Continuing my ZeroPark case study from the other week, I am doing a follow up on what I have been doing. After some data has been provided I wanted to start clearing some bad positions.
For example, you want to look at the data and see what does not fit. But let get into something and breakdown some platform terms inside ZeroPark so you know what I am referring too.
There are 2 parts, you have, for example, me as the publisher with this blog being a push source. So this might be confusing. If I have several blogs, each of those would be considered targets, while me the owner of these blogs will be the source.
The only problem is that for example, I have this blog about affiliate marketing, I have another blog about health, and another blog about crypto. I am the owner but each is its own niche technically.
At this point, it is best to block the source than the target.
Well, I hope that a mini explanation helps cause the next step in my mini ZeroPark case study is adding a lander to my link rotation. Overall, at the end, when I started with direct linking, it already started to convert.
I wanted to see if I added a lander will it do better. Here are the results.
Over time, I adjusted the % of visibility from a direct link to the lander. The direct link seems to always work. So I reduced it further and let it sit another day or 2 I think. Still, there are clicks on the lander but no conversion.
I simply kept it at the direct link and now I wanted to optimize the targets and sources. I am using Landing Track which is doing most of the optimization but I have to set the rules. I usually go by some standard rules base on the CPA.
After the rule setting and some manual overview and adjustments, I let it run for another day and results was pretty immediate. Already I qualified ZeroParks sources and found some good ones.
In just the adjustment base on spend per target, I removed a lot of unwanted sources and then got 3 conversions with high profit.
Also when I talked to my affiliate network manager, I am waaaay above the networks EPC but then again this was just after 1 day of optimizing and hopefully the week I should also do better as well.
I thought it should have been smooth sailing but of course..... the conversions just died.
After those adjustments, I got stuck again and I decided now to test creative angles. I was basically using creative angles I found via Anstrex Push spy tool. I saw the same campaign running and decided to use what they are using.
It was working but then I needed to throw my own twists and see if I can get more clicks and hopefully some more conversions.
I ended up adding 2 more and then getting the same ad ctr results. The only difference only 2 creatives provided the conversions.
So I paused one and let the other 2 run. They continue to convert overall. I am going to reoptimize base on the sources and then I will see if one creative does better than the other. Even not curating time of day as well as I notice push clicks don't really happen right away when the impressions are served.
As you can see there is a lot that is going one that I have to think of, there is more in-depth optimizing like creative to targets, testing specifically apples to apples. I also even used some tips from Attila about how to cap source budgets. In the end, I have to see if I can get this profitable enough to continue running.
Stay tuned for the next set case study on ZeroPark.
As ongoing, I can be with my case studies, especially on push traffic, here is another one. So I have been talking to a lot of push ad networks after Affiliate World Europe and I am going to be testing SelfAdvertiser.
Another traffic source out there that is expanding into push notification or push traffic. After talking to them about their traffic, I wanted to give them a test. So let dig in on their interface and how the traffic has been for me.
There are two parts to this traffic - the traffic was cheap that I wanted to do a lead gen but it did not perform as I wanted so I shifted and the second part was profitable.
Before I get into the interface, here are my stats for when I ran traffic:
You will see the 2 dips, the first set is testing an offer I thought would of converted as the clicks on Self Advertiser are pretty cheap. I paused it to talk to my account manager and to see what I can do to optimize.
With such a small budget, I wanted to throw another offer at it that I know was converting at 49 cents EPC. Which I know was converting on my other push campaigns. That is the second hill on the graph you see with the test.
First thing first, how are they getting their subscribers is a question I ask. With push, you have to ask where their database is. Is it brokered? from who? Internal, how many content sites? a Mix of both? I think this is important to know the quality of the push database.
With Self Advertiser all the sources are all theirs, meaning they grow their own database. This means they have their own vast content sites which they have the Push optin on. These users then optin or subscribe to receive push notifications.
This is solid to know because of a lot of push networks, forces optins or incentivize them and most of the time these type of optins are not of good quality. Quantity over quality theory.
What I like about Self Advertiser is their clean interface, I think this is one of the best Push traffic interface out there. It really is straightforward to the point. The information you need is there and it is easy to get started on creating a campaign.
They are always updating as I was running traffic they did update the interface where I can add multiple creatives under one campaign. When I first started, I had to create a campaign per creative, but that has been resolved.
Now, I know you did not come here for how clean the interface is but about the data I did and the traffic. So when I created a campaign, I told my account manager about it and they approved it fairly quickly.
First set campaigns, the offer was a simple email submit paying $2 a lead. I rotated it with a lander the advertiser provided. In order to find some profitable angles right away, I decided to go and use my go-to spy tool for Push, Anstrex.
I was able to find some angles that worked on other networks and wanted to see if it will work as well with Self Advertiser, also I was promoting this in 3 different countries.
Here are some stats. The first campaign is when I split tested between a lander and direct linking. I found out that direct linking performed better.
The next 2 sets are just direct linking campaigns with new creatives as well to see if any other creatives I found via Anstrex was gonna convert. In the end, this offer did not perform as well as I thought it would be.
So in order to try to get something to work, I put up an offer that I already know what was working on my other push campaigns. Yes, it is blurred out.
So here is the stat on when I introduced an already working offer on my other push campaigns. It converted almost immediately.
Of course, it is just one conversion, but I was already losing on the $2 submit an offer that I wanted to try to recoup the remaining. So I wanted to switch it out. The email submit I was running and thought would have worked did not, so I needed to switch thing out.
But before I did switch things out, I was trying to optimize the campaign. I usually optimize a campaign by blocking source base on the CPA X 3 or at a 10$ spend depending on the volume, but with this small test, I rarely reached $2 per source.
So I basically was testing out creatives and adjusting bids. It does get hard with a small test at times. So with that in mind, that is why I switched out the offer to another which I knew was already converting.
One great thing about Self Advertiser is my account rep helped me out a lot with the needs I needed on how to optimize especially testing a new traffic source. So there is traffic at Self Advertiser, I will continue to test and see if it will be solid.
Amazon has been pretty awesome lately but then when it comes to online arbitrage, there are competitors in the marketplace. It is crazy that 50% or more of items sold on Amazon are from the marketplace or third-party vendors.
So in order for me to compete and move inventory, I have tried Amazon PPC to make sure I can move the inventory.
I think it is worth moving the inventory at an ROI than paying the fees from Amazon. Doing Amazon online arbitrage can be a competitive market. You are competing for the buy box all the time and sometimes, when your items reach Amazon, someone is already there with a lower price than what you expected it to sell at.
So now what? You can wait and get monthly storage fees, which isn't that bad but sometimes inventory sits. Sitting means fees, so I would rather move the inventory than get consistent fees.
Here is a quick snapshot of my ad spend for last month. These are just standard results but the numbers are all about what I bought the product at, my ad cost, and then the actual profit.
I thought to myself, so I spent $75 - I made $146 in sales but at a .20 CPC. I kinda messed up on the CPC. I wanted to be on top as I wanted to see how Amazon PPC reacts and if it reacts to similar ad campaigns I run in the past.
The most interesting part here is that I didn't choose any keywords. Amazon Sponsored products just recommended the products to sell and I also added inventory to the campaign that needed more visibility.
I wonder if I create a separate campaign with keywords for my own private label, when I do, then I think I can choose the keywords. Right now, I think Amazon just figures out when to show my listing ID. I will have to read up more and check on it.
I will update you on what I find.
In any case, Amazon PPC is definitely different. I should have lowered the CPC but I wanted to see if I can move the old inventory as fast as possible. I had several slow-moving ASINs and they have been sitting for more than 3 months.
Here is a quick breakdown day by day.
All in all these graphs look cool and interesting but it boils down to the numbers. Here are my numbers which include the online arbitrage price I bought at, ad spends, Amazon FBA fees, etc.
As you can see the campaign in itself didn't do that well for my first campaign. I also had to lower my buy price to compete with the product marketplace. Since I am not the only seller on these products, I have to win the buy price in order for these ads to create impressions.
If I do not win the buy box, then the ads are technically not showing. Amazon still wants to make sure to create a marketplace with competitive pricing. They are Amazon's customers.
So for me, I had to make sure that in order to advertise, I had to be competitive and win that buy box. In my thought process, I just wanted to get rid of the inventory that I bought because they, in my opinion, became bad buys.
Now, that I know how it works, I know how to properly attack Amazon PPC for online arbitrage. I have now created a new Google sheet on what I should spend max to break even at least. So this will be fun as the market is getting closer to the holidays.
Sometimes, you think you got a winning product to resell and then it becomes a dud because there are so many that are competing with you and start to create price wars in the market.
In the end, it was a good learning experience. Besides this, I also created a Facebook a campaign to sell other products and see if I can get users to buy a product at a higher price than what Amazon competitive marketplace states.
I will do another case study or post on that as well. Gotta get that experience in to be an expert, especially since I started Amazon this year.
I recently started testing ZeroPark push traffic. There are so many sources to test and try out there and I think it is the best way to find the perfect traffic sources for your offer.
In this case, I am doing something that is always being talked about in the affiliate marketing space, and that is rip and run offers, copy-paste offers. In essence, this strategy is called what it is, literally. You find what is currently working and just copy it.
You do need tools to do this strategy for example, Anstrex is a tool I always and have been recommending for a while. It has enough data to show you what is currently working at the traffic source level.
Below is a screenshot of how I start to find some rip and run offers. If you do not have access to Anstrex just yet, I suggest you go ahead and just see what they go to offer.
This screenshot shows 2 things that I specifically look for when I adjust my filters. on Anstrex push ad spy tool.
That is what I do for filtering profitable offers, I also then filter by the traffic source and countries but that can be up to you on how you are advertising for this push case study I basically did a solid day worth of looking and found the offer I want to test out.
I went to my affiliate network and picked the offer, I created the campaign in ZeroPark and chose push and chose RON. The reason why I chose RON is that I need to build the source and target list.
You can easily ask your account manager what is the best to target, but I tend to let my own data to tell the story.
ZeroPark allows you up to 10 images on a campaign. The image plays the role of the icon and the desktop image. This is where I think ZeroPark is different, their push system does allow multiple creatives under one campaign, unlike other networks.
For example, they allow an icon and the desktop image. There is also some networks that allow you to change the browser icon as well.
So it is important to use the right image for both as an image for the icon will look weird on the desktop and vice versa, especially if the icon is stretched. Now back to the ad creation, I simply just copied the ad text word for word from Anstrex. The headline and the ad body.
Created the campaign and waited for approval.
Pretty much right away spent $12.07 and got 1 conversion and profited $27.92
The first column is visits, leads, payout, cost, profit, the lastly ROI. Remember clicks and ad network stats can be different because of server time zones. I do use a platform that does sync with the traffic network so my stats will be agile to where I set the time zone.
I always start the campaign slowly, usually doing the CPA as my starting daily budget per day. This way I can gauge the sources and targets within Zeropark and start filtering the next day.
Since it converted right away, I might just have the right push source at that time. So I am not playing the congratulations role just yet, so I went ahead and increase the spend the next day to see where it will lead me.
This next screenshot is over the last couple days and I think I need to create a landing page to work with the traffic just a bit. Over the next days, I have been filtering and removing the sources that I didn't think are doing well.
In ZeroPark, I block at the source level just because I think sources are all categorized URLs my assumption.
So you will see the traffic dip and paused, I am going to try another angle and see how that works out. Over the past couple of days, it didn't perform well. Now I have to switch things up and see if a landing page will perform better. Yup, it was a direct link offer as that is what Anstrex showed me while I did my research.
I will continue this mini case study, will update my findings and results as well. Let me know what you think. More to spend and see where things go with Zeropark Push traffic.
If you run traffic, you know you want to try to monetize every click as much as possible. The click is very important, you paid for it. So you want to make sure you make as much as you can from the click.
A couple of weeks ago I tested several smartlink systems in which you can generate extra revenue. Monetizer was the clear winner and they recently added push to their platform. They are growing a database of push users (subscriptions) and will share the revenue they generate through their push database with you.
I think it is a smart play on their part. They grow their own push database traffic and while they do that they pay you a % of what they make off it. I think it is fair but of course you can always do it on your own and make more money.
Here is a quick snapshot of what I have generated so far for the month of August:
So far I have generated a total of 4k subscriptions, meaning I added 4k users to their database of push subscribers. It has sent a total of 30k push alerts or push ads to those users which generated me $46.81.
In ad terms, each sub is worth just a penny ish. Hopefully, they can monetize it better, but we shall see in the coming months what it will be generating.
Anyways, how does Monetizer collect the subscribers. Well, when you send remnant traffic or non-matching clicks to your ads, they are redirected to another offer via monetizer. Sometimes on the redirect, they are given a push alert to subscribe.
Here is what Monetizer says in their backend dashboard:
Monetizer collects push subscribers from the Chrome traffic you send. We then sell ads to these subscribers and share the revenue with you. To grow your passive push income send Chrome Traffic to your Monetizer links and we'll collect the opt-in for your account.
Yup, it sends the unwanted traffic you have - whether it is back button redirect, non-matching geo clicks, non-device matches, unwanted clicks, etc; these non-targeted clicks are then redirected to your Monetizer link and then Monetizer does the rest which creates a passive income bucket for you.
They have been testing this system on their backend with a selected few and now recently has updated it to everyone on their platform. Helping advertisers make more money per click.
Yes, the argument I also gave myself is I can and should grow my own as well, but time is something I do not have with so many things I am working on, it can be a pain to manage. It is a project all in its own.
For the full month of August, here is my subscription line, this is obviously also due to the type of traffic I am running as well as me pausing traffic or turning off traffic on my own internal campaigns.
With Push traffic being on the rise and Monetizer having the technology to collect and grow their database, it is well worth it to have them in your arsonal of tools. Especially if you are trying to monetize off clicks or untargeted traffic.
It is literally extra money for you and when you are generating traffic and clicks are not converting, Monetizer can help and put a cushion between your own spend to the revenue you generate with them.
The best part is they will share any profit with you that they generate off your subscriptions, so it is a passive income scenario when you think about it.
There is a lot of web hosts out there. I used to go with LiquidWeb for a very long time. It was easy when it comes to one-off domains. I simply created a page, uploaded, and run traffic to it.
If it needed to be discarded, I just deleted the domain or server.
Nowadays there is so much more access to technology that hosting pages has become much easier and even much faster to host. Though I have been using Linode and Digital Ocean, one host has been the easiest and much much faster, Vultr.
If you are a beginner affiliate then this might be the easiest for you to start rather than going on a shared hosting provider like SiteGround. The reason is speed.
Speed is the most important part when it comes to your affiliate campaigns. This could be one of the first things you'll learn when you get into the affiliate marketing industry.
At first, you'd think that it's only about promoting products that could get you a commission from thousands to millions of dollars in total.
But as you edge closer into this kind of business, you'll realize how much speed and landing pages can be your best friends.
Just like I said, if you want optimum performance paired with an affordable rate, Vultr is the way to go.
I'm going to show you how I upload my landing pages in Vultr in a while but before that let me tell you a thing or two about managed and unmanaged servers.
When you're a beginner, you might not have any idea what a managed and unmanaged server is. As a result, you'd mostly fall into the trap of getting a managed server.
Not that there's anything wrong with a managed server. The reason this thing is so popular is because of its relatively low fees and if you're running a simple website serving as a blog or portfolio, it may not be that bad.
But it's quite a different case when it comes to affiliate landing pages because when you're getting a lot of traffic, it might not take long before your memory is jammed.
And as we know, in affiliate marketing or any kind of online business, speed is definitely of the essence.
Now back to the difference between managed and unmanaged servers.
In basic terms, managed servers are the ones that you'd see under the name of Bluehost, GoDaddy, SiteGround, and many more.
Just like I said, there isn't anything particularly wrong with using these services but if you want to get what's worth you're paying for, this just won't cut it. You see, when you get a managed server what you're really paying for is the tech support.
But that's where an unmanaged server comes in.
The only thing with an unmanaged server is that you have to be knowledgeable or hire a good developer. The reason is that when you're in an unmanaged server, you're practically on your own, there is no support.
If something goes wrong, you don't have tech support to help you fix it. You have to manage things by yourself, get it unmanaged.
Of course, this may seem like a lot of beginners out there but it's really not. You don't have to be an all-out expert in landing pages to be able to use an unmanaged server.
Besides, with this blog giving you practically all the information you can ever need, absolutely nothing can go wrong.
The first thing you got to do is create an account.
There's no need to worry because doing this is quite easy. Sign Up Here. Receive $50 When You Sign Up.
Go to the sign-up page and fill in your email address and desired password. Afterward, you'd be required to validate your account using the email address that you provided.
It's that simple. It's just like creating an account with any other website.
By the time you validate your account, you'd be able to head to your dashboard where you can start uploading your landing page.
But before you do that, I recommend you add your payment first.
One of the best things about Vultr is that it doesn't bind you with any contract to use their service for months or even a year. You can use it for as often as you want.
Now we proceed with uploading your landing page.
The first thing you need to do is deploy a new instance. You can do that by going back to the products page of your account. From there you can choose various types of instances to choose from. There is a storage instance, Vultr cloud compute, or a dedicated instance.
We recommend you to use the Vultr cloud compute by default.
The next thing you've got to do is to choose a location. Make sure that the location is the one closest to where you want to run the campaign. For example, if you are targeting Germany, it would make sense to deploy a Frankfurt server.
If you do not know where you are targeting just yet, choose a location where you are based in.
Don't worry because you can always delete this later on and just pay for the number of hours that your campaign went online. After that, you can go right ahead and create a new campaign set at a different location.
Another reason why Vultr is valuable because as affiliates, we hate spies. So by allowing you to get a new IP address in different locations, you can just destroy a server when the campaign is done or a dud, stopping spy tools from trying to peak at your landing pages.
In this case, you'll have to use a LEMP application that has Linux Cent OS x64 with PHP, MySQL, and NGINX that are installed by default.
There are also other features you can use like Cpanel, a Minecraft server, and even WordPress. However, I don't recommend that you use these things for now.
Vultr gives you plenty of options when it comes to server size.
I recommend you go for the $5 per month plan. If you're just starting out, this would be more than sufficient to run your campaigns. So just before you chose the $5 plan, you need to choose the type of server...
Of course, you can later upgrade to a bigger plan if the need for it comes. Especially when you start scaling since you will be sending lots of traffic to it!
You can just leave the other options blank and skip to the Server Label where you'd have to put the name of your server.
Vultr will create your server in a few minutes. You will receive a notification in your email once it is done. It only takes maybe 5 minutes sometimes less than
This should be quite easy and will only take up about two minutes of your time.
You just have to go to your domain provider and set up a custom DNS for your domain. it should point to:
Now go back to Vultr. Hover over to the "Servers" main menu and click the "DNS" submenu. Choose "Add Domain" button.
Just fill out the IP Address of your server and input the domain you're pointing to.
Now the big difference here is that I use CloudFlare to get and use their free SSL. I set up the server as is, I update my DNS to Vultr, once it has completed, I then connect Cloudflare.
Cloudflare will provide you with new DNS to adjust and change within your domain provider
It's time to install CyberDuck but you can still use any other FTP client if you already have one.
Where do you find your FTP information? Go back to "Server Information" scroll just a bit down and you should see this information
Click on the eye to view your password which will give you access to the server via SFTP.
Go to the folder and selector and locate usr/share/nginx/html.
You'll find two files stored in this area which you will have to delete so you can make room for the landing pages that you are about to upload.
You can start uploading your landing page by dragging and dropping your files from your computer to CyberDuck or any file manager you use.
You should also watch out for your CPU and bandwidth user. This should give you a pretty good idea of how your server is handling your campaigns. Upgrade your plan as often as needed.
... and that is it. Vultr is definitely a solid platform. I have all my landing pages on there and I can destroy each one if I need new IPs or no longer need the LP. Making sure spy tools don't get to see my landers as often as I would like them too.
There are a lot of people that want to get into affiliate marketing but something else is holding them back - their day job.
Having a job can be a drag with all the commuting and such but it's not like you can bear to lose the main source of income that you have. As much as you want to pursue something that you truly love doing, there are certain aspects that get in the way. One would be time.
Let me talk from experience. I'll tell you all about what I did to become an affiliate marketer while working 3 jobs.
Yes, I did have 3 jobs. I was a human resource manager during the day, a call center agent at night, and a weekend waiter. I worked 7 days a week. So before you complain about your 9-5, at least you get to have sufficient sleep on a daily basis.
Basically, the easiest way to get into affiliate marketing would be to start a blog. It doesn't have to about anything fancy or smart. Just talk about the things you'd usually talk about, things that you're interested in.
My blog started out as an online journal. I've got to tell you. I really didn't expect my blog to be where it is now.
The great thing about blogging is that it is a sure way for you to juggle your day job while working your way towards your goal of becoming an affiliate marketer.
You get to do all of this without having to compromise your sleep or work-life balance.
First, let me show you a before and after picture of me.
The image to the left is me going to an interview for a call center agent role. This was the third job I acquired while being a waiter on the weekends and a human resource manager during the day.
This new job would have me on the call floor taking customer service calls. I would go to this job right after my first job, starting at 6 PM.
Now, the image to the right is me with my Porsche Cayman S and with no job. The only thing that I was aiming for was to be able to let go of my two jobs and just stick to one stable job. I did not intend to be where I am at now.
My one-way ticket out of the rat race was affiliate marketing. It wasn't long before I started getting into affiliate marketing full time.
With my three jobs, I was able to put out my affiliate marketing campaigns little by little and with little money spent. A lot of people complain about a single job but I was able to pull it off with three. How? Here's how to do it.
These days, people juggle the word "focus" like it's the most simple word on the planet.
But in reality, it can take quite an effort to stay focused.
What you should do is to become aware of your goals.
It might even be best to write them down. From time to time, you might want to do something fun to keep you on track.
Here, while in Budapest, I walk to the park and write my overall goals and my weekly goals.
When you don't take a rest from achieving your goals, this can somehow ruin your focus at some point in time.
As for me, what I did was to read and listen to inspiration audio. Doing helped me become more self-aware in trying to reach my goals. Even when you are at work, you can write your dreams while riding a bus, on your 15-minute break, etc.
You don't have to be perfect before you try out affiliate marketing. Starting from level 1 is perfectly fine but you have to always remember to keep moving. This is another reason why I created my Incomplete Affiliate Marketing Guide. It gives you the basics.
You have to keep yourself from being stagnant. Don't allow yourself to stay in one place more than once. You have to improve your skills and character as a person.
Self-improvement can be pretty difficult if you're not mindful of your thoughts and actions. So aside from becoming a focused person, you also need to be mindful - of yourself as well as the environment where you move.
When you are at work, use your in-between time to research, read other peoples goals. Multi-tasking to do your job and your goals can be a hassle but you have a goal to do and that is job-free.
Perhaps, one of the hardest thing about making it to the top is hitting the right balance between relaxation and determination.
Surely, you don't expect your affiliate marketing business to be successful by being idle. You might make some quick and easy money but that's all you're ever going to get if you lack determination and goal setting.
If you want to be successful, you need to put in the work.
Then again, if you stress yourself too much, this could also lead you to spiral down from the pedestal. This was one of my drawbacks because all I wanted to do was work.
Therefore, you need to strike the right balance. This means that you should do your best and exert as much effort as you can but don't forget to lie low once in a while. Make time for yourself. Find the time to relax and have fun.
Even when I was broke, I was able to hang out with friends at least once a week to make sure I am not secluded seeing as seclusion can lead to depression.
It's when you get started with affiliate marketing, you realize how important time is. You might think that you're just spending a couple of minutes to chat away.
But you'll soon realize that these minutes you spend on other stuff can be put to better use by spending your 5 minutes creating and drafting campaigns.
The trick is to do the task as quickly as you can without compromising the quality. This means you have to put down the urge to procrastinate. When you do that, you'll succeed at a much higher speed.
While at work, utilize your 15 minutes, maybe instead of using the full hour lunch, use 30 minutes. You want to try to prioritize your goals within your workplace. So move fast but wisely.
Besides, the faster you move, the faster you'll make a mistake and gain experience. Once you've learned your lesson, it will feel much easier to get to where you want to be.
Many people have goals. You can bet that you're not the only one.
But the thing is the majority of these people only want to think about their dreams and never really make it happen.
Now that you're starting to take notice of your goals and seeking out ways to achieve them, you have to know how to set the right atmosphere for you.
It's true when people say "Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are". If you hang out with people with big dreams but no action, it won't take long before you also become one of them.
It's not that they'd be dragging you down or anything like that but the thing is the people you spend time with have an influence on you, even if you think you are a disciplined person. Environment means everything.
This was a crucial part of my online career, back in the day there was not a lot of online marketers. So I just wanted to have a group that was starting out just like me.
What I did was I started the IANteract Meetups/Hangouts. It was a group at the time on Meetup.com, so I can expand my group of friends outside my normal.
It allowed me to almost compete with everyone in my group. Similar to when you go to a workout group, everyone's energy is so high you want to just compete in the most friendly way.
Not only did we talk about our online journey, but also what was going on in life. I have made great relationships with my NJ group that everyone is family. These hangouts are very important and I personally think a very important part of growth.
A most important part of these meetups is to create friendships and not always talk about business. You have to balance life, pleasure, work.
These are just simple steps to take while working at your job, always try to keep improving in every aspect of your daily routine.
If you've been into the internet space for quite some time now, you've probably noticed how online arbitrage has been the trend these days.
As I am an avid traveler, I try to do things with systems and setups. Now that I recently got into Amazon FBA as well gotten back into traveling, I needed to figure out a way to properly do arbitrage for Amazon.
Here is what the breakdown will look like, very simple.
This is pretty much the basis of online arbitrage.
In the last video that I uploaded on YouTube, I talked all about the tools I use for a successful online arbitrage process.
And in this blog post, I'm going to dig deeper and be more specific with the methods.
Before you get into online arbitrage, there are some terms that we need to discuss first.
You can think of online arbitrage as a means of exploiting the price mismatch in two marketplaces.
Back before online selling wasn't a thing, entrepreneurs already had a strategy called retail arbitrage quite similar to online arbitrage.
Retail arbitrage is when you buy products from a retailer and sell them to customers at a higher price. The only difference with online arbitrage is that you get to sell these items wherever you are.
Some people often confuse online arbitrage with reselling. However, this cannot be considered as reselling because, in online arbitrage, you purchase items from retailers as an ordinary customer and not as a company or enterprise. When you grow getting a reseller license will be important.
When it's just your first time to get into online reselling, it's quite normal for you to think that everything is going to be easy peasy from now on. However, there is more to online arbitrage than waiting for all the profit to come oozing in your bank account.
The process is sort of the same as any other physical business. The only difference is that the exchange of funds and goods are done online.
When it comes to making money with arbitrage, time is really of the essence. This is what makes it so important to know how to locate your time wisely. You can always take care of everything on your own but let me just tell you that it's going to eat a lot of your time.
One of the best ways to be time-wise in online arbitrage is to acquire the services of a prep service company like KC Prep and Ship. They prep to the Amazon standards and then ship/distribute it to all the Amazon Fulfillment Centers.
Amazon FBA gives sellers more flexibility in how they do their business. It takes care of the storage, packing, and shipping of your products.
Other than that, you also benefit from carrying the name of Amazon in your products. This sort of gives your product a higher quality vibe which is good for marketing.
As for me, I didn't really start with online arbitrage from the beginning. When I first started, I did some retail arbitrage which really helped me become more hands-on with Amazon FBA business.
I did all the storing, packing, and delivering all by myself. When I finally got the hang of everything, I decided to try the online arbitrage route.
Now let me show you how I do online arbitrage...
The first thing I do is go to brickseek.com.
Before anything else, I'd like to tell you a thing or two about brickseek.com
If you're someone who prefers to purchase stuff from your favorite retail store, BrickSeek makes everything easier for you.
It's a site that helps you find the best deals in retail stores like Best Buy and Target. If you want to save more of your time, you can even decide to purchase the item there and then.
But you can also use BrickSeek for online arbitrage, helping you find discounted items in all one dashboard almost.
When you choose an item, you can go over to Amazon.com to see the price difference. Yup, just copy the title exactly and search. But there's more to online arbitrage than just looking at the price differences.
So for the next step, you're going to download two chrome extensions. Important.
The first thing you're going to need is the Buy Bot Pro chrome extension.
We all know that in the world of business, a lot of logic and analysis has to be done first before choosing to buy or sell a product.
For most resellers or arbitragers, you probably do most of the analytics in your head but to arrive at the perfect conclusion you need to be able to organize and write things down.
But since this can be difficult to do, the best way to be flexible and more efficient is to use Buy Bot Pro.
Buy Bot Pro makes automated deal analysis and buying decisions easy for you.
Just type how much you'll be buying the product for and click the "analysis" button. It automatically creates a breakdown of the product you are researching.
You'll see if the product will be a good item to sell as well as how much you are most likely going to profit from selling this particular product. Most important it will take into account if you are eligible to sell the item on Amazon.
Helium 10 is useful for its various tools that can help online entrepreneurs make a wise decision with their selling.
It can help you search for the right keywords needed to properly market your product. It also has a feature that ensures that your listings don't miss all the necessary keywords that can help your product reach your desired audience.
Helium 10 also renders charts and diagrams to help you understand the product trend more deeply. You can download the trial but if you want to use it for longer use, you might need to purchase a subscription.
Initial expenses may be the last thing on your mind when it comes to your online business but you'll see that it's totally worth it in the end because these two Chrome extensions can help you get better sales.
Helium 10 and Buy Bot Pro might do all the analysis work but what really matters at this point is how much time you are willing to put into searching for products that you can send to Amazon.
I will do some in-depth write-ups on these chrome extensions as well on this blog. Stay tuned.
More recently I have noticed that a lot of sites have upgraded their GDPR compliance agreements. You know those popups that ask you to agree about your privacy.
Maybe it is because I am currently in the EU (Budapest, Hungary) but seems like everyone is trying to avoid a hefty fine from the EU government. Facebook got hit with a $5 billion dollar fine.
So I have decided to list some of the best GDPR plugins from my research and ones that I am using on my other websites on this blog.
I love the internet but the freedom of information online had also made way for hackers and thieves to work their way into people's private information.
Because of that, the European government mandates all businesses that operate online to protect the information of EU customers.
If you have a running website which EU people can access, you have to make sure that the information that they share with you will be safe.
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It requires businesses to protect the data and privacy of EU customers. Otherwise, the business owner would have to pay millions as a fine.
Maybe it is because I am currently in the EU (Budapest, Hungary) but seems like everyone is trying to avoid a hefty fine from the EU government. Facebook got hit with a $5 billion dollar fine.
So I have decided to list some of the best GDPR plugins from my research and ones that I am using on my other websites on this blog.
WordPress GDPR is an all-in-one GDPR compliance plug-in. It has a One Control Privacy Center that provides your customers with all the tools they will ever need.
WordPress GDPR has privacy settings which your customers can use so they can control their data. They will be able to classify the cookies and choose whether or not to activate them.
This plug-in comes with a cookie pop-up that will inform your visitors that their cookies will be saved into your website. Before your website actually stores these cookies, the user would have to agree with the notice first.
WordPress GDPR will also inform your visitors of a potential data breach as required by the law.
There is also the Forget Me feature which gives your customers the option to erase all the data and information they have shared with the website.
This also comes with Contact DPO feature which means that you can add a form where people can send a message or consult a data privacy officer.
You can also request for the data archives that your website obtains which will be sent through email.
Your customers can also rectify their data if ever they feel the need to update it or they realize that they have placed the wrong information.
WordPress GDPR also helps with policy updates because it sends the updated policies to your customers' email addresses. This is what is currently being used on this blog.
Cookie Notice provides you with a much simpler solution to GDPR policies. If you'd rather take care of everything else and just want to inform your customers that your site uses cookies, then Cookie Notice is the right GDPR plug-in for you.
This is the one I use on my simple microsites.
It has a default cookie message but you can also customize it depending on your needs and has a redirect link in case your customer wants to learn more about the policy.
If you're running a more dynamic website, Cookie Notice also provides features that let you animate and select the positioning of the cookie message box. You can also format the style, text, and background colors.
The Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress is comparable to the WordPress GDPR in the sense that it also equips you and your customers with all the tools you'll need to comply with the GDPR policy.
The Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress is compatible with much third-party e-commerce software such as Woocommerce, Buddypress plugin, Gravity Forms, Clean Talks, and many more.
The plugin asks for customers' consent with regards to cookies collection as well as gives them the option to delete all the information they have shared with your website. They can also have data access to the information they shared with you.
The cookie message also comes in different views and you can also customize the skin colors.
The plugin also hosts language translations to different languages. What sets it apart from other plugins is that this one actually has professionals who manually does the translation instead of getting an auto-translation software. They give you manual translations done by actual humans.
In Easy GDPR, you get to view the admin screen as well as the visitor screen. With that, you can better see how effective your cookie information notices are to your audience or customers.
This plugin provides you with a cookie message that you can display on your website for new visitors.
It also lets you categorize which cookies you can allow your customers to accept. This means you can decide if you want some cookies to be automatically activated the moment someone enters your website.
Aside from that, there is also an option to only show the cookies information notice to visitors from the EU.
Customers will also be able to request access to the information you stores not to mention have the option to erase their shared information with the website.
Apart from that, they can also request to export the data that you got from them. You will also be notified if there has been a data leak. In retrospect, you will have the option to send the notification to your users.
WP GDPR Compliance lets you add data consent to your website to make sure that you comply with the EU GDPR compliance policy.
While you might need to ensure that you are already complying with the rest of the policies, WP GDPR Compliance helps keep your customers in control of their data.
On top of that, the plugin also records and keeps tab of all the cookie consents made through your website.
Using this plugin, your customers also get the right to access their information as well as erase their shared data.
Total GDPR Compliance - WordPress Plugin For GDPR Compatibility has an extra feature that lets you add a cookie code to your Google Analytics so that you'll have advanced cookie control.
Just like the other plugins in this post, Total GDPR Compliance also lets you group your cookies in different categories.
There is also an option to hide the cookies from visitors not coming from the EU.
If you're maintaining a dynamic website, you can choose from three different layouts and over 30 cookie templates.
The plugin also has 24/7 support ready to answer any concerns you may have.
I have decided to turn off commenting on my blog. The reason, it just loads forever and as you know speed is everything these days when it comes to the internet.
Also, there isn't much activity on the blog comment system as it was when I first started online. The crazy part is we as marketers add comments to our landing pages to create social proof. Yet, not a lot of people leave a comment on the blog.
I see Youtube and Social media comments more so than on the actual website. Even magazine websites like Entrepreneur does not have comments on their posts.
There are other bloggers like Chris Lema who explains why he is also turning off his Disqus commenting off on his blog as well. Then you have OptinMonster who provides you with data to decide for yourself if you should have comments on or off.
So the reason why I am removing comments because Disqus the plugin I am using to manage comments just loads super slow on my blog. I then decided to look at the stats on the blog for this year.
As you can see there isn't much interaction to the web posts I post. Comments are not a major part of the blog and the interaction usually happens on Facebook. With so many readers on the blog, these minuscule numbers do not play a big role on the blog.
With the numbers above, you can see it isn't worth it because I don't even moderate the comments. Since there isn't much to moderate.
Well, I said the blog was pretty slow, so let us take a look at some stats. I took a speed test with GtMetrix and this is what I got a before and after.
The before is with Disqus installed and it just took too long to load, damn 20 seconds! Even with all the cache plugins and FlyWheel server-side caching still didn't help.
This is what happens when I just disabled it. It literally shaved off 15 seconds off! That how bad Disqus has been slowing down my blog.
So with that said. I decided to turn it off. Sure it looks cool and helps with the interaction but not many of my readers are interacting anyways. They comment on the blog thumbnail on my Facebook page more so.
With that said, there will be no more blog commenting on this blog. Let me know your thoughts on this. Do you even leave comments on other blogs?
Just last night, I went to raid Attila home to take some campaigns away but got caught by his two little minions pups that quietly barked my location on his property.
Instead, I got Attila to talk about online gurus and what he thinks of them. There is a huge opinion in our industry specifical among affiliates about online gurus. I even have my own opinions about them as well.
So after a couple of drinks in Attila and I wanted to put this discussion out there to the community and see what you thought to see if we can shed some light on the guru space.
This video was pre-recorded as it went Live on Attila FB page.
There was a lot that we discussed especially if there are good and bad gurus out there. My definition of an online marketing guru is someone that is aggressively trying to show you an old tactic that doesn't work anymore. CLICK THAT BIG RED BUTTON NOW type of sale page.
... but as Attila says there are also some good gurus out there. For example, Jason Akatiff is a mastermind veteran when it comes to online marketing. Do I consider him a guru not really because he isn't in it for your CC, he genuinely loves this industry.
Jason spits out so much experience that you want to Netflix and Chill right there. At the end of his conversation, he says try it out or good luck and doesn't bother pitching you a $5,000 course.
You can just walk up to him and ask him questions about the game and he will discuss it with you openly and guess what it is free. Attila brought up an interesting point where some gurus you are not allowed to even walk up to them unless you pay a "walk up to me fee".
Meaning some of these gurus think they value their time and that they need to charge you for the 5-minute conversation you will have with them. Instead of building a relationship and trying to help out than through a PDF download.
Attila even goes into discussing how a 'guru' blatantly stole the content of one of his friends and the same Youtube thumbnail and put it out as his own.
It happens all the time content is being recycled and renamed as someone's expertise. This online marketing space is very saturated and to get an edge, gurus do what they must to look like the expert rather than create a quality community. Make sure to check out Attila's Forum where he exposes all of them.
I have started talking about this a while back and I mean the start of this year. I posted several posts on my Amazon FBA/eBay business and so far it has been a great learning curve and journey.
I have now more recently decided to focus on Amazon FBA because now I am back to traveling and have not figured out the right process on how to handle eBay without it costing too much.
So Amazon FBA is where I am going to continue and I want to say I just recently reached a goal of 4k in the past 30 days.
The reason I am posting this is that it is possible to make money literally with anything. I started with $100 to see if this was possible because like anything on the internet I am skeptical until I try it myself.
Now, with the $100 is pretty much what I earned from selling things around the house which was free, specifically on eBay. I also started on eBay before I set forth on Amazon FBA. I have been selling on eBay since the first days of the internet and my old logins still work.
My eBay account had history and I am glad it did because it pretty much gave me a head start in this game of reselling.
Before affiliate marketing, this is what I did to rid of my 3 jobs. Resold items but it def was a hustle and I didn't mind it at that time, 15 years or so ago.
So with the first set of cash and learning from Youtube, especially from these guys.
I went and started selling books on Amazon, again selling al my marketing books and other books from college or around the house. I literally just wanted to learn FBA and knew most of the books I would send to FBA it would be a loss.
But that is something I am willing to take to learn the process. Again I am all about experiences now to win later. So I knew I was going to lose but I knew also I would gain the experiences needed to be creative and understand the numbers more. I learn much faster by losing.
I also joined several groups on Facebook and asked away while providing some feedback from my own reselling. It was important to get immediate information while trying to find it. So I made sure my relationship with the group is critical.
In the end, my $100 did not fully start with Amazon FBA. I started with eBay first and that was earned not an initial investment. I invested time in the beginning because I wanted to learn. With the revenue earned, I reinvested that back into sourcing for eBay products and for Amazon FBA.
I then started learning about retail arbitrage, which was the best thing I did with the initial investment. I spend usually 2-3 days just sourcing and buying shelves of an item to send to Amazon. Hustle work but the 2-3 days of work for products to be sold literally within a weeks time was worth it.
Now, I do have some products that did well and then I ended up buying too much and now are sitting. So my next challenge is to figure out how to move this inventory while trying to at least benefit.
I was thinking landing page with the lead subscription so just in case I have more products I need to move I can just email them. In the end, I wanted to show you that Amazon FBA is an amazing platform to sell on.
You literally can put up products by arbitraging and then seeing profit but the initial investment is more than eBay. It wouldn't be worth it to send in products to Amazon FBA when you only have 5 items, you need a huge box for it to be worth it - 50 pounds.
That is why I think the best strategy is to put it on eBay while gathering and sourcing, this way you are selling and earning. Why not do Amazon FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) - a lot of users are on Prime and they will want speed. If you are a day slow on the shipping you will get dinged, remember they are not your customers, they are Amazon.
Now, that I am traveling I am expanding my FBA into sourcing overseas and now online. A new venture and challenge I am partaking in and gathering experiences in.
I reached my goal of 4k and now I want to hit 10k on Amazon.
Here is a video recap of my 2019 where I talk a bit more in details about my eBay and Amazon journey.
