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I was just curious as to what walks of life others here have come from and assumingly if you didn't come from a technical background, how easy/hard(?) was the rise to becoming an affiliate marketer?
Are your sites mostly plain html/css, or do you do dynamic/database driven content? do you feel that you could use more technical background, or you contract out all of that stuff to third parties?
One thing lead to another, and I started creating fansites specifically to generate revenue (as opposed to just for the fun of it), but maintaining multiple sites proved to be a more daunting task than I originally expected. So I decided to find a bigger host that would allow me to host other people's fansites. I spent about a year "building that up" (aka getting more than 5 hostees). Eventually I begin getting too much traffic, and had to move to a dedicated server.
Once on the dedicated server, I was only making enough to cover my hosting costs. Luckily, I then begin getting jobs as a graphic designer through a friend for a lot of official music websites, which covered the costs. When the person who was helping me got kind of psycho (wanting me to design and maintain 10+ sites for him free plus him getting a large % of people he referred me to), I decided to stop working with him.
At that time, I begin looking for popup/banner companies that had better rates than the ones I used at that time. I discovered the geek/talk forums and begin researching the numerous other ways of making money online (until that time, I had only used CPM model advertising and thought the only way to make a large amount of money was to have a large amount of visitors). I decided to create a series of content-based websites as well as a few affiliate-based websites to generate additional revenue.
Yeah, and that lead me to where I am today.
Currently, my sites are all plain html and css (with the exeption of a few basic, basic php based sites). I don't have the knowledge neccesary to create database driven websites other than installing forums, and unfortunately, I don't really have the free time to begin to learn how to do it. I definitely think more of a technical background would help me generate a larger amount of revenue, but for now I'm generating enough money to pay my bills each month, and I'm content with that.
But my background is as a photographer and graphic designer. After college I worked at a big entertainment dot com company as a web designer. Really paid nothing but it was great experience. Then the company bombed at the beginning of 2000 at the big dot com bust time. There business model was Terrible. Paying millions of dollars a year for ex-Disney executives that didn't know **** about the web.
So after that I didn't want to find another company to work for so I just went freelance. Doing design and sites for different individuals and companies. I did a lot of partnership deals with others building there online stores for a lesser upfront fee in exchange for a % of there sales. But I never got involved with there marketing of it and those never paid off. One still owes 50k. I also started selling computers on Ebay at that time and made pretty good money from it. Used the money to buy digital filming equipment. Got into a couple different partnership start ups building sites and companies for online entertainment for the music industry. Did lots of filming and editing shows for it etc. Didn't work out with the partner so left before ever getting funding for the business. Did another successful business instead. That made a lot of money online but only stayed in it for about 6 months. Reasons I left were personal. Then I didn't make any more income for the next year or so. Just spent money and got back into photography.
Now I'm out of money completely so I am back to making it and decided to get into Aff. marketing because of the non-commitment of it. I'm not good at commitment I just have to admit. That's what I love about the aff. marketing. Not having to deal with the backend (after the sale) hassles of development and fulfillment of customers.
As far as tech. there are a few things that I can learn online quickly to install simple scripts that other people write. There are so many free scripts and code you can find online now days. Like for php forms or javascript. If I wanted dynamic content I would hire a programmer, no big deal. But outsourcing sometimes can be a nightmare. There was a large programming software project that my last business needed to build that needed features that did not exist in any current software. So we hired a guy to build a proprietary system for us. We paid him 7K upfront and the rest we were going to pay when he was done. Halfway through it he sent us a letter saying that he didn't want to finish it and would not return our money. We didn't have time to get into any legal battle over it so we put that off. Later we found another company who would do it for 25k but on a larger scale. They did finally complete it but afterwards, about a week after they finished a hacker broke into our dedicated server where it was and erased everything on the server! This stupid company built in no security on the server and put there Only copy of it on this server. No back-up! They said they could re-build it but would have to start from scratch again and would charge like 10-15k to rebuild it. At that point it wasn't worth it anymore.
I used to be in the army, and now I'm going to school fulltime (paid for by the gov't, because of the military service). I'm an English Lit. major, and before I got into the web stuff, I was doing some freelance writing and editing. Now I'm doing it for myself on the web.
Yup, my pages are predominantly html/css, though I understand the server side stuff well enough to edit it. If I ever need something complicated done, I'll just hire someone to do it, because I've already learned it's more profitable for me to use my time writing content.
I started my first real website last fall (before that, I had an old quotations one on geocities, heh). I'm making about <snip>growing every month--from Adsense right now and about $200/mo from Amazon. I'm in the process of integrating more affiliate programs into my sites, in case anything ever happens to Adsense. I have a year left of school. My goal is to quit renting and be able to buy my own place with my web income by the time I graduate.
[edited by: eljefe3 at 3:03 am (utc) on June 15, 2004]
left me holding the firm and £25,000 of debt over my head from bills he hadn't paid
Sounds familiar. Are you sure we're not brothers!? I hope you can put it behind you.
My previous work was window cleaning ... Now I make around $10'000 per month with affiliate programs...
I love the internet! 8-)
Mike
Investment Banking
Own Travel Business
Aff Marketing
Internetheaven, punching your dad will not assist his appreciation of your sports cars! And investing your earnings in depreciating assets won't help you keep your wealth either.
Ooerr - just re-read the above - I'm starting to sound like my own dad! AAAARGHH!
Quit my job, started my own Affiliate Management Consulting Company and here I am consulting for over 12 merchants and helping to support over 10,000 affiliates. Now I'm working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and making six figures in my PJ's! NO boss, NO commute, NO office politics - just helping lots of people with affiliate marketing and loving every minute of it!
Linda
Catalyst, I have seen you around in some of the other forums and like your advice. Do you ever have any problems working 12 hours a day? Yes you get to stay at home, but do you really need to work that when you are at the level you are?
Of course even successful people may put in the odd 18 hour day if they are so inclined, but 12 hours each and every day sounds like a lot.
All the Best,
C.K.
Been testing the aff marketing and Google arbitrage waters for a couple of months. Always enjoyed programming and have learned all kinds of neat data mining and market research techniques that should come in handy.
Two years ago I started an online magazine website for area law enforcement.
It has been a slow and long process with a lot of trial and error, but today I pull in $300 per month from advertisers, and some change from 5 affiliate programs.
I have been trying to expand the affiliates. From them I range from 0.00 per week to $50. per week. Mostly with them I am on the lower side.
It is fun though.
I don't HAVE to work that hard - I'm just a chronic workaholic and can't help it;-) I also love what I do so it's more like a hobby that I get paid for than a J.O.B.
I exaggerated a little I guess too cuz I only work 7 hours a day on the weekends and have been trying to work less on weekends and force myself to take a day off now and then so I don't burn out. Also just hired an assistant.
Linda
That is good to hear Catalyst... It's nice when you actually like what you are doing for a living, and it pays well too. :-]
All the Best,
C.K.
He started reading ebooks on how to make money in your PJs when he was 6 years old
and now they call him MR. Linkster ;-}
Linda
Me think's he over 9, say somewhere around, hmmmm, 22?
Well TrustNo1 has a girlfriend who's alarm clock goes off at 5:30 in the morning.
Well school starts about 7 or 8am so 5:30am sounds about right. Nice that Trust get's to skip school, sleep in and do aff. marketing. He should teach his girlfriend, maybe she can drop out of school too.
Of course even successful people may put in the odd 18 hour day if they are so inclined, but 12 hours each and every day sounds like a lot.
I'm in the same boat as Catalyst and probably for the same reason - I don't want to be working when I get past 30. If I put in the 10-12 hours every day of the week with no holidays then I will have made enough by the time I'm 30 to retire and do what I always wanted to do - write novels.
Internetheaven, punching your dad will not assist his appreciation of your sports cars! And investing your earnings in depreciating assets won't help you keep your wealth either.
Now you're sounding like my accountant ..... and he'll still be working as an accountant when he's 60 ....
As I said, I work 10-12 hours every day (normally 8am-10pm) so the only joy I have is driving a sports car whenever I have to go out. The depreciation on a sports car is cheaper than smoking, drinking, holidays, Armani suits, widescreen tv's, prostitutes or whatever else people with regular jobs do for fun ....
If felt your story quite inspiring.
In 1999 I started a small site that sold custom made wings for radio control airplanes. Decided the labor for this vs. the pay was out of wack, so I closed it down. I then started a new site in Nov. 2001 that sold products that were drop shipped. This site is still running today.
In Jan. 2003, decided to try my hand at aff. marketing. I quickly realized the amount of money that could be made. I have devoted most of my internet time to building affiliate sites over the last year.
I will always keep my "real" job - I enjoy it. This AM money gives us nice spending money, and allows my Wife to stay home with our young children.
I am still shocked at how much I make per month off affiliate marketing - and it continues to climb each month!
Burke
But unlike you and your accountant I don't work and I earn a fortune. I also happen to own quite a lot of property too, as it makes a much better return than sportscars.
