How To Make More Money by Doing Less

By Malan Darras, Follow at: Facebook, Twitter and Youtube

takeaway

I want to share a simple solution to a problem I experienced recently. I run online marketing campaigns. A few weeks ago, my numbers weren’t looking great and out of boredom I launched a bunch of campaigns at the same time.

I think it happens to a lot of marketing people with creative brains – we have more ideas than we have time for and sometimes things can get messy. This is where I found myself recently and as soon as I found a way out of it – I thought I’d pass it on.

So – what’s the magic, complicated, scientific secret that turned things around?

I Turned A Whole Bunch of Campaigns Off

(Really… that’s it.)

I’m a curious person. I am always looking for new campaigns to run. I love testing new ideas and seeing if they work or not. This is a great thing and I consider it an asset.

The problem is – sometimes my test campaigns lose so much money they balance out my profitable ones and I end up making no money.

This is what was happening last month. Has it ever happened to you?

Think About It

  1. How many campaigns do you have running right now?
  2. How many different traffic sources are you running on?
  3. How much money are you currently making?

If your answer to Question 3 sucks… you need to address 1 and 2 immediately.

First: If you’re running more than 1 campaign and they’re not profitable – pick one and kill the other ones.

Right now, stop reading this and go pause those awful campaigns and then come back and read the rest.

Next: If you have more than 1 traffic source running and they’re not profitable shut ALL of them off but one. Do it right now. Kill all but one – leaving just one traffic source that you’re willing to focus on and master for the next 6 months.

Here’s What Happens

Keep it Simple.
Keep it Simple.

I just went through this. By turning off most of my campaigns I was able to turn a weak two months in a row into one of my better months of the year.

I ended up with 3 campaigns on 1 traffic source that are all related. All are making money. All are growing.

By focusing on one traffic source and a campaign that was working I was able to increase the main campaign’s profits by 400%.  I added one placement. The campaign was ready to roll – all I had to do was pay attention.

In Conclusion:

There have been times in my career when I’ve been able to run 3-5 campaigns in different niches on different sources and make money on them all. But honestly it’s been a while (years) since that has happened.

By adapting to my new circumstances and changes in the business – I was able to pull my head out of the sand and drive my profits up and out of the gutter.

Remember

  1. Take a look at your current situation
  2. Audit your campaigns immediately
  3. Kill all but one campaign and one traffic source
  4. Focus

Then come back and thank me later.

  • http://www.nolackey.com/ Keith

    Solid advice. When I started trading the futures and equities markets 5 years ago I would spread myself too thin. I tried to do whatever I saw success people doing thinking it would ‘just work’ for me.. I lost thousands of dollars. It wasn’t until I killed all but one of my trading strategies and simplified that I actually made money.

    • http://malandarras.com/ Malan Darras

      Keith – yea it can be applied to anything. Affiliate marketing, stock trading, time management — even friends. Wipe out the losers and focus on the gems…. Simple simple and… simple

  • http://www.freshsupercool.com/ taewoo

    Malan, do you build list? I do personally for other stuff but never have for aff. marketing. Im wondering if this is actually a smart strategy or just plain waste of time.

    • http://malandarras.com/ Malan Darras

      in some cases it’s a great idea. like for your own products or if you’re being really helpful with your campaign.

      if you’re promoting crappy offers though, the last thing you want is a list of people who want to kill you.

  • tee

    I’m a newbie, and I tested a whole lot of campaigns with a whole lot of angles, which got me nowhere, really. Your writing just made me realized, that it’s normal. -Learn from it, and grind on.

    • http://malandarras.com/ Malan Darras

      yeah tee, failure is part of the process. it also helps if you stop saying “grind” 🙂

  • Andrea Costa

    Great this can really help me