Opportunities, Opportunities, OPPORTUNITIES!
Wow!
I've just finished attending Affiliate World Europe conference in Barcelona and as promised, I will share with you a couple of key takeaways here with you.
This was my first Affiliate World conference and I can tell that the first day really blew my mind.
Even though I have been in this affiliate marketing space for a while now and seen tons of different programs and opportunities, I've still been looking at things from a certain perspective.
This is going to be just a flow of thoughts after the conference and I hope you get some good for thought from my article, let's get right into things! :)
Opportunities or Distractions?
It may not come as a surprise to you that the Internet is full of amazing opportunities to make money. On my website, we've reviewed 100's of different make money online opportunities.
Still, this conference blew my mind.
When guys who have made +$20M and +$50M or even +$100M online talk in the stage from different online business models and traffic-generating strategies, it's just stretches the mind.
Let's just mention a few other sources to generate traffic:
- Facebook groups + Facebook ads
- Push notifications
- YouTube videos + ads
- Native ads
- Snapchat
- Email solo ads
- Google display network
- Organic SEO
- Search engine ads
- Etc. Etc.
- Etc.
You can see that it's pretty easy to get distracted if you try to do everything.
However, sometimes we just keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting better results.
I think it's good to keep on doing what you are doing if something is working but at the same time look for new things that you could use to grow even faster.
Marketing is all about testing. If you keep on doing the same thing over and over again but always get the same results, something needs to be changed.
In addition, if you are never trying something new, you're probably missing out on a lot of opportunities. Sometimes those "new things" may be distractions but if you never try something new, you'll always stay at the level you're at.
Personally, I feel that now it's time for me to dive more into paid advertising. I've still keep on doing the things that I've been doing to grow organically but I'll expand with paid ads.
This time I have a different mindset than when I started my online business.
I'm expecting to FAIL and waste tons of with paid ads.
Because I know that's part of the process and I know that I will get better all the time. And at some point I will start winning. That's the game.
As I wrote here recently, Anything New is ALWAYS hard until it becomes easy.
Are You Driving Or Navigating
Ezra Firestone was a keynote speaker. He showed that he has made +$85M in the last 4 years online.
One of the questions he asked the audience, "Are you driving your business or navigating it?"
Because if you are a driver, you can't do anything else. You just need to focus on driving. That's it.
But if you are navigating, you can see further. You can see what's coming up next and where to take your business.
In the other words, you let someone else do the driving. He was obviously talking about outsourcing and delegating tasks to others.
I also want to move to 'navigating instead of driving' more with my online business little by little. My plan is to get a video editor starting from August and start pushing tons of new content to YouTube. Then I don't need to spend any time on editing videos and I can use that time for studying paid ads. And in the future outsource other things...
Freedom vs Office in 1 Place?
I think that most "make money online programs" and affiliate marketing training programs highlight the digital nomad lifestyle and the freedom.
That's also been my perspective for this whole "affiliate marketing game".
For me affiliate marketing has represented freedom over a corporate/office lifestyle.
However, there's another side of the coin. As I've noticed over the time course, traveling is a lot of fun but it can also be a distraction when building a business. "Where to find food, where to work, where to stay next month, etc."
I've felt that if you really want to grow a big business, it's necessary to stay in one place for a longer time and focus.
A lot of companies at Affiliate World Conference were more "traditional" corporate style businesses where they have a physical office and employees. It probably helps for things to grow faster...
On the other hand, there are also some very successful online businesses who have mostly remote workers.
What do you think about this? Is a "regular office" necessary for a rapid growth?
Are You "Ready" for Paid Traffic?
One thing that I also realized is that you don't need to "be ready for paid ads" if you have some money.
Some guys who are making tons of money with affiliate marketing rely solely on paid ads. Almost 0 organic traffic.
They've mastered that craft and that's it. The only risk is that you may blow up a lot of money but on the other hand, with organic traffic you may lose a lot of time which is even more important than money.
Anyways, I think that it's important to have BOTH organic and paid traffic. So far, I've mostly focused on organic (like most people here) so now the focus will be more on paid traffic to scale things up.
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That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed.
All the best!
Roope "I waste $1,000's to attend conferences so you don't have to" Kiuttu
PS.
What do you think about these topics?
Share your comments and thoughts below!
Recent Comments
105
Great takeaways Roope! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I can't wait to attend conferences like that. I bet the networking opportunity was huge!
In response to your takeaways.
Driving or navigating: I think it's important to drive first before navigating, but I do think once you're capable of delegating (and not abdicating), it's important to start navigating more and slowly testing people out and empowering people to take responsibilities.
Right now I'm driving, but after I become self-employed and have enough stability and additional cashflow to offer stability to others, then I'll start looking for quality drivers, and start testing out handing off responsibilities. In the meantime, I simply prepare by creating training for when that time comes.
Regarding traffic, I've capped out my time, so I have been playing around with how to move my time around to get better results with lead gen. I want to start paid ads in August. Right now, I'm doing Youtube, Pinterest modestly, and blogging and SEO.
Freedom vs. one place: I'm in the one place camp all day. I feel so strongly about my work environment and the solitude and regiment for productivity that I could see myself getting an office and feeling better off like that. I get too frazzled when things are too busy and unpredictable, doorbells ringing, solicitors stopping by, and so on. I like traveling sometimes, but I like growth and discipline in my profession more.
Yes. I'm nearly ready for paid traffic. I've taken the training here and bought an additional course that's 25.5 hours I've been taking on Google ads over the last month. It's a beast of a course, so I've been getting thru it little by little. I want to really retain the info, and test myself with it beginning in August.
I'd love to hear more about how your business is growing and how the paid ads go for you.
Love reading your comments Tiffany! 😁 They are as valuable as the content you comment on.
I feel the same re: driving vs navigating.
Can't wait to get to that level and have an actual team who'll take care of my business! As you know, I also learn about investing, so I could master my skills in this area while my team is doing everything to increase my cashflow.
In terms of travel, I'm like Roope in this sense, I like traveling but also staying in 1 place for at least a month. I've done it as a language student and those were the best experiences in my life!!
I love keeping my mind active when learning foreign languages, having enough time to relax and explore the city without rush and actually immerse myself in the culture. And because I don't stay for like a week as a "tourist", I could just work on my business on the days I want to.
Ah, the beauty of living a laptop lifestyle! 😄
Hahaha. Thanks for your feedback on the comment.
I really look forward to giving jobs. I want to do it when I'm ready, but I really look forward to it. I think a stable job is like the best gift you can give!
I like traveling too, but I don't like losing my productivity for long periods, so I don't think I would be a digital nomad. I would like to travel often, but I'd also like to have a steady office environment.
That's understandable, not everyone is built for digital nomad lifestyle! And often, people THINK that's what they would want but in reality it's not what they really end up enjoying (trying to work from laptop while always on the go).
Yeah, giving jobs and having your own team definitely would be awesome!
I agree. I thought I wanted that at one point. Hahaha. The more I pay attention to my work tendencies, the more I think digital nomad life probably wouldn't be a good long term fit for me.
Topics are brilliant and training for it would be appreciated for sure.
I have so much to learn which 8s so exciting.
Thank you so much for sharing after your first World Conference and congratulations for attending it.
Really helpful post.
Daisy
I would love to learn more about paid ads. I hope we get some more training here. Otherwise, I'm not totally sure where to look.
Keep us posted on how you do with that.
Thanks so much for the tidbits!
- Christina
P.S. I don't like working in an office and that's why i like affiliate marketing. I don't know that I would ever want to grow so big that I'm back to being corporate-y, but eh, who knows? :)
Sure! I may share something here but if I find great winning ads, I may not want to share everything here because then everyone may go for it and then the prices go higher.
Of course! I wouldn't expect you to share your secrets, just how it's going for you. :)
- Christina
Thanks for your insights on the conference, Roope. I believe that paid traffic is a great way to go if you have the funds to invest and possibly lose at first. There is a learning curve and you'll need to allocate some time daily to monitor your add sets to ensure they're producing the desired traffic.
I haven't used any methods of paid traffic but my son (still in college) started a website roughly three months ago using all paid traffic. In June he made $700 but the previous two months he lost money. I fully expect he'll continue to see positive results as he continues the learning process.
Best wishes to you on your continued success.
Randy
Thanks for sharing Randy! May I ask what kind of paid traffic is he using? Google Ads? Facebook ads? :)
He is working with both Facebook and Google ads. From what I've gathered from his experience is that Facebook seems to be dependent on product choice and the competition. There is a learning curve to get dialed in with your Facebook ads.
Google ads didn't seem to take as long for him to learn. I'm not sure of the exact term but I believe there is a "smart campaign" feature that basically places your ads where Google determines are the best sites for your ads. My son has mentioned to me that it takes time for Google to optimize your campaign.
I wish I could offer more guidance but I just do not have the experience.
Randy
Thanks for sharing your experience Roope. I think there are a lot of opportunities on the internet but you need a lot of skills too and if you don't have a complete skillset it is very easy to waste a lot of money especially buying paid traffic, Alan.
That's true. At the beginning, there will be always a lot of mistakes. But I think that's the same with any venture.
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Thanks for sharing the insights man.
You inspire me to try such conferences even more! It feels a bit out of comfort (even though it's the very topic I've been doing for the last few years) but still feels unusual to think that I'd be in 1 physical place with so many entrepreneurs, and likely other attendees being more successful than I am.
Roope, do you usually attend these events by yourself? Do you get to make connections with other people before/after the actual conference/keynote speakers on stage?
I'm very sociable but usually it's been in different kind of circles, not business-oriented people/events. Strangely enough, there's a bit of fear of looking like a fool if I won't know certain aspects of online business if I'll have a convo with someone lol 🙈
I'll send you a PM :)