Yep people, you’ve heard it before, but what does that really mean for us in affiliate marketing? Frankly, it can mean a few things. It could mean investing in software (ie: BANS, phpBayPro, etc). It could mean investing in hosting (dedicated servers, shared hosting accounts, etc). It could mean investing in more domains. It could mean paying for traffic (PPC). But along with the saying ‘It takes money to make money’, I always like to follow up with ‘If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense’.
I think starting out, it’s important to see potential investing expenses, and look at it as that.. investments. Meaning is there a return on this investment. Will that eBook return you money in the end? Maybe, maybe not. I also like to play with money I have versus with money I don’t have. When I start seeing returns, I like to use some of the returns to expand my empire. For instance I purchased BANS a few months ago (horrible decision), but I felt like I needed to test with some products. The initial concept was something simple and easy for my wife to crank out sites while I work on larger projects. I ended up rolling my own. So that’s an example of not making dollars.. so it didn’t make sense. I play in the PPC arena (YSM), and that’s a great example of seeing a return. This isn’t easy, and I’m a major noob still, but I see how the big boys make tons of money off of this technique. I also invest in servers to host my sites. Everytime, I start a server, my goal is to have it paying for itself immediately.
I also like to test the waters before diving in. Simply, I like to see what works, or what looks like it’s going to work and focus after I’ve established a ‘trend’. I constantly see people signing up to Google AdWords, spend hundreds of dollars pushing traffic to a BANS site selling widgets at $2/item, and lose their shirt in the end. No thought was put in to this, no experiments prior to see if this would work or not. Suddenly they’re spending money they don’t have to see if it will turn around or not. If they tested with YSM, or MSN first at a cheaper rate, they could see what campaigns or sites were good converters before jumping into Adwords. Keep records, understand your sites. Understand their strengths and weaknesses. Know when a good time to gamble is, and on what site. Be ready when you have a small kitty set aside.
I just recently purchased CJ data feeds ($200). I see the potential with this, but have not seen a return as of yet, since my sites are still under development, but I was able to pay for this feed with the earnings earned from December. I think each step is another rung up the ladder.
I feel like I was rambling there, but maybe a few of you might find this useful.
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Couldn’t agree more hanji.
For everything, people need to plan and follow the plan. Keep records of everything and after the experience analyse the records. Many people jump on the wagon and they risk what they have and they DON’T HAVE, and that’s the first and BIGGER problem of winning money.
Has you well know i’m not an adept of ppc, i like to use only the organic traffic, which of course it’s slower and your income for a few months it’s allways less. Why? because the flood of traffic it’s slower to achieve, not like the quick traffic that ppc brings.
To everyone using ppc i give one advice: never never risk more than 10% of your spare money. That way if something gets wrong, you’ll not loose everything.
To the ones using organic traffic, one advice also: it’s all a question of quantity, network, hard work and many many patience. Just remember this for the beginning there are plenty of free places that you can use. after some build you begin to have your own network of sites. After the network of sites, it’s much more simple to backlink and index new sites and to move traffic along the network of sites. But for that you need to build build build, and you need to wait the sites became more old (many times you’ll only see results after one year).
Hanji said very well in other article, keep a mix of organic traffic and ppc, but don’t put everything on ppc, that please, no way.
Jonix.. I would say you are a guru.. and your advice should be listened to and read very closely. Thanks much for commenting here.
I’ve been working on promoting more organic traffic.. but it’s a hard beast to tame. But results do happen.. just slowly as you already addressed.
Thanks again!
hanji
Hanji, i’m not a guru, i’m just a simple guy trying to make my living online
The suposed “gurus” that are out there many times don’t know nothing at all, the “guruness” that hey have it’s just sell crap information to less experienced users.
Then after many many wasted dollars people find that the guru information it’s on the net in many places and for free.
Gurus? no way, they don’t exist. Experienced users? yes, that’s the right name. Experienced users sometimes share information but not much. And finally the VERY experienced users, that ones don’t share nothing at all, normally they find new ways to win money, but they don’t share (…sometimes they share, but at that time the information cannot generate much money, only a couple of dollars).
I try, try very hard to find ways to win the anti-ppc battle, but allways reading a lot, and making many experiences. The worst part for organic traffic it’s the waiting. Why? simple. People build 1, 2, 3 or even 10 sites, and that’s it. Then they promote with some backlinks, and they hope that in the next 6 months that sites will give them much money. WROOOONG, very WROOOONG. 10 sites it’s not enough! People need to build large networks of sites (hundreds, thousands!), and every single day promote promote promote. Don’t get me wrong, when i say hundreds/thousands, i’m not talking about blackhat or spam sites, i’m talking about sites with something interesting to the visitor. People need to be ready to never give up and to build and promote without winning money for many months. If people follow this simple rules (very hard to achieve specially making/updating/promoting sites without winning nothing for a long time), you can bet that a good monthly income will come after 1+ year.
Hello
Thanks for posting… I thought your points were awesome and quite true. My statement about Jonix being a “guru” was because I’ve corresponded with him in the past and he’s been a great help with generating organic results.
I also believe in creating a large network of sites.. and that surely does take time. Most of my time in 2007 was creating and testing different sites for IM success. I feel like I have a focused direction for 2008, so I’ve been coding like a fiend!
Thanks again!
hanji