Bankruptcy to Millionaire

This post is in response to Gyutae Park’s post: Make Money Online with Rocket Profit Affiliate Marketing - A Step by Step Example over at Winning The Web

I love WTW and I make sure I read all of the posts on a regular basis. It’s always caulked full of great information, but one of Gyutae’s latest struck me as a bit. His “step by step example” will likely lead to tons of lost money if you do not know much else about affiliate marketing.

First I would like to say, I have studied and read TONS of info on affiliate marketing (from the likes of Uberaffiliate, JohnathanVolk, and Zac Johnson, and many others). There are so many elements to making a successful campaign a short “step by step” course cannot simply lead to profits. Even with all the information I have, I have only had very limited success with my campaigns (many have lost money, few have made money). So, AM (affiliate marketing) can be a HUGE source of income, but not by following Gyutae’s example, here’s why:

Affiliate Marketing Is Not Stable Income

Let’s start with his comment on how AM is one of the most stable incomes on the net. This is simply not true. In fact, quite the opposite. It his hugely VOLATILE. If you’re using PPC Google can change the rules, and you will go from making money, to losing money. If you’re using SEO… Google can changes the rules. You’ll go from the first page, to the 5th. This is going to KILL your income.

New competitors can come into the market, and outrank you on your search terms, or just flood the market (look what happened to ringtones). The product/offer can “mature” so it just doesn’t have the volume it once did. There are just so many factors that can KILL an AM campaign overnight, it is truly NOT stable.

Compare this to an established blog or website, that charges ad revenue. Which you know will come in each and every month. This is much more stable.

Setting Up Your Site. Easier Said Than Done.

In step 3 Gyutae gives you a simple rundown of how to set up your site/landing page. Here’s my biggest problem with that. Landing page design is an art. You can’t just slap something up, and expect for it to work.

It has to be tested. Tweaked. Optimized. Just because you have a wordpress blog, and an offer doesn’t mean someone searching for v-day presents is going to click on the ad/offer.

You have to consider that to make money, that person is going to have to 1.) Click on your ad 2.) Stay around long enough for your page to load 3.) Read your “content” (whatever it is) 4.) Decide to CLICK the ad 5.) Read the content on the sales page 6.) Get out his credit card and BUY

This is A LOT of hoops to jump through. And not something easily accomplished by slapping up a wordpress blog.

Gyutae does make good points on adding calls-to-action and urgency to the offer. This IS extremely important to your copy. However he didn’t make ANY mention of even more important tems. It is not my intention to give a copywriting lesson, but Copywriting 101 says you need a Compelling Headline to draw your readers in to your copy, an Irresistable Offer (obstensibly the flowers for $29.99), a call to action, a sense of urgency, and a P.S. to sum up to offer for the people that like to skip over the copy.

It has been documented the P.S. is the 2nd most read item on a sales page, the first being the headline. Gyutae makes no mention of either of these two important items.

Your PPC Campaign. This is where you’re going to LOSE MONEY.

Gyutae tells you to do your research. This is true, and VERY important. And MUCH easier said than done. A good campaign will have THOUSANDS of keywords. Extensive campaigns will have tens of thousands!

But those keywords are USELESS without properly set up ad groups and specifically written ads. Which Gyutae makes no mention of. Other than maybe setting up a great landing page correctly, adgroups are going to make or break your campaign. They will make the difference between profit and loss.

If you try and dump 1,000 keywords into one ad group, with one ad. You are going to get KILLED on your bids, because your quality score is crap. You are going to pay TOO MUCH per click (if you can even get your ads to show at all). If you pay more than you have to per click, you are likely going to lose money with your offer.

If you are not splitting your keywords up into very specific adgroup categories you are going to miss the boat. If you do not know how to do this (and thought you could make some “easy” money after reading Gyutae’s post) then I suggest you do some more research (start out on those three blogs I mentioned earlier).

Do NOT just set it. And forget it!

If you are going to bid $100, and $x.yy per click, and just hope you start making a profit. You are likely going to be sadly disappointed. You are going to need to tweak the bids of individual keywords on a regular basis. Unless you can afford to lose $100 a day do not spend $100. If your are starting a new campaign do not bid more than you can afford to lose each day. Because there are NO guarantees that you are going to make money.

The secret is to study and test!

As I am sure Gyutae would agree, making money online is NEVER easy. It’s always going to take hard work and dedication. And I hope that after you read Gyutae’s post that it inspired you to LEARN MORE about affiliate marketing. But if you try to follow his simple steps (and use no other education) I’m afraid you are going to be sadly disappointed with your results.

Good luck to you and your affiliate career!

- Tevin

P.S. Just because I don’t agree with some of the information he provided in this particular post. I think Winning The Web is a fantastic blog that you should be glad to ad to your RSS reader.

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