How Many Hours Are Sufficient?
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The first week after leaving my day job seemed to go nowhere, I didn’t actually do any work on my campaigns. The number one problem when you work from home is the self motivation to work, in a normal environment if you don’t work – you don’t get paid right? The best thing about affiliate marketing is although I didn’t do any work in the first week I still made a nice tidy sum.
My short term goal is to get a minimum of 5 different niches that are profitable, obviously this is simply to make it more of a steady income and provides me with more freedom with reduced risk. If my main campaign was to die tomorrow I’m back to square one making hardly anything/day.
So far this week (bar today) I haven’t really sat down and worked through things, I’ve been doing other tasks and working on a couple of projects (my number one problem! I get started on one thing, then think of something else I would rather do and then leave it half complete and switch tasks). I’ve spoke to a few people today which has really helped with my mindset and what actions I need to take in order to be not only successful, but productive.
I would definitely recommend keeping a notepad on your desk or buy a notice board with the jobs you need to do.
I was just curious how many hours per day/week other people spend on their affiliate marketing? Do you have set days to do certain projects such as create X landing pages one day, keywords the next etc or do you take one niche and work from start to finish. Launch it – rinse and repeat.
Let me know…
*By the way, my blog and affiliate marketing results will be done shortly so I will post them sometime this week or next*
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April 2, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Hi Richard,
I’ve been working from home and making a living (more or less) from online businesses for about a year now. I intended to make a push into affiliate marketing a while ago, and intended to document it on my poor, abandoned (for the moment) blog ‘upstarty.com’. However, I found myself taking up freelance jobs, and finding other profitable ways to make money online.
But, I have now been in the affiliate marketing arena for a few months now. I started with a small profit, cheap keyword campaign. I would say it took me a good two weeks to build the campaign. This includes researching, landing page design and revision, and copywriting. During those two weeks, I would estimate that I put in an average of eight hours of work, 5 days a week. The kicker was that I didn’t take the remaining two days off…those were my 12-20 hour days. Honestly, much of that time was spent scrapping the whole campaign, my angle, the niche I was planning on targeting, and starting new. It was my first campaign, I wanted to get it right. Apparently, my work paid off…I made a profit! I just wish I would have worked on a campaign with a higher ROI.
Since that first campaign, I would say that I now will work three 12-20 hour days straight building a campaign. The reason that I put so many hours in isn’t because I have such a strong work ethic, but because I become so manic and excited by what I’m working on…I simply can’t stop. Launching the campaign is the hardest part, saying goodbye to the late night, coffee fueled, creative nights. Because, once a campaign is launched, I promise myself to leave it alone for the most part and let it collect data for a few days. So, that means, in regards to affiliate marketing, I work three long days on, three off. Honestly, I feel I work much more, now that I’m working for myself, than I ever did at an office job. It cracks me up when I hear people fantasizing about how relaxing and nice working at home would be. They don’t realize that you will be surrounded by your work 24/7. And if you love what you do, you’re going to be tempted to work all the time.
Anyway, I use those three days basically to decompress and come down off my creative high. Beer helps.
During those three days, I’ll trim keywords, ad groups…basically, following the game plan you have described in your blog. I also work on other projects not related to affiliate marketing.
My results?
1 profitable campaign (not enough to pay all my bills though)
1 stinker (I blame the affiliate, I was able to get the traffic through, but their landing page sucked, just wouldn’t convert)
1 that’s currently breaking even (I have a feeling a profit is just around the corner)
1 that’s not profitable, yet (I just launched a new campaign yesterday, I spent a lot of time on this one, about a full week of 12-16 hour days. After taking a look at the stats, I’m losing money, but I do have a conversion, right now it’s converting below 1%. I need more data on this one, because it looks really promising, Right now, I think I might have taken the wrong angle on this niche. The campaign has revealed some great keywords with a high CTR. So, I’m considering rebuilding the whole thing, using the same offer, but with landing pages more directed towards those keywords.)
Best of luck Richard!
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April 2, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Hey Upstarty,
Good comment, in regards to your results about the stinker. Can’t you find other offers in the niche and try them out. Seems a shame to see the work go to nothing.
I’m personally just coming out of the “relaxing-ish” period where I’m free to do as much as I want. I’m beginning to get back into the swing of things and wan’t more money to be honest
I agree with you that your surrounded by work 24/7, even when I try to get some sleep I think to myself I could be working or tweaking something.
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April 2, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Hi Richard!
I quit my day job in July 2008. Only in 2009 I seem to outline my strict schedule of time/efforts devoted to aff marketing.
I too got nowhere first since leaving my job – I was stupidly surfing the net and reading numerous aff blogs, watching webinars and doing that 80% of stuff that brings 0% of profits.
However, I’ve got one strict rule for myself – before I sat down to my comp, I determine:
1. What exactly I’m going to do now while at comp
2. How much time I set for these tasks.
I place an alarm clock in front of myself and start working. When alarm rings – I stop working (no matter if I finished or not) and take a rest – just concentrate on other things.
This rule significantly helped me to GET CONCENTRATED on what really matters, and not waste my time for other things.
Next, I follwed the advice of Jeremy Palmer and read David Allen’s “Gettiing things done” 3 times. This book really helps in terms of running different projects and not thinking too much about all the stuff.
I’m now incorporating some principles into my own routines and I really create strategic plans for every campaign/aff promotion offline, while at the comp I’m only executing tasks already planned – this helps me to stay a person living in reality, not online!
We all work to live, not live to sit in front of our comps for hours long =))
Hope this helps you to find some ideas for becoming more productive and still have much free time to really enjoy your life!
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April 2, 2009 at 9:16 pm
@ Richard,
Unfortunately, my stinker is based on a product that I actually love and use. I had noticed that they had a really nice % of a sale for their affiliate program, so decided I’d give it a shot. So, the copy of my landing page is basically my personal recommendation and would require quite a bit of rewrite. Like I said, after warming them up for the sale, it gets plenty of click through, but no sales. They have a wonderful product, unfortunately their site is ugly, doesn’t inspire confidence in the buyer. I once sent them an email encouraging them to consider a redesign of their site, they replied back that they would consider it, but nothing yet. Also, other products that fit into this small niche have a pretty small % of sale. Looking at initial ROI, I don’t know if the amount of work I’d have to put in would be worth it. I may revisit it after I have a couple of other campaigns making profit.
@Anton
I may be incorporating your use of an alarm clock in my work routine. I have noticed that when I put too many hours into a project at once, I start focusing on things at a micro level, when I should be looking at the big picture. Usually a few hours away from it allows me to come back with fresh eyes and mind. The alarm could be my reminder that I need to walk away for a bit, watch a movie, go to the gym, run errands. Great idea!
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April 2, 2009 at 9:37 pm
@ Anton, Nice idea on the alarm, I’ve actually spoke to a few people who say they use a stopwatch and do something similar – I might try it out.
@ Upstarty, if worse comes to the worse you should create the page for them based on what you think will work
I’m sure they would glady change it over. Although it will cost time/money – if the campaign was good enough it will pay for itself. Not sure on the size of the site, it may not be very feesable if it would all need to be changed.
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April 3, 2009 at 8:16 am
Good post Richard. I spend a lot of time on the net but depends as I still work full-time. It can range from 2 hours to 6-7 hours a day.
It seems like I’m probably doing too much or not being productive enough. Those who are successful seem to work less! I need to spend less time messing about on forums etc and do some productive work, something I’m getting better at!
Most of my work at the moment is designing a site and doing seo type work. I’ve not much spare cash to do any PPC since I flopped at it recently and need to save up more to give it another go. SEO takes ages!
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April 3, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hi Richard,
Nice to hear from you again especially after taking relaxing week.Working independent is different than in office, your right it’s about self motivation, I work 4 hours before lunch, 3 hours after lunch, take a nap 2 hours, work out at gym and come back to work from 8 pm to mid nightI am still struggling with my blog, but reading your story inspired me.Good luck
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April 3, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Richard your posts are always worth reading and commenting on
I’m noticing most of us who comment are somewhat in the same position and level as you.
As for the question you asked – I have a full time day job. I put in 1-2 hours a day after work. Not everyday but maybe 2 or 3 times a week. On weekends I put in may be close to 4 to 5 hours. That’s about it.
I don’t start new niche often. To be honest with you I’m milking the same 5 or 6 campaigns since last year.
Sometimes when I’m at work, I feel like I’m tied up. I want to expand my affiliate business. I feel like quitting and doing affiliate marketing full time. I know for sure, if I quit and work full time on affiliate business, I’ll do really well. But the question is should I quit? The job is okay. I’ve a steady income coming in. Sure I make 2x to 3x (profit) more with my affiliate bussines but should I risk it?
I think if and when I quit my job, I’ll go through the same troubles as everyone else. So, before I quit, I should learn how to manage my time, my work load, organize my tasks and stuff. This is the stuff I’m learning @ my day job. But yes definitely, I would like to quit in a year or two because sometimes, I don’t even feel like coming to work.
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April 4, 2009 at 5:15 am
Hey Richard,
I’ve been working from home since late 2006.
I’ve worked 12-16 hour days for a long time. Even know. My typical work days are about 12-16 hours a day.
And I sometimes skip sleep. Which is bad I know.
I’m a workaholic. It’s not a long-term plan, just something I consciously want to do for some time, so I can do what I want later in life. I’m only 27, so if I drop 1 more year in the bucket now, it’s no biggie to me. I want to strike the iron while it’s still hot. It’s funny because I make about 20x more money than most of my friends make in a year, but I am still not satisfied. In fact, sometimes I am disappointed with myself… Am not sure if this is a good thing or not. Oh well.
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April 4, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Hey Mick,
I understand what you are saying. While I seem to be making a nice income from affiliate marketing I still want more. Not necessarily because I’m greedy but because I want to prove to myself that it wasn’t down to luck or stumbling across a couple of things that work.
I feel that if I can extend into a number of verticals and have success it will do wonders for my self confidence when it comes to working. At this moment in time I’m still pretty new to working from home and I’m still slacking a little.
I’m turning that around as from next week and putting a lot more hours into my business, I do get too involved in certain things, for example I’m working on a project with my friend outside affiliate marketing and I’m designing and creating the site, blog and forum from scratch with a unique design. Over the last few days I’ve been working for like 5+ hours solid without even moving and not even realising. Even after that if I go watch TV or take a break I’m thinking about what I can do to make it look better.
I’m kinda in the same situation as you, I’m only 22 at the moment so I would rather put the work in now and let my social life suffer (slightly, I still enjoy a good night out
) and then be able to relax later on in life and not have to worry about money etc.
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April 26, 2009 at 12:10 am
Richard,
Great post. By the way, I would like to start in affiliate marketing but I don’t know which route to take; clickbank or affiliate.com
I’m already a member to both. Which one would you recommend? Also, could you recommend a series of videos you have used to learn how to do affiliate marketing?
Thank you,
V.
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April 26, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Hey Van,
I’ve not had any huge success with clickbank as of yet (I’m in the process of going through some offers on there) so I can’t really advise that path just yet.
Like a lot of people say it’s just a numbers game and finding those niches that convert for you.
If I was to say any I would go down the CPA route first as they often have higher payouts which help with testing and getting your feet wet.
I would suggest to go through each one and see if there is anything that you like and take it from there. Don’t be disappointed if your first X campaigns don’t take off.
In regards to a series of videos I don’t really know any I can suggest, if you browse other blogs such as http://www.jonathanvolk.com, http://www.uberaffiliate.com or any other affiliate marketers blog that should help you find your feet. Also wickedfire is a good place to start and browse through the archive.
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