Affiliate Marketing Programs – Initial doubts and hesitations before taking the plunge with Him or Her

In previous blogs I spoke about all the different ideas and side hustles I considered before coming across Affiliate Marketing. Before we get to that this week has been busy on the TikTok front with views growing and exceeding 1200 followers. Thank you all for being part of the journey.

It’s been tough at home with my father’s health and we have a meeting with social care to setup carers and equipment in the house to help him. Old age is a very sad and scary thing. We have to make things as comfortable as we can for him. It’s the least we can do for our parents.

In the 9-5 we presented our findings to the client and they were extremely pleased with the work, in fact they want us to do more so looks like the contract will be extended. I also co-presented a Lean Yellow Belt course in person in London which had rave reviews. These are all skills and experience I  apply in to my affiliate marketing business.

So, having decided that Affiliate Marketing was the route I would take to financial freedom I will talk you through what I found and tried and my experience with these programs. #Frustrating

Instagram and social media

It was browsing social media where I would see reels from people who are making money from affiliate marketing. I would see videos of somebody pointing in four corners of the video with the amount of money they made yesterday, this month or since last year. They would always say how easy it is and how anyone can do it. “Just read in the caption what to do”. It would be going to click bank, picking a niche, getting your affiliate link, going to Pinterest, making a post, putting your link in the ad and watch the money roll in. EASY!

I tried it many many times. I got links from click bank for a health supplement that helps weight loss and also a book that will help new parents get their baby to sleep through the night. In both cases I got messages from Pinterest about not being allowed to have affiliate links, in my posts. The trick I used was to go to ‘tinyURL’ and have the link changed to a smaller one and then repost it. I probably got 20-30 views but no sales. Back then I didn’t use TikTok and I didn’t take it seriously because I just thought it was a place for young kids to joke about and have some entertainment.

So having done exactly what I was promised it didn’t work, I found it quite disheartening. Out of desperation I took my link and I found Facebook groups that were dedicated to parents and I posted the link in the chat. I also searched for people that specifically had the problem of getting their kids to sleep and directly messaged them through Facebook messenger. Striking up a conversation and then suggested the link to them. Not a single person bought anything, in fact I had one angry husband message me back saying “stop hounding my wife leave us alone”. Too many FALSE STARTS

The Phoenix changed everything

Frustrated and down I carried on learning and looking because even though it didn’t work so far, I thought so many people are actually doing it. I just need to work out what they’re doing because the concept of affiliate marketing sounded like it was the right thing to do. Then I came across an ad by this Australian guy describing how he has worked out a method that is proved to work that will guarantee an income using affiliate marketing. He came across very friendly genuine and honest, and he was a Family Guy, and seemed very trustworthy. Having watched a very long video of him telling his life story and what he done and what is achieved this sounded like exactly what I was looking for. Family Guy trying to do the best for his wife and kids and make the life that they wanted and to be financially free. That sounded like me!

This involved buying their program called ‘Phoenix reloaded’,  buying the basic package of training courses on how to set things up. But as you can imagine it was a series of upsell for templates, email swipes, done for you material etc. this was a completely different level looking back to what rubbish people were pushing on me. I learnt all the important basics of affiliate marketing. Rather than going to click bank I was introduced to warrior plus and how to find a high ticket item which you had to get approval from the vendor of the item to qualify for an affiliate link. And it was based on data, of the number of courses sold and they were measured by what was called a gravity number.

The idea was to get about five or six different links to different products and put them into a piece of software called  Click Magick. What this would do was take your five affiliate links to 5 different products package them into one affiliate link as a rotator link. What this meant was every time somebody clicks this link it wouldn’t just keep showing the same one offer but it could be one of the five different offers,  giving a higher chance that somebody may click because I don’t keep seeing the same thing all the time.

Having got the rotator link, the next stage I learnt was to how to promote that link. The method they taught and it was the only method was to use solo ads. Solo ads are clicks that you buy from somebody who has a large email list and will send your link to relevant people within the niche, you’re working in. So, for example you could spend $300 on 320 clicks. What was good is that they recommended specific people and a site called Udimi, Which is a directory of people that do solo ads. It’s very difficult to find people to trust so going on the recommendations I found two different people and went ahead and bought in total around 600 clicks.

I also learnt about what an auto responder is. This is a piece of software that allows you to capture the email addresses and names of people that click your link and collect them in a database which then becomes your email list. Your email list grows overtime and you end up with hundreds and thousands of people on your list, which you can then overtime send offers to i.e. other links that you have in the niche you’re working in that should interest these people.

I needed a sales funnel to allow me to capture the email and name and then send them into the various offers that I had created. This was my first introduction to click funnels which is an amazing piece of software code developed by Russell Brunson, who is one of Dean‘s mentors and who wrote the forward for the iceberg effect book.

So, another piece of software to buy was Getresponse. I learnt to use it and many of it features so I could create different email lists and then use it to create an email sequence that automatically sends out emails at fixed times for many weeks and months with the done for you emails that they provided. They recommended having 50-60 emails in the sequence. 

I was all set. All I had to do now was send my rotator link to the solo ad person who would send it to 600 people I thought would then click it. Seeing one of the five offers, buy one and then money will start rolling in, easy. You set a period of time over which the solo ads will be sent out as usually a few days. I checked my email list every day and over a period of about five days I had gained 350 people on my email list. I was so happy I thought this is amazing, I’ve now got 350 people that I can send links to and they’re going to buy and I’m going to make money. Out of those 350 people one 2 or two people bought products which gave me I total commission of $108. I was so happy I thought right this is it. I just need to keep doing this and before I know it all my troubles will go away. Weeks and weeks went by and nothing happened the email list didn’t grow, nobody responded to my email sequence. I didn’t get any other sales. I was stuck. In fact I still don’t have access to withdraw that $108 as you have to make at least 5 sales from 5 different vendors before they release the money!

Well, guess what? There was another upsell, which was training on how to do Google ads which would boost your traffic. In fact it was sold as “get unlimited traffic using this method”. So I went ahead and purchased this and it’s training and I set up Google ads. It felt like the most complicated thing I’ve ever done, I didn’t understand the software, how it worked or anything meant you just had to blindly follow the steps that they gave which I did. And guess how many sales and emails I got nothing. This was a spend of $5 a day and absolutely nothing came in and I was just wasting money. A month or two on I emailed the support team and said to them I’ve done every single thing they said and none of their promises have come true and I would like to leave the program and get a full refund. They were completely honest and true to their word, and they returned all the money that I’ve spent on the training and upsells. They were good people, it’s the mentorship they offered that I needed but was too expensive.

Even though this didn’t work, what these guys had taught me was the basics, the foundations of affiliate marketing. I had learnt.:

1. Picking a niche, and how to get your affiliate link

2. Setting up a rotator link

3. Setting up an auto responder

4. Setting up an email list as well as the importance of an email list

5. How to make a basic funnel/capture page

6. Creating an email sequence

7. Running solo ads

8. Setting up a Google ad (well sort off!)

9. Importance of driving traffic

And even though this wasn’t very successful, this actually gave me the bug to make sure I did this as I could see that it does work for them so it must work for me once I’ve sorted out the traffic. To me the problem was traffic that I couldn’t get to people or to the right people that would actually buy these products. The difference was that these guys had email lists, multiple ones with 9,000 or 10,000 people on them. They had got to the point where if they wanted to earn some money or go on holiday or even buy a car they would take one of their email templates put their links in it and send it to 10,000 people and they were guaranteed money coming in. They sold it as make money whenever you want it. And even though this sounded great something didn’t quite sit right with me. From a moral standpoint it didn’t feel like I was doing anything for these people other than throwing a link at them. The guys running this course had a plan to get to an email list with 1 million people in it because they knew the power of an email list that they could just send links and they knew that someone would buy and they were guaranteed to make money with every single email.

There wasn’t any relationship with the people that they were throwing these links to, it was just a numbers game. The more people you had on your list the higher chance you had of getting sales therefore you will get money.

That was what I wanted to do, but I wanted to do it more ethically where I didn’t feel guilty or like I was hounding people it felt greedy. He didn’t sit right with me. This isn’t the sort of way I wanted to operate.

More Google ads

Well, I thought I know how this works now. I know how to do all the mechanics of it. I just need to get traffic. I just need to get people to go to my link. So I thought I need to learn more about Google ads. I tried doing it myself creating an ad, setting up my link, picking regions of the world be sent to. I used YouTube videos to learn more about Google ads and how to do them and overtime I’ve got into a bit of a rhythm and I thought, it would work. Every time I set an ad it would get approved and then nothing would happen. I wouldn’t get any leads. I wouldn’t get anything at all other than just wasting $5 a day.

I searched around for courses on Google ads and via Udemy found one by a guy who had his own affiliate marketing company called the Websprout Academy. it was a really good course not very expensive and he was really good how he explained the ads and how they work and the importance of how it should be set up. So I went through the entire course set up my and and guess what? Nothing happened in fact something went wrong and my ads account was blocked. I must’ve violated a policy or rule, but I was unaware of exactly what happened but it meant that I couldn’t do any ads on Google. Then I tried Microsoft ads and was stuck in the same loop of creating an ad but nothing coming of it and not having enough knowledge about what’s wrong, I really needed a coach.

I came across via one of the affiliate marketing groups on Facebook somebody who said they help people set up their ads and they guarantee that they work and they guarantee that you will get leads every single day. I got in touch with them and they seemed really good that they knew what they were talking about. For $100 they set up the ad for me on Google ads because right now that problem had been sorted and the account was running again. They  take control of your screen and then they set up the ad for you, they create a landing page, with a basic ad which then goes to a form where they collect the email and name and then they connect it to your auto responder. This whole thing took about 30 minutes and they said once it’s approved you’re guaranteed 10 every single day.

Guess what? It didn’t work and funnily enough suddenly I couldn’t contact these people and they completely disappeared. Even though the ad was set up properly they gave no support and just disappeared afterwards meaning I had no one to help and tweak anything. I tried to contact them, and I even reported them to try and get my money back but nothing came of it.

Had enough

By now as you can imagine I’ve had about enough of all of this I thought this isn’t going work. It just felt like people are playing on your vulnerabilities and insecurities and getting a quick buck out of you and then disappearing. Lots of false promises, lots of guarantees, but when you actually look at it, they got some money out of you and you got nothing.

So I was really disheartened by now, months had gone by and having spent quite a bit of money I had had nothing to show for it. What am I supposed to say to my wife about my new business venture that’s going to bring money in for us.

I spent the coming weeks and months learning more about the skills that I had learned regarding autoresponders, email lists, click funnels and to create a vision in my head that actually this is good and it does work. The affiliate marketing model was something that’s really good, but I just had to work out how to make it run for me.

I then spent time looking at more affiliate marketing programmes, webinars and courses. One was Rapid Profit Machine, this is a reputable one but still required costs and coaching. All promised the same things, all has costs but what came across loud and clear to me was that I NEEDED A COACH! That was the only way if I was to succeed. 

I had to face the fact that I can’t do this alone because I will just be running round in circles for decades. I needed to find somebody who’s actually done this but somebody that I can trust who truly wants to help me and knows how to do it.

What happened next? Was that I found two people that I completely trusted they both could help me but both of their paths were slightly different. So what should I do? I thought who shall I go with. This decision was a fork in the road that would decide what my affiliate marketing future would look like. I would have to invest (notice I said invest and not a cost!) some money to be coached, so I was happy that it will happen but do I go with him or do I go with her?

Next time, I will tell you all about him and all about her two amazing people that gave me my confidence back and my faith in affiliate marketing as being the way forward to achieving financial freedom and creating the lifestyle that I wanted for me and my family.

Please let me know in the comments any thoughts on what you’ve read here and what you think you’ve learnt and what you think you’ll start to do different. What will you stop doing now and what will you start doing? I’d love to hear from you, so please do leave comments below.

Thank you for reading, I hope it helped you in some way. You are only a few steps behind me!

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Until next time, take care.

Atif

#Atif’s Academy