How he’s made millions: Amit from SuperAffiliateMindset.com and PPC Classroom

Boston SEO Networking Group 5/4/09
http://www.meetup.com/BostonSEO/calendar/9671622/

Since guest speaker Amit from SuperAffiliateMindset.com and PPC Classroom was running late, Jeff Selig jumped in and offered background info.

What is a marketing affiliate? Takes different forms: selling good or service or generating a lead for an industry. There’s an affiliate for any group/vertical

Target, acquire, monetize

Provide content for site, for example, that’s specifically geared toward weddings

Link Junction, all kinds out there, banners, text links to add to your site

Find what you’re passionate about: soccer site

Worst revenue: Google AdWords, then eBay, Amazon, then lead generation

Taking feeds in as an affiliate, can juice up the site for affiliates

Content: text, movies, photos

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Amit and his story:

Used to work at MIT Lincoln Labs, PhD in Physics

Didn’t like job, looking for other income means, discovered Affiliate Marketing

Didn’t even know how to make a website, understanding SEO = find high-volume search terms and put it in article. 6 months of building it, 2 uniques, and no affiliate sales

Read self-development book on setting goals, set a ridiculous goal at $10,000/month

Started focusing and making different decisions. Started looking for other opportunities

So simple but it made sense, had 15 failed campaigns. Most people go through 3 failed and then quit. Participated in forums, if other people can do it, what am I doing wrong, what are they doing right.

Within 4 months, 12/05 made $10K that month, Jan fell to $3,000 but knew it was working. 6/15/06 greatest day of life, making $20K/mo. Said to boss “can’t afford to work for you anymore.”

A week after resigned, profits went to almost zero. Optimize to adjust to new market conditions, back up to $6K the end of the summer.

PPCclassroom.com $10M biz this year
9 modules: keyword research, optimize, 9 coaches, monthly updates
$97/month

Be persistent, consistent, remember your goal

Pick a technique, follow one system, stay consistent until hit 99% competency. 95% you’re breaking even. Think of how much time you need for degree.

Test PPC, SEO and/or social media, see which you really enjoy

“Social media going to be bigger than PPC in the next 5 years”

Two phases: test 15+ offers to find which is profitable. 10% will be profitable. Faster go through them, faster find winner. Focus on the winner: optimize, develop landing pages

Build small site, test it out, main sites have 100s to 1000s of pages

Google quality score: Unique content, send people to real site, contact us, about us

If you strip all affiliate links from site, is it useful at all? No =  bad

Talk to affiliate managers, looking for advice for hot areas

Merchant: personal rapport, quality offers, came recommended,

Clickbank: what type of affiliate support, conversion tracking code
How helpful and proactive are they of their affiliates

Few articles per week, based on conversion data

Good niches: testing, attend trade shows, affiliate summit, mastermind with other affiliates for ideas, which niches are successful, talking to affiliate manager, earnings per click for offer

Best success, someone referring a particular offer

Some link-building and article mining, shifting to social media avenues

Hypertracker.com $20/month is great 2 diff landing pages for 2 different offers
Create 2 ads for every ad group

Majority of online shoppers are female

Most sites 1 point of purchase

Superaffiliatemindset

Perry Marshall blackbelt course on AdWords

Tested Advertising Methods by John Cables

Social media vs. PPC results = 1-2% conversion rates for PPC

More narrow the niche the higher the conversion

Todd Bairstow keywordadvisors.com advises: Local terms = easy results  +  How-to = more longer tail

Other recommendations: Commission Junction = old manager, trusted