Welcome to the second iteration of my weekly Q&A on all things digital. Ask any question below and I’ll answer. If I don’t know, I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction or state that I don’t know.
No max on questions. This Q&A will be open for 24 hours and I’ll be answering them intermittently throughout Sunday and Monday.
Interested to hear your thoughts on local SEO/GMB sites. Do you think there is still potential in them or do you think it’s too competitive now and that there’s more opportunity in building a niche review site instead?
With Affiliate Marketing how long would you stick with a certain idea/niche before botching it and starting a new one? BTB mentions that’s it’s a lot of losses/lots of nothing….wanting to know the difference between expected losses/no returns vs knowing when to switch it up?
That depends on whether you know what you're doing or not. And whether you're driving traffic with SEO, organic social, paid traffic, etc.
SEO - At about 6 months, you should be gaining enough traction to know whether your users are going to convert and whether it's worth your time. If you're not gaining traffic, you either
- Have chosen a difficult niche
- Don't know how to write SEO optimized
- Don't know how to build links
- Don't know how to do keyword research
If you can't get the above right, changing your niche/site isn't going to help you.
Organic Social - You'll know once you drive 500-1000 users without any sales.
Ads - This is much harder to say given the product.
Most people fail at affiliate marketing for a few reasons.
1. They don't give it enough time. 6 months for SEO is to see if you're going to get momentum, not actually getting the momentum.
2. They think it's the niche and not the skillset. If you're a beginner, you're not going to see returns for a while. That's why I advise affiliate first instead of ecommerce. You build up skills without blowing a ton of money.
If you're trying to decide whether the niche/idea is a dud or not and you're not sure, you haven't learned enough about your marketing channel to decide. Once you have the skills built, it will become apparent pretty easily. Time isn't the factor here, experience and testing is the factor.
I'll leave you with the below tweet. Digital is exponential and not linear.
Much appreciated…..man you guys weren’t lying, “truly lots of nothing” in the beginning. “Time isn't the factor here, experience and testing is the factor.” Thanks for that part….you were really reading between the lines with that response.
There are so many aspects to internet marketing and the challenge is to focus on getting good at a skillset. Even with just affiliate marketing there are so many ways to play it.
Malan Daras, one of the OGs of affiliate marketing, recommends testing three different offers at a time and then focus on the one with the most potential and testing that offer with three different angles. When you find a winning offer scale it to the moon. Others continue to test until you find that winning offer.
But can’t recall the metrics for shutting down an offer as far as how much you’d have to spend to confirm an offer is a dud.
Do you suggest buying an existing domain or creating something entirely new organically? Focus is on parenting/mothercare. Initial plan to build out content and affiliates and eventually transition to ecom- similar to what you suggest.
1. The domain has to of expired very recently. If it's been expired with no content on it for 6-12 months, Google has already "reset" the domain. Learned this the hard way by taking my consulting domain down for a period.
2. If the domain didn't really rank for anything or have decent backlinks, it's not going to do you much good. You're just going to be wasting money.
3. Check for black hat techniques. Many "good/great" domains are left to expire because Google has caught the owner using a PBN or other technique and slapped them. Learn to check for this. If you don't know enough to check for this, you're taking a very big risk of not only wasting money but trying to build on a penalized domain.
Another more timely but potentially better option is to buy a site. I don't mean on empire flippers or something. What I mean is you find very small sites in your niche that have been neglected.
Email the owner and lavish them with praise. Give a heart pulling story of how you want to build a niche site building on top of the type of work they've already done. Let them know that you *understand* that life gets in the way and that projects like these fall to the wayside. You'd be honored to build on the great work that they've already done.
Do this 100 times and you better know how to value a site when one of them say yes. These website owners may feel a greater attachment to the site than it's actually worth. (You're trying to soften the blow with the story above)
With the above said, I'm an advocate of newbies starting from scratch to learn. Newbies will generally screw something up from above.
Thinking about creating a listicle of ecom/gadget offers and drive traffic to it with FB ads and Google paid search. Will also be collecting emails on the landing page. Any pointers to ensure the success of the listicle?
A big bank account, high pain tolerance, and a long time horizon. It's difficult to be ROI positive from paid ads on *common* affiliate offers initially. CPC's have risen dramatically over the years making it more difficult. Focus on very high ticket items and very qualified traffic.
Also. LTV/Retargeting. Be more of a destination and brand to bring those consumers back. If you're trying to to have a landing page (only one page website) convert paid to affiliate, you're going to have a hard time. The days of easily being able to stand up a funnel, drive cheap traffic, and print money are long gone minus a few niches. (Or black hat tactics)
The real money is made by increasing LTV. Hence why Bull harps on repeat purchase products for ecommerce like supplements.
Being new to affiliate marketing I really appreciate the perspective. Been thinking about building niche sites as opposed to using purely paid ads for the very that you’ve brought up that the golden age of driving cheap traffic to LPs may be long gone with the exception of a few niches. Interested to hear what those niches maybe. BTB has mentioned diet, trading crypto, and skin care—some old tried and true. Could those still be successful with the paid traffic to lp model?
Crypto - Likely given the market isn't saturated yet. Any niche that's still early and isn't saturated. Commissions are higher when you're driving to an early stage company.
Diet/Skin care - BTB mentions them in the ecommerce sense because they're repeatable purchases *and* you're getting the whole (profit) pie because you're distributing the product.
Let's do some best case hypothetical math on a $50 product with a 70% product margin.
$0.5 CPC at a 5% conversion rate = $10 CPA which equates to $25 in profit. In this case, you turn up the ad spend until the CPA reaches $35. This isn't even accounting for LTV which may account for 2-5 more purchases per person. In this scenario, you have a cash cow.
Same CPC and conversion rate as above for an affiliate site has much different math. $0.5 CPC at a 20% CTR (to the ecommerce site from your site) at a 5% conversion rate = $50 CPA. Your affiliate commission % would have to be 100% of first purchase revenue just to break even.
Thank you for the thorough breakdown. Will do a little more research on how to make crypto offers work on FB or YT as I believe there are some obstacles on getting approval from either network.
In terms of the math, since the numbers do not look favorable for driving paid traffic to affiliate sites, I see why an organic/SEO approach is recommended.
Not really other than just doing them and constantly Googling when you have issues. Also, be a student of ads. Spend time intentionally watching ads and figure out what about the ads pulled at your emotions and made you click.
I've never personally had an issue with bans. I do know some people (I would never do this..) that have a mountain of email addresses and different online identities for things like this though. The key is to (so I've been told..) never log into multiple accounts at the same time and utilize a VPN.
In regards to VPN, I’ve heard those who say never to use one. So very confused by this. And I think it’s because if FB sees other banned accounts using the same IP as you it could also cause suspension or restrictions to your account. It’s almost like guilty by association. So it may have a lot to do with the quality of your VPN service.
But definitely, to use different profile accounts we should, if not must, use unique IPs. I’m wondering if we can just use 4G data service (dynamic IP) via cell phone to avoid IP issues or does FB expects static IPs.
I was more referencing the VPNs for your online identities and not for FB specifically. Someone more qualified in this banning issue *cough* Amazon can elaborate.
I *do* have experience with FB accounts being suspended. For my purposes we were using them to drive ads so the underlying page was useless. Best tip I have is set up 10 accounts and have them ready to go for when you are suspended.
If you are having accounts to build affinity for your brand, create micro accounts to support I.e. bowtied amazons’s fb page, bowtied Amazon’s product launch page, etc. to keep building without total risk of a shutdown.
Just to clarify, is it to try to acquire 10 profiles and not just merely 10 ads accounts which one can create with one profile?
And I would think that if you can keep your profile alive, all you’d need is to acquire as much BM as possible? Which could possibly be done by taking over as admin of family/friends ad accounts. But it would also be a good idea to have at least another profile ready to go given how temperamental FB has been.
Interested to hear your thoughts on local SEO/GMB sites. Do you think there is still potential in them or do you think it’s too competitive now and that there’s more opportunity in building a niche review site instead?
Local SEO and image SEO for that matter is still in it's infancy compared to niche review sites. But they generally serve two different purposes.
Not heard of image SEO, but great to hear that there are still opportunities in local SEO.
With Affiliate Marketing how long would you stick with a certain idea/niche before botching it and starting a new one? BTB mentions that’s it’s a lot of losses/lots of nothing….wanting to know the difference between expected losses/no returns vs knowing when to switch it up?
Thanks
That depends on whether you know what you're doing or not. And whether you're driving traffic with SEO, organic social, paid traffic, etc.
SEO - At about 6 months, you should be gaining enough traction to know whether your users are going to convert and whether it's worth your time. If you're not gaining traffic, you either
- Have chosen a difficult niche
- Don't know how to write SEO optimized
- Don't know how to build links
- Don't know how to do keyword research
If you can't get the above right, changing your niche/site isn't going to help you.
Organic Social - You'll know once you drive 500-1000 users without any sales.
Ads - This is much harder to say given the product.
Most people fail at affiliate marketing for a few reasons.
1. They don't give it enough time. 6 months for SEO is to see if you're going to get momentum, not actually getting the momentum.
2. They think it's the niche and not the skillset. If you're a beginner, you're not going to see returns for a while. That's why I advise affiliate first instead of ecommerce. You build up skills without blowing a ton of money.
If you're trying to decide whether the niche/idea is a dud or not and you're not sure, you haven't learned enough about your marketing channel to decide. Once you have the skills built, it will become apparent pretty easily. Time isn't the factor here, experience and testing is the factor.
I'll leave you with the below tweet. Digital is exponential and not linear.
https://twitter.com/bowtiedopossum/status/1426782427381256196?s=20
Much appreciated…..man you guys weren’t lying, “truly lots of nothing” in the beginning. “Time isn't the factor here, experience and testing is the factor.” Thanks for that part….you were really reading between the lines with that response.
There are so many aspects to internet marketing and the challenge is to focus on getting good at a skillset. Even with just affiliate marketing there are so many ways to play it.
Malan Daras, one of the OGs of affiliate marketing, recommends testing three different offers at a time and then focus on the one with the most potential and testing that offer with three different angles. When you find a winning offer scale it to the moon. Others continue to test until you find that winning offer.
But can’t recall the metrics for shutting down an offer as far as how much you’d have to spend to confirm an offer is a dud.
The above comments are in reference only to paid ads.
Do you suggest buying an existing domain or creating something entirely new organically? Focus is on parenting/mothercare. Initial plan to build out content and affiliates and eventually transition to ecom- similar to what you suggest.
A very caveated yes. Caveats below.
1. The domain has to of expired very recently. If it's been expired with no content on it for 6-12 months, Google has already "reset" the domain. Learned this the hard way by taking my consulting domain down for a period.
2. If the domain didn't really rank for anything or have decent backlinks, it's not going to do you much good. You're just going to be wasting money.
3. Check for black hat techniques. Many "good/great" domains are left to expire because Google has caught the owner using a PBN or other technique and slapped them. Learn to check for this. If you don't know enough to check for this, you're taking a very big risk of not only wasting money but trying to build on a penalized domain.
Another more timely but potentially better option is to buy a site. I don't mean on empire flippers or something. What I mean is you find very small sites in your niche that have been neglected.
Email the owner and lavish them with praise. Give a heart pulling story of how you want to build a niche site building on top of the type of work they've already done. Let them know that you *understand* that life gets in the way and that projects like these fall to the wayside. You'd be honored to build on the great work that they've already done.
Do this 100 times and you better know how to value a site when one of them say yes. These website owners may feel a greater attachment to the site than it's actually worth. (You're trying to soften the blow with the story above)
With the above said, I'm an advocate of newbies starting from scratch to learn. Newbies will generally screw something up from above.
Thinking about creating a listicle of ecom/gadget offers and drive traffic to it with FB ads and Google paid search. Will also be collecting emails on the landing page. Any pointers to ensure the success of the listicle?
A big bank account, high pain tolerance, and a long time horizon. It's difficult to be ROI positive from paid ads on *common* affiliate offers initially. CPC's have risen dramatically over the years making it more difficult. Focus on very high ticket items and very qualified traffic.
Also. LTV/Retargeting. Be more of a destination and brand to bring those consumers back. If you're trying to to have a landing page (only one page website) convert paid to affiliate, you're going to have a hard time. The days of easily being able to stand up a funnel, drive cheap traffic, and print money are long gone minus a few niches. (Or black hat tactics)
The real money is made by increasing LTV. Hence why Bull harps on repeat purchase products for ecommerce like supplements.
Being new to affiliate marketing I really appreciate the perspective. Been thinking about building niche sites as opposed to using purely paid ads for the very that you’ve brought up that the golden age of driving cheap traffic to LPs may be long gone with the exception of a few niches. Interested to hear what those niches maybe. BTB has mentioned diet, trading crypto, and skin care—some old tried and true. Could those still be successful with the paid traffic to lp model?
Crypto - Likely given the market isn't saturated yet. Any niche that's still early and isn't saturated. Commissions are higher when you're driving to an early stage company.
Diet/Skin care - BTB mentions them in the ecommerce sense because they're repeatable purchases *and* you're getting the whole (profit) pie because you're distributing the product.
Let's do some best case hypothetical math on a $50 product with a 70% product margin.
$0.5 CPC at a 5% conversion rate = $10 CPA which equates to $25 in profit. In this case, you turn up the ad spend until the CPA reaches $35. This isn't even accounting for LTV which may account for 2-5 more purchases per person. In this scenario, you have a cash cow.
Same CPC and conversion rate as above for an affiliate site has much different math. $0.5 CPC at a 20% CTR (to the ecommerce site from your site) at a 5% conversion rate = $50 CPA. Your affiliate commission % would have to be 100% of first purchase revenue just to break even.
Thank you for the thorough breakdown. Will do a little more research on how to make crypto offers work on FB or YT as I believe there are some obstacles on getting approval from either network.
In terms of the math, since the numbers do not look favorable for driving paid traffic to affiliate sites, I see why an organic/SEO approach is recommended.
Is there anyone you’d recommend to learn more about FB ads and YT ads?
Not really other than just doing them and constantly Googling when you have issues. Also, be a student of ads. Spend time intentionally watching ads and figure out what about the ads pulled at your emotions and made you click.
BowtiedyakE (https://twitter.com/BowtiedyakE) knows YT so I'd give him a shout.
With FB being ban happy even with wh offers, what is the best practice for creating or acquiring new accounts?
I've never personally had an issue with bans. I do know some people (I would never do this..) that have a mountain of email addresses and different online identities for things like this though. The key is to (so I've been told..) never log into multiple accounts at the same time and utilize a VPN.
In regards to VPN, I’ve heard those who say never to use one. So very confused by this. And I think it’s because if FB sees other banned accounts using the same IP as you it could also cause suspension or restrictions to your account. It’s almost like guilty by association. So it may have a lot to do with the quality of your VPN service.
But definitely, to use different profile accounts we should, if not must, use unique IPs. I’m wondering if we can just use 4G data service (dynamic IP) via cell phone to avoid IP issues or does FB expects static IPs.
I was more referencing the VPNs for your online identities and not for FB specifically. Someone more qualified in this banning issue *cough* Amazon can elaborate.
I *do* have experience with FB accounts being suspended. For my purposes we were using them to drive ads so the underlying page was useless. Best tip I have is set up 10 accounts and have them ready to go for when you are suspended.
If you are having accounts to build affinity for your brand, create micro accounts to support I.e. bowtied amazons’s fb page, bowtied Amazon’s product launch page, etc. to keep building without total risk of a shutdown.
Just to clarify, is it to try to acquire 10 profiles and not just merely 10 ads accounts which one can create with one profile?
And I would think that if you can keep your profile alive, all you’d need is to acquire as much BM as possible? Which could possibly be done by taking over as admin of family/friends ad accounts. But it would also be a good idea to have at least another profile ready to go given how temperamental FB has been.
Am I thinking about this correctly?