In the first part of our interview, we talked about scaling up campaigns, optimal start in the niche, the ways of affiliate growth and the qualities that are crucial to success in the sphere.

In the second part, we’re going to talk about the process of effective testing and reading case studies to improve one’s current performance and grow. As well as what an affiliate must prepare for in order to achieve significant results without sacrificing emotional well-being.

Let’s go!

About affiliate path

We’ve worked with various verticals, including Nutra, and there is probably no vertical that we haven’t run. But finally, we settled on iGaming, because our Nutra income isn’t comparable to the tens of thousands of dollars that can be made on iGaming.

Four years ago we drove traffic through Google and did it when we had spare time, studying and testing the source gradually. Then we gave it up. Algorithms are constantly changing; even the interface has changed. If we want to create a campaign now, we need to spend time exploring the updated interface first.

Facebook (via PWA) is our main source of income. Most of our time is devoted to it, yet we’d like to try Google again. Thus, alongside our primary work, we’re refreshing our knowledge and re-learn how to work with it.

About the beginning of a newbie’s work

A beginner can start working solo with FB, though with a team it will, surely, be easier to start. It’s always easier to join a company with a ready-made business model, get some experience and expertise from the pros, and then launch your own project replicating the business model, but with a focus on your own needs. This can be applied to affiliate marketing, only with regard to the team.

Although working on a team is easier, as long as one has time, willingness, and budget, it’s possible to start alone, but in a harder and slower way.

There are a lot of automation tools now – various services that can make affiliate life easier: for example, Dolphin can replace 10 people on a team. But this increases costs (without considering the amount of work), which becomes the burden of just one person. Consequently, the profit on what is earned is reduced; i.e., the return on such work drops.

About scaling up

TikTok has similar algorithms to those of Facebook, so if you have an idea to try something out there, you should definitely give it a go.

Previously on Facebook, we could scale up by increasing the budget, but now the daily budget is limited to $50. In this case, scaling up is possible by increasing the number of accounts. We buy ready-to-use accounts. For example, a daily budget of $1000 requires 20 accounts.

About growth in the niche

The best way to develop is to run your own tests. You might come across an idea somewhere, or you might have your own idea; the best thing is to test it. Just hearing about the effectiveness of something from others is not sufficient. The best way is to try it out and see the effectiveness yourself. For that, you can create a table in Excel (or use another service. You can also use a tracker). Run a campaign based on this idea, put the results in, and then compare it with your other campaigns. If the statistics confirm that everything went well, you can mark the idea in the table and take it to work.

For example, you have an idea to put a badge in X place on a landing page. You do it and watch, whether it will be converting or not. Find out in what place the user stays more often, i.e.,whether the chosen place is suitable or not. Then you fill in the results in the table.

It’s also important to set clear goals. “I want to become a top affiliate” – isn’t concrete. But “improve my ROI” – is fine. In this case, you need to write down how this can be achieved. For example, you need to scale up your campaign first, and then design a step-by-step plan on how you are going to accomplish this.

3 major features of an affiliate

Hard-working attitude. It’s a must. I don’t regard us as tops. We have average results. But I can say that we reached them as we haven’t become so lazy. We’re constantly testing things, and if something does not work, it means that we haven’t studied the subject enough, or haven’t spent sufficient time on it.

Readiness to accept bad results. It’s vital to understand and accept the fact that something can go the way you won’t like. There are gray-hat ads, especially Nutra ones, that can bring you a good income today, but tomorrow you’ll get an unsatisfactory result; the day after tomorrow the result will be even worse. Next week, the performance will finally get better. The most important thing is not to break down during such changes.

Willingness to spend a lot of time. You will have to learn, study, and test a lot of things. All this requires time.

About starting affiliate marketing in solo

If you have the proper budget, time, and desire, you can get into affiliate marketing single-handedly. However, without the support of a team, it’s harder to do so. If difficulties arise, instead of asking a more experienced team leader for advice, one will have to search for information on the web alone and spend more time on this. To get started, a beginner will also have to find creative pairs and test them without the help of “seniors”. This means acting at random for the first time, based on little experience. Thus, the beginner must closely monitor the results. Something will definitely go wrong, and the account will get banned. The creative pair chosen by the beginner may not perform well or not give the desired results. Therefore, without guidance, there is a very high chance of choosing the wrong path and spending more time figuring out the causes and finding solutions.

When watching guides on YouTube, beginners will have a lot of questions. Then they ask for help on affiliate forums, but the “affiliate-language” answers are unclear to the beginner. That only intensifies the misunderstanding. So, if you’re a beginner, you’d better learn the fundamentals before asking questions or trying to do anything.

This is also valid for experimenting with either new verticals or approaches. Before asking for recommendations from colleagues, it is better to search the Internet for basic information yourself to understand what you will be told about.

About scaling up, growth, and a useful way of reading case studies

We test different creative pairs, see which one goes better, and then duplicate it without any changes and re-run it again.

To grow in the niche, firstly, you need to test a lot, and secondly, to ask more experienced affiliates for their opinions. If you have people around you who are more experts in something than you are, that’s awesome. They can not only be asked for advice, but also teach you something new, and that will help you move up to the next level.

We primarily focus on our own tests. If we like an idea, we make tests and put the results in an Excel table. Then we check which creative pairs were successful (mark them green), and which weren’t (mark them red). We proceed to work with the successful creative pairs, continuing to analyze how we can improve the results. If we find a solution, we run tests again, and then the process is repeated.

We don’t rely very much on case studies, because no one will talk about a scheme that brings good money. But affiliates do share some of their data, so we study various case studies anyway. Then we take them for our own revision. This happens as follows: after reading the case study, we analyze its weak points, the aspects that could be better, and find a way to reproduce the case study in a way that corrects its weaker figures.

For example, we like a case study’s targeting, and the ideas for creatives, but the ROI is low. Then we begin analyzing what exactly could be the problem for that and how we could fix it with this dataset.

Each time we read a case, we not only strategize to improve the weak performance of this case or similar campaigns, but also highlight what may work for us. After defining the strategy, we verify it with tests. We don’t copy the cases, but we take from them what we can adapt to our campaigns in order to move forward and discover new earning opportunities.

3 important qualities of an affiliate

Ability to work hard. You have to study the niche, quickly find solutions, and, of course, work a lot.

Resistance to failures. Today your creative pair can perform well, tomorrow your account will get banned or start bringing more expenses than income. It’s all common in affiliate marketing. You don’t have to quit everything at once. Even the creative pair doesn’t need to go through changes. Think about the problem and then analysis and tests will be able to not just return the previous result but make it much better.

I can say that we achieve results only because we accept difficulties and try to find ways to solve them: by our own analysis or by recommendations from seasoned colleagues.

Desire to learn new things and engage in analytics. Keep track of trends and changes in the niche. Constantly improve your creating pairs or fix issues with them or your account. Examine not only your campaigns, but also those of colleagues in the same way we analyze case studies.

Affiliates could write volumes of memoirs about their work with FB. And a few more volumes of thoughts in addition. A lotta thanks to all the interview participants! Wish you all great profits!

P.S.: have a story to tell or want to comment on things in the niche? Write to us! We’d love to share your story or opinion with the entire community. Together we’ll make it better and more helpful :))

Hey!

We’re always glad when you share your experience, affiliate stories, tips, or even opinions on the niche. Recently, we’ve asked a few Facebook experts some questions and are ready to engage you in those pleasant conversations!

How to scale up campaigns? How can newbies step into the niche in the most fitting way, and what will they encounter? How to improve your performance, and who can be a successful affiliate? Read the first part of our interview!

About newbie’s beginning, and a new team

I used to work within a team, but the results stopped pleasing me and I experienced burn-out, and I decided to leave. I regret it a little, but now I am building my own team of people who are already working in the niche or would like to start. I’ve already found several of my teammates, and now we are working together.

You can survive in affiliate marketing if you know what to do. If you’re part of a team, it’s much easier to do that. Teammates can give you advice and highlight your mistakes.

Also, it’s easier to work because the job is divided up among all the members.

For newbies, I would recommend looking for a team. If beginners get their account banned, they can look for a way to solve the problem for a very long time, while being on the team, they can ask a more experienced colleague and have a solution much quicker. What’s more, account farming is easier, and more accounts are available when one is with a team. It’s more convenient. Besides, more experienced affiliates can recommend tested services and working methods to reduce the risk of being banned to a minimum.

About work with Facebook

We usually take a few farmed accounts. Here are some stats based on one of our Nutra campaigns: 10 accounts, a $5-$10 daily budget for each, and 250 leads total.

Facebook is different for everyone: you can completely duplicate your colleague’s campaign step-by-step, but not get the same results. Somebody’s account will get banned at once and forever, someone else’s account will get unbanned after some time, and the third account may get approved, but won’t have the same success.

Risk payment is another problem that we also faced: one of us adds a card, everything is ok, the second one’s account gets banned immediately, and the third one’s account gets banned after a while.

About scaling up

I consider working with TikTok as a scale-up option. This is a relatively new and popular platform. You can not only use it for scaling up, but also to test out creatives for Facebook. If you run a creative there that gets 1% CTR, upload it to Facebook, where it will give a better result. This happens because TikTok’s algorithms are much simpler than those on Facebook, where the audience reach is wider. If you have two campaigns running in two sources at the same time, you may get rather good results.

I also create 5 ad sets with the same creatives and a range of TA, for example, women between the ages of 25 and 60. One ad set may drop out (get banned). And then I monitor the remaining 4 to find out which of them shows the best results, and which TA from the range performs best. When it’s done, I shut down all the other ad sets and double the most productive one without a change. Voila, the campaign is scaled up – you have two efficient and active ad sets that are expanding the reach of the most relevant audience.

If a campaign has a low CPL, it can be scaled up by changing the creatives. You always need to change the creatives when relaunching it.

About upgrading skills and quality-oriented work

I know that I could have achieved more if I had focused on quantity, but that is not my way, I always focus on quality. That may have contributed somehow to my burnout. I know a girl who takes 5-years-old creatives and throws them in massively. When you upload a great number of creatives, Facebook picks up some and approves them.

I have a different attitude: I don’t have many launches, but I’m very thorough in my approach to making creatives. I’ve mastered a video editing program to make creatives. I create before/after videos of varicose veins, in which they smoothly disappear in the next frame – an imitation of the effect of a product. By the way, before/after photos are prohibited by Facebook’s advertising policy, but it’s not obvious in the video. So, the video gets approved, and the effect it has is the same as by using the before/after photos.

When I was on the team, the courses were paid for me. But I believe, the most surefire way to improve skills is to test more to find out what works best for you. When you get the knack, it becomes clear what’s more effective – that’s what growth is about. Test any idea you have, maybe you’ll find your own successful formula. I prefer to minimize using services and do most of my work manually.

3 key characteristics of a good affiliate

Diligence. If we’re talking about working solo, there’s a lot to do to get started: create an account, farm it for a couple of weeks, or even better – a few accounts, as reserves; prepare creatives, set up a campaign…

Enthusiasm. You need to have a fire burning in your eyes, and a desire to continue on your affiliate path, no matter what.

Burn-out resistance. You shouldn’t get to the point where you can burn out. It’s exciting to see your first earnings, and growth in stats, but when you come to the downside, you need to handle your state promptly. I feel that quite well now.

About newbies starting affiliate marketing

I think to get started in affiliate marketing and go through the full affiliate process, the beginner has to spend $5000-$7000. To run ads, earn money, study media buying, and decide whether it’s the right choice or not.

For a beginner, for one person, working alone is very hard regarding budget, workload, expenses, technical issues, and skills. In that case, to survive in the niche, one needs a helping hand like either mentoring or a team. Otherwise, there is a chance to get stuck in affiliate forums with many help-me-help-me messages.

You can find a lot of information on the web about affiliate marketing, but it is not well-structured. So, new affiliates have two ways: the first is to search for information on their own and to study as many articles available in public as possible; the second is to try to join a team.

There are no middle affiliates: they can be newbies until they succeed in something, and then there is the most common option to strengthen the team with expertise – they join a team, an agency, or an affiliate network.

So joining a team is not just the most convenient way, but also quite fast. If there is no way to find a team, there is one more option available – to read affiliate articles, blogs, portals, forums, etc.

I recommend newbies pay attention not only to Facebook but to TikTok Ads as well. They can launch a campaign there via a link or livestreaming.

About casino livestreaming on TikTok

Everything that currently appears on TikTok already exists on YouTube. All new TikTok content is borrowed ideas from YouTube and that is rerun on TikTok. And TikTok streaming as a kind of popular source of casino monetization traffic was already a long time ago on YouTube.

To do that, you gotta be good at it. You have to be thoroughly immersed in the subject to be able to do it. How to stream, how to behave while streaming, what is allowed and what is not. And you have to keep in mind that casinos are forbidden on TikTok. So it’s a banned activity, with a lot of accounts, and a lot of subscribers too, since you need 1,000 subscribers to start a live stream.

Here is a bypass option: create an account, get some subscribers, then create a ticket saying that it is impossible to start a live and send the ticket to a moderator, without specifying the number of subscribers. The moderator gives access, and the live-streaming option becomes available without having 1000 subscribers. One live streaming isn’t much profitable. It’s better to put it in the flow. But this is still a rather unexplored subject.

3 key points of affiliate success

Networking. Access to crucial and needed info.

Curiosity. As long as you’re searching, you’re progressing. If you either have one creative pair or specialize in one thing only, you freeze, because the subject sooner or later passes away, and you’ll pass away with it as well.

Endurance. 90% of the time is made up of failures and difficulties; there is no stability in this business. If you can take it day by day, then you’ll be fine. Affiliate marketing always throws up new challenges: there were problems with the ban on advertising activity, they were dealt with. Then there were problems with accounts and a solution was found too. Once TikTok was new and untapped, and now affiliates run their campaigns there. If you have the willingness to accept new challenges without feeling exhausted, then you will succeed.

Find more interesting interviews in Part 2!