Tag Archives: getting started

Successful Affiliates Create Their Own Luck

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I’ve been reading lots of books lately about success, and I always look at them from the perspective of Affiliate Marketing. I’m still convinced that this business is the best one in the world, and I won’t be doing anything different any time soon. Even so, when you read inspiring stories of how people created success, you can always find nuggets to pull out and apply to your own business and life.

Luck

The only one of these posters that I would actually put on my wall.

The best tip that I have found lately that I think can be directly applied to Affiliate Marketing is this: successful (read “wealthy people”) create their own luck. For many people, when they look at someone like Bill Gates, they look at him and say, “He got lucky.” Same thing with Affiliates. They look at [insert name of most popular super affiliate at the moment] and think to themselves, “Man they got lucky. If I could have jumped into this business when they did and had that big campaign fall into my lap, then I could be making bank too.”

Not so.

The successful campaign, the “big one”, the huge moneymaker that sets the men apart from the boys in this industry, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That’s just the visible part. These guys didn’t wake up one morning and stumble across that campaign by sheer dumb luck. What you don’t see is the hours spent setting up campaigns, the days testing campaigns, the weeks tweaking them, and the months trying out different offers and traffic sources that lead to that massive success.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t easy. You can’t logon to your laptop, press some buttons for 30 minutes, and expect money to come falling out. Are there people who make a good income spending only 30 minutes a day on it? Yes there are. But they didn’t get that way by spending 30 minutes a day. They most likely worked 12 hours a day on those campaigns until they got them to the point where they could be maintained at a high level. Also, if you are resting on your laurels while you’ve got a big campaign running, you are just asking for a world of hurt when it dies (and it will someday).

My point is, don’t waste your time wishing that you were as lucky as somebody you know that is banking it with Affiliate Marketing. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. If you just got into this business when a massive campaign fell into your lap, you wouldn’t even know what to do with it. It’s the time spent learning that will let you maximize opportunities when you see them and take the money to the bank while you can.

Keep setting up campaigns, keep trying, keep failing, learn from your mistakes, rinse and repeat. That’s how the pros do it.

Just Do Something!

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I’ve been reading blogs all day about what you should do to start making money online. There is a lot of info out there. Some of it is legit, and most of it is complete crap. The one piece of advice that sticks in my mind is this: stop reading about it and get out there and do it!

It doesn’t matter what your niche is if you never create your site.  It doesn’t matter what your keywords are if you never create an AdWords campaign.  It doesn’t matter which banner you use if you never place it on your website.  There are a million and one different ways to market things on the internet.  What separates the men from the boys is action.

As you know, I am an Affiliate Manager for CPA Empire, one of the largest Affiliate Networks in the world.  We have hundreds of new affiliates apply for our network every single day, and a lot of them get approved and assigned an AM (like myself).  The thing that never ceases to amaze me is how quickly today’s excited new affiliate turns into tomorrow’s $0.00 affiliate.  I would say that, on average, 80% of my new affiliates never respond to the first email that I send them.

Don’t worry, this is not a post dedicated to ranting and raving about the ins and outs of being an AM.  It is meant to be an encouragement.  When people get into this industry, they are so full of hope and wonderment.  The idea of making money from their computer at home is so foreign to them that it’s almost hypnotizing.  Just like with anything new, they dive into forums, subsribe to newsletters, maybe even spring for a conference or two.  But, again, it all adds up to hollow effort if you aren’t practicing what you learn.

I’m sure that most of us know how to ride a bike, so you can relate to this.  When my dad tried to teach me how to ride a bike, he explained everything that he could about the mechanics of the bike and what kept it upright.  All that knowledge could not prepare me for what it felt like to get on the seat and try to pedal away from him that first time.  What did help was him running beside me and holding the bike up while I got a feel for the balancing act of riding.

You can use resources like forums, newsletters and conferences to keep you on track, but you have to start pedaling before you’re going to go anywhere.  Even if you suck at it, you will be ahead of 90% of the people that populate those forums.  In case you haven’t noticed, even the experts are still learning.  We are in one of the fastest growing and fastest changing industries in the history of mankind, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

So strap in, sit down, get an energy drink or some coffee, and do some actual internet marketing.  It might do you some good!