Success Update
Submitted by Brack1969 on Sat, 03/29/2008 - 17:09.
Gary here, I posted earlier last year about some success I was having with affiliate marketing. The purpose of this post is to try and inspire others to continue working hard at PPC and not give up...
I stopped promoting clickbank products in Aug 2007 and went entirely with networks like Azoogle, Neverblue, etc. to promote PPL (pay per lead) programs. I have had great success and saw my income grow quickly once I made the switch.
Now I get weekly payments from all my networks (bank wires), I NEVER see chargebacks against my account (a daily occurrence with Clickbank) and the networks pay me 100% of my money each week (none of this 10% holdback silliness).
The results:
1. I have been able to keep buying more traffic each month as a result of increased cash flow, allowing me to grow much faster than I thought I could.
2. I had my first $3,600 profit day last month!
3. In Jan 2008 I made $67,000 Profit from PPL affiliate marketing...last month (feb) was only $52,000 profit (dang leap year!) :roll:
I wish I could say it has been smooth sailing, but in reality, my top campaigns have been hit 2-3 times in the past 6 months with a google slap, and ALL traffic was stopped to them overnight. This was a hard blow for me after the first slap, because I was doing everything right (adding unique content, making site useful for visitors, etc..)
To anyone still struggling to make it in affiliate marketing, realize that those of us who have been doing it for over a year still have our struggles...the secret to my success at least has been to get back up as fast as humanly possible when I get 'slapped down' and keep trying, testing different things until I get rolling again.
My goals for 08' are to not get slapped anymore, lol and to really start testing the international markets heavily...I've set some fairly aggressive income goals for myself, I've found it's important to always keep yourself motivated to continue growing...the minute you relax and say to yourself, "I'm satisfied with where I'm at." Your income will start to decline!
My favorite quote: "To have what you've never had before, you must DO what you've never done before!"
Here's my twitter link for anyone who wants to chat from time to time:
Gary
Hey Gary,
Awesome success story - Thanks for sharing!
You're smart to protect your sites from future slaps. Google has proven that they will sacrifice short term profits for long term quality.
All the best,
Jeremy
Gary,
Great story!
Makes me feel like I am just treading water!
Keep it up and keep us posted. Jack/Pogo
Awesome Gary! It seems you're one of the few people who get things done right! I hope on chatting with you soon...
Congrats Gary!!! Looking forward to chat with you soon...
Could you elaborate more on why you got slapped by Google as it seems like you were not doing anything wrong? So why did Google slap your traffic?
Also, what other reasons/issues would cause Google to "slap" a site?
Thanks
Dan
Hi Danlifeisfun!
I believe the reason I was slapped by google is because I probably had a 'human review' of my site and they decided it wasn't relevant enough to be getting traffic (that's my best guess).
I have learned that you can no longer create one landing page, and then stuff twenty related articles into the site along with the standard 'contact us' and 'privacy policy' pages...you will eventually get slapped...ouch!
The only way to sustain long term profitibility on your campaigns (and avoid a slap) is to take a campaign that is making you good money (for me the threshold is $500 or more per day profit) and develop it into a full scale website that is 'useful' to people....
This means, new content being added on an almost daily basis, blogs with frequent posts, forums, etc... a lot of work yes, but you can hire many content creation jobs out (getafreelancer.com) and if you have a campaign making you $1,000+ per day, it IS worth the work!
So what does a 'useful' affiliate site look like? Well, check out DMV.org. This affiliate obviously scored big time on the domain name, but look at the time and effort he has put into making his site as useful to people as possible...with all the unique content which can be easily accessed and navigated. Sure each page on his site is flush with affiliate offers and links related to the car insurance agency, but I heard last year that this site makes him about $12 million per year!
Another great site (created by a guy in his basement 4 years ago in Ogden, Utah) is toptenreviews.com. They simply review different products and services, and 2 years ago I read that their revenues were $17 million. He now has 70+ employees working for him adding reviews as quickly as possible! And of course, each review has his affiliate link embedded...
Think the effort is worth it? Oh yeah, it's worth it! Take the time to make a useful site and work on it each day, and you will certainly be rewarded...that's actually my goal. I would love to move away from having to launch new offers all the time and concentrate on just a few websites for long term sustainability. That's the direction I'm headed anyway...
-Gary
I'm with you 100% on this Gary. The landing page model with no original content/value is dying. It still works on Yahoo and Microsoft, but for how long? I'm turning out fewer sites this year, but trying to focus more on building web properties and less on traffic brokering.
I think a lot of you knew this from some of my posts/newsletters, but the urgency is even higher in 2008.
See those posts for more info:
Building a Sustainable Affiliate Business
http://www.quityourdayjob.com/node/1450
and
Thin vs. Fat Sites
http://www.quityourdayjob.com/node/1451
Gary,
Thank you for the story, the timing of BIP and your story of success are both very uplifting to a person who over the last few months had alot of reflections on is this the right thing to be doing. It goes to show that with hard work and a love for what you are doing you will eventualy overcome the roadblocks and prosper.
Now as for that H2 I want to see pics when you get that. I have been drooling about those since seeing them at a show in Ottawa and since then it has been at the top of my 'someday' list.