lol..did you just say, “oh I knew that”. I know you did, but it wasn’t so obvious, right?

So what is Media Buying?

From an online affiliate/media buyers point of view, media buying is when you buy ad space on a website. It could be in the form of text ad, banners, rich media or video ads.

How is media buy priced?

Media buy can be priced on CPM basis as well as CPC basis. But majority of big publishers/websites only allow you to buy ad space on their site on CPM basis.

CPM = Cost per 1000 impressions

How much does a media buy costs?

A typical media buy could cost anywhere from 1k to over 100k. There are two types of buyers in the market.

Branders: These are big companies looking to brand their products. They normally don’t’ care how much they per CPM and normally they have big advertising budgets.

Direct Response Advertisers: This would be us, the affiliates or anyone who wants a direct return on their advertising dollar.

What do you need to get started with media buying?

You need a few things to get started. Media buying is good in way that you’re not competing with everyone in the market, however, you couldn’t start media buying with just $100.

1. So for one, you need at least 3k to 10k of capital to start. Your typical media buying deal as an direct response advertiser would be anywhere from 1k to 10k. Typically, most publishers will ask anywhere where between 5k to 10k but you can find or make a deal with them to do a test buy for 1k to 3k.

2. You absolutely need an adserver. Without an adserver you will be flying blind and most probably going to lose your money. Adserver is used to track clicks, spend, conversions and also optimizing your campaign.

3. You need to understand what an IO (Insertion Order) is and what clauses to ask for in it.

My results so far:

Currently, I’m not making enough with media buying to quit my job. Actually, I’m not even making as much as I use to with search PPC. However, I can work my way up to make 4 figures a day without the fear of slaps.

-G

All these uncertainties have lead me to leave paid search engine marketing and look else where for traffic. About a month ago, I stumbled upon another lucrative traffic generation technique which is proving to be solid. No quality score, don’t have to create landing pages all the time, don’t have to research keywords and best of all this method is waaaay more interesting than PPC. After having no income is the last few months, I’m building up my income again slowly using this promotional method.

-G

Few weeks ago, I talked about this network which owed me approximately $2800 and my own going struggle for getting that money. To recap and make the story short, basically, I generated about $2800 worth of leads for this offer when suddenly, the advertiser refused to pay the network for the leads I generated. The network refused to pay me until the advertiser pays the them. Everyday, I would ask my affiliate manager when I will be paid, and my AM would reply back to me saying the advertiser is not responding their calls or emails and they have no idea when I will be paid for the leads.

It was such a huge headache running after them and not knowing what the status was, why exactly the story was and when I will be paid.  Finally, the network came forward and paid me last week the money they owed. According to my AM, they still can’t get hold of the advertiser and they paid me out their pocket. I will never know what real the story is but I’m happy to be paid.

Most of you guys guessed the network. It is Hydra. I am very happy that Hydra came forward and listened to me and paid me. I did harass my AM everyday about it and I gave them proof of how I was generating the leads. They know I was following all the rules and probably figured it’s better to pay since the payments were only 2.8k. Had it been $25,000 or something in that range, I don’t if they had paid me. But I like to thank my Affiliate Manager Nicole Webb from Hydra for getting the payments to me.

June Results:

Revenue: $14013.38

Expenses:  $9303.85

Profit: $4709.53

ROI: 50% approximately

Last month was like a roller coaster. In the first week alone I had done close to $8k already. I was pulling in little over $1k a day in revenue when I was told that I have to pause my traffic due to lead quality issue and will be not be paid for previous leads until further investigation. I didn’t start any new offers either because I was concerned about the money I was owed and just wasn’t in the mood to start anything new.

This month I’m not doing much either. I’m in the in the process of looking for a new home and probably will be busy with that.

I’m however reading up a little and trying find out other forms of advertising other than search and content. I want to become less depend on Google and get into display advertising. I’m currently looking into starting off with Yahoo display advertising network. If anyone have any experiencing with it, I would like to hear.

-G

In affiliate marketing, once your campaign dies, for whatever reason, your income dies. Most times seeing that income dying just hurts. You could be enjoying the day with your family and friends or at work, only come back to see your campaigns were slapped beyond recovery and your source of income was stopped.

Take Google for instance – I was talking to a Google representative over the phone and I remember what she said to me. I called to find out what I’m doing wrong or what I’m not doing that my landing pages are given poor quality scores each time I put a campaign up, no matter how hard I try to improve them. She said to me, “as an affiliate, it is hard to succeed.”  On the other hand, Yahoo! told me exactly what I need to do when they removed my ads for editorial issues. Is Google just that cocky or do they really care about the “user experience?”

Google  isn’t going to hold my hand and tell me what I need to do to make things better because they have hundreds of advertisers lined up to take my spot.  And then there are networks and advertisers. Sometimes your offers will go offline without notice. Other times, the network/advertiser will ask to stop the traffic because it is not banking out for them even though you finally figured out how to make it profitable. Basically, I have NEVER seen the potential of one offer because before I can even scale it up to its full potential, something happens. Either my campaigns are slapped or the offer is pulled. I just hate seeing income disappear so fast without warning!

After experiencing so many hurdles in the last few months, I started thinking about my business model. Is it the nature of offers that I run or is it that I do a poor job at everything because I don’t have much time for the business as I would like to? Whatever it is, it is really frustrating to see the income dying just unexpectedly. Basically, your business, your income and your livelihood is always in someone else hands-be it Google/Yahoo or the networks and the advertisers. They could flip the switch tomorrow leaving you scratching your head in utter confusion and anger.

I know in business things are never smooth. Perhaps affiliate marketing is like that too-a roller coaster. For some reason, I still believe it is possible to create a long lasting campaign and things are not so short living. It would be impossible for me to go full time until I figure out how to make my campaigns last long or figure out what Google wants to avoid constant slaps.

I believe that it is possible to succeed as an affiliate in spite what Google says. I’ve done it and seen it myself. Affiliate marketing has shown me potential and I’m going to continue trying to learn and grow my business.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. What has your experience been in affiliate marketing? Has it been similar to mine? I also want to hear from people who have gone full-time. Share your stories!

-G

I think all affiliates would agree with me when I say, networks are suppose step up and pay the affiliates the money they owe in a situation when the advertiser refuses to pay for the leads that were driven under the guidelines of the advertiser and the network.  It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the affiliate to run around after the network begging for the money they owe. After all, that’s what networks are there for, to look out for the interest of affiliates. Otherwise we affiliates can just go directly to the advertiser and deal with this kind of headache directly with the advertiser.

I’m waiting for approximately $2,800 in payments from network-X (won’t say the name just yet) for one week’s worth of leads. The advertiser, who has done shady things in the past with others, now refused to pay the network for the leads I drove until further investigation. They claim that lead quality sucks. Funny thing is, I’ve been driving leads to the offer of last 2 months. Just last week they noticed the lead quality was bad? Why didn’t they say anything before?

Anyhow, I sent my affiliate manager the screenshots of my campaigns, which clearly shows that I’m runny ads for the same keywords they run. So in a way, I’m their only competition so far on search. And in some cases my ads show up before them. I belive, this is the reason why they don’t want me out there since now they have suspended their offer until further notice.

Anyway, I just want to be paid. I don’t care if they stay or not. This advertiser has been jumping from network to network. They were kicked out of Azoogle for stealing affiliates data and now at this new network, they are refusing to pay for the leads.

Affiliate marketing sometimes just gives me a lot of headache. Things haven’t been smooth for me lately. With offer dying without notice, this advertiser not paying, I’ve hardly seen an offer stay alive for more than two weeks in last two months, leaving me to scramble for a replacement offers. This month I did break my personal records and got up to $1400+  a day but it only lasted for 7 days. That was in the beginning of the month. But  since then, I haven’t been doing much. I’m taking a break from AM for now. Hopefully I’ll be refreshed next month and start from scratch.

-G

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

So with further adieu, here are my numbers for April

Revenue: 15,331.44

Expenses: 9117.92

Profits: 6214.32

ROI: 62.16%

Summary:

This month I saw my first $1000 a day. It came after I found this one offer that worked wonders with the traffic I had. After the Google slap last month I was only doing $100-$150 a day with Yahoo traffic. Few days after the slap, I joined Hydra network and got a AM whom I explained what niche I was in and what kind of offer I was looking for. She found a offer that worked right off the bat and I was quickly back to $600-$700 a day and a week later I hit $1000 a day. I was running only Yahoo traffic.

Unfortunately, the offer went offline and I have no other offer to replace it with. So, I’m back to $100-$150 a day with my old niche. I’m no longer doing google search traffic either since Google slaps are becoming more frequent. Before a campaign use to last me good 2 to 3 months before getting slapped. Now, I would be luck if it lasts a week. I will change my marketing strategy just to please Google.

So far for the month of May, results are not looking so good. I may take this month off and relax. I’ve had a busy April taking care of some personal stuff and of course with day job. I think by next month, I will be more relaxed and have more time.

Tip of the month:

I will leave you guys with a tip that may help you start new offers and get your revenue up.

Tip: It’s very important to engage with you affiliate manager. You affiliate manager has access to stats like which offers are doing well, how much the top guy is making and so on. You can use this info to set your own goals. But if you don’t ask, you will never find out this info. So, it is very important to talk to your manager and don’t be afraid to ask them questions. Call them or hit them up on AIM.

Moreover, if you explain to affiliate manager, what kind of traffic you run and what kind of offer you want to run, they will help find it. They may even suggest new offer in new niches and give your tips. These guys are there to make you money so use them.

-G

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

To be honest with you I’m losing 100s and 1000s of dollars with having to do exchange rate and paying conversion fee on my credit card and to my bank. The profits I make are in US dollars. But at the end of the month when everything is said and done, I end up with way less in Canadian dollars than what it says in my book.

Basically, I have a business account in Canadian dollars. The money I get paid is in US. So every time I go to the bank with my cheque or every time I get a wire, the bank charges me 2.5% fee for currency exchange in CND.

On the other hand, I pay my bills In Canadian dollars. I have a business CC in CND dollars, however I make my payments (everything except for Google Adwords) in US dollars. My CC company charges with 2.5% for currency exchange as well. So every time I get billed in US, I get slapped extra 2.5% on top on the amount charged.

Yahoo is pain in the ass. They don’t have billing in CND dollars. So, I end up paying 2.5% extra when they charge me. They don’t have pre-paid billing either. So, I have to fund my account first to continue running my ads. They require you to have 3x your daily limit budget in your account all the time.

Get everything in USD

For everyone outside of US, you need to open a US banking account, get a credit card in USD and get a new Adwords account in USD. Basically, do everything in US dollars.

I recently opened a new bank account in US dollars, applied for a credit card in USD and opened up a new Adwords account in US$.

Can you change the currency setting in your Adwords account?

Unfortunately, Adwords doesn’t allow that. Once you open an account in one currency, you can’t change it afterward. You will need to open a new account in your preferred currency.

Can I transfer my account history to my new Adwords account?

Again, the answer is No. With a new account you will need to build up history again. However, I must point out that, when you transfer your campaigns to your new account, domain history will automatically be transferred over, which is good. I was talking to an Adwords representative and this what he had to say about transferring account history and quality score from old account to a new account.

Adwords support:

It is possible to transfer your account keywords, ad text, etc to a new account. However, it is not possible to transfer account history information…While your quality score will start fresh, there are several factors of quality that will carry over and so will help you in establishing new quality score. These include: the historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group, the quality of your landing page, and the historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google. Consequently, while factors such as account performance will be lost, several factors of quality score will remain.

Is there a good USD credit card for Canadian affiliates?

The only card which is comparable to my AMEX card is the BMO Mosaik MasterCard. You can get this card in USD. You also have the option to choose either 1% cash back or Air-miles reward miles. I went with air-miles since I had airmiles reward miles with my old card. I basically switched my airmiles points from my old card to this card.

http://www3.bmo.com/mosaik/usd

-G

It’s harder to convince someone to buy something at first try but if you can persuade them over and over by sending email follow ups and educating the user about the product, you will increase your chances of making a sale and will definitely make one.

I increased my revenue by building an email list

Early this year in January I added an opt-in box on my landing pages and starting collecting emails. To this date I’ve collected about 3k subscribed emails. I collect around 60-70 subscribers a day. I generate $20-30 extra a day (at least one sale) through these subscribers by sending them links to related offers in my follow-up emails.

Suggest me a good tool to build email list

I use Aweber autoresponder to collect emails and send follow-ups. Basically, you set up emails that will be sent to your email list as soon as someone subscribes. You can set up as many follow-up emails as your like with whatever intervals between follow-ups as you like. For example, I’ve set up my first follow-up to be sent right when someone subscribes and 2nd after 1 day.

How much it costs?

Aweber will cost you $19/mo. This is just a fraction of price comparing to what you will make back from your email list. They also have yearly subscription which costs $193/yr.

They also charge for hosting your email list. Once you have over 500 emails in your list, you will extra $10 a month and so on.

Right now I have 3k emails in my list and I pay $30 a month. However, I make at least one sale equivalent to $20 a day from my list. Last month I made little over $ 250 from my email list by sending them follow-up emails. That’s a profit of $220 a month.

As you grow your list your profits will go up as well. Imagine how much you will make if you have list of 100,000+ subscribers.

-G