Insights from just a normal dude who’s done this hundreds of times and sold a company he and 2 other normal dudes built & sold for $100,000,000 in 7 years (2022).
The #1 Secret to profiting insanely on AMZ or .com website (Direct To Consumer?
Market Product Fit
not
Product Market Fit
Let me explain. The above starts with Product, but you need to ALWAYS start with the Market.
It goes against standard, accepted marketing practices.
Create a great product, great brand, and they will come.
Kind of like the Kevin Costner Movie “Field of Dreams”. If you build it, they will come.
Before you do anything…ANYTHING…analyze the crap out of the MARKET. Period!
Who are they? (Ideal Customer Profile / Avatar)
How big is the market?
What are they willing to spend for the solution they are looking for?
Can you get your Cost of Goods Sold down to 1/3 – 1/5 of the price they are willing to pay?
What do THEY want? What do they really NEED that will give them what they want?
You guys are all talking about pain points blah blah…that is important. But as many of the best copywriter guys say, you need to help guide the customer down the path of discovery.
But in today’s age, you can get there by gauging and analyzing customer sentiment.
Read reviews of the customers in the market for the top 10 best sellers.
Analyze the top ten best sellers and what they are delivering. Can you find a spot in the top ten?
What can you do better with your version of the solution?
What is going to be YOUR Brand’s (or Product Brand’s) Magic?
How can you deliver the solution in such a way that makes them feel something with your product?
The extreme example is DrinkBrez. @drinkbrez @iamshackelford Nick Shackelford his product literally gets you stoned. You definitely will feel something with his solution.
But what he’s really selling is a change of state. Going from Stressed out with Anxiety to Mellowed out & Checked out. An easier sale than many…
Once you have all this insight, then build the product, build the brand, build the content around the two of those in such a way that it is simply packaging that your Ideal Customer is already expecting to see.
Conversion/purchase is just a natural extension or natural byproduct (a reward to you, really) for giving them EXACTLY what they want.
Then conversion/purchase on AMZ or your .com website is just a natural extension or natural byproduct (a reward to you, really) for giving them EXACTLY what they want.
That’s how we built a company from scratch on AMZ in 7 years that sold for $100M in 2022.
We did that by doing so 15 times with 15 different brands in the same category/niche on AMZ & eBay. Didn’t even really get to DTC with them all.
Because, in any given category, different Ideal Customer Profiles are searching in the same AMZ Search Results Pages.
Examples?
Different price point sensitivity: $7.99 versus $10.99 versus $21.99.
Different size sensitivities: 10ml, 1 ounce, 4 ounce, 8 ounce, 16 ounce, 32 ounce, 1 gallon, 5 gallon. You laugh, but we had different brands for different sizes and prices.
This is pure gold…seriously, and is THE secret sauce.
I’ve done this in hundreds of categories in several businesses.
I can help you do so, too, and help you analyze your market before you make a huge mistake.
Send me a DM and let’s find a way for YOU to conquer your next niche…carve out a piece of the Ocean of Profits pie.
A small piece these days can turn into $1M ARR in 6+ months. Easy peasy!
Let’s do it!
Thank you for reading this far…seriously, message and let’s figure out to get your next big win together.
3 Month Progress Update with insane results for a small client for their AMZ 3P and DTC eCommerce.
3 Month Progress Update with insane results for a small client for their AMZ 3P and DTC eCommerce.
[FULL Case Study with ALL the numbers revealed]
DTC ONLY
.com Website RESULT: $2,411,283 ARR in increased revenue for the same number of visitors.
HOW:
1) Changes we made: Added 90 Day Guarantee, 250,000 Happy Customers, and Free Shipping on USD$99+ to all website pages.
Added trust elements in store checkout pages and made some image carousel changes. Many of the changes did not take effect until July and some major changes did not until the end of the month.
Added whole site UI/UX update & Qualifying Survey directing users to detail pages.
No-brainers? Yes, absolutely!
Concerns we had?
Refunds would spike. Loss of revenue due to free shipping.
Goals: Increase in Revenue Per User to the website, increase Average Order Value, increase conversion rate, reduce Abandoned Carts. All of this without increasing refund rates.
2) Refunds: Comparing May 2025, June 2025, and July 2025, they are all LOWER than 2024 for the same periods. July 2025 refunds are 62.8% lower than July 2024.
3) Revenue Per User: Revenue per user is up 97.6% in July versus last year, even though we had 3.2 fewer website users. If July’s numbers are extrapolated onto the total number of users for last year, it yields an increase in revenue for 100,975 users for the additional $23.88 in Revenue = USD$2,411,283 in increased revenue for the same number of visitors.
4) Average Order Value: Magento data used accounts for Retail, & Wholesale, and Phone Orders. But if you look at all three months, they are all showing an increase in the AOV.
July was a 45.2% increase compared to the same period last year.
5) Shipping Sales Revenue: It does not show a dip in total dollars, but if you look at it as a percentage of Revenue, then yes we did lose about $20k in shipping revenue in July comparatively, but we added USD$215,196.46 for a net gain of ~$195,200.
6) Conversion Rate/Purchase Rate: Purchase rate in June was up even though we had several website outages and were out of stock for the top seller hero product. We really saw the fruits of our labor in July. An increase of 19.1% in Conversion to Purchase.
7) Cart Abandonment: Please check out the image following this section (give it time). It details the WHOLE shopping cart experience in data. It took me quite a bit of time to digest what was happening. July is at the top.
Long story short: We have drastically improved the User’s intention to buy. So, even though our Cart Abandonment is up a little (3.8%), bounce rate is up a little 4.9% everything that really matters is going atmospheric.
Look at Add to Cart. 37.3% increase in the number of items added to cart in July. So, that explains why there was an increase in Abandonment, but we still sold significantly more.
More people are beginning checkout too (up 72.5% in July), so more of them are completing checkout (and probably more are calling to order by phone).
Conclusion: Basically, we are making great progress and have just started making some headway with much more potential progress to make.
AMZ ONLY
1) Revenue – Best Month Ever: We had our best month ever on AMZ, and it is up 26.4% over the same period last year. We beat the previous record set in May 2025.
June & May were also better than last year. (I started helping them May 1st)
2) Conversion Rate Boost: We made some modest changes (meaning there’s plenty more we can/will do). With most changes focused on their best-selling product and most of them affecting June & July. We updated the AMZ Detail Page bullet points to include verbiage about accepting returns (this is in the food/beverage niche, and they normally don’t have returns or refunds) and added changes to some of the images.
The results for July are an astounding 74.5% of all visitors to the top-selling product’s Product Detail Page purchase the product. Up from an already very high 45.9% in April (before any changes), that is an increase of 63% conversion rate for the AMZ detail page.
“Increase of 63% conversion rate for the AMZ detail page”
We made more changes on 7/30 to the entire image carousel, which should give us even more lift, and will make more changes to the bullet points that we haven’t even touched yet.
3) New FBA Logistics: I made changes to our FBA Inventory Send-to-AMZ process and instituted a new SOP with their in-house AMZ Channel Manager (I’m training him). The result:
Annual Savings for AMZ FBA for just this portion = 13,058 Units x $0.75 per unit ($1,080.55 / 1,440) = $9,798.49 Annually!
Sincerely grateful for the opportunity to serve you,
Dan
P.S. What do you think?
P.P.S. If you need help growing your DTC or AMZ 3P business, DM me to get on a call.
I bet you’ll never guess either of these two. $100 Contest for everyone! Bonus: Hilariously Funny Must-Read Life Lesson at the end!
WARNING: 100% of this article was written by a HUMAN. You may find grammar, typos, and other sexy things in here that an AI would of not let pass. This is Day 1 of a 30-day post-every-day sprint, so please don’t forget to follow me. Read time ~ 5-8 Minutes
Typically, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) are your everyday items.
However, for grins & giggles, I’m going to share the largest Consumer Package Goods I’ve worked with. Which dovetails off of the Marketing Funnels post I just wrote & allows me to reveal the weirdest Omni-Channel & Omni-Medium Marketing Funnel I used to run & grow a business on autopilot…this was in the year 2000, but you can still use it today.
I bet you will never guess this CPG.
I’ll give you a couple of hints:
1) Size: the ones I bought & sold were 14 feet wide and 70 feet long
2) On the scale of importance after Breathing, there are only two more important items to Humans for survival.
Got any guesses?
Ok, number one on the survivalist’s checklist is WATER. Without it, you could barely last 3 days.
I bet you have number two. And no, sweetheart, it is not your make-up and curling iron. Even that fancy gas-powered one that doesn’t require electricity. LOL!
Yep, number two is FOOD. And if you’ve ever watched Naked and Afraid 😱, some of the things they eat on there totally make you cringe. I’m pretty certain I would just try to make it to the end without eating any of that stuff. To be honest, I think I’d rather eat tree bark than any of that stuff.
So, what do you think number three might be?
Yep, you got it. It is SHELTER. And I’m not talking about a few sticks strapped together with vines that let all the mosquitoes in late at night and eat you alive, like they do on Naked and Afraid. Ouch!
Honestly, I would likely opt out of the competition on night number one, just because I can’t handle mosquitoes.
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All right, back to the great reveal.
The largest Consumer Packaged Goods ( CPG) I’ve built a Marketing Funnel for is a home. A single-family, single-wide mobile home.
What? You’re probably thinking that’s not a CPG.
I beg to differ. They absolutely are! They come wrapped in plastic, just like half of the CPG stuff on Amazon, when they are delivered to you brand new.
SIDENOTE: I do have a kind of life lesson to share at the end of this post that has to do with this. So, please keep reading to the end. It’s totally worth it, and you’ll likely get a HUGE laugh out of it.
I’ve been inside a few of these Mobile Homes while they were under construction. It was actually the double-wide kind built in two halves.
I was at the Great Western Homes plant in Stayton, Oregon. It’s an amazing facility.
Imagine a factory the size of two football fields put together. The best I recall, 2003ish, there are about 30 or so of these half-of-a-home being built all at once. They are all on wheels. They go to one station, and 3 to 4 people jump inside them and do their specific piece of work inside the home.
It was kind of crazy….imagine these are moving…stop in one place…and then there is a mad scramble to jump in…get your work done…and jump out. I don’t remember exactly how much time it was at my station, but I think like 5-10 minutes.
My team was the water heater plumbers & electricians.
I was jumping in with them when they were putting the water heater inside the home, so the home was pretty far along and probably 80% finished. They connect it and since my new weird appliance above the water heater in this 24″ x 24″ x 7″ closet is a total new (pain in the ass) issue they had to learn to deal with it during this 5-10 minute game of musical homes.
I’ve got safety glasses on and earmuff-like ear protection on. A dust mask.
It’s pitch black inside, and so loud, you can’t hear anything specific. Saws and drills, and hammers are all going off at the same time, all around you. Fiberglass insulation is falling down on your head.
It’s so dusty that you’re being choked, even with a dust mask, dust gets in. You feel itchy all over, hot, stressed, and scared that something might fall on your head from the guys running around above you.
This kind of had the feeling of Mission: Impossible.
My new team’s job was already hard, and I just made it even more difficult. So, I’m sure these guys were not in love with the idea, but we made it happen.
I was an Energy Engineer working with the Department of Energy (DOE).
This was an Energy Conservation Program that was going to develop into Federal Rebates. But we had to prove 1) they saved energy, 2) they dried the air from all that moisture and 3) there was little to no difficulty having consumers embrace the technology, 4) no additional impact to the homeowner.
These were a brand-new appliance technology. They were called Exhaust Air Heat Pump Water Heaters.
These new mobile homes are built so tightly for Energy Star Rating Efficiency (meaning they are airtight). Because of this, you now have a problem where the moisture from your perspiration, expiration (breathing out), showers, cooking, etc. The moisture builds up inside the home and becomes a problem. Basically, all that moisture can build up and cause mold, and we don’t want that.
So this little device is a very compact, small air conditioner-type appliance that is mounted above the water heater inside this 24″ x 24″ x 7′ closet.
On top of the EAHP is one small duct, kind of like what’s on a clothes dryer. And on the sides are two copper fittings for water-in and water-out of the hot water tank. The front of it has a filter for the air flow into the unit. The air flows out of the unit up through the ceiling.
They are connected to a timer for the whole house air exhaust & set to go off several times of day with extended times during the typical wake-time hours of the homeowners.
The secret to the technology is that the EAHP takes the heat out of the moist air and then puts that heat inside the water heater. Then it dumps that stale, colder air outside.
By running as the whole house exhaust fan, it creates a vacuum in the house that brings fresh air into the home through vents built into the home.
So, for the DOE Energy Star Project, my job was to hook up testing equipment to 30 different homes that had these EAHPs. Then determine how much energy was saved for each of them.
Long story short, they worked great, and the DOE had a rebate program for them.
I’m not sure what came of the program or how many homes ended up with these in them. But I met a lot I really wonderful people.
So, to dovetail on the Marketing Funnel Article before, I’m going to share the weirdest omnichannel marketing funnel I’ve ever used.
If you’ve used exactly this Marketing Funnel and can prove it, I will Zelle or PayPal you $100. So, this is a contest with $100 on the line for YOU! 🤑 🏆
This is it! The Weirdest Omni-Channel Marketing Funnel that I have used. Well, before Omni-Channel was even a thing.
THE mobile home buyer prospect funnel mapped out:
Classified Ad in Penny Saver —> 800# 24/7 voicemail message —> VM sells home reveals address sends prospect to home address —> flyer at home sells seller financed program & qualifies prospect —> prospect calls another 24/7 VM to get open house information —> all prospects show up qualified to house at same the time & day —> buyer frenzy ensues and the first person to put money down & sign seller financed promissory note wins.
EFFECTIVE? Holy crap Yes!!!
Omni-Channel / Omni-Media ✔️
If you’ve done exactly this, send me a DM to collect your $100 prize.
Here’s the bonus Life Lesson that was the spark that lit the flame of passion for creating this post for You.
LIFE LESSON: Learn to laugh at yourself & your circumstances…especially when they are terrible. Like hot, sweaty, itchy, scared, choking on dust, who couldn’t hear himself scream or see his hands in front of his face, ME. I got out of that Mobile Home Plant and laughed soooo hard in the parking lot. 🤣
If you found this fun & a blessing to read, please like & share with a friend. I’m just getting started, so please be patient. I am certain I will share with you Golden Nuggets of Hard-Earned Life & Business Wisdom that will bless you.
If this opened your mind up to the possibilities of how funnels can be used across multiple channels and mediums, please give me a comment below on how you might use something like this in a different way than you’ve never thought of before in your business or job.
And if you think this is cool enough to share with your friends, family, and dearly loved ones, please share/repost it.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you!
Sincerely,
Dan Wisdom
Ⓒ 2025 – All rights reserved – Kickass Marketer LLC
Kickass Marketer – Your Team + Me = Your Profits Growing!
WARNING: 100% of this article was written by a HUMAN. You may find grammar, typos, and other sexy things in here that an AI would of not let pass. This is Day 1 of a 30-day post-every-day sprint, so please don’t forget to follow me. Read time ~ 5 Minutes
What is a Marketing Funnel?
It never ceases to amaze me how little people in our industries (Product Marketing, Digital Marketing, eCommerce, & Growth Marketing) know about the true mechanics of funnels.
I think many people have seen the graphic diagram of a very large funnel opening on the top that gradually gets narrower along the way down to the spout.
I’ve even met people freshly hired into our Marketing Team who throw around the acronyms of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. When you ask them what they are & how they have used them, they have a puzzled look on their faces. I’ll explain those in a sec, but first, I want to give you my definition of what a Marketing Funnel is:
Kickass Marketer’s Definition: A Marketing Funnel is a path for a prospective customer for your product or service to follow that will build Awareness —> that leads to Consideration —> creating an Intention —> that results in a Conversion (purchase or other desired action).
For me, a funnel is best thought of in real-time when thinking about a website visitor’s journey. When I used to speak at workshops or Masterminds, I would use this analogy:
Imagine a website is like a flat piece of wood, like a table. Looking down at the table from above, imagine each and every link or button (basically anything that the user can click or tap) is the top of a little funnel away from that page. For me, the funnels on the website are those. Each one leads the visitor down a path.
Now, imagine that the website visitor is a beautiful shiny marble. Our marble may not know where she wants to go, and it is our job to help the marble find her way to the conversion.
So, ideally, when I intend to increase conversion rates for a website or webpage, I imagine that table with the little funnel holes. Ideally, for the best conversion rates, a visitor coming to our site lands on the website, and there is only 1 very large funnel in the middle of the page.
The marble lands and slowly, in a beautiful downward spiral, finds her way home. Boom! A Conversion!
A good user experience, as Google would define it. Visitor/Marble to Google wanted a widget. Google thought you had the best choice of widgets based on their search query and sent them with all due trust to you. They found their way down the funnel to the widget. Purchased it and now they are on their merry way…NOT back to Google looking for the same widget.
If they do bounce back to Google. Shame on you. You gave them a bad user experience.
Enter the big bad wolf [Amazon.com]
But funnels have recently been turned on their heads…no wonder people are having a hard time knowing what the heck a Marketing Funnel is. Amazon, in all its wisdom, decided to use the same terminology and apply it to Amazon’s visitors/shoppers. It’s not wrong, it’s just a bit different. It is not constrained by time and is specific to customers new to your brand in the last 12 months.
But one thing you’ll notice is that in the old school Online Marketing Funnel process, of real-time funnels. Amazon’s funnel is not constrained by real-time (theirs is 12 months). Someone can be new to your brand (last 12 months) and become Aware, even Consider, and then place your item in the cart or wish list, then come back right before the wedding anniversary, 9 months later, and Purchase.
SINDENOTE: Tomorrow, I’ll blow this idea of a Marketing Funnel up and show you that it is not only constrained by time, but it truly can be Omni-Channel and Omni-Medium. I used this to sell the largest Consumer Packaged Good in existence. You will never guess what it is!
For Amazon, in their Brand Analytics Dashboard they call this Customer Journey Analytics.
Awareness = “Customers who searched your brand or viewed your product in search results without purchasing in the last 12 months.”
Consideration = “Customers who visited your detail page, or visited your brand store in the given time period without purchasing in the last 12 months.”
Intention = “Customers who added your products to their cart, wish list, or saved for later in the given time period without purchasing in the last 12 months.”
Purchase = “New to Brand Customers who did not purchase in the last 12 months.”
No wonder everyone is started to get confused. 😫
Kickass Marketing Secret#1 – Conversion is everything and it starts with a four-letter word/acronym!
There’s another concept you need to grasp. You’ve probably seen it, heard it, and think you know everything about it. Before I reveal this gem of an acronym please do not tap/swipe/button push me away when you see it. I promise you likely haven’t heard it presented quite like this before.
It kind of looks like the funnel huh? Not exactly.
Imagine now that this is like the lubricant that lines the funnel…greases the skids (as my old farmer friend Gordon would say). It helps this marble gain so much Buyer Intention Velocity™…{I think I might trademark that – just kidding} that she flies so fast through that spout she has no choice, but to convert.
It’s happened to you. Be honest! Some crafty Word Smith (aka Copy Writer) caught you at just the right time, had all the right copy (sweet talked you) and website elements (think count-down-timer) to get you to whip out your credit card so fast to get the order DONE that you don’t even remember, when its all over, all of the bonuses you’ll get with your purchase.
Attention
So, yes we have to get their Attention. On your website you need to help them self-qualify. Make the hole this marble needs/wants to find, glow so bright she gets attracted to it like a magnet.
I’ll go over a concept I developed decades ago called Click Momentum in more detail that increase Buyer Intention Velocity™ and develops into significant Buyer Momentum. And if you don’t like & follow this post now you may never get to see it.
When writing an ad this is the Hook. You have to get them to stop watching that silly cat video or that chick climbing into the oven. The type of Hook is specific to the prospects mental & emotional state in the moment. Sometimes you don’t know what will work the best until you run hundreds or thousands of test. Which leads me to:
Kickass Marketing Secret # 112 – Everything works & nothing works given enough time. Question everything, especially your own assumptions, and DO NOT take anything a client tells you for Gospel!
I’ve got so many HILARIOUSLY funny stories to tell you while I go over some very in-depth Case Studies in the next several days. These are from clients just in the last few weeks (like late May 2025). Again, make sure you follow, so you won’t miss out. One of the case studies I have lined up is the best know Brand in 19-40 year-old Women’s Collagen. They are on their way to $100M ARR and I found that their funnel was broken. I will reveal to you live on camera.
INTEREST
You need to then build interest. But, wait!
Let me reveal something of greater importance before hand.
Along the way from Interest to Desire and then to Action. We have to make sure we nail these three most important things. Thank you @dickiebush for reminding me of this recently:
In sales they often sale Always Be Selling…and online that is all we are doing.
I say Marketing = Communication
And the best Marketing is the best at communicating. And for Online Marketing we are always selling something. How good a job we do at this will increase our CONVERSION RATE.
We must sell the prospect that they need to make a CHANGE. They have a problem. We must set a spark, fan the flame of into a passion to want to make a change and then…
We must then sell them on the (our) method to make that CHANGE. Our solution to their problem is the BEST solution to put out that flame.
We must then sell them on why we are the BEST option to deliver that method/solution that will result in the CHANGE.
So, somewhere between #1 & 2 we shift to DESIRE and then we build that Buyer Intention Velocity™ to the point that we then just point them to the door (we are the best option) where they can get the prize.
In the shift from Interest to Desire, you need to handle all of their objections (remove all of the friction). Help them shift into the belief that they can not only have the CHANGE, but they can have it now. There a loads of friction reducing elements you can use. I’ll go over them in two case studies…there will be videos with Brand Reveals. You will not believe what some 9 figure & 8 Figure Brands are doing BADLY right now…like today!
I hope this was a blessing to you. I truly love the game of Online Marketing & Sales. I have stories to tell with famous NFL, NBA, and World Poker Tour Professional Players. Stories with the guy who built the largest home in the USA. Yeah, I worked with him 1-on-1 for 11 years.
I’m just getting started today June 16th, 2025, the day everything for me changes and I finally go public.
You my dear friend…if you love Marketing, Growing Businesses for yourself or others, you must follow me right now.
If this blessed you and you think some of your friends, family, employees, or peers, would be blessed by this, I would be forever grateful for a repost / retweet / share.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you! 🙏 🙏 🙏
Sincerely grateful,
Dan Wisdom
Ⓒ 2025 – All rights reserved – Kickass Marketer LLC
P.S. Need to grow your CPG DTC or Amazon Business exponentially in a short amount of time? Book a call with me. Link in my profile.
Making Money as an Online Affiliate Marketer – Introduction
Having been an active Affiliate Marketer since 1998 and being a natural educator who freely expresses my experience with anyone who will listen, I’m often asked “How do I get started earning money as an Affiliate Marketer?” The questions come in many shapes and sizes, but they all are asking the same thing. How do I tame this beast of Online Marketing and make an extra income…with the hopes of someday going full-time?”
The motivations are all the same and the degree to which they actually motivate the individual change over time.
I’ve taken several people under my wing over the years and went to great effort, expended a lot of energy, and time for some (even to the point of building out everything for them).
This post, and the accompanying video, will answer the where to start part of it and upcoming posts will deal with other facets of this complex business.
It (Affiliate Marketing) is a business and not just another expensive hobby.
That might be the first mind-shift you need to make. Although at times you will feel like you are a gambler running traffic to offers betting on the come…this is not gambling. It is not a hobby…although it may be for some.
If you are an Affiliate Marketing Gambler or Hobbyist I hope this post will change your mind and aid you in becoming a passionate die hard…who is fully committed to this as a business.
Step 1 Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – Establish your Lifestyle Cost Goal
I think the first step you need to go through is to establish some simple, but quantifiable goals for yourself.
One of my apprentices a couple of years ago (we’ll call him Jon) went through this with me kind of like this:
Dan: So, you want to make money online? Why?
Jon: I need to make money and I hate my job?
Dan: Ok. How much money do you need to make?
Jon: Well, a few hundred dollars a month would be cool.
Dan: Well, that’s not a number we can measure. How much do you need to make to not have to work the job you dislike so much? What would be a life changing number of earnings (profit) per month be?
Sidenote: I’m zeroing in on his lifestyle cost, or a figure he needs to reach to have financial freedom from a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke). Tim Ferriss did a great job explaining it and calls it “Lifestyle Costing” you can read about it by clicking here: Lifestyle Costing
Jon: Well, I need to make $1,500 per month to have all my bills paid and do the things I want to do.
Dan: Ok, so that’s $50 per day. No problem. (Notice I chunked it down to a daily goal, it makes it easier to digest and believe)
Sidenote 2: Tony Robbins talks a great deal about “chunking” and is probably where I learned this term from. I very quickly, and you should too, adopted the daily goals as my default. It’s easier for your brain to get a handle on those smaller numbers and helps deal with the fear that can hold you back. Before you know it, over time, you will be able to grasp earning $10,000, $50,000, even $100,000 per day. It’s gradual, over a long period of time, but did happen for me.
Jon: That doesn’t sound like a lot, does it?
Dan: Nope. We can get there in a couple of days.
Fast Forward: So, after a couple of days of training and cooperatively choosing a traffic source (Trafficvance in this case) and an offer (I don’t remember the exact offer, but remember it was a low payout (bounty) like about $3). I basically built everything for him, while he watched every step of the way. Within a couple of more days, he already hit his $50 per day goal. Within a week however, he lost interest and moved on to something else. I was bummed…
I’ve recently came in contact with him again and he’s jumped from one project to another and is yet again going after another. I think, for him, the thrill of the hunt is his demise. He currently has what I call Affiliate Casanova Disease which I wrote about curing in the post here.
To some extent, I think that he lost sight of the goal. To earn $50 profit per day. Maybe the goal was not exciting enough. It doesn’t matter. He set the number, not me.
I take full responsibility for my part in his failure. I personally robbed him of the joy of learning and struggling and fighting his way there. Having me cut through all the brush and pave a trail to the pot of gold robbed him of that.
So, being a consummate learner I will not do that for anyone again. I will point the way and tell you how and sometimes what you need to do, but you need to do it yourself. You’ll be a stronger, more Kickass Human Being when you get there than if I lead you the whole way there.
Step 2 Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – SWOT Analysis
I won’t go into too much detail on this, as you can visit the link above and do so yourself. One thing to note though, is that SWOT Analysis can be used for all aspects of your Affiliate Marketing Business.
As stated on Wikipedia, “A SWOT Analysis can be carried out for a product, place, industry or person“.
You are the first thing that you should analyze assuming you’ve already come to the conclusion that the “industry” (Affiliate Marketing) passes your SWOT Analysis already.
So, run a SWOT Analysis of you. What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are the opportunities, and threats.
I’ll talk a little more about this in the video in this post when I answer some of the questions of a recent (yesterday) organic (thank you Google) visitor to KickassMarketer.com
Hopefully you get the idea though. You should analyze you, the Affiliate Offers you want to promote, the Affiliate Networks you want to work with, the Traffic Sources you want to work with. But, YOU should be the first place that you start analyzing.
Step 3 Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – What’s your exit strategy?
A wise man once said “Don’t start any business without knowing your exit strategy!”. Another way to put this is how Steven Covey says it “Begin with the End in Mind”. You can visit him here.
Are you starting a business you can sell, a lifestyle business, a replacement job for your JOB?
The most important thing here, is that you at least have a long term goal in mind. So, when you get lost in the details and grind of running the business day-to-day you have this to come back to for a renewed perspective.
For most Affiliate Marketers, myself included, when they start out…they desire to have a lifestyle business. One that frees them from having to show up to a 9-5 job. One with the inferred promise of more income than they are currently earning at their jobs. One with an unlimited amount of potential for increased income…which is absolutely still true to this day about Affiliate Marketing.
Another exit I want to address here is “When do I leave my job to pursue Affiliate Marketing Full-time?”
When you’re ready is the ambiguous answer.
For some it means they have 6-12 months of their lifestyle costs saved in the bank. For others still, it is right now.
I would personally recommend that you stay in your job until the time you have sufficient funds in the bank to cover your personal expenses (that supports your current lifestyle) and that not leaving your job just doesn’t make any sense anymore. A mentor of mine once told me, “When the cost of doing nothing exceeds the cost of doing something…you will do something!” That’s when I left.
I was earning six figures per year from my employer at the time. I was making great money. The Affiliate Marketing Business I started on the side began making 5 figures per day. I was literally earning more in a day than my employer could pay me per month. I was friends with that business owner and told him so. As a friend he let me leave with his blessing. The rest is history.
Step 4 Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – What’s your passion?
The main point of the post was “Find what you love…and do it!”
You have numerous loves along the path of life, but you must focus on one at a time to ever fan the flame of love into something that becomes an unstoppable passion. If you were entering into a new relationship with another person, you’d want to find out everything you can about that person. You’d spend sleepless nights thinking about him/her and finding ways to spend more time with them whenever you could.
You need to build your love for Affiliate Marketing that same way. I’m not suggesting you go learn every little traffic niche of Affiliate Marketing whether it be:
Google Adwords
Bing
Media Buying
Mobile
Facebook
Plenty of Fish
Pay Per View
etc
It would be helpful for you to read all you can and learn from other people’s journeys. Learn from their successes and failures. Learn all that you can to the point you can put together a SWOT Analysis of each and then pick one to focus on that you’ve found an affinity for. But, once you do, commit to it. Don’t be an Affiliate Casanova.
S0, you have to focus on building your love for Affiliate Marketing by learning all you can, which brings me to the next step…
Step 4a Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – Join an Affiliate Marketing Community
I’m a paid member of all the Affiliate Marketing Communities (that I know of) and some very expensive paid Masterminds (Think $15,000+ entry fees).
There is one community, above all others, that I would recommend EVERY Affiliate Marketer be part of. That is AffPlaybook.com. I will give you a private sneak peek behind the magic curtain in the video above.
I wish there was an AffPlaybook around when I was a new Affiliate Marketer. There wasn’t. Most of the courses around at the time were about $1,000 to get in and didn’t have even 1/10 of the value that this has. There are 4,555 paid members of that forum and some of the top names and 8-figure Affiliate Marketers (me being one of them) that not only frequent it, but also help out newcomers to the Affiliate Marketing Industry.
I know David Ford personally (he owns, operates, and actively manages the forum) and he’s an honest, generous, and loving person. He’s built something very special and you can tell that the people there are all like minded and support one another.
There’s over 112,000 posts in that forum for you to gobble up and learn from. It’s literally like an online encyclopedia on everything Affiliate Marketing.
AffPlaybook.com is quite literally an online encyclopedia on everything Affiliate Marketing- Dan Matejsek
Again, I’ll show you in the video more, but if you are not a member of this forum at an measly $67 per month than you just aren’t serious about Affiliate Marketing as a path to your financial freedom.
Step 4b Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – Pick your Traffic Source and your Affiliate Network
Assuming you took my advice and joined APB, the next step is diving in head first (or feet first if that suits your fancy). Read everything you can over the next 30-60 days. The success stories, the follow-alongs, the lessons, the tips.
It will be overwhelming, I know.
The purpose is to consume enough information that you can build your SWOT Analysis for the Traffic Sources & Affiliate Networks and begin to zero in on the one of each you are going to commit to.
Run the SWOTs and choose one Traffic Source and one Affiliate Network.
Once you have a network, then you need to find an offer or two or three to test.
Now here’s where the passion part comes in again. If you can’t at least develop a slight crush for the offers that your Affiliate Manager (note you have to ask them personally) told you are performing well on your chosen Traffic Source than move on to the next.
I’ve found that if I can get excited about an offer and I’d buy or participate in the offer (and be willing to let my Mom do so too), the excitement is contagious. I will be building campaigns that are exciting to the consumers and they tend to be full of more value (and more likely to succeed) than if I was sending people to an email submit that I know in the back of my mind is just setting these poor folks up for SPAM for the rest of forever.
So, find an offer or two you can get excited about and commit to them. You are going to give them your best shot and make them work.
Same with the Affiliate Network you chose. Your SWOT told you to choose them and now you are committed.
Don’t jump ship from your Traffic Source or Affiliate Network the first time you hear smack said about them or your offer. That is just smack and not your personal experience. YOU ARE COMMITTED.
Step 5 Towards Making Money as an Affiliate Marketer – Rinse & Repeat!
There’s a popular principal that I’ve used my entire adult life and most likely you have too without even knowing it. It’s called the Pareto Principle. You can read more about it on Wikipedia here.
You can apply this as your Rinse Cycle for all aspects of your Affiliate Marketing Business & Campaigns. The key here is to use it. It will become clear over time that 80% of all you are doing is a waste of your time and 20% is where 80% of your results come from. So, it is critical that you recognize the Pareto Principal when it reveals itself to you and take action.
When I had my own full-time Affiliate Marketing Company, I trained my in-house Traffic Brokers (that’s what I called them) to launch 10 new campaigns a day. That could be as simple as 10 new offers on one traffic source targeting very targeted keywords. My in-house terminology was the Spaghetti Method. Throw Spaghetti against the wall every day and see what sticks (converted to dollars of any kind).
The next day they would see Pareto at work in their Affiliate Marketing Campaigns. Of the 10 new offers, 2 would be profitable. 2 would be complete total losses, and 6 would be somewhere in-between. Their job then, was to kill the two losers. Optimize the the 6 in-betweens and scale out the 2 winners.
Funny thing is that that even the 2 winners would have Pareto at work. They’d soon find out that 20% of the keywords were generating 80% of the traffic. Of the ones generating the traffic. 20% were generating most of the revenue and 80% were not.
So, you’ll find you are in a constant state of Rinse & Repeat…kill and scale…fast forward that and over the course of a year my team an I had 2,100 offers running profitably. Find that 80% early and get rid of it. It’s dead weight and will slow you down.
Conclusion
I’ll likely touch on other aspects of Affiliate Marketing and how you can earn a full time income with it, but my parting thought for you is:
Financial Freedom through Affiliate Marketing is absolutely, still a real possibility for you, if you want it and you are willing to work hard and fall into a committed & loving relationship with it.
For more of everything Affiliate Marketing I’d suggest you join us all over at AffPlaybook.com and join today.
Preface: To dispel some of the myths and possibly lift some of the cloud of mystery over Media Buying, I present this training to the Internet Marketing World as a gift to young, small, big, and tall. I hope it is a blessing to you all. Totally in the flow there…not even trying to rhyme…maybe I am missing my calling. 🙂
Introduction to Media Buying
The words Media Buying are often referenced in the Online Marketing space, and depending on who is the one using them, it can mean slightly different things.
Before Mobile Internet became as dominant as it is now, Media Buying typically referred to a large Brand Advertiser buying ad placements on a large website or network of sites. Think Coke buying traffic from MSN.com.
The relationship between the Advertiser (Coke) and the Publisher (MSN.com) was typically one where the Publisher had an in-house team of placement specialists (Ad Reps) and the Advertiser had an in-house team of Media Buyers.
Direct Media Buys
The Publisher would send the Advertiser an Insertion Order (IO) that would detail the placement (where the ads would be shown, for how long, at what cost (per CPM or 1,000 impressions), and the total ad budget. There would also be an out-clause allowing the Advertiser to pause the campaign with 24-48 hours. The main concern of both sides for the most part is to get a consistent flow of traffic at the price desired for the whole period of time. Example, Coke wants their ads shown on the front page of MSN.com for 90 days at $2.00 per 1,000 impressions and not to exceed $6,000,000 per month (or $200,000 per day). The IO would be signed for a 90 day window, but could be for an entire year.
The Brand Advertiser typically wants a consistent flow of traffic so 200,000 impressions per day for the whole year. Because they are building and reinforcing the consumers affinity for their brand and seek to build good will and loyalty to that brand. They aren’t interested in calculating a return on investment (ROI), how could they even if they wanted to.
Direct Media buys in this fashion are still the norm for Brand Advertisers and I am personally still active in this capacity with some VERY well known Publisher Brands.
Side-note: Most big publishers do not understand or care to know ROI for you. Watch the video for a detailed discussion on how the publisher reps think when selling you direct buy media.
Self-Serve Media Buying
With the evolution of the Internet and advertising platforms came the option of self-serve platforms where the advertiser can now setup their campaigns without the managed help of the publisher. This self-serve media buying is typically done by a third-party who has negotiated an agreement with not one, but many puiblishers. It is typically for the publisher’s (MSN.com) excess inventory, the inventory of impressions that they have not successfully sold to the Brand Advertisers directly.
Their are many of these self-serve media buying platforms available, Sitescout.com is one of many that I’ve used myself, but their are literally hundreds available today. You can find them here –> Self-Serve Media Buying Platforms
They come in all shapes and sizes but, typically they specialize in prime publisher traffic or sub-prime, and some specialize in only desktop, some in mobile, and some have both mobile & desktop media that you can buy.
Background on how the traffic flows for a Self-Serve Media Buy Campaign
On any given Self-Serve Media Buy Platform there is a complex network of moving pieces and entities involved between your campaign and the end user who generated the impression. I will detail it in depth in the video below, but will detail some of the basics here:
You setup a campaign targeting a certain geography (USA for example) and are willing to pay $2.00 per 1,000 impressions, which is fairly cheap. I’ve heard of Brand Advertisers paying in the $5-$10 per 1,000 and higher at times. You load your campaign with banners specific to your campaign and depending on the sophistication of the platform (meaning they might have more targeting options) you are done. You set the start time and end time and total budget. You may be able to set a daily budget as well depending on the platform.
Then the magic happens (which I will detail in the video below), but for the most part your ad will be displayed across the whole network of websites that the platform has access to. This is usually thousands or tens of thousands (maybe 100’s of thousands) of websites and mobile apps.
Watch this video for more detail on the challenges of optimizing mobile campaigns in the following:
How the publisher distributes the impressions from their property (website of application)
How the syndicator acquires traffic from the publisher
The Traffic Network and syndicator relationship
How Real Time Bidding becomes a factor in whether you receive traffic or not
The Supply & Demand relationship and how that dictates where Media Buy Traffic is distributed
I also explain Run of Network traffic and how to use it
Tips on where to buy the cheapest Self-Serve Media Buy Traffic known to mankind
I’ll explain why Media Buy Traffic shift from time to time
Introduction to Media Buying Video
I will cover in more detail, the relationship of your individual campaign settings and how they will determine whether you receive a ton of traffic, some traffic, or no traffic in my next post and video called Mobile Media Buying Explained – Part 2
I hope this was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments by commenting below.
After plugging away at Facebook ads to Teespring for 4 months, I’ve decided to abandon my dream of ‘Teespring Riches.’ I’ve spent hundreds on Teespring training and tools. And of course hundreds more on the ads themselves, and paying for designers.
[Personal details edited for public consumption]
Apologies for the ‘negative vibe’ of this post, but I’d like to hear from others that either agree or don’t agree with me. Maybe it’s simply a case that I’m not cut out for this type of venture.
When I was speaking at a closed event with Gauher Chaudry (in 2008) I had a bunch of new comers (newbies sounds so downgrading) and I had an epiphany.
I told them the real “secret” to being successful is “find something you love and do that”.
Sounds like you lost the love with “Teespring” because you really didn’t have much in the first place. Maybe just a crush and the crush has worn off.
If you can take a step back and ask yourself if this is something you could really fall in love with long term (get married to it) I say stay with it. If the answer is no, then move on.
Be careful though that you don’t become the Affiliate Casanova (king of one-night stands) as we all are guilty of (me included, I’ve been that).
What I found was that I love Online Marketing. I married that (OM) and see the niche (Tee-spring) as only the vehicle I’m taking my date on to the movies.
If you can get that perspective and get yourself fully committed and passionate about it to the point of kicking ass and taking names (and phone numbers, pun intended) than stick with it.
I hope that helps…sounds a bit too philosophic, but I think I got the point across. 🙂
Hello Kickass Marketers! I shot a video for my friend David Ford of AffPlaybook that is more of a case study than anything else. It’s a behind the scenes private tour of one of our Mobile Advertiser Portals. I have never seen this done and it will likely never happen again…unless of course, I do it. You get a sneak peak at what one Mobile Advertiser did in 14 days (hint it’s almost $100k)
Contest Rather than transcribe the video I’m going to ask you guys what you learned. The person with the most well written comment, quantity and quality will get a 30 minute private coaching Skype chat with me.
The only catch is you must be willing to allow me to post the content of our dialog and use your Forum Name. I will not be pitching squat. Just open to any question you can come up with and at your disposal for 30 full minutes with 110% of my attention.
Also, for fun all forum members get 1 vote. You vote by thanking the comment writer. David & I will be the judge of who the winner is. So, these qualifiers matter. Number of thanks, quantity, and quality of comment content. Without further ado, here is “KickassMarketer Uncut & Raw” Episode #1 or many to come… 🙂
It’s a long one Charlie Brown. 48 minutes. More of a webinar than anything else. Please comment and let me know what you think.
P.S. The video below is also available to members of Affplaybook.com.
In 2008, I was running a 7 figure Affiliate Marketing company. My personal life at the time was in turmoil (understatement) going through a horrible (another understatement) Divorce. I took time away from my personal nightmare and attended an event at that time my friend Amish Shah put on. I owe Amish Shah the credit for getting my bum down there and to him, for that I will always be grateful. It literally changed my life. At that time in my life I was at the bottom emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. It was so bad, I let all my employees go to pursue other paths and let my business, which I could have sold (I had several dozens of offers), just dry up and die.
Over the best sushi I’ve had in my life (I’ve had tons) I met Matt Trainer for the first time. Thanks Amish Shah for footing the bill that night by the way. 🙂
Call it serendipity, divine intervention, or the Universe coming to a place of convergence, either way I’d like to thank God for introducing me to Matt Trainer back then. When I had hit rock bottom and turned back on course for where I am today.
It’s more of a point of reference in my life where my life took a turn upward.
I went on to help build a brand new start-up company (3 of us founded) to an 8 figure business in three years with a 100+ employees.
So, this last weekend 8/9 through 8/10 (2014) I had another turning point when attending the “The Marketing Moron Conference” held by my older now much wiser (and enlightened) friend Matt Trainer.
I can’t give all the credit to Matt Trainer or the speakers etc, but it was a turning point in my life. One I have not had since 2008 (with the Amish Shah event)
This event is another a point in time, one I will look back and can honestly say it was a point when my life took another turn (like the 2008 Amish Shah event) and placed me on course for an exponential growth in abundance & prosperity.
So, even though most people on the outside looking into my current life before, hanging out with Matt Trainer this last weekend, would say I am already at a great place in life. I now realize that I’ve been thinking too small and limiting the amount of God’s wealth and abundance that could/would enter my life.
I now have a degree of clarity and focus that makes me feel attuned to what God’s purposes for my life are. Allowing me to operate in a place where I am truly and genuinely 110% me and 110% present in the moment. The person who God wants me to be and allowing myself to be used by him to change the world we live in.
I feel like I’m on fire now, in a permanent state of “flow” like I’ve been possessed by God and just need to step out of his way and let him do absolutely amazing things. Things I could never do myself.
I will be my only limitation, getting in the way of what he has planned by letting my “self” or ego get in the way. I am committing to God and anyone reading this to never again allow myself to operate at the ground level of life and only operate in a place where I am flying high in the clouds on God’s coat tails and having a significant impact on humanity by being 110% present at all times and 110% surrendered to the fact that God is my source and supply and guides me in all my steps, if I’ll let him.
Thank you Matt Trainer for being the vehicle of change that brought me to this place. You are a true brother and I will be forever indebted to you.
Anyone who has the opportunity to attend another event Matt Trainer puts on, should reflect back on their current state of life and ask themselves…am I thinking to small? Am I ready for some more abundance & prosperity? Am I ready for a turning point? One that would elevate me to higher plane of abundance & wealth exponentially greater than where I am at today? If your inner “still small voice” says yes. Don’t hesitate to go. Just go…
Sincerely with immense gratitude and appreciation,
Kickass Marketer
P.S. It may come across that this is all about me. I want to emphasize that it is God that is at this higher plane, I just happen to be in the airplane that he’s flying with no intention of ever jumping out of the plane again so help me Jesus!
Ethan Zuckerman, who now runs the Center for Civic Media at MIT, says he wrote the code while working at Tripod.com in the mid-1990s.
But no he didn’t know what he would unleash.
In an essay for The Atlantic, he explains that he was just following orders.
“The business model that got us funded was advertising. The model that got us acquired was analyzing users’ personal homepages so we could better target ads to them,” he writes.
“Along the way, we ended up creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit: the pop-up ad.”
The idea, Zuckerman says, was to be able to serve an ad without creating an implication that the publisher actually supported the company.
“It was a way to associate an ad with a user’s page without putting it directly on the page, which advertisers worried would imply an association between their brand and the page’s content. Specifically, we came up with it when a major car company freaked out that they’d bought a banner ad on a page that celebrated anal sex. I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I’m sorry. Our intentions were good.”
In 2007 I adopted Paid Pop-up Ads and scaled it to the point that, as an affiliate marketer, I promoted over 2,000 products and services. It helped me become the #1 affiliate for many major brands and literally generated millions of dollars for my advertisers. It changed my life.
Over a billion impressions later (crossed that mark a couple of years ago), personally my opinion is that there’s no apology necessary.
The concept is sound and still in use today on mobile, although it has evolved to a slightly different variation called Interstitial Ads. There are even pop-up ads on mobile websites now.
The fact of the matter is that it was an ingenious concept that was sound and if not abused by those running the ads, is very effective.
The consumer seeing the ad can simply choose to participate in consuming the ad or clicking the close button.
We are presented interruption marketing to the tune of hundreds, maybe even thousands of ads in our daily lives.
We as advertisers are simply trying to interrupt the consumer and present whatever it is we have that might interest them and benefit them. The consumer has a choice whether they participate.
If he owes anyone an apology, so do we all that advertise.
No apology necessary Ethan Zuckerman.
I am indebted to you Ethan and thank you for your brilliance.
About to Ditch Teespring