This presentation is from Affiliate Summit East 2013 (August 18-20, 2013) in Philadelphia, PA). Session Description: Why do some affiliates seem to find success quickly, while others struggle? Learn the mistakes to avoid, and what you should be focusing your affiliate efforts on.

1. What Makes a Successful Affiliate?
David Ford – Affplaybook.com

2. What Exactly is a Successful Affiliate?
 How do we define success? Being profitable long term?
Having one great month?
 My definition of success = Having multiple, profitable
streams of affiliate income over the long term.

3. Why Do Affiliates Fail?
 Unrealistic Expectations
 Viewing everything as black or white
○ Looking for mathematical formulas
○ Looking for a perfect way to do something
○ Looking for the „easy‟ way to get started
 Not Understanding How „Boring‟ This Can Be
 Not Pacing Themselves
 Starting out gung-ho but cant maintain
 Thinking if they work hard enough, success is guaranteed
 Looking For The „Big Hits‟
 Affiliates could (relatively) easily make 6 figures per year of
steady income through sources like article marketing, niche
blogs, or authority sites
 Most affiliates don‟t have the patience for this
 Doing The Same Thing Over and Over
 If something didn‟t work 100 times, it probably won‟t work on the
101st attempt.
 Approaching every campaign or project the same way

4. Why Do Affiliates Fail?
 Looking At Results As „Failing‟
 Not looking at stats from an objective viewpoint
 Not understanding this is a business you have to invest
money in
 The Smart Affiliate Paradox
 Sometimes the smartest affiliates have the hardest time
finding success
 They tend to overthink things
 They think should be able to think their way to success
instead of taking action

5. Why Do Some Affiliates Succeed?
 They Have Reasonable, Or No Expectations
 When I started out, I was thrilled to make $200/month
 The Dumb Affiliate Paradox
 “That guy makes that much!?”
 They don‟t overthink things
 They aren‟t afraid to spend money
 They don‟t mind doing long hours, of sometimes boring work
 They do more actual work than thinking about work
 They Aren‟t Afraid of Failure
 „Smarter‟ affiliates often think they can figure out a way to avoid failure
 They understand that spending money is an investment, like an education
 They Simply Do The Work
 They either spend lots of money testing or they do consistent work and
have the patience to see it pay off

6. How To Be a Successful Affiliate
 Understand That This is a Business, and Treat it That Way
 Take a step back and compare this to starting a brick and mortar
business, or spending the money for college to get an education.
 Write Out a Business Plan
 What will you do each day? Schedule it. If your goal is to build 2
campaigns every day, make that a priority
 Always start with an attainable goal – Don‟t try to do too much because
you‟ll get burnt out or frustrated
 Look at The Big Picture of Your Business
 Think about the portfolio theory

7. The Portfolio Theory
1
2

8. The Portfolio Theory
An Affiliate Portfolio Running One Offer
Potential Problems
• The offer dies, is pulled from the network, they
get kicked from the offer
• No other areas of business were developed
Better, but all income is coming from one niche

9. The Portfolio Theory
An example of diversifying niches
Diversifying traffic sources
Even devoting 10% of your time
to a new source of income will
pay off over time

10. What should you diversify into?
There is no right or best answer
Traffic Types
PPV
PPC
Media Buys
SEO
Facebook
POF
Mobile
Offline
Offer Types
CPA offers (dating, weight loss, etc.)
PPS offers (Shareasale,CJ, etc.)
Clickbank
Downloadable software
PPC (getting paid when someone clicks on an ad)
Other Projects
Building a tool
Building an app
Creating your own product or course
Creating your own offer
Running a startup
Inventing something
Ecommerce
Niche sites
Consulting
Starting a traffic source
Writing/publishing
An ideal affiliate portfolio would involve these elements:
- Running CPA offers & PPS offers on different traffic sources
- Long term sites - niche sites, authority sites, etc.
- Smaller, stable projects that can be outsourced (example – video marketing)
- Researching and testing of new methods, traffic sources, projects, etc.
- Learning subjects like HTML, basic programming, etc.
- Analyzing and keeping up with the industry

11. To Start
1. Write down every task you do right now and how long you spend on it
2. Now that you know what you are doing, write out a portfolio of what you
should be doing.
3. Write out a business plan based on what you've been working on and what
areas you want to expand into.
Example:
30% Dating on Facebook
25% Loans on PPV
20% Building authority sites
15% Creating a digital product
5% Kindle publishing
5% Researching new areas to expand into