The other day Ruck wrote about How To Never Stop Scaling Profitable Affiliate Campaigns and it really made me reflect back on my career. Many affiliates just getting started out are finally relieved when they finally hit their “big break” and get a campaign profitable. But far too often these affiliates get “stuck in a rut” and then they don’t want to diversify to other campaigns.
I started promoting affiliate offers through websites I owned reaching a large audience with organic SEO. Eventually I moved to pay per click and then started media buying very heavy. When some of my larger media buys started to net me $9K+ a day I too found myself in the same rut that many affiliates do. It was hard to branch out and launch new campaigns because my current ones were performing so well.
So if you took up Ruck on his challenge he made Friday and paused your winning campaign for 48 hours… What did you think?
If your revenue went to zero and this is your “full time” income stream then that’s kind of scary isn’t it? As Ruck said in his post, when you get to making a certain amount you start to base your lifestyle around it. To me it’s very challenging to get used to living one way one month and then a completely different way the next. That’s not good for anyone!
If you’re just running one campaign, one traffic source, one offer I suggest:
- Start testing a new campaign on the same traffic source
- Take your winning campaign to a new traffic source
- Start reinvesting into a long term asset
For those of you that have yet to find that winning campaign the above list seems like a no brainer. But for those of you that are already making $1K, $2K, etc. profit a day it can be very challenging. Our brain tell us to focus on what’s making us money but we all know this could all come to a screeching halt without warning.
Our largest publishers at Revived Media are also the most diversified. Once they get one campaign profitable they let it run to collect more data all while getting another one going. That’s how you become a “full time” affiliate and don’t have to stress each month with how much you’re going to make. Eventually you develop your own unique system where you know how many campaigns you’re going to create in a month, how much return you should expect, etc. Just don’t get stuck with one traffic source and one offer. I can’t tell you the number of horror stories that stems from this!
If you still haven’t yet, take Ruck up on his challenge of pausing your winning campaign for 48 hours. If you have no other revenue streams coming in, I highly suggest revising your plan of action and setting new goals accordingly. A true “super” affiliate has multiple campaigns on multiple traffic sources generating income daily.
Ryan Gray is the founder and CEO of NameHero, one of the fastest growing independent web hosts in the United States. Ryan has been working online since 1998 and has over two-decades experience in Internet Entrepreneurship.
Marcelina says
July 25, 2013 at 1:16 pmI regret I didn’t find you when I was just starting out. I should have avoided the big mistakes that I did.
Quincy says
July 26, 2013 at 7:05 amHi Ryan,
Thank you for the article.
One thing that interests me especially, is when you say that after PPC you started “media buying very heavy”.
Were you profitable right off the bat or did you have some learning experience including heavy losses?
One thing that what I’ve learned from your great free guides is that you can easily lose your shirt if you hit hard at media buying right at the start.
Ryan Gray says
July 26, 2013 at 12:51 pmVery rarely are you every profitable right out of the gate. I started media buying once I had a budget of $100,000/month and really just broke even my first month. After that it took off :).
That’s still not saying that if you have a $100K budget you will have success. It depends on many, many factors.