I remember the first paid traffic affiliate marketing campaign I ever ran.
I had been doing SEO for a few years. I spent hours writing these huge articles on a suite of blogs and over time I created so much content that I had rankings for all kinds of different keywords.
So when people searched for “blah” my stuff showed up in the search engines for it.
Over a 2–3 year period I was able to take it from making $0/month, to $250/month to about $3000/month.
So for my 2–3 years worth of work, I had scaled my campaign to a max of about $100/day… and at the time – it felt GREAT.
Enter Paid Traffic
One of my blogs caught the eye of an affiliate manager. He found my contact info and called me. He told me about paid traffic and said that he had some offers that were doing $30,000/day and if I wanted to try them out he would show me how.
I decided to take the leap and setup my first paid traffic campaign ever – on Google Adwords.
The first month was a trial-by-fire learning experience. I was learning the ropes and risking my own cash and I lost about $3000. That was a huge dent in my savings and I had to seriously consider quitting.
Luckily, I chose to keep going. I decided that $3000 loss was simply the cost of getting an education and I took all my experience with me and moved forward.
As I moved forward, I was breaking even and then started making money.
$70 A Day
My affiliate manager and I talked almost every day. He was keeping me pumped up and answering questions and then I would put everything into action.
About a month and a half into we had a little chat. It went something like this:
Chris: How’s your campaign doing?
Malan: I’m finally profitable man! I can’t believe it!!!
Chris: Great – how much are you making per day?
Malan: I’m making $70 profit! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!!!
Chris: That’s awesome man, $70 a day. Congrats!
We celebrated that $70 a day profit like it was a billion dollars a day. I remember sitting back and looking at the numbers… and that $70 profit just blew my mind.
“I can’t believe it!!! I’m spending $100 a day and making back $170!! I’m the KING OF THE WORLD!!”
That kind of enthusiasm kept me going. And as the weeks and months went by I went from making $70 a day to much… (much much much) more.
But I never would have gotten there if I I hadn’t been so excited along the way.
Your Lack of Enthusiasm
Flash forward 8 years and I’m pretty well known in the online marketing industry. I talk to newbies almost every day, I run an affiliate marketing mastermind forum with 100s of members sharing their ideas and progress.
Everyone is chasing the dream and want to do what I do – they want to be like me. And I’m all for that – I mean, I’m not a genius and I figured it out- so you can too.
But you know what I see missing?
ENTHUSIASM over progress.
Most of the time I see the exact opposite of Enthusiasm. I see pain, horror and desperation to hit bigger numbers.
I see affiliates go from losing $200 a day to making $5 a day and they’re PISSED OFF.
I see affiliates go from making $5/day to $500/day and they’re PISSED OFF.
I see affiliates go from making $500/day to making $2500/day and they’re PISSED OFF.
I see affiliates making $5000/day and they’re STILL PISSED off and want to know what they’re missing that could push them to $100k/day.
Why Are They Pissed Off?
So why are these guys pissed off? It’s pretty simple really.
Because they’re comparing their numbers to the astronomical numbers they hear being thrown around by super affiliates and gurus.
They hear people say they’re making $10,000 a day (which is almost never consistent) and they feel like unless they are making $10,000 a day EVERY DAY – they’re failing.
That $500/day profit doesn’t even register in their brains as being a good thing – they see it as a failure. They think they’re losing.
Shooting for the stars and setting your goals high is great. But if you don’t celebrate your progress every step of the way you doom yourself to failure EVEN when you win.
My first $500/day profit
I remember hitting $70/day profit and feeling like GOD. I’ll never forget that little chat my affiliate manager and I had about it.
He had told me that guys were doing $30,000/day revenue on the same offer. I didn’t care about that at all. I didn’t even consider their numbers.
I just knew that I went from $100/day after 2–3 years of SEO work to making $70/day doing paid traffic in about a month.
That set me on FIRE.
I remember the day I hit $500/day profit. I remember it because I was so freaked out about it that I started an affiliate marketing blog – and the first post was titled “$500/day Profits”.
In the post I shared my successes and how great I felt. The (very) few readers that I had, were also newbie affiliates making $50/day or so and they couldn’t believe what I was saying.
I was the king of the newbies at that point.
I was so excited I could hardly contain myself.
So OF COURSE I kept plugging away, testing things and optimizing my campaign.
OF COURSE I went from $70/day to $500/day to $5000/day and on and on and on.
The work became easy – the hours flew by. My ENTHUSIASM kept me going through the late nights and crazy roller coaster rides that come with this business.
My ENTHUSIASM kept me pushing ahead until I became one of the biggest affiliate marketers in the world!
What Would Have Happened?
What would have happened if I was comparing myself to some guru or super affiliate blogger that was talking about making $70,000 a day?
I would have FAILED MISERABLY.
Why would I keep trying if I’m only making $70/day and he’s making $70,000? What’s the point?
There would have been no point – and just like 1000s of other affiliates who compare themselves to the big guys I would have quit and gone back to a 9–5 job to pay the bills.
I would be that guy telling people “Oh you’re trying to make money online? Well, I tried affiliate marketing and it didn’t work..”
I’d be a CANCER to all the new hopefuls that are trying to learn the game.
So What’s The 1 Weird Trick?
In my 8 years in paid traffic I’d say that there is one commonality between the people that do the best.
They have ENTHUSIASM about the small wins.
I have never seen someone come into the game with million dollar dreams make it happen. I’ve never seen someone who says they’re going to make $70,000/day actually make it.
They all quit.
They quit because their reality doesn’t match their expectations.
- They EXPECT millions of dollars to fall out of the sky into their lap.
- They EXPECT to make $10k, $20k/day from the very start.
- And when it doesn’t happen, they quit.
They see that $70/day profit and compare it to $70k/day and they feel like a loser and give up.
The truth is that almost every gigantic campaign I had ever run starts off slowly.
- First I’m losing money
- then I’m breaking even
- then I’m making $70 a day
- then $500 a day
- then $5000 a day
- then sky rockets
That’s how the process works.
So if you’re doing affiliate marketing and aren’t hitting the profit numbers you want to hit yet – realize that we’ve all been in that spot.
The trick to making $70,000/day is to stay ENTHUSIASTIC about your progress every step of the way. If you’re currently making ANY profit from your campaign you should be excited.
Remember, $70/day is $25k/year. I know full-time employees that make less than that.
$70/day is your stepping stone out of the rate race and into the Universe of Freedom where all great things happen.
To put it bluntly – If you can’t get excited about $70/day… you’re never going to make it to $70,000/day.
That’s just the reality of it.
Wanna keep pushing yourself to hit bigger numbers? That’s fine.
Just don’t beat yourself up.
I m happy to hear that I m normal to be enthusiastic even with small victory.
I just started getting positive ROI a couple of weeks ago. I still get excited about $20 profit days and discouraged about some of my negative ROI days (but some of those negative ROI days, I’m learning which placements I can cut). Through it all, just staying with the process helps. Even to the point of forgetting about goals and just focusing on the process while I get profitable. But all the same it’s exciting, it’s depressing, but it’s working!
Hey dude, watched a couple of your YouTube videos and now I’m here. I’m interested in what you think of people working the 9-5 grind and trying to get into affiliate marketing for fun in their off time. They say that if you can have fun doing some that gets you paid, you never work a day in your life. Do you think it’s possible to test the waters while still sitting in the lifeboat? You may have already produced content on the subject so I’ll keep looking around. Thanks for the inspiration.
Here you go: http://www.malandarras.com/secondmorning
Your title hit my mind to click on it. But you really changed the way at the end of your article. You are absolutely right staying ENTHUSIASTIC is a path to see the unbelievable results.
Haha, love this post. It’s all about celebrating those small increments – if you don’t you’ll definitely give up! 🙂
great post but lack of practice, detailed steps, what the things you did to be successful, this is generic words , web filled with these stories, i believe in you , but also believe that super affiliates like you do not help anyone or give useful blueprints unless to pay 5k or 10k , someday this well change, thanks
thanks for coming to my free website and critiquing my free article that i spent an hour of my time writing for free. In this spirit of freedom, I encourage you to feel free to not come back or read my stuff anymore.
Right on, Malan. I’d also strongly disagree with Jan- these ARE detailed steps. The mechanics of an affiliate campaign are easy, the mentality is the hardest part to nail.
Yeah dude where’s my free $10k blueprint? After all, you owe me.
I always start my comments by saying thanks, but really, THANKS! I love following you, because you are so down to earth, and you not only share about am, but your life. Love to see when you just walk around downtown talking about some crazy people you just met or your thoughts on music styles or whatever, Thanks Man!
very welcome brotha Willy
Good Stuff.
thanks BOLO
Iam a newbie , Really thank you for the article i was disapointed and you gave me hope again.
good to hear 🙂
Loved reading this, Malan. Nothing beats how great you feel when you see a split test that improved conversions!
best game ever
Great post as usual keep inspiring us man, Thank youu
yw
Hi Malan, I’m new to the blog and I’m fascinated. Do you have somewhere on your site that is a good starting point, to get familiar with what steps to take to begin the journey of maybe following in your footsteps?
Malan you’re really great in writing TITLES, I just clicked on the email link when I saw 70,000/day 🙂 my great day was $700/day, and then $560/day. Making $100/day is not a big deal for me and its all via Organic Traffic. Isn’t awesome?? Yes, it is. NOW, I am thinking about paid traffic. As I said, I am making almost $100/day, what would you suggest? Should I continue blogging or try paid traffic?
By the way, Thanks for the great post.
try paid. take a risk
thanks man, it really hit the spot
Great post! Thanks Malan!
One of the worst mistakes I made was setting a goal for $10k/mo when my highest score was not even $30/day. Comparing yourself with others is a
trap. focusing on doubling your highest daily/weekly score was a game changer for me.
yeah setting a $10k/day goal out of the gate is suicide. doubling high score is pretty epic though. 🙂
Bang on point here mate…. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill
i like it
Thank you for this awesome post, I never read this from any aff. guru, this make me see something missing in myself, I’ll celebrate every step of progress.
that’s because most aff gurus are full of sh#t
That was really a refreshing angle amidst all the other posts that tell us we can make multimillions when we are not on level ground with those who can do so.
Thank you Malan for the reminder.
if they mention the word “millions”… that’s a pretty good indicator you’re being set up.
Awesome post!
thanks Ryan
Celebrate victories, even the small ones!!! Good timing on this post Malan. I know I’m guilty of ignoring the my wins. Always looking for more…Always trying to beat the day before… It’s not healthy to aknowledge the victories…Thanks again for the reality check brotha..Say hi to Jake for me.
will do
I was so ecstatic over my first $1000 per month… which is only $33 per day!
I jumped for joy over $27… and it took me 4 months of writing SEO articles to get it… my friends thought I was crazy…
Great Read! Passion for what you do will bring the enthusiasm. If you can get passionate behind what you do, whatever it is, It may be a good time to reevaluate your current situation.