$10,023.36 in 1 Day [Posted on 10/10/19]
October 18, 2019
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ABOUT US.
THE AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE ON ALL
THINGS AFFILIATE MARKETING,
SINCE 2011
STM Forum was launched late one night in January 2011 with the goal of providing case studies, guides, high quality information on a variety of topics and to act as a core networking hub for industry veterans.
7 years later we are the authoritative forum on affiliate marketing and our reach continues to expand. We now provide higher education, host conferences and local networking events, and are continuing to improve and expand what the forum offers every affiliate marketer.
“Not Great, Not Terrible” - Mid 40s Guy Made $6MM Revenue But His Story’s Heartbreaking
October 11, 2019
“Not Great, Not Terrible” - Mid 40s Guy Made $6MM Revenue But His Story’s Heartbreaking
Read full blog go to stm.blog[2019 Contest] Snag $500 For Free From Megapu.sh
October 03, 2019
[STM-Exclusive Contest] Snag $500 For Free From Megapu.sh This just in! Tighten those shoelaces. Pull them pants up. (or put them on...affiliates being “professional” in their underwear is not an uncommon sight) Take a deep breath. Suck that belly in. ...Sit down, open your laptop, login to Megapu.sh pop open a cold one and start a push campaign. Might as well grab some nachos because the moment you launch that camp you’re gonna get $500 for free / back. Megapush just announced their marathon contest. Total budget: $10,000 Terms: Each participant will pick an affiliate program and an offer of their choice. After the participant has tested the offer thoroughly, s/he is to make a post in the forum section "Megapush Contest 2019" to document the process and results. Piece of cake. (In short you just have to describe your entire lazy affiliate thought process behind your campaign and why you think it worked or didn’t. Doesn’t matter if your ROI’s negative or positive). Starting date: 01/10/2019 Easy money if ye ask me. It’s a minty-fresh of a thread this one and there haven’t yet been any posts so Megapush’s budget is still intact...but not for long. According to my calculations there should be about 20 spots total if you all spend $500 each. Better go in and check the thread for a few extra (but crucial) details ASAP and then go and launch your campaign. (And no, this is not a collaboration between STM and Megapush, they just like throwing free money at STMers. But who doesn’t? You’re welcome.) >> Free $500 in here << Grab Your Tissues - A Newbie Just Hit Rock-Bottom Right in the feels this one. If you’re not me you might even shed a tear. This guy has had it rough. 2 years of failed ventures: I got leads from Google ads for family business Promoting products on warrior plus Build 2 ecom stores Build an online agency Build a mentoring business He then went to the US to try his luck. He’s been there for 4 months and in his hands he’s holding a ticket back to Israel he bought with his last dollars. “I feel so lost, I've never been so broke.” “No business in my hand to work with.” “I see people that are successful here in this forum, Lately I'm just thinking, maybe I don't have what it takes…” Do you sense it? The tear running down your cheek. Those are tough words to swallow. But. A glimpse of hope. And then another one. And another one. @pekadis, @vortex plus other members jumped in with some massive posts that are not only going to tear you up but you’re gonna be crying louder than a teenage girl going through a breakup with “the love of her life”. Double up on those tissues because you’re in for a treat. (I honestly really don’t wanna spoil this, you have to see all the replies for yourself). Here’s one of OP’s responses to spice up your interest: “Wow! I never expected to see so much support! Thank you guys ! you are amazing, You've lifted my spirit! I've read every answer you posted, like 3-4 time! Lol :]” >> 😭😭😭 << [Case Study] CBO vs Non-CBO or Mr. White vs Jesse @FaceOnAsia, our latest great facebook expert mod addition has decided to generously share a CBO experiment / case study. All for the sake of gently pleasing your greedy STM eyeballs. Casually spending $1000/day for this test, because why not? “Idea/Hypothesis: I want to test out how ad delivery pattern of a campaign under CBO is different from non-CBO” CBO vs ABO (campaign budget optimization vs ad set budget optimization, for the newbies) The experiment? “A.$1000 daily budget CBO campaign with 4 ad sets each has similar size of audience B. 4 single ad set campaigns with $250 daily budget each and contain identical ad sets like in A. Basically separate A's 4 ad sets into 4 campaigns. Other settings are identical and I also use 2 brand new pages and 2 accounts to minimize the bias. I am running an offer in finance.” The results based on 1 month performance? Surprising. Unexpected. Intriguing. To say the least. CBO’s more stable but it actually didn’t bring as much profit as non-CBO. The ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ and juicy details are inside as usual. >> Witness the results here << A Wise Man Once Said...Your Ecom Biz is Living on Borrowed Time The wise man in question is @pekadis, our resident ecom expert. He’s on a spree with these posts he promised us. Deliver he does and he does it so quickly and effectively. “As I mentioned in my last post, you need to make small bets to find a winner. And when you find one, you maximise the returns on your bet by really going for it. What sometimes happens is that when people gain some traction, or find a succesful way of doing things, they all of a sudden think they have a moat. Which makes them think no one can pass. That they are safe. You can have a competitive advantage of course, but the question is how long can it be sustainable.“ “Example: buying in China and selling in Europe / US This is still common and is still a successful way of doing business. But it is getting harder. Because being able to access a market by putting up a website is no longer enough in the era of marketplaces” “So what can you do? You need to take a wide approach. Which is looking at: your direct business - the site your overall business - the structure of your companies your life - the financial structure for yourself“ You can fill in the details in your mind by jumping in. This is a must-read for most ecom people nowadays. >> Juicy details in here <<
Read full blog go to stm.blogHUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: STM Just Threw $2784 In Your Face For Free (Hint: iStack Training)
September 25, 2019
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: STM Just Threw $2784 In Your Face For Free (Hint: iStack Training) Listen up, fellas. Keeping this one 100% short, sweet and straight to the point. Imagine a stack of cash worth exactly $2784 flying towards your face, about to slap you, courtesy of STM. As of right this instance, you as an STMer get iStack Training Mastery Events Replays 100% Free. You know ‘em – they go by the names of ECML/FBML and the likes. Learning from the biggest industry leaders and rockstars for no cost whatsoever is one sweet baby jesus of a deal. Basically, let me quote @matuloo who dropped the news for our prying eyes: “As you know, STM Forum is all about providing value for it’s members. We pride ourselves on bringing the best content for our members, day after day, month after month … for 9 years straight already!” Of course we’re all about value – have ye not heard of our win-win-win approach to everything? “I’m sure you’ve heard about iStack Training, which is a sister company of the STM Forum that focuses on high level training in the Affiliate and eCommerce business. Since 2017, iStack Training organized live events that would take place right after Affiliate World Europe and Asia. Each of them had 100s of attendees and each of these events was recorded on video. These replays used to be sold on iStackTraining to those who couldn’t attend, but that’s over now Since we have very close ties with these folks, we were able to make a special with them. To put it short: All the “Facebook Mastery Live” and “Ecommerce Mastery Live” events replays will be posted on STM in the coming weeks and all of you can watch them at no extra charge.” We’re talking 100+ videos and 50+ hours of content worth $2784 are currently yours for free. (That’s the price tag while these babies are on sale, mind you) Here are a few names, but keep that napkin under your chin: “Ezra Firestone Tim Burd Gretta Van Riel Steve and Evan Tan (Tan brothers) Nick Peroni Ben Malol Mohamed Ali Aguel Nick Shackelford Van Oakes Nicholas Kusmich Jason Kryski Depesh Mandalia ...” ...The list goes on and on. The next best thing to attending live is watching replays. The NEXT best thing is being an STMer and getting them free of charge. But be warned – those bad boys are exclusively meant for STM members who are logged in – public viewing, downloading and sharing have been disabled. Oh and by the way, the next batch of videos are to be released shortly, hop inside ASAP. >> Thank me later, just jump in << You’re Cheap And That’s Why Your Campaigns Suck Quote: “Random post here so forgive me if its been discussed 500x already here and this will be a generalized statement that may not apply to everyone and every situation. “ Let me make that 501 times. Quote: “I see people when setting bids for traffic sources (Native, POP, Push...etc) always worried about the cheapest bid they can place to maximize the clicks they receive and thus increase their chances of a conversion. Only problem is, in my experience that's why your campaigns suck. Your getting zero traffic from the high quality sources. “ That’s the gist of it. Main point is if you’re cheap with yer bids you’re gonna get cheap eyeballs. We all know cheap eyeballs are worse than a decade old McDonalds Cheeseburger. Just no. You’d be scraping the bottom of the barrel. ‘Tis a filthy bottom that one – those eyeballs have been sprinkled with a bajillion ads before your final sorry excuse of a farticle. High quality eyeballs can go for “4-20x the price of the minimum bid”. As @proxyguys put it: “If your finances allow, increase those test budgets and increase those bids... Ive had tremendous great results and ran many 50-100K+ campaigns using this logic. Every campaign I try to be cheap on, turns out to be a bitter failure for us.” There’s another sneaky trick in the thread that lets you in on a big advantage and gives you a headstart right off the bat so you don’t have to guesstimate your bids. (Hint: involves whitelist campaigns). >> Gold here, it’s not cheap << Ecommerce/Business Survival Skills From STM’s Bear Grylls (@pekadis) @pekadis has released another bag of gold for you, as promised. This guy runs a multi-million dollar Ecommerce business. He’s our Bear Grylls in the form of an STM mod. He knows how to survive in the jungle or the arctic without breaking a sweat. Some say drinking his own pee is as normal as breathing. As a business owner you’re gonna have to resort to drinking your own pee quite often in order to survive. Pekadis says business is about endurance. About survival. “Business is about survival. And ecommerce is no different from any other business in that respect. Because you know shit is coming, you just don't know when, what it will be and how big the pile will be.” People refer to opportunities as if they’re equal for everyone, but @pekadis gave us 5 lessons to show us what it really looks like. Don’t rely on 1 supplier Generate profit and keep it in cash Don’t think that you know (basically, you can always be wrong) Everything is fleeting Your role is to solve problems As usual, the juicy details are inside. Let’s see if you get to see another day after this. >> Bear Grylls survival skills here << Ecommerce With a Polish Politician This STMer’s got a sweet deal on their hands, lemme tell you. He’s doing ecom with a well-known polish politician. He’s got a shop with shirts and gadgets and whatnot and those slogans support said politician’s libertarian views. The store opened on July 28, 2019 and has an ROAS of 3.52. “I spent PLN 4471 ($1137.58) on Facebook advertising, which generated 135 sales and an average ROAS of 3.52.” ^ That’s in the very first post in the thread btw. Oh boy this is gonna be one interesting follow along. The entire thread is M-A-S-S-I-V-E. This guy’s doing FB, IG, Uncle Google, Taboola, SEO, talks about newsletters, retargeting tactics, LALs and everything in between. Hell you even get to see most of his ads and campaigns as-is, his store and everything else. Then there’s stuff on improving their site. Then there’s stuff on scaling. He’s also asking for some help, so give the guy a hand and you might land yourself a seat next to a powerful Polish politician, aye? There are problems to be solved and we’re gonna do this together, of course. Since we can’t reveal the politician publicly, you’re gonna have to see for your own affiliate eyes who dis iz. >> I’ll send you those $5 if you’ve done this before << One Signal But One Too Many Coins - Monetizer’s Free One Signal? More like No Signal. Remember Erik Gyepes` secret money printing machine and drive-by that stunned the US treasury? Yeah that was Monetizer and basically here’s their official thread: “We've had quite a lot of requests for External Collection with Push recently as One Signal can be expensive for affiliates, i know quite a lot of affiliates who're paying over $500 a month for their One Signal accounts due to ever growing subscriptions. What makes this harder to swallow is it orginally started off free, so you end up finding your self locked-in, in order to get the value from your previous efforts collecting subscribers. Another issue with One Signal is knowing how often to send notifications to your lists and what campaigns to send them, especially in Tier 2 and 3 GEOs. We've recently released an alternative which is completely free, and we monetize WW lists automatically, every day for you.” You don’t even have to do anything. Monetizer builds the lists for you and then monetizes them. Also two questions from the thread tell us that A: You’ll be able to import your own lists to Monetizer B: You’ll also be able to monetize your own list any way you please, aside from Monetizer’s fancy super-smart algorithms. C: It feels good to be an STMer. Oh yeah, there’s a detailed 5-step instruction on how all of this works plus an upcoming update you’ll want to sink your teeth in...everything’s in the thread, jump in now. >> Monetize Naw <<
Read full blog go to stm.blogThe $XXX/day Push Traffic Money Printing Machine
September 19, 2019
THE $XXX/DAY PUSH TRAFFIC MONEY PRINTING MACHINE The US Treasury’s jaws dropped yesterday, did ye not hear? It was a quiet September afternoon. A tired lady pushing a cart of freshly-printed US treasury-smelling benjamins takes a quick glance out the window. What she sees suddenly stops her in her tracks and a few stacks of cash fly out of the cart. It’s our boy, veteran moderator Erik Gyepes (@erikgyepes) – known for his wild and lustful relationships with profitable push traffic campaigns – holding a laptop out the window of a bright red 60s Cadillac Eldorado, slowly driving by. On the laptop’s screen you see this: Yeah, baby!! YEAH! 100% passive push profits. Erik’s digital push traffic money printing machine’s purring like a kitten. Who needs paper anyways? The Amazon’s burning down. Digital’s gonna do. A bit picturesque, but that’s what you imagine when you usually hear the word “passive”. Or “squeezing”. Point in case – this is about Monetizer. We can’t give all the details to the hungry public but just know it has to do with Monetizer making it almost as easy as you-have-to-do-nothing to earn passively. Something, something push traffic + money. Another epic feature on a first come first serve basis. If you’ve noticed with Monetizer, it’s the ones who get in first that tend to reap the biggest rewards. The blueprint on how to build your own money printing machine is inside Erik’s thread. I recommend you don’t skip this one. >> Build your own moolah printing machine here << SPONSORED: YOU'RE INVITED TO THE AMAZON SELLERS EVENT OF THE YEAR Asia's premiere conference for Amazon Sellers is coming to Bangkok! Come and experience alternative learning with 400+ of the most successful brand founders, CEOs, and high-level Amazon marketers in the industry. This is your opportunity to network with leading companies that 8 to 9-figure ecommerce giants don't want you to know about. Curious about selling on Amazon? Looking to diversify your online business into Amazon? What about scaling within and outside of Amazon? You need to be here. >> Book your tickets now << WHAT IS SELLERS WORLD CONFERENCE? INTENSIVE AMAZON WORKSHOP Engage in an intimate beginners workshop taught by experts that will help you master the basics. Bring your laptop and be guided through store setup, product selection, the basics of manufacturing, shipping, launching & much more. AMAZON ADS SECRETS SPEECHES Time to step it up a notch. Find out how to squash your competition with Amazon ads and hack the Amazon algorithm to rank products on premium placements. ADVANCED STRATEGY SPEECHES For the established Amazon seller. Find out strategies to scale through international expansion, or create a world-class brand built for an IPO or eight to nine-figure exits. NETWORKING EVENT Meet 400+ Amazon sellers at the unique SWC Networking Event. It will be overflowing with opportunities to push you to the next level, and give you inspiration like nowhere else. More details available soon! EXPERIENCE SWC Check out Sellers World Conference trailer on our Facebook Page to see what's in store for you in Bangkok. >> Book your tickets now << WHAT’S THE FASTEST TRAIN TO $10,000/MONTH PROFIT? This guy has the skills and the cash ($20,000) but he has no time. And he wants to find the fastest bullet train to bringing in $300-worth of lambo parts & gas every day. Or about $10k month in profit. Pros (quoted): I have full-time availability, and (I think) plenty of money to invest (let's just say $20k). I'm not a newbie to internet marketing; I've run a couple of successful online-based businesses in the past, but no paid ads Technical aspects of tracking, landers, pixels, etc, aren't a roadblock (I'm a web developer) I have a decent understanding of the testing and optimization process (having seen a number of examples, but no direct experience) Check, check, check and check. Cons? Time. Also, he doesn’t want to give The Zucc any hugs because of his rapidly shifting moods leading up to sudden account bans. Which left him with 2 options: Native Push As @matuloo and @stickupkid put it, things seem to be leaning towards native traffic: Part of @matuloo’s reply: “Push and native are similar in the way the ads are created, you don't need to create banners, it's all about picking an image and then writing a short copy. But that's about it, I would say. Push is an intrusive format, native blends with the content. Push offers no targeting pretty much, native has categories. Native has generally higher quality than push. And I could go on ” @stickupkid’s reply: “If you have 20k start some low/mid cpl/cpa campaigns on native! I think, next to FB and Google, on long term most stable and scalable! ” Further down the page you’ll a lot more detailed replies as to why to choose native when you have a decent budget. You can do this with push too, but how long is push going to be around for? Nobody knows. Maybe except uncle Google. Oh and by the way, there’s this one tip in there (courtesy of @maynzie) for those who like to take action immediately. Follow this tip and you may just be on the right track for a life-changing Q4, as others have done before you. >> All aboard the bullet train here << @PEKADIS SCARED THE BEZOS OUT OF US – 5 REASONS TO SELL ON AMAZON Do you notice how ripped Bezos is nowadays? Same with Amazon, accounting for 50% of US sales last year. Not to be taken lightly this(selling on Amazon). @pekadis exploded with a massive golden thread and gave us 5 reasons we should sell on Amazon. Summary? Potential volume Sales can scale really quickly The margins aren’t that bad You will be selling different products You learn about the competition and the level of your own prices and terms But if you think it stops here you’re dead wrong my greedy affiliate friend. @pekadis` replies is what puts the cherry on top of this golden cake. They’re so valuable he even recommends a few books in one of them: “Some interesting reading: Alchemy by Rory Sutherland (marketing) How emotions are made by Lisa Barrett Feldmann (psychology)- The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results - by Stephen Bungay (military / business )”. I’m sorry but we can’t let this one out to the public either. Get the juicy details inside. P.S. In particular, you might wanna read @pekadis` reply to @elisha on the differences between building a long term business and just finding a winning product: “There's a difference between building a long term business compared to finding a winner, of which you don't know the longevity for you. “ >> Bezos + You = BFF << $5 BUCKS SAYS YOU DON’T KNOW THIS SNEAKY WILD-BOAR-POWERED RETARGETING TRICK We just received a message from the Scaleship Project. One of the wild boars residing there has discovered an ingenious way to retarget your warm audiences. Seriously, it’s so simple and yet I’m betting you those $5 bucks that you have not seen or done it before. Deal? Deal. Just lookie here at Tim’s returns: >> I’ll send you those $5 if you’ve done this before << HOW TO KEEP THE ZUCC HAPPY WITH WELL MAINTAINED FB PAGES This is for all of you white-hat boys out there. It’s how to keep The Zucc happy and pleased with your FB pages. It takes some daily persistence but it pays off in the long run. You can outsource this to a VA if you want to. Here’s a quick taste with 2 of 5 key points: Run only 1 fan page per ad account. (rumoured, but may be true, check the thread for details) Run engagement campaigns actively (see why in the thread) And get the rest of the even better points in the thread ASAP. >> Happy Zucc vibes in here << TABOOLA, OUTBRAIN, REVCONTENT, or MGID? Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! We’re gonna have to get your hopes up high and then back down to ground level real quick, because we’ve got another strong thread we can’t let out to any freebie-seeking eyes out there. It’s just too valuable. Speaking of golden threads, this one’s a golden jacuzzi. Let me sprinkle some gold on your face before I let you take the plunge. The question that triggered it is from a native newbie: “If you were just starting out with native, which network would you choose (and why) between Taboola, Outbrain, Revcontent, or MGID?” Now, if you remember @jack_l from our previous newsletters you know he’s a newbie turned master in basically no time. You also know his posts are extremely revealing and they make other members grumpy at times, even. This one’s no exception. @jack_l -> “Great question I started with MGID, then went to Revc, then to Outbrain, then to Taboola, and currently run on the latter 3 of those.“ You’ll wanna know that MGID and Revcontent are the most newbie-affiliate friendly of the bunch. Outbrain and Taboola are a lot stricter. (check inside to see what you can run) There’s the simplest, least-stressful, 'purest' form of buying natives on Revcontent that is ideal for newbies. Revcontent is WAY smaller than Outbrain/Taboola Find out which offers you can start with on each of those bad boys It’s going to be super difficult and frustrating (but there’s a way to go through this with relatively little pain) Plus further questions answered in this thread: Budgeting (i.e. how much to set aside to test each offer) Is Clickbank OK to grab offers from? Whitehat vs Blackhat A lot more stuff, I’m just too lazy to write it out. Then there’s @thedudeabides` replies which add even more gold. More specifically there’s one reply of his where he talks about a new traffic source that’s super easy to work with and get profitable on with high quality traffic (but it’s a rather small traffic source in general) which you can then take and scale BIG on Taboola. I mean, we could easily package this entire thread into a “gooroo” course and ship it over to you for just $3999.99. >> Pick one here << FUNNELFLUX vs VOLUUM vs THRIVE – PIKACHU I CHOOSE YOU “I'm trying to decide on a tracker. To start with, I will be tracking for Push and Native ads. I am already paying for a dedicated server (a cloud server) with very good specs, so self-hosted is an option. I'm currently leaning toward self-hosted because I already have the sunk cost of the server, plus I'd have control over my data. (The only drawback I can see there is that maybe a hosted tracker might perform better due to more worldwide server availability... but maybe for a redirect it doesn't matter as much as with content delivery?) And for self-hosted, I'm liking what I see with FunnelFlux. Any experience or opinions on the route to take? Thanks.” You’ll be surprised of what follows. That’s all I’m gonna say. >> Go ye here and choose your pokemon <<
Read full blog go to stm.blog0 to 7 Figures With Push Traffic Faster Than a SpaceX Rocket
September 11, 2019
0 TO 7 FIGURES WITH PUSH TRAFFIC FASTER THAN A SPACEX ROCKET We live in ah-mazing times. You get to watch not 1 but 2 SpaceX rockets park themselves automagically without any human assistance, live, before you casually swipe down to the next funny cat video or dropshipping ad. Elon’s tech happened fast and he’s scaling it even faster. When you see an opportunity you just have to jump on it, sink your teeth in, and iron out the kinks later. On that very same note, Mr. @Chaz just shared all the key points from a major AWEurope talk. Zero to 7 figures with push traffic from Mr. Andrew Payne’s 40-minute AWE19 presentation. Andrew has delivered over 6.5+ BILLION messages to over 38 MILLION users. In Tier 1 GEOs...like the US. His first dip in the push waters showed promise with -35% ROI right off the bat. (For the uninitiated, that’s a super promising first-time ROI in the AM world. It means in most cases you should be able to get to profits...Andrew obviously did, big time) Andrew sunk his teeth in and scaled fast. Now he’s teaching us how to iron out all the kinks – a shortcut of sorts, if you may. Anywhom, there are 12 main takeaways and 1 juicy bonus. How to build out your push traffic subscribers without the need for a network. How to optimize to reduce costs per subscriber Aggressive approaches to capture a subscriber using his Subscriber Backflow method – basically using a back-button that rotates up to 5-6 domains asking people to resubscribe, which netted Andrew & co a resub rate of over 30%, that’s pretty massive. Monetizing the backflow – this one’s sneakier than mongoose. You slap landers & offers in front of people indefinitely..or at least until they quit. What’s important in the ad copy – Hint: it’s not the badge or image. When and how to use the main 2 types of messages – which are general and tailored, each with their pros and cons (explained in detail by Andrew) Why split testing will make or break your campaigns – remember the quote “always be testing”? Yeah it applies here too, plus Andrew has a super important rule of thumb you should apply to your tests. Messaging Frequency – too mellow and you lose, too aggressive and you lose again. There’s a fine balance you have to keep as Andrew reveals in his video. Lifetime Value of a Subscriber – too many factors to list here, just check the vid. Messaging Frequency (again) Types of messages – too aggressive and you cut down the lifetime value of your subs. Promote a variety of offers To put the cherry on top, there’s one bonus tip so good I just have to let you see it for yourself. It’s mega-simple yet super few people think of doing it and it results in massive ROI boosts. As is the STM custom – all the revealing, value-dripping insights you’ll find in the thread and Andrew’s video. Fire up those push rockets DO YOU HEAR IT? IT’S THE SOUND OF AMY’S BONKERS-HUGE SWEEPS GUIDE Last time we spoke of STM’s win-win-win mentality and Amy’s upcoming, ginormous sweeps guide. Srsly, this is like a massive skyscraper suddenly showing up next to a garden shed shockingly huge and contrasting. Industry leaders, newbies turned pros, veterans and experts have all decided to join forces and help Amy write the ultimate sweeparoos guide. The first 2 parts were released last week, and they were just too damn good that quite a few affiliates have expressed their impatience in the thread. The good news is that the rest of the guide has just been released! Run, don’t walk, to admire it in all it’s glory - then implement some of the tips before your competitors beat you to it! Get all the parts right here SPONSORED POST: GET INSTANT ACCESS TO THE MOST PROFITABLE PUSH AND NATIVE CAMPAIGNS RUNNING RIGHT NOW Mobidea’s Push and Native Spy Tools allow media buyers to find out which countries, device types and traffic sources are being targeted by top marketers. Mobidea’s Push and Native Spy Tool Features More Data Than Any Competitor Complete CPC Bid Visibility Access to the Latest Offers Easy-to-use Interface All-In-One Landing Page Ripper Powerful Search Filters Detailed Insights Geo Partitioning Algorithm Instant Campaign Alerts 24/7 Live Chat and Email Support Mobidea Push Spy Tool Unlock the world’s most profitable push campaigns for only $59.99 monthly. 36 ad networks 200,000+ ads 150,000+ advertizers 90+ countries Try Mobidea Spy Push for FREE Mobidea Native Spy Tool Competitive native ad intelligence at your fingertips for only $79.99 monthly. 28 ad networks 15 million+ ads 150,000+ advertisers 30+ countries Try Mobidea Spy Native for FREE Mobidea’s Push and Native Spy Tools come as a flat monthly rate with zero hidden fees. Mobidea customers can access the Spy Tools with their existing account balances. Try Mobidea’s Spy Tools completely FREE Take the chance to look over the shoulder of the world’s most successful media buyers completely for free. Use the promo code STM and get an exclusive 5-Days Free Trial! Get your 5-day free trial here Tip: How can you glue STM’s massive audience’s eyeballs to your company? You let us tailor your sponsored piece to perfectly match the newsletter that so many read every week. If you’re an affiliate network, traffic network, a marketing tool of some sort, spy tools, optimization platforms, marketing news providers, education programs or basically anyone looking to show off in front of a massive audience of active affiliate marketers then you should get in touch. Our doors are open but keep in mind there might be a looong waiting line... Shoot an email over to advertising@stmforum.com and we’ll send you our special offer for you to take a look and we can discuss things further. HOW THIS STM AGENT SMITH K.OS HIS TO-DO LIST EVERY DAY If you remember this from last time a productivity freak Agent Smith showed up on STM and told us he’d deliver his secret ways of crushing to-do lists and getting stuff done with 0 burnout. We mentioned the first part already got posted and it’s time we covered it in some more detail because you’re gonna need this if you wanna scale your campaigns and business like the big boyz. “How I DESTROY My Todo-list Every Single Day”. “Since I started implementing this system, I've been 10x more efficient every day. I RARELY get into slumps, because this system works around them.” Let’s say that today you’ve got to: – pause a bunch of camps – check the stats on a number of risky ones – load up some new landers – ping a dozen of your AMs – make sure to check the lead quality on that nasty offer – talk to your VA – everything else for the day, like eat, breathe and workout What’s gonna happen is you’re probably gonna overthink every task before you get to it. In fact, your overthinking is going to take longer than actually finishing said task. That’s why you need systems and to-do lists. You just look the task: “ping AMs at X and Y networks around 9:30am” – done, no need to overthink, just pure action taking. As per @lyhras’ advice: You absolutely need a long term vision otherwise you’ll get caught in the blackhole of small day-to-day tasks. This is what causes burnout, fear and doubt. You have to “front-load” your planning. Meaning you need to setup weekly and nightly/morning routines. The nightly/morning routines are what makes lyhras crush his to-do lists every day. It takes just 10-20 minutes max every night but the results are stunning. An actual to-do system is a must. “Everything I’ve talked about so far flows into my todo-list system, and makes it more efficient than it would be without the preceding steps.” He uses Todoist to organise everything and put his plans and visions into place. Plus there’s one bit you should pay special attention to in order for your day to go 100% smoothly and seamlessly. You might wanna take a dive into the deep end of this thread because it’s gaining popularity fast. K.O. your To-Do List Here THE ZUCC DOESN’T LIKE GOOD WHITEHAT BOYS TOO It doesn’t matter if you’re running whitehat or blackhat. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good boy or a bad boy. The Zucc’s gonna lock you up and all you’re gonna be hugging are your disabled ad accounts. This guy with a super long nickname along the lines of @smittywerbenjaqweryyuiopasdfg-something asked how to stop Zucc from locking him out. “Whenever I'm working on a campaign, I often get locked out of my account for "suspicious activity" (i.e. editing an ad), and I'm forced to upload a photo and wait several days to hear back from them. “To add insult to injury, my account is currently disabled after (I guess) being flagged too many times by the algo. I've uploaded my photo ID, but haven't heard back from them since. All this time I have been running 100% white-hat campaigns in verticals such as refi, auto loans, and edu. I have done everything from the same device in the same physical location. I have only had one adset disapproved this entire time, and that was due to a minor issue that I subsequently fixed. The adset was then approved and ran as normal.“ See? 100% White-Hat Campaigns. Zucc don’t care. Zucc ban. However! After a quick diagnosis by Dr. Stickupkid, our resident FB mod and expert, it turns out that the cause of the illness is simpler than you may think… Plus the cure is something you absolutely must do for every account, every time. Everything’s inside. Another golden thread. How to hide from The Zucc WAAAH MY NATIVE CAMPS WON’T SCALE This innocent question by a crying newbie: “Hi there! I am all new to native ads & using taboola by spending daily budget of $500 for my first Whitelist campaign. But unable to get it scaled up (ROI) close enough to daily spend. Any guidance?” Basically turned into a monster of thread. It turns out that whitelist campaigns on native are a bad idea in general. @thedudeabides chimes in: “You're having trouble scaling spend or getting ROI? IMO avoid whitelist campaigns unless they're on big sites if you want to do bigger volume. A good enough offer should work broadly across the network without a ton of micro-adjustments needed.” Quite a few more experience native people confirmed this too, alongside other interesting details on how to scale. But the conversation then took a different turn – people mentioned James Van Elswyk’s courses and how, while they’re good, they may just be wrong. It’s a matter of weighing in ads vs landers and which one has a greater and faster impact on your campaigns. This is the meat of the thread despite the main topic of whitelists. Do yourself a favour and read through all the long replies and you might just save tens of thousands of dollars on your next native campaign... Things are not always what they seem
Read full blog go to stm.blogEven Gordon Ramsay Would Be Shocked – Amy’s Baking THE Sweepstakes 101 Colossal Guide at Over 9000 Degrees
September 04, 2019
Even Gordon Ramsay Would Be Shocked – Amy’s Baking THE Sweepstakes 101 Colossal Guide at Over 9000 Degrees Gordon Ramsay is one savage guy: “My gran could do better – and she’s dead!” Hooh boy. Queue the awkward silence, please. Those searing burns do hurt a lot, as much as they crack us all up. (This all has a lot to do with sweepstakes. Just BEAR with me.) But y’know what? Those “f%#$ing donkeys” deserve it, in a twisted way. 1) Adults should know better. They’re old enough. And supposedly wise enough to know the lamb should not be raw. This is one of the reasons Gordon is always so kind and caring with kids. Kids are learning and they have to be making mistakes. Grown up and experienced chefs on the other hand? Shouldn’t be making anything even remotely resembling a silly mistake. (Unless it’s one of those extremely rare cases – ”happens to everyone” style) But hey, if you can’t even make a proper boiled egg in your own damn restaurant you deserve sick burns. Just copy-paste and search for “Gordon Dismayed That Chef Can't Even Cook a Boiled Egg | Hotel Hell” Thank me laterz. 2) Adults should grow thicker skin. Oh but this is so entirely true for all of 2019, the upcoming years and the last few. We’ve gotten desensitized to gore and ultra-violence but dare someone say something mean to somebody else and all hell breaks loose. Let’s not even mention that holding your cat the wrong way in a Youtube video can trigger a civil war. Anywhom, back to ze sweeps. They’ve been around for a long-long time and are here to stay. But what do you need to run them? 1) You need to be wise. Do you think The Zucc and his vicious algo-pitbulls aren’t going to laugh (and ban) at your “click here to take your fancy phone/voucher now!!1” ad copy? Or running that one sweeps lander on pops that has been running for the past ten thousand years? Don’t be a donkey. 2) You need to grow thick skin. The Zucc and his vicious algo-pitbulls are going to hurt you. You are going to see belly-up accounts, red ROIs and your pulled hairs on the floor. Case in point? In order to be wise and patient you need a guide through this treacherous jungle. You need an expert like Gordon Ramsay (except infinitely kinder, caring and more compassionate). Yup, Vortex is working on an absolutely massive sweepstake 101 guide as we speak. It should be finished within a week or so. One where we’ve the usual win-win-win STM scenario. Let me paste Amy’s words below: “Since the success of the first "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing" report last year, I've been wanting to come up with more ways to collaborate with industry leaders to achieve a win-win-win, where: -STM can provide more value to members. -Members can get more value from their STM subscription. -Vendors and super-affiliates can get more exposure (and thus more business, or more traffic to their blogs). Since one of the most popular FAQs of all time is: "Which vertical should I choose and how can I master it?" I thought it would be beneficial to write a guide for every popular vertical - starting with the sweepstakes vertical, as it's one of the most popular verticals for newbies and veterans alike. At first I wanted to write this guide myself. But because it's been a couple years since I last ran sweeps, I'd have to get back into the vertical and do some massive testing before I'd be able to write a comprehensive guide. That would take too long. Remembering what we did to produce the "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing in [year]" reports, I got thinking: Why not just interview industry experts and compile all the advice? That way it'd be fast and efficient, and more importantly, we'd benefit from the diverse experience from different areas of expertise - e.g. aff networks vs. advertiser vs. affiliates, pop/push vs. FB vs. email, etc. So I set out to contact super-affiliates, affiliate networks, and direct advertisers that have a main/sole focus in this offer vertical, to "get the dirt" on how to maximize success with these offers. Everyone I've had the honor of interviewing has been most generous with their tips - words can't express how appreciative I am for giving me their time and knowledge. Some of them I hit up multiple times with further questions. And every gold nugget I picked up from an interview made me mega-excited - for you, the reader! The more experts I interviewed, the more eager I was to get this guide written up and delivered to you.” In a nutshell, here’s what you should do ASAP: Go to the thread here. Then click “Thread Tools” -> “Subscribe to this thread…” Speaking of Colossal Guides...Matuloo Wants You to Take All The Pills Do you remember @matuloo’s upcoming massive adult guides? "How to run adult traffic in 2019" Yeah, part 2 just arrived and we’re about to enter the Matrix. You’re staring Morpheus in the face and the next thing you hear is: “Take both pills, Neo, there’s a lot of reading ahead and you may get a headache.” Seriously though, this thing is extremely detailed and super well organised as usual. The topic? Lesson 2: How to choose your first vertical and offer to promote? Matej even got a nice affiliate network to spill some of their stats in terms of what’s currently hot worldwide and what’s bringing in the moolah. In exchange for STM fame, of course. What follows are juicy, delicious details: The main verticals (meaning anything that you can buy traffic to that has made and is about to make you money) Conversion models (SOI, DOI, revshare, PPS and so on) GEOs (basically Matej tells you what to do and what to avoid at all costs, i.e. some Tier 1 countires are practically impossible to break into unless you’re Matej). Then there’s a Q&A with said affiliate network. Where to get your first offer (you can go either aff network or direct, but which one’s a better choice for a nooberino?) Lastly, an invaluable piece of advice you have to read at least twice. Pssst...Part 2 is over here, Neo SPONSORED: Adplexity’s the 007 Of Spy Tools This week’s adventures have been sponsored by our Adplexity family members. No one knows how they manage to always stay on top of the competitive intelligence game. Their ways remain shrouded in mystery. For the uninitiated, Adplexity is a set of industry-leading competitive intelligence tools that let you keep track of your competition’s most profitable ad campaigns on tons of traffic sources: Mobile Native Desktop Push eCommerce Adult Carriers (more of a tool that lets you use carriers to browse around) And they have been doing this for a very, very long time. The speed at which they gather data and launch new products is nothing short of pure Hogwarts magic. The products have become a standard and a benchmark in the industry – every affiliate and their cat have used Adplexity (or at the very least have heard of it). Also, if you click below you get a special STM-exclusive discount. Have fun! Check out Adplexity’s HQ here and choose your weapon Tip: How can you glue STM’s massive audience’s eyeballs to your company? You let us tailor your sponsored piece to perfectly match the newsletter that so many read every week. If you’re an affiliate network, traffic network, a marketing tool of some sort, spy tools, optimization platforms, marketing news providers, education programs or basically anyone looking to show off in front of a massive audience of active affiliate marketers then you should get in touch. Our doors are open but keep in mind there might be a looong waiting line... Shoot an email over to advertising@stmforum.com and we’ll send you our special offer for you to take a look and we can discuss things further. Productivity Hacks From Lazy STM Neo’s Arch-Enemy, Agent Smith Neo and Agent Smith are very much alike, believe it or not. They’re both determined to rebel against the system. But it’s how they do it that is the key. Agent Smith: “Never send a human to do a machine's job.” This is what we’re getting here from Mr. @lyhras. Our resident STM Agent Smith. Lazy Neo’s ways were disorganised and chaotic at best. Lazy Neo’s allergy to manual labour pushed him to his limits. Agent Smith’s goal is exactly the same, except his ways are entirely different. None of these guys wants to work their assess off, that much is clear. But Agent Smith managed to reduce his workload from 40+ hours a week to less than 5 by using systems. Systems. Frameworks. Templates, Mr. Anderson. To quote the man himself: “Almost as soon as I started making money from affiliate marketing, I started building systems around it. Because I work better with frameworks and templates myself It assures a consistent quality of output It makes the entire operation more scaleable in the long run Today, my entire business is built around systems and processes. Both through manual labor (done by others), but also through automation. “ ... “I'd love to share some of my tricks with you, to decrease your own workload. Even though we all work with different traffic sources and verticals, many of the concepts can be applied across the board.” … “These posts will go over: How I set up my tasks for the day, so I actually get stuff done (no shit, my productivity skyrocketed after I started doing this) How I easily get my employees introduced to, and started on new tasks (by making them create their own SOPs) Which questions I've asked when interviewing VA's to vet out bad hires (there's nothing worse than hiring someone, only to fire them again 3 days later... Been there) How I easily manage all my ad accounts (with a handful of neat Google Sheets tricks)” Oh yeah, the first part just got linked in the thread just last night. It’s titled “How I DESTROY My Todo-list Every Single Day”. Let me just leave another quote from there: “Since I started implementing this system, I've been 10x more efficient every day. I RARELY get into slumps, because this system works around them.” Perhaps we’ll cover it in detail in the next issue, fellas. Or you can just go in right now and check it out List Building on Native May Have Light at the End of the Tunnel “Hi, I'm looking to build an email list in the weight loss space, and I've been considering using native ads. (I'd go for Facebook but they're very unstable these days with account bans and all, particularly anything to do with weight loss. So I'm looking at more friendly places that have high volume and good quality traffic.)“ … “Have you tried list building using native ads?” We all know what happens with seemingly innocent and simple questions on STM. They turn into massive novels. This one bloomed into a beautiful piece of a thread. @thedudeabides, Kelly, our resident mod and native expert mentioned in the “What’s Working in 2019” guide that he’s turning towards building lead capture funnels. Our thread starter, @summitview, just asked him whether he’s made any headway. You can guess what follows. I’ll give you the low-down: @jack_l jumped in saying that it is possible to build lists, you just have to know the traffic sources better than you know the back of your hand. You need tight, relevant targeting at all times. But you can gradually increase the borders. @thedudeabides “Got most things figured out, but profits from email is still a lot lower than I'd like to see, working on testing longer sequences. Should have a better handle on that in a month or two.” There’s quzz ideas, segementation or just doing it the simplest way. Among many other things. As @jack_l said: “Yes... it's a fascinating topic isn't it? All questions I've pondered over myself ”. It’s also fascinating what this thread turned out to be. You Owe Amy a Thank You – Freshly Baked Sweep Landers Up For Grabs Not only are you getting a what is an invaluable sweepstake guide (that can easily be sold for high 5-figures) but you’re also getting all the sweep landers. If this isn’t babysitting I don’t know what is. Another win added to the win-win-win scenario from above. On a quick glance there are about 4 batches with at least 20-30 landers each. This is all in Amy’s latest Landing Page Depository. Thoughtfully updated with clean and ready-to-go sweep landers to aid your lazy affiliate bum with the sweeps guide. The least you can do is show your gratitude. The things we do for our STM family
Read full blog go to stm.blogGollum hasn’t yet found the ring but still wants $200/day
August 28, 2019
Gollum Hasn’t Yet Found The Ring But Still Wants $200/day “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!” Gollum is what you call an unhealthy obsession. It wasn’t poor Gollum’s fault, nor those sneaky hobbitses. It was the ring. Ring = shiny object syndrome. Shiny object syndrome = jumping from one thing to the next. Trying everything and failing at everything in this scenario goes hand in hand – therefore there’s no way to dodge that bullet. These are the desperate newbie cries for help we’ve been hearing in this thread. This guy said he tried everything and is completely overwhelmed. “I have been watching video after video and studying all that i can. I'm a bit overwhelmed.” But then take a poke at this: “I have tried and tried and lost and lost and I won't give up. I just need more guidance. “ He won’t give up. Sauron’s not winning. He just needs to find the way on a low budget ($50/day) This story ends with countless STM veterans jumping in to pull this guy out of the mud pit. Literally anything you can possibly do if you were in this newbie’s shoes has been recommended here: Push traffic Goal setting tips Sweeps/pins Pops Building out all sorts of income streams and then using that budget to hit paid traffic with a baseball bat (there are some mega-clever ideas we just can’t let out in the public, netted our people 4-5 figures/month with ease) Marketing your special skills to build income Et cetera. Point in case is you always get directions on STM, no matter how lost you are. My Preciousss Your Personal Tireless 24/7 Assistant Now Wants to Work for Pennies Isaac Asimov’s 3 rules of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. The robot in question is TheOptimizer.io - this thing runs your campaigns on autopilot 24/7 without ever complaining. Native, pops, push, redirects, you name it. Why get a human wife when you can get a robot wife? I don’t know about you but I see an interesting future ahead. Anywhom, my friend Losid just said TheOptimizer’s advanced superhuman AI has decided to work for pennies and is offering a yuge discount (only for STMers). 69% Off, to be precise. If you take a look at their pricing plans you’ll notice how significante this is. Also 69% is a big number itself. Don’t know how long this is gonna last – what if the AI suddenly decides to turn into The Wolf of Wallstreet? Quaaludes, sinking an expensive yacht, crashing lambos and so on. Don’t Disappoint Asimov and Get Your 69% Filthy Sweeps? Can you run sweeps on the likes of Pr0nhub? Huh? Would this work? Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Be careful. Mr @grofit asked the question, btw. There have been and there are people running “filthy sweeps” but it’s tricky. For one, do you think advertisers want to see their innocent sweep brand image get ruined on such places? For two, you have to get very creative with angles. (that’s as far I’ll go here, rest is in the thread) For three, there’s a pretty big risk of not getting paid, especially if you’re a newbie. There are ways to do this right though. Just go check the thread. Filthy Sweeps Guide Here Clean Sweeps? They Bring in 110% ROIs Whaddya know, another day, another profitable newbie. Surprise. (sarcasm) Honestly, these have gotten so common I don’t even know how to pitch them any longer. This guy’s running sweeps in Zucc’s fertile lands. Humble beginnings but bringing in cash easy peasy. The methods are deceptively simple. If you want your accounts to last longer you need to tread lightly. You have to find a balance in between your ads, targeting, lander and all the way to the offer and the deep backend. What’s more important in this thread are the golden nuggets and guidance provided by our resident sweeps + FB experts @stickupkid and @itzpeter and other members who shall remain nameless for the sake of privacy (and for the sake of not leaking precious molten gold to the public). @itzpeter, if you remember, was a shy STM newbie turned pro and made about $500,000 pure profit not long ago. But basically, if you look at this thread you can jump in and start running sweeparoos yerself, just from the insights Clean Sweeps Guide Here STM Jon Snow Shows You How to Handle eCom Biz Across The Wall – Every Sunday @pekadis is one of our resident mods and eCommerce masters of the force. He’s doing some big, mega numbers. He’s building brands. He’s registering trademarks. He’s hiring peoplez. He’s running camps. He’s doing Amazon. This time around we’ve got delicious lessons from his latest trademark adventures involving a trademark atourney, numbers (as in how much said attorney’s getting paid, how much it would cost if they lost the trademark and even down to the domain name’s cost – 10 buckaroos). They’ve been getting threats from competitors. There’s wisdom when it comes to Amazon (in short, you don’t want to keep all your eggs in one basket, but the long version you just cannot miss). There’s affiliate stuff. There are books being recommended. And as a cliffhanger the story is yet to be finished. We’re all drooling over our keyboards – how do we survive until the next episode next Sunday? This is the new Game of Thrones on STM. You Know Nothing Jon Snow
Read full blog go to stm.blog
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