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Make your Systems Scalable

29. Feb 2008 | 11 Comments

Scaling your Ideas

Whenever you hit the jackpot on a particular campaign or with a particular method it can be pretty satisfying, especially when the income stream is steady & dependable.

When this situation arises there’s normally two types of affiliates, those that move onto the next idea & those that will try to milk the current system for as much profit as they can.

Let me ask you this, is it easier to make more money from something you already know is making money? or is it easier making money trying to find another system that works?

This fine line separates those who make serious money & those who chase money.

Let start with a few definitions:

System: This is a method, tactic or idea that allows you to generate an income.

Scale: The ability to take this system & duplicate it or increase its profitability. Now just because you duplicate a campaign that does not mean you’ve scaled it x2. In doing so you may have a lower ROI therefore you may have only scaled to 1.5 times your current earnings. But that’s still more money than you were making before.

Profitability = System x Scale - Spend

So what determines how well something can be scaled? For example, it’s much harder to automate a piece of software that has been written by someone else than it is to automate something that you’ve written yourself.

Scaling equates to Volume or Tweaking

Scaling upward allows you to push more & more volume through a given offer or merchant. If you push volume then you become more valuable to that merchant. This allows you negotiate much better rates, increasing your net profit. If you had 20 smaller offers you’d never ever be able to do this.

Tweaking allows you to push your campaigns to create more revenue, which in essence is also a form of scaling.

Look at ways that you can Automate

  • Can you automate creating Adwords Campaigns?
  • Can you automate checking your Stats?
  • Can you automate promotion?
  • Can you automate the creation of Dynamic Landing Pages?
  • Can you automate the creation of Wordpress Blogs?

Chances are, that if you can think of doing something. Someone else has already thought of how to do it 1000 times faster.

Time = Money

Look at ways to Squeeze Revenue out of Existing Campaigns & Sites

  • Can you find more relevant offers to your target audience?
  • Are you capturing opt-in subscribers?
  • Can you increase traffic to existing sites?
  • Can you increase traffic through existing PPC Campaigns you know convert?
  • Can you optimise campaigns for lower CPCs?

Simple Example of Simple Automation & Scaling

Lets take the example of creating Adwords Campaigns & importing a huge amount of keywords. How many of you manage your keywords in Excel then import them into Adwords Editor using the bulk feature?

Adwords Editor allows you to import keywords using this string:

  1. keyword,exact,1.50,http://www.example.com

Recently I ran a few campaigns related to DVD’s. I wanted to quickly create an adgroup around certain stars. I.e. Chuck Norris DVD’s.

I created an Excel Spreadsheet using the following piece of code:

  1. =B3 & " dvd," & "exact" & "," & C3 & "," & E3 & "?aid=" & D3 & "&kw=" & SUBSTITUTE(B3," ","_")

This would then allow me to create a huge list of stars I wanted to target & the spreadsheet would easily create the code needed to copy & paste into adwords editor.

This particular code above creates something like:

  1. chuck norris dvd,exact,0.50,http://www.example.com/?aid=999&kw=chuck_norris_dvd

Using this syntax I’m able to grab a list of the top 2000 stars, fire them into this spreadsheet & have 2000 keywords all ready to roll within a matter of seconds. All I need to do is write the ad & use Dynamic Keyword Insertion & we’re rolling.

This small example not only allows me to automate the process of creating keyword lists, but it allows me to scale campaigns much quicker.

So if you’re one of those affiliates who likes to chase new ideas without really focusing on the ones that are working for you, take a step back & think about how you can make the most of what you have.

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11 Comments on "Make your Systems Scalable"

Marcus Smith 29. Feb 2008, 11:15 am

Great stuff… this is what I’ve been trying to tell people myself.

Smaxor 01. Mar 2008, 9:14 am

Insightful post definitely.

Unfortunately no matter how many times you tell people this stuff they don’t listen it seems. Everyone wants a magic bullet that they’re going to build something and it’s going to require no scaling and no work but make them a fortune.

Find something that makes pennies, scale it and automate it 100% then let it make $’s while you work on the next project.

Just my 2 cents.

Adult Webmaster SEO 01. Mar 2008, 9:20 am

Yeah… Nice post. It’s so easy to get caught up in new ideas while neglecting the old good ideas. It’s something I’m constantly working on myself…

Sunil 03. Mar 2008, 8:09 am

Great post.

Gab Goldenberg 03. Mar 2008, 5:35 pm

I learned a lot from this one, definitely. Important question: How do you develop scale given these two problems:
1) Not being a programmer
2) Having a challenging time hiring a programmer online, whom you can rely upon to deliver quality, on time.

That’s my biggest obstacle, and a true pain in the arse. I’d love to hear your response.

Gab Goldenberg 04. Mar 2008, 9:44 am

Sphunn, now it’s ur turn to sphinn it! http://sphinn.com/story/32192

Niro 07. Mar 2008, 2:58 am

Hey stuart, miss your posts men he he.. Bro wanted to ask you.. Why is earnersblog still PR0. I think I saw awesome 17000 links to you in yahoo. Yet its PR0. Do you think you have been penalized? Why do you think.. Would love a post about that bro. Hmm yea .. Another thing to ask. Will you be able to write a post about how syndication networks would build links. My slBlogs still PR0, very concerned on this. If you have some time let us know some points ok. Thanks bro.. catch u soon.

Clint Lenard 10. Mar 2008, 1:03 pm

Great post! I find it funny that so many people speak about “scaling” their campaigns, yet nobody ever gives any examples of how they’re scaling. Glad you gave your readers more information. ;-)

Vista Sidebar Gadgets 25. Mar 2008, 9:23 pm

Yes, scaling is the name of the game, especially when you are starting, and don’t have the capital to outsource your work (web design/coding, content writing).

“Work Smart, not hard”. So if you work Smart & Hard, then you know there is bound to be good results somewhere in there.

Anon 19. Apr 2008, 7:39 pm

Thanks for the good tips

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