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First Affiliate Marketing Payment

  • Written by RichardRichard 7 Comments7 Comments Comments
    Last Updated: September 16th, 2008

    Being the middle of the month it’s any affiliate marketers favourite time of (bar the guys on weekly payments ;) ). If you were following me last month you will know I managed to accomplish a lot of my goals and today was the first time I psychically saw any return from my work.

    I made $2,188 in revenue last month which consisted of about $400 profit, I say last month - it was actually the last 20 days of August which is a pretty good start in my opinion. After all of the currency conversion and fee’s I received £1,195.12 into my bank account so I’m not sure how much it exactly cost me to receive the bank wire but I will be ringing my bank to check and then start browsing different bank accounts which favour international payments. If anyone has any recommendations feel free to get in touch.

    From now I will hopefully be on weekly bank wires so my cash flow will be much easier as the first month is always the hardest unless you had saved up a nice investment to begin with. I just threw it all onto my credit card so I’ll be glad to get that paid off and ready to top it back up paying for this month’s ad spend :) .

    I have been steadily trying to get new campaigns up and running but this month has been so busy with other projects. I had a few problems with my main campaign last weekend and it ended up costing me about $400 because one keyword’s impressions, clicks and cost shot through the roof. I went from spending about $100-$150 a day to $500 so I paused that keyword and things seem to have restored now, I made around $110 profit yesterday.

    I’m well over target for this month’s revenue goal so I should be able to raise the bar next month to something that will be more challenging.

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  1. #1 Jarret
    September 16th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    Nice update and good to hear that you actually made some money from your first payment!

    $400 is nothing to shake a stick at especially since you are so new to all this. You are doing great so far and I think you have the potential to really kick it into gear if you focus even more on it then you already are. Soon enough you’ll be passing up Volk and all those other guys ;)

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  2. #2 Richard
    September 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    If I could make 10% of what those guys do I would be more than happy :)

    I’m sure I can get my profit up to the mid-high thousands per month by the end of this year.

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  3. #3 Tip Jar
    September 17th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    Dang man, such an inspiration. If you don’t me asking (I hate sounding like a n00b) and without revealing too much, how did you manage to turn a profit in your first month of AM? I know some guys that can blow through $1,000 without making a dime, so if you had to recommend on how to turn a profit, what would it be? I’m about ready to start applying to affiliate networks and getting my stuff in order to do some affiliate marketing, but being a college student I can’t afford to just barrel through $1,000. I’ve also been researching and reading articles for the past few months, what else would you recommend I do (maybe learn PHP or something? lol)

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  4. #4 Richard
    September 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    @ TipJar, To tell you the truth I’m no different from anyone else starting out - I guess a large proportion was down to luck but I have been studying affiliate marketing for many months now because like you, I didn’t have any investment saved up to try affiliate marketing so the profit has given me the motivation and drive to continue and raise the bar.

    Regarding tips for new affiliates wanting to get stuck in I would say that you have to ensure you track everything, especially at keyword level. Know what’s converting and what’s not. I had a keyword last weekend costing me about $400 a day which I didn’t catch at first. Not sure why it suddenly spiked, it did convert but at a loss so I paused it and things seem to be back on track now.

    Also about additional things you should learn, knowing PHP will give you the advantage of being able to make scripts to tell you what you want. I’m not too familiar with PHP so it’s not VITAL but it would help. I wouldn’t recommend going away to learn it before you jump in to be honest. A good program to use is prosper202, it tracks everything from landing page CTR to keyword ROI and much more - plus it’s free :)

    Hope that helped a little

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  5. #5 Tip Jar
    September 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    Thanks man, that does help a lot

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  6. #6 I'm Doomed
    September 17th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    Hi Richard, I just read through your site. Really inspiring. And congrats on the first payment.

    I was wondering, after a month of PPC affiliate marketing, what would you say is the biggest strength you need to have in PPC? Copywriting? Designing landing pages? Patience? I know that all of these play apart, but is there one ability that you would say is the backbone of your campaigns?

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  7. #7 Richard
    September 18th, 2008 at 9:48 am

    Hey I’m Doomed, like you said they all pay a big part in affiliate marketing. I would say affiliate marketing on a whole needs a lot of patience and motivation, don’t expect to pick a winner straight away and if you lose money - suck it up and move on. Try another niche to see if that works.

    Regarding a vital strength when it comes to individual campaigns I would definately say tracking, you need to be aware of everything. Knowing what keywords are converting and which ones are not converting could be the difference between making a profit and loss. Check everything at least daily to make sure your not spending $X on a keyword that has no chance on converting.

    Also don’t let your emotions get caught up with the stats, stats never lie :)

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