Losing Money to Make Money is the Fun Part

By Ian Fernando

When it comes to online marketing the goal is to always get traffic and get more of it. A big problem a lot of people do is attempt to be successful almost right away. If they do not become successful, they become discourage and call online money systems a scam. Yes, there is a bunch of garbage out there, you just need to understand how to tackle a campaign the right way.

Below is a screen shot of a 3 week campaign, it was unsuccessful for 2 weeks. It started to become successful once I found a specific demographic that converts very well. The demographic was also out of the norm, meaning it wasn't the demographic I thought it should have been. With this campaign came a lot of testing and a lot of research, I lost money the first 2 weeks.

... but losing money is the fun part. I know a lot of you will disagree with me. Why would you want to lost money Ian? Simple, the data is what I love to decipher. I have broken this ad into multiple parts, demos, age, ad campaign, etc. With those variables being separated, I can now see how users react. It took me 2 weeks of just losing money to find the "gold mine" if you want to call it to be successful.

Even with the years of experience I have, I still have to decipher the data to find what works. Throwing up a campaign is simple, making it profitable is the fun part. I find traffic a game. Understanding how users react is a very interesting thing to me. I always go by this statement: 100 users clicked on my ad, why didn't I get 100 conversions?

You are probably asking yourself, Ian I don't have the time to decipher data or do any sort of testing and I do not have the budget to waste money. Don't worry, I was in your situation when I first started. I was very hesitant to even think of wasting money to just find out if a campaign will work or not. I wanted something that will make money tomorrow was my thinking. Sooner or later persistence paid off and I started to make money via affiliate marketing. Best feeling, a sense of relief.

Ever heard the saying, you have to crawl before you walk? Same concept.

I knew this campaign would work because others have been doing it. Also I started to spend more to gather more data and as I did my analytics told me a story. I then started to find what targeted demo was converting better and the perfect age group. With all the intel gathered, I now was able to spend less and make more. My testing and loss of ROI paid off in week 3 and I started to become profitable. I gained my loss of income on day 5 and the rest a profitable ROI after.

Why Lose Money than Earn Money? The Benefits -

  1. You create all your ads and separate your variables
  2. Tweak and adjust your campaign base on clicks given
  3. Data is provided in an intense overview base on the tracker you utilize
  4. Every single click tells a story about that end user. (browser, time stamps, campaign, time value, etc)
  5. You are buying data. You are not losing anything.
  6. Breakdown of the data to the minimal possible level (state, time zone, zip code, county, etc)
  7. Remove unwanted campaigns, demos, images, etc base on conversions
  8. Break down by EPCs from LP to Offer, Offer to Conversion, etc
  9. Keyword breakdown and grouping
  10. Life span of a click - click to conversion
  11. ... etc data is king.

Why Lose Money than Earn Money? The Cons -

  1. You are loosing money

That is really it. One simple click can tell you so much information about your campaign. I look at my campaigns as a game and with this particular one, I was going to stop until I saw little improvements day by day. For me that was enough to see that it was going to work later on. I kept at it and 3 weeks later literally the first day on my 3rd week, I got it making money and profitable. This just shows you you can't just stop because you are losing money. Keep at it but learn to understand what that one click provided you.

This is just for a Facebook campaign and all data varies base on the traffic. Your traffic tells you your story and how you adjust will be base on how creative you are and how much you can decipher the data. EPCs tell a story and each EPC is different from LP to conversion and offer to conversion. Your EPC will also be different base on the type of commissions you earn, per sale, rev share, per lead, etc. Data is important and when I teach people, I teach them how to understand the numbers as the numbers will help a noobie learn long term and not just short term.

They can take this strategy and apply it to any campaign or vertical, where as most like to stay in their safe zone and do what they know best, dating, health, popup traffic, etc. With numbers, you get to adjust your strategy base on what the game is telling you.

Ian Fernando
Involved in the internet space since 2002 and have been through the ups and downs of this online industry. I am a traveling digital nomad, media buyer, online strategist, and many more online titles.

Start Affiliate Marketing Today.

An high overview of how to get started in affiliate marketing. $ straight forward videos on understanding the basics of affiliate marketing and generating revenue online.
WATCH VIDEOS >>
magnifiercross