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Newbie Affiliate Marketing - Trying, but failing, PLEASE HELP!

by newbiemarketingguy
18 replies
Hello everyone,

I am brand new to the clickbank affiliate marketing world, been doing it for about 3 weeks now so be gentle in your responses. I have made two sales, but I am dissatisfied that is all. Please allow me to tell you about my strategy and please critique it, tell me what I am doing right/wrong and how to make it better. I REALLY want to become a FT online marketer, but I am now doing very well at the moment. Here is my strategy:


Craigslist--I am marketing cashforsurveys.com through craigslist. I am offering under the jobs category. When people email me, I send them my CB link. I have had about 30 people email me and I have sent the CB link, but I have not made a single sale. I think that part of that has to do with the fact that getcashforsurveys.com makes the user pay a sign up fee which I think is BS because it's hard to make a conversion like that. I've heard the craigslist market for work from home jobs is great and the gravity on the getcashforsurveys product is high. I still think this strategy is solid, but I have received no sales from it and I have been doing it for a few weeks.



My second strategy is to market weight loss products through FB and twitter. I created new accounts solely for the purpose of marketing CB weight loss products. I go to groups and weight loss pages on FB and promote my links on the wall of site or comment on their posts. Sometime I send those people personal messages with my link. After a short while of doing this, I get messages that my link was reported as offensive and my account gets blocked. Very frustrating. My strategy with twitter is similar. I follow people who are into the weight loss niche and then I make tweets with my CB links and individually message people with the link. After doing that for a few minutes, my account became suspended and that is currently where I stand. I have no confidence with what I am doing.


Someone please help me. I have sunk many, many hours into this and have made two sales total, equaling about $40 dollars. I feel like I am working hard and NOT smart. I really want to work smart. Please assist, I would be quite grateful!
Thanks!!!
#affiliate #failing #marketing #newbie
  • Profile picture of the author DBMEDIALLC
    Both of your strategies for generating traffic are low quality. Have you considered building a site and doing SEO? You're hustling a Clickbank product to FB and Twitter users, while you might get sales, this isn't a long-term business model in my opinion. Same goes for Craigslist. Your ads are probably getting flagged for spam. I say try building a brand and a site that's useful to your target audience and promote affiliate products through that. You have to provide value if you expect to get traffic and make money off the internet.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeverett
    This strategy has several flaws in it.

    The first thing that I would do if I were you is to get a blog set up for the niche you are promoting. Write good helpful information on that blog about how to solve problems that your target market has. Then link to the products that you are promoting in the article you write.

    Here is an example of what I am talking about.

    Everett Industries: Communication Breakdown

    Then use your facebook and twitter accounts to let people know about that helpful article that you just posted.
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    • Profile picture of the author newbiemarketingguy
      Hey guys,

      Thanks for the advice! I agree 100% that my current method sucks and needs severe work, but I still don't understand how. For the weight loss niche, I can easily create a dotcom website or blog and write good content and promote affiliate products through that site, but how do I actually drive large amount of free traffic to my website/blog? The website or blog is useless without tons of traffic being sent there.

      Unfortunately, I don't know a thing about SEO, but I would LOVE to learn. Please share any tips with me. I can easily create a blog or website, but without SEO and begin top ranked when people type the words "weight loss" in a google search, I am probably not going to get traffic to the site. No traffic=no sales.... I do have value to add through a site, I'm dead just stuck on getting free traffic to the site.

      Any tips would be highly appreciated!
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      • Profile picture of the author AuthorityRush
        Some may not agree with this, but...I say forget the blog! It'll take a lot of time and work and is the VERY long way to sales.

        Rather, cruise the forums in your niche. See what problems people are having. Then either create a simple PDF that helps with that problem or buy PLR rights and rebrand the information to you.

        Go to fiverr.com and get an ecover made up. Try to use the URL as the name of the ebook. It's just for congruency.

        Set up a simple squeeze page...you can do this very easily and there are lots of tutorials around. You can just start off with a simple HTML squeeze page.

        Then write a welcome email with the download link for your free report. Right under that, just add, in big letters, "You Need to Check This Out!" - and hyperlink that to your affiliated site's sales page.

        Do the same thing on your download page. Have the link to download the report with a big link under it like above. Or visa versa.

        Once that's done, (it's quicker than it looks)...start driving traffic. Either buy traffic - solo ads rock! - FB ads and so on...or you can try a multitude of free strategies...Youtube videos, slide share sites, PDF & Doc sharing, forum marketing, etc...

        And you can still continue with your current strategy. The only difference is, don't send them to the affiliates sales page. Send all traffic to your squeeze page instead.

        Then you can add some more emails into your autoresponder to either continue pushing the initial offer, or/and sell other offers as well.

        Hope that's clear?
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    • Profile picture of the author azgold
      Originally Posted by jeverett View Post

      This strategy has several flaws in it.

      The first thing that I would do if I were you is to get a blog set up for the niche you are promoting. Write good helpful information on that blog about how to solve problems that your target market has. Then link to the products that you are promoting in the article you write.

      Here is an example of what I am talking about.

      Everett Industries: Communication Breakdown

      Then use your facebook and twitter accounts to let people know about that helpful article that you just posted.
      Umm, I have never seen a blog like yours. At the top it says that it's a funny video site but the content is three different niches spread over a few articles. I'm interested to know if that works for you.

      I'm not sure that it's a good example for the OP to follow, especially when he's just getting his feet wet. Actually, I am sure but I don't want to be insensitive.
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  • Profile picture of the author Internet Undertaking
    Visit Affilorama.com; should still be a great free resource. Many internet marketers making money today used that as a guide to get started in IM.
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  • Profile picture of the author becksoliver
    hello
    a great way to sell products through clickbank is by using youtube videos - do you know how that works? happy to tell you more if not
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  • Profile picture of the author Hannah Gardner
    I do not know much about affiliate marketing strategies. From what I understand in your post, the best part is that you made some sales! Not many newbies do! The negative aspect seems to be related to your strategy. But I see that you already guess where things do not go so well. So you should try to find out more on improving these strategies. And you already have some good suggestions here.
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  • Profile picture of the author Victor Edson
    You'll get higher conversions building a list of prospects and sending them affiliate emails. Plus, when you build a list, you retain all those leads(that's your massive traffic!)

    Just setup a simple squeeze page and write 7-10 emails then test your conversion rates.

    Instead of spamming fb & twitter, read a few posts in the social media section about how to use them the right way.

    Congrats on your 2 sales btw.. you're off to a nice start.
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  • Profile picture of the author duplication
    drive all your prospects to a splash page where you capture there email address. Now you have a way to sell to your customers over and over. Always give away multiple freebies, good freebies. Then when a good product comes along broadcast it to your list. You will get more than two sales with a good list and a great product.
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  • Profile picture of the author FrankieTP2
    Hi! The first thing you need to make sure of is that you promote a good quality product. Getcashforsurveys sucks! It can have the greatest gravity, but you will get lots of refunds because the product sucks. And that is the case with all survey related products.

    Find a product that actually helps people. Once you make sure the product is good, you will feel much better and confident promoting it, and your efforts will not be in vain.

    Another advice I have for you is that you get into a niche that you have some experience or knowledge about. In your writing/communication people if you really know what you are talking about. And, of course, if people feel that you do know what you are talking about, they will feel more confident following your advice and clicking on your affiliate links.

    As for marketing methods, there are lots you can find in this forum. Find ONE you like and stick with it for a decent amount of time to see how it works for you. Don't feel shy to add your personal touch. Do not try 2 or 3 methods at the same time. Try only ONE and make it work for you.

    I hope that is helpful.
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    I Bet My Wife I Could Make $100 Bucks In Only 3 Days...
    WITH NO PRODUCT - NO LIST - NO JV'S and NO TRAFFIC.

    Here's What Happened... Click HERE To Find Out The Results!

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  • Profile picture of the author maidenim
    first of all congrats on the sales! Most people don't get 1 sale, yet alone 2. So that should give you belief that it can be done. You just have to change things a bit. Are you doing any paid traffic at all? If not then I would jump on that, build a list and also do some adswaps. That's what I'm doing and it's working great for me.
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    • Profile picture of the author mattierocks
      Nice work on the sales! And no offense, but your post makes it sound a little like what you're doing is spamming to make a quick buck! Maybe make sure that the products you're selling are actually good (not that you haven't), and you're targeting people that would really benefit from it. That way takes longer but is likely to be more sustainable if you have done your research in your niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mischa Lominy
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
      I use YouTube a lot as a promotion tool and here is a link to a WSO which explains an excellent method for doing this YouTube Charisma.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christopher Fox
    One word I don't see in your post:

    Competition.

    You are not creating a site or trying to be an affiliate marketer in a vacuum. There is a finite number of people who will even search for methods of weightloss or mmo. So, you and every other IMer in your fileds is competing for a finite amount of potential customers.

    Yes, yes, evergreen niches, always going to be money to be made, but this also means stiff competition, and the stiffer the competition, the more solid and thought out your plan needs to be.

    And you don't seem to have much patience, either ...

    Most people who ever delve into IMing will not end up being self-employed IMers. No, not everyone will succeed, not everyone who does succeed will make it huge (vs. an average type pay rate).

    I don't have any advice for you, other than to make sure you are being realistic about this all, what it takes, the length of time it takes, the fact that most people who ever make a dime on da net pretty much make that - a dime.

    3 weeks into it, in heavy, heavy competition niches, and you seem disappointed. You got people dropping tens of thousands of dollars to drive traffic to the niches you are in.

    No advice, just a suggestion to keep it all in perspective ...
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    One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.

    - Seldom Seen Smith
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  • Profile picture of the author drlelong
    It's all about getting eyeballs on your offers.

    Craigslist traffic works, but you need to have the right offer and overcome the jobseeker mentality (if you're promoting a work from home or biz opp offer).

    Ranking YouTube videos works like a charm.

    You'll need to learn how to do this though.

    Mostly, it's about finding the right keywords, then building backlinks (there are good Fiverr gigs that can help get this kickstarted).
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  • Profile picture of the author masterqif
    I have 2 ways for this:
    1. Create your own website/blog about your niche. Then create backlinks to the website.
    2. use PPC - adword, bing ads (bing ads support affiliate and they allow direct linking)
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  • Profile picture of the author Poonlarp
    Hello, I think you should learn more about Internet Marketing from some membership site in Warrior Forum. It will help you to succeed short time.
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