Ideas For My 6000th Post

mituozo said:
Would enjoy having a bit of a dissection of what you were doing back in the 6 figure month days you mentioned you had, what campaigns you were running, what went wrong with it, etc.. (I figure it's been long enough now for outing not to be a problem?) I find honest thorough dissections of people's mistakes far more useful than just tips / advice without backbone.

(This post isn't meant to be a dig or sarcastic by the way, just to re-inforce, don't want to come across as attacking you or anything. I'm genuinely curious and think people can learn a lot from that kind of stuff.)
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This will be have to be a rolling answer too like above.. let me know what more detail you want after I answer.

I was running all diet rebill on Facebook. No other ad network, no other niche, no nothing. All in on diet on Facebook, but I was both domestic and international. I also did end up branching into dating and biz op and a diabetic supplement, but those were not my BIG FIGURE days, but they were not small by any means either.

What went wrong? Thinking it would always work like before. I never counted on ad networks running these ads themselves or affiliate networks either, let alone the countless copy cats. Around the middle of 2010 ( I started at mid 2008 ) I felt the squeeze from all this and branched into Adwords, Prem PPC ( like adsonar ) and media buys and PPV with other niches. Those were not making me huge days though but did branch me out.

In the end, I realized that capping out offers and hosting going down and the random bans on Adwords, auto bidding on PPV, and carrying a laptop around with me 24/7 to tweak campaigns was not what I wanted anymore, even if I was making 10k a day or more. I bought a house, 2 new cars, went on vacations and set up my retirement fund and decided to just get a normal job where my wife and kids didnt have to live with a zombie anymore.

I did this all by myself, which was another mistake. No 1 man can do everything all the time. I tried, I lasted a long time, but I paid a heavy price for it. I went back to full time gigs doing what I did best, which was marketing and development. I hated "running" a business all by myself.

Ask me more detailed questions, I know this was a general overview. Keep them coming bro. Nothing off limits.
 


mituozo said:
Would enjoy having a bit of a dissection of what you were doing back in the 6 figure month days you mentioned you had, what campaigns you were running, what went wrong with it, etc.. (I figure it's been long enough now for outing not to be a problem?) I find honest thorough dissections of people's mistakes far more useful than just tips / advice without backbone.

(This post isn't meant to be a dig or sarcastic by the way, just to re-inforce, don't want to come across as attacking you or anything. I'm genuinely curious and think people can learn a lot from that kind of stuff.)
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^^ This .

If you had a six figure income per month , can you share what you were doing and what made you go down (if you have) or why don't you do it again..some thing like "My good history" :)
 
How does your family and your wives family perceive your career? After years of doing IM, do you feel any sense of fulfillment beyond being able to provide for your family? Do you look back on your day and think to yourself that I could have done way more work than I actually did? How many times have people in your household been dickrolled? Have you ever lied about your income to the IRS? Do you have any skeletons in the closet that haunt you from your IM career? Are you going to encourage your children to go to college? Do you work normal hours during the day and put away the computer otherwise?
 
mpbiz said:
Here's another one..

You made a post in the ecomm thread about finding your best ad slot/position for PPC.

How do you go about testing this? I was thinking about dropping my CPC's by 5cents and letting it run for 1 week, then repeat with another 5 cents or by 1cent based on the results.
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The way I did it was based on revenue ( actually leads, but we got paid on leads later in the cycle ). I came with a cost per lead on those campaigns ( or you could do cost per sale, cpa, etc ) and I would set up automated rules in Google where every 4 hours the automated rule ran.

The automated rule basically said ( if I was wanting to bid in 4th slot ) IF AVG POSITION FOR LAST 24 HOURS IS GREATER THEN 4, LOWER BID 10%.

The another rule would run right behind it, same hour: IF AVG POSITION FOR LAST 24 HOURS IS GREATER THEN 5, RASIE BID 10%.

Run those every 4 hours and your average position will end up 4-5 for that day. Find out the cost per lead or sale and test 1 position for a whole week. At the end of several weeks, find out the best cost per lead/sale for you and then you got the position you need to be in.

Not a perfect method ( will get fucked up by people day parting, new advertisers coming in, etc ) but works out well most times.
 
Hale.Pane said:
1. What does money mean to you ?
2. Stories of failure
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1. All money equals to me is, "options". The more options you have, the more you can do. Money just equals options to me, other then that it is worthless. People without options are generally unhappy ( not people without money, but people without options ). Money gets you options, but its not the only way to get options. Options is key and money can get options.

2. I fail everyday, but its your perception. People here would think I failed because I went back to a job and am no longer a full time affiliate. However, Im debt free, retirement is paid for, Im doing exactly what I love, and I own a % of a successful ecom business and I have options with what I do everyday.

Wanna know where I failed? Destroyed my marriage with being a work a holic, lost a cash cow flow of thousands of dollars a day because I got settled and tried to do everything myself without expanding, lost a couple of really fucking promising clients and sites relying on a couple BSTs which worked flawlessly until ALN and other type of networks got hit. Should I go on? lol Also, many times I didnt strike when the iron was hot, and missed out on shit.
 
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jhoffy22 said:
How does your family and your wives family perceive your career? After years of doing IM, do you feel any sense of fulfillment beyond being able to provide for your family? Do you look back on your day and think to yourself that I could have done way more work than I actually did? How many times have people in your household been dickrolled? Have you ever lied about your income to the IRS? Do you have any skeletons in the closet that haunt you from your IM career? Are you going to encourage your children to go to college? Do you work normal hours during the day and put away the computer otherwise?
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My wife and their family think I just make money out of thin air with drugs somehow. They dont comprehend you can actually build a business that scales online and people give you money online too. They think its either porn or drugs, all online.

I do feel like I provided a huge amount of options to my family, which is number 1. I also feel like I accomplished several huge goals of my own doing this. Most of it is personal goals and such, but I think I helped change a few things with shit I made and contributed to, such as other people making money in affiliate marketing. I wont out them on this forum though.

"Do you look back on your day and think to yourself that I could have done way more work than I actually did?" - Always, I never stop thinking about what I could have done, I am sure Superman and Steve Jobs thought the same thing too. Some people wonder "what if". The unknown is crazy and I am trying to learn to get past that in my age now.

"How many times have people in your household been dickrolled?" - Myself, couple dozen times. My wife, twice. No one else has though, yet.

Have you ever lied about your income to the IRS? - never, and I take less deductions then I should. No joke.

Do you have any skeletons in the closet that haunt you from your IM career? - Hmm, not really anything life changing. I started out in adult back in 1996, which is something a lot of people dont know and I dont share with my family. I did shit like ewhoring and making adult sites and got out when my kids were born. I jacked landers, ideas, etc just like a lot of people did, but I always put my own spin on them.

Are you going to encourage your children to go to college? _ only if they have their own business before hand, otherwise no. I want them to at least see the power of owning their own life and income before going to school and being lied to. I dont care if its a lemonade stand or lawn mowing services. If they can run their own business, understand why its powerful, and think on their own, I will let them go to college with my blessing.

Do you work normal hours during the day and put away the computer otherwise? No, I still work 24/7 almost, but I have on purpose decided to get rid of things like iPads, laptops, iphones, and try to put shit away by 10pm.
 
Rich Peasant said:
^^ This .

If you had a six figure income per month , can you share what you were doing and what made you go down (if you have) or why don't you do it again..some thing like "My good history" :)
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I think I went over this above, let me know if I didnt. Try to be more specific if you can.

stevejobs said:
How did Charles Darwin came to know about us [SEOers]. I hope we [SEOers] are most responsive to change. [Google Algo change and WF-BST policy change].
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WTF? lol
 
Since I remember you were one of the early ones that promoted 2-step offer landers, why did you never develop your own product or offer to pair, but kept with 2 different network offers? Also, did you ever approach offer owners direct?, or did you consider it safer/better to stay in the traditional role of a network affiliate?
 
eliquid said:
Experiences matter in life, everything outside is noise. Take the time to travel, take the time to help an old lady, take the time to tell your wife you love her, take your kids to disney world and hug them, hang glide off a cliff and drive a lambo 180mph, etc. These are things no one can take from you and are things you can talk to people and blow their mind with.
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Gold, take note Eagle wannabe's
 
What advice do you have for those that are young that have found a measure of success? (besides diversifying)
 
mont7071 said:
Since I remember you were one of the early ones that promoted 2-step offer landers, why did you never develop your own product or offer to pair, but kept with 2 different network offers? Also, did you ever approach offer owners direct?, or did you consider it safer/better to stay in the traditional role of a network affiliate?
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I actually did do this later on, around 2010 when things stopped working correctly the "old way"

I helped to start a product for diabetics, but it never got finished with dealing involving other partners. I also lost interest in it after months of working on it. I also developed my own biz op as well, that also after months I lost interest in and couldnt move forward on with a partner.

I did approach offer owners direct and ran a few offers direct.. one of them ended up royally fucking me to the tune of $40k though. This can happen with networks as well, but that left a very bad taste in my mouth.

After the $40k experience, I though it was safer as an affiliate, but as things later happened to networks ( like EWA we see now, and others in 2012, and 2011 ) nothing is really "safe".
 
eliquid said:
I helped to start a product for diabetics, but it never got finished with dealing involving other partners. I also lost interest in it after months of working on it. I also developed my own biz op as well, that also after months I lost interest in and couldnt move forward on with a partner.
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Looking back, would you say that you would have made more money if you had been more persistent and stuck with these projects?
 
jhoffy22 said:
What advice do you have for those that are young that have found a measure of success? (besides diversifying)
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Its ok to get a taste of success if you never had it and flaunt it, but prepare afterwards.

If you cant enjoy it, why have it. However, dont be stupid.

Always put back 40% for taxes when you get paid every time you get paid. At the end of the year a % of that will end up yours, but at least you wont be struggling at the end of the year to pay taxes like a lot of affiliates.

one day you will get old, lose your money, and be left with the choice of what you wanna do, you better be prepared with the answers you come up with.
 
cardine said:
Looking back, would you say that you would have made more money if you had been more persistent and stuck with these projects?
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more money then $X ( my highest per day made ) per day, prob not.

more money in the terms of year to year revenue, ( because it would have maybe been more stable and mine, though less per day ), maybe. Hard to tell really.

I think owning the whole chain though is key, so I would have to say odds would be yes I would have made more in long run just because I controlled all of it from begin to end more then being an affiliate.
 
Hale.Pane said:
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Any AM stories with close calls or catastrophes ?
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I got several C&D's from ( Harpo ) Oprah and also trademark violations on domains. When the attorney general was on the hunt some year back I thought I had close calls on all of those.

Also, several close calls with making the wrong bid on Facebook to the tun of $5 a click instead of .50 a click almost wipe out a huge amount of profit I had made, luckily I was still checking my stats every hour to catch it back then.

Offer owner dicked me out of $40k in sales because he couldnt collect his own monies from his offer, and he was located in Canada.
 
When you start to do volume and scale, how do you handle your delegation? Things like having creatives made fast enough for burnout, optimizing campaigns, having new landers created, etc.

In house or freelancers? Any insight into how your operation/system works would be great.
 
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