pages to “pre-sell” their visitors and make more profit. Now the issue with landing pages is that you either have to learn how to code or buy a landing page tool. If you opt for the latter I would recommend purelander but you need basic coding knowledge to get the most out of it.
What people aren’t sharing openly is that even in 2021 you can still make money direct linking to an offer page. This is perfect because it means you don’t need to spend time coding or spend money on software to make your first few profitable campaigns. Now the way you do this right is to pick highly converting offers with attention grabbing landing pages that sell themselves. Which raises the question… Where do you find good offers??
Finding good offers
You want offers that are proven to be converting well. Most of you will get offers by signing up to affiliate networks that will act as middlemen between vendors who own the offers and affiliates who advertise them. The best way is to ask your affiliate manager or support to send you a revenue list of their offers. The issue with this approach is that many networks don’t send this to beginners and will instead recommend random offers that are hit and miss.
The solution is to sign up for Mobidea and Monetizer.
These platforms let you see exactly what offers are converting so you don’t waste your traffic on dead prospects.
Monetizer has a similar tool under their insights tab and ideally you should cross reference the data to pick the best campaigns.
This deserves a whole post on itself but in short focus on healthy amounts of revenue, with high conversion rates from specific: carriers, browsers, operating systems and devices. Also focus on offers that payout at least $0.5 otherwise it’s harder to sustain profitability.
Another reason to opt for these sites is because they accept beginners; they have quick payout terms (Mobidea is weekly) and cheap payment thresholds (Mobidea pays you after hitting 50 euros or equivalent). This lets you pump back money into your campaigns and scale a lot more easily without cash flow constraints.
So in summary your flow should be: PPV Traffic Source (Propeller Ads or Popcash) > Direct Offer Page (from Monetizer or Mobidea) > Conversions (Profit).
Super simple strategy that works and lets you find profitable winners quickly rather than wasting time on coding as a beginner.
Running profitable campaigns
Once you have the data on what offers are working well you need to compare it with the cost of traffic from your traffic source. If you find the CPM (cost per impression rate) is cheaper than the ecpm (earnings per impression) than you can try a test. Also make sure that you have enough volume in the traffic source to make it worth your while too. E.g. a country with 1 million impressions available is more desirable than 100,000 because you can run it for longer before it gets saturated and caps out.
When testing some stop losses you implement to make your budget work well for you is to spend x10 of your offer payout and x1 payout per zone ID.
E.g. $1 payout would mean you spend $10 on the campaign maximum and try and test a different offer if you don’t get at least -35% roi in your initial test
You would then only spend $1 per placement ID which is the sites that the traffic source has got your traffic from. If the budget is really tight you can even be more aggressive and cut zones by 0.5x payout which in this case would be $0.5
I would strongly recommend automating this process with something like The Optimizer. However if you’re on a tight budget propeller ads offers simple rule features too. It isn’t the best though so you will have to manually check in on your campaigns rather than let it run on autopilot.
As a last tip for running profitable campaigns I would avoid tier 1 countries like US, UK, Australia etc. when starting out. Their traffic is a lot more expensive and harder to make money from as the audiences have already been inundated with ads. “Tier 2” countries are better like South Africa and Egypt for example as well as many other Geos that I’m not willing to mention. To find them just look for geos with lower competition and cost in relation to their offer payouts.
Tracking
This is one of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing. With tracking you can pinpoint what websites in your traffic sources are most profitable, what times of day you should run campaigns and get even as granular as what web browsers, devices and operating system versions are best to target.
These tools used to be up to $200 – 300 a month but costs have dramatically reduced with time. My recommendation and industry wide consensus of a great starting option is Bemob.
It’s free for up to 1 million events a month and they have live support. A relatively new alternative is Kintura although they offer no support for their free plan they do have machine learning features.
Another good option if you have the budget is Voluum but their limited starter plan is priced at $69 a month.
This warrants another post on setting up your tracker and if you scour online there are ways you can learn how to do this..
Avoid Conflicts of Interest
Conflict of interest is rife in affiliate marketing so you have to be careful where you get your information from. By piecing together information from different sources you can get a clear unbiased picture of what it takes to succeed. As this business works on referrals some of the most commonly “recommended” things aren’t the best… They just have good referral programmes.
A classic example is “clickbank university” that teaches people how to make money off Clickbank. In reality Clickbank products are not the best quality and the U.S market is quite saturated but you still see a ton of Youtube videos advertising it because they have a great recurring commission programme.
Another example include traffic sources that encourage you to spend $50 a day on testing a campaign because that’s how they make money but a mentor will guide you to spend 10x the offer payout. Why the difference in advice? Conflict of interest and incentives. Getting the right information
Forums Speaking of mentors and conflicts of interest, forums are the way to go in order to understand what is working right now however not all forums are created equal. BHW is a great and free place to start but do your research on others too
Seeking advice
Go on an active forum and write a follow along to take consistent action and eventually the big players will notice and give you solid advice.
With that said this isn’t a magic bullet and you’ll still need to put the work in yourself. Take action 90% of the time and seek advice 10% of the time.
Courses
Courses are optional but they can speed up the learning process. If you do insist on getting a course seek a successful affiliate who offers useful free content and has a monthly model for his course. This is because it means they believe in it and know you will stick around. $9,999 one off courses by bank deposits with no paypal are obviously a complete no go. Bonus points if it’s his first or 2nd product because it means they’ll spend more time and effort and likely “over-service” you because they’re building their brand.
Well, it was a tough year but the BHW community like always stuck together and a lot of awesome members came forward sharing some really cool money-making methods, tips and tricks, hacks to save money and a lot of trolling(obviously, what fun without it).
This thread is a glimpse of all of the awesomeness shared in case if you missed any of it or would like to explore any of those methods once again! Heads up, I might have missed some or a lot of them! Feel free to add if you find anything interesting below.
And here’s a list of affiliate programs you would ever need to sign up on!
And that’s a wrap! Let’s make the most of 2020’s expertise and make even more money and crazier threads in 2021! Let me know if I missed any of your favorite threads below. Cheers!
Would you like to have all of the most important dates collected in one place in some kind of affiliate marketing calendar? MyLead is here to help! All the hottest sales periods and some unusual holidays that, in our opinion, can be used in an interesting way in the context of affiliate marketing are here for you. Holidays such as Chocolate Day or Emoji Day are a great opportunity to attract organic traffic to social media, right? Skilful use of this type of opportunity, referring to communication to the industry you deal with, can turn out to be a bull’s eye. In fact, we have mentioned more than once that 2021 is the year with the motto “seasonality”. Don’t waste your time and get ready now!
Q1: JANUARY – MARCH
New Year’s resolutions are on top in January. Setting new goals and losing weight after the magical Christmas time… We all know that. Start the year by preparing campaigns to help your customers achieve these things. Keep in mind that there are ongoing promotions and don’t forget about the saddest day of the year. Give your customers a little smile on Blue Monday and they’ll pay you back. You think it’s not necessary to talk about the months we already have passed? Well.. the next Year’s going to have them all too, so get a notebook and write down everything you need to know.
The New Year’s excitement is slowly waning in February, so you can postpone campaigns for new running shoes. The biggest events of February are Valentine’s Day (14/02), Super Bowl (07/02), and Chinese New Year (12/02) – if you just think about how to go about them, you have a chance to make a huge profit. Prepare some sweepstakes campaigns for the ones who don’t like to spend much on their gifts and make sure to choose something from the Beauty category. MyLead has many campaigns for these occasions. February is the last chance for some fun. Make sure your customers manage to go crazy for Mardi Gras/Pancake Day (16/02).
March smells like spring and flowers that will appear in the homes of all women in the world. This month we’re changing the vibe of our activities a bit. This time it will be the power of women. For math fans – Pi Day (14/03), and do not forget Britain’s Mother’s Day (14/03). This month will also be important because of occasions such as St. Patrick’s Day (17/03), or First Day of Spring (20/03). Seasonality is a hit this year – we’re going to repeat that as a mantra.
Q2: APRIL – JUNE
Easter time is here (04/04)! Some will spend it in reflection and joy, others will be searching for chocolate and other sweets. How about hiding an Easter Egg in your campaigns? Your audience will surely appreciate this gesture. On the other hand, in April, Ramadan (12/04) begins. This could mean a decline in leads in some parts of the world. Do not stop smiling and prepare yourself for Earth Day (22/04). “There’s no planet B”, you know? Any pro-ecological campaigns will hit the spot here.
May the Force be with you especially on May 4th. Prepare something special for all Star Wars fans and don’t forget that Cinco de Mayo (05/05) is celebrated the day after. May is also a month commemorating all mothers. Small and larger gifts are something worth promoting this month.
June is the month of Pride. The whole month will therefore be in the colours of the rainbow. This year, Eurogames are planned, postponed from 2020. Other important occasions? Juneteenth, Father’s Day, and of course, Tour de France. And most importantly – summer begins in June. (Finally!) The time for holiday trips will begin in a moment. Campaigns in the Travel category are something worth focusing on now. Check out MyLead’s offer right now!
Q3: JULY – SEPTEMBER
We’ve all made it to the holiday season. Make sure your customers have the best entertainment during the holidays and prepare something sweet for chocolate lovers (02/07). In July, the postponed Olympic Games will happen. So we’re coming back to sports emotions! Other important occasions: Canada Day (01/07) and Independence Day (04/07) in the USA! It will be a blast!
August is the quietest month in many countries. Perhaps not much happens then, but that’s not a reason to cry. We are starting the Back to School Season! Every student will understand the rush so make sure to prepare something cool. Notebooks and pencils are back in the game! Hey, MyLead! Do you have any programs for the occasion? Sure, we have!
On September 1, people go back to the school desks, or at least… their laptops. Some even say that September is like January. The new school year, new me, right? Let people who have never promised that they will start studying hard this year cast the stone first. On the other hand, for the slightly older ones, nice news – Oktoberfest is about to begin (18/09).
Q4: OCTOBER – DECEMBER
Here comes the scariest month of the year! Okay, there’s really nothing to be afraid of. Unless you are concerned about the huge traffic during Halloween (31/10). Monsters, ghosts, and huge pumpkins are something that will not be missing this month. Get ready for November as well. The next month will be a marketing challenge!
The biggest shopping madness is about to start, but before that happens – it’s time for Diwali (04/11) and Bonfire Night (05/11). Got something special for Black Friday (26/11) and Cyber Monday (29/11)? These two huge earning opportunities cannot be left on their own. Small Business Saturday (27/11) also takes place in November, followed by Hannukah (28/11). These are the last days before December!
It’s finally here! It’s time to buy some Christmas gifts! And once you’re filled with gingerbread, the winter sales will begin. The next year passed incredibly fast. Maybe it’s time for a little recap on New Year’s Eve?
ANYTHING ELSE?
The above-mentioned holidays are important. But they’re not the only ones. Here are a few more occasions worth remembering. Seasonality is a keyword this year, so you can’t ignore the changes in seasons or occasions such as holidays or back to school. Sports enthusiasts should pay attention to events such as the Super Bowl (07/02), Tour de France (26/06), and the FIFA Club World Cup (scheduled for December). Cultural events worth keeping in mind are the 93rd Oscars Awards (25/04) or the 63rd Grammy Awards (31/01), and if this year is a bit more gracious, all kinds of festivals (e.g. Coachella on April 9) will happen.
Okay, are you ready for the upcoming months now? Remember that all of the greatest campaigns are waiting for you on MyLead. Would you give them a try? Let us know!
上述假期很重要。但是它們不是唯一的。這裡還有一些值得記住的場合。季節性是今年的關鍵詞,因此您不能忽略季節或場合的變化,例如假期或返校。體育愛好者應注意諸如超級碗(07/02),環法自行車賽(26/06)和FIFA Club World Cup(計劃於12月舉行)的活動。值得銘記的文化活動是第93屆奧斯卡金像獎(25/04)或第63屆格萊美獎(31/01),如果今年的氣氛更加親切,那麼各種各樣的節日(例如4月9日的科切拉節)都將舉行。
Stansberry資深分析師Thomas Marroll在接受貝瑞研究CEO James Early的視頻採訪時表示:“近兩年來,我們一直在告訴我們的訂閱用戶,一個新的變革性市場已經出現,它將使我們這一代將經歷一個全新且規模巨大的市場:醫療和成人使用大麻。”歡迎參看《Thomas Carroll:認清這三點輕鬆挑選大麻股》
美國目前較大的大麻公司大多起步與此。例如:Curaleaf(OTC:CURLF)成立於2010年,Green Thumb Industries(OTC:GTBIF)成立於2014年。在這段時間快結束的時候,大的戰略行動已經悄然發生。酒水飲料巨頭Constellation Brands(STZ)為Canopy Growth(CGC)投入了40億美元。捲菸製造商奧馳亞(Altria)向克羅諾斯(Cronos)投資了24億美元。