Looking to have a "strong start" in the affiliate business

[CatalinAMG]

Hello everyone,

I've been scoping this forum for a while but only today I've decided to create an account and kindly ask for some guideline. After a year with ups and downs, I've managed to land an opportunity allowing me to have a potential 35,000 Euros budget to set-up an affiliate website.

Regarding the SEO practices, I do have some knowledge and an idea on how to create quality, targeted content for the future pages. The issue here is that I don't know the legal requirements; should I set-up a company? Should I focus on several markets? How many people would I need to lend a hand on putting the website up and running? The most important question of all: Is 35,000 Euros enough to leverage some of the traffic? Thank you!

[universal4]

Keep in mind that ONLY lawyers licensed in the jurisdiction where you line, or plan on incorporating can give ACTUAL legal advice.

As for the company creation, and what sort of corporate structure it should have, has a lot to do with what country or jurisdiction you live or plane to do business from.

There are many other things to consider such as target market etc, so the more specific you can tailor the question, the better the recommendations you can get from members.

Rick
Universal4

[Sherlock]

I never ever tried to solve those things until I was making millions.
Also my "budget" was much lower, in fact just my work and some cheap hosting. I remember I started online business with 400 USD and I never needed another funding.

I am sure you are taking it from very bad side. Unless a lot of changed it is not about money (as budget/investment). It is about delivering.
You are preparing things that are not needed. If you do not know by yourself how to get the traffic, you should not think about employees/freelancers. It is you who has to teach them or at least you must be able to evaluate if they are doing their job. Since you have no idea, the only way is to learn it by doing it. For that you do not need 35K. You need just a place to sleep, water, toilet and some crap food.

Either you fail, which is the most likely outcome and then you do not need company. Or you succeed and then you can think about company and you will have a lot of time for that. Especially on revenue share there is a very slow start where you will be getting FTDs but very little revenue.

The approach you have is an old school approach. Sounds like you have corporate habits. It does not work online like that and especially not when new business is being started from the scratch. It is not like setting up a restaurant or car rental company. The only real asset here is in fact how to do something. Money does not help with that, it is the opposite. There is army of "indispensable" gurus/tools/SW/HW waiting exactly for you and you can spend unlimited money with some fixed idea in your head that will be fed by their marketing; while in fact you will be the fish on the hook.

You need to get the right traffic for good price/effort and you need to know how to convert it. Slow process, steep learning curve, slowly rising revenue curve and incredibly bad time now, because the affiliate business is dying and economy will get even worse soon.

[TheGooner]

Hi CatalinAMG

While your questions seem quite sound - they are typical business questions they are so generic and getting answers to them will depend very much on your direction. The questions also suggest that you have little real idea about online gaming / gambling.

You say you are interested in the "affiliate business" ... and I'll assume that you mean gaming / gambling affiliation...
- But is that casino, poker, bingo, lottery, sports, horses etc?
- and within each sector there are a myriad of subsectors.
- what specifically interests you - because your project will be better if it's about an area that interests you ..
- or is it all about the money ?

You wonder whether you should focus on "several markets".
- is that the sector markets above or are you talking about geographic regions ?
- do you have any particular language skills or knowledge that will help in any of these markets / regions?

You asked whether you should set-up a company ?
- Most people started as a one-man (or one-woman) shop initially to prove the concept/markets they chose.
- Eventually if you are profitable you probably will want to set-up a company.
- but with only EUR 35K you will probably be running this out of a bedroom initially so save the money.
- most people start this part-time as a sole trader / individual initially, growing as they learn the ropes and find a market.

You ask how many people you will need to help ?
- This obviously depends on the scope what you decide to cover, and your technical skills.
- Can you technically setup a website yourself?
- Create and maintain the content?
- Do you have social media skills?
- Do you have contacts inside this industry (or others) that can help?
- Every time you said no - you will have to pay for help.

You also ask about leveraging traffic.
- In the first few months you won't have much organic traffic.
- And any traffic you buy cheap will be worthless and not convert (much).

Finally, the legal aspect.
- The rules in regulated countries (UK, US, EUR) are growing, and affiliate programs expect you to follow them.
- There are restriction on social media usage
- Restrictions on key phrases and words that you cannot and must not use.
- Restrictions on partnering with unlicensed operators if you are also promoting licensed options.
- And these restrictions are randomly enforced, changing frequently, and quite annoying.

----------------------------

IN summary CatalinAMG, it's great to see that you are interested in this area, but it's hugely competitive, and having access to EUR 35K won't actually get you off to a quick start at all - that's probably a months revenue for most full timers here.

Instead you will need to identify a market that interests you, that creates a passion, and build unique content for that market that will interest others. Over a period of time your website will either grow and flourish because it stays fresh and interesting ... or it will wither and die.

These days it's harder to get a start, with regulations and restrictions limiting markets, and browser privacy and cookie blocking/clearing destroying tracking systems so only about 1 startup in 10 lasts a year.

Good luck.

[chaumi]

Everything Sherlock and Gooner said.....

But to go a little bit further....let's say you are determined to do it/make the attempt

The first question I'd be asking is 'what are my prospects of actually building a successful website ie one that gets traffic consistently either from its rankings or some other source (or a combination)'.

And note that - at the start and maybe the first 6 months, 12 months, 2 years, 5 years - successful doesn't necessarily mean it has money coming in. It means you have created something that works, is good, has rankings, is valuable, different or better, whatever. And the value in that creation is going to be maintained in (or can be adapted to) a changing landscape however it changes (and it already is or definitely will do).

Money/income comes - hopefully, and subject to some of the things Sherlock mentioned - as a consequence.


So your prospects of achieving that depend on you, how much time you have (don't underestimate this), what you are going to try and do/target, various external influences, and of course the answers to all questions already posed.

The bottom line is you go in not knowing at the outset whether you can achieve any of this ...which is why many success stories are from people who started many years back on their own and it grew from there.

All precisely why going into it thinking spending €35k will guarantee the right outcome is (probably) not a good idea.

Why only 'probably'?

Because I have little doubt there are some here that could start off right now with €35k and build something that will be 'successful' . But they will have advantages and without a doubt already know the game inside out and most likely have their own tricks/backing/knowledge/organisation/experience.

Even then, almost certainly they would never get to the level of the first 2 posters you had (although you may not need that actual level of 'success')


So....your best chances given you seem to be starting off from near absolute scratch...at very high level.....

Consider all the points already made
Determine exactly what you want to build
Seek advice on whether others think that may work (you can probably safely post here, you're highly unlikely to be giving away any ideas that most haven't already considered/know about)
Find someone to team up with who knows already (most of) the ins and outs. And even then don't pile in your whole budget (unless you are prepared to throw any form of sensible precaution to the wind, you may never get it back)
Recognize right at the start, there are lots of reasons why none of this might work....but it's not impossible

[Former Member 14]

These days it's harder to get a start, with regulations and restrictions limiting markets, and browser privacy and cookie blocking/clearing destroying tracking systems so only about 1 startup in 10 lasts a year.

bad time now, because the affiliate business is dying and economy will get even worse soon.

TheGooner he's been doing this since 1999, I've been at it since 2000. Point is, the igaming affiliate industry, is NOT the cash-cow it once was. Season affiliates with literally years of exp, and with 'deep' pockets, and finding it hard to gain new deposit players, these days. The market is saturated, and most programs are screwing their affiliates with bogus GGR deductions... EG: Admin Fees (totally BS scam).

I'm too old to get into another gig now, but if I was younger, I'd focus my energy on eSports.

[CatalinAMG]

I never ever tried to solve those things until I was making millions.

You need to get the right traffic for good price/effort and you need to know how to convert it. Slow process, steep learning curve, slowly rising revenue curve and incredibly bad time now, because the affiliate business is dying and economy will get even worse soon.

Hello Sherlock,

Thanks for your feedback, it is very valuable for me and most certainly will keep it in mind when the adventure begins.

[CatalinAMG]

You say you are interested in the "affiliate business" ... and I'll assume that you mean gaming / gambling affiliation...

Good luck.

1. I am interested mostly in the casino niche; It's not all about money as the gambling industry is also a hobby.
2. I was referring to geographical positions (UK, EUR). Language skills are okay-ish (I've seen worse while looking at other affiliate websites).

Thank you for taking your time to answer, your advice will be put to good use. Have a great day!

[mickyfu]

Only advice I have is stay clear of the UK market. I wouldnt waste my time or money these days. Its like 1 step forwards 10 steps back due to the cretins at the gambling commission and the masses of parasites.

[johan_s]

My advice to you is to do a lot of research to target the right markets. Market is saturated, that is the truth, but you can still find markets that has not got into the online casino trend yet.

[Sherlock]

I was again thinking about it from different angle: opportunity costs.

The 35k are what economists say: accounting costs, but the full costs are opportunity costs.

Oportunity costs of affiliate marketing are simply at least the costs that the affiliate would have been received if he had worked elsewhere.

With revenue share you can estimate, as complete newbie, to get results after 2-3 years.

But only if things do not change with Google/social networks and if you find the niche. I honestly have no idea why newbies think they can be smarter than people who are already in and who arebetrayed on large scale, but ok. Let's pretend, that you are the magician and you can do it.

What are the real ooportunity costs then? 2.5 years = 30 months. You should expect to dive in fully, so work 100/hours a week, 400/hours a months.

So you will spend 12000 hours by learning by doing. I am not sure what is a hourly wage in your country. Let's pick something cheap that nowadays anyone can do: a messenger [also because I was working as delivery boy 100 hours/week]. Hourly rate 15 E/hour. Then the opportunity costs are 12000 x 15 = 180'000 EUR. The 180K is what would you alterantively received by working hard as messenger. Those are also the "costs".

So once you are the successfull affiliate, you must add those opportunity costs to regular costs and then you will be in black numbers once you start making more (if you ever make some money, but the good thing is that after several months you should see, if it make sense or not, so you will lose maximum of few tens of thousands on missed revenue).

I am telling you sincerely, if I am broke now and I need to feed myself and If I lived in 1st world, I would be a messenger again. I am not joking. And I do not need to learn anything. To do something online as freelancer was a great idea. 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago. Easy money.

During the last decade was already much better to do something else, like cryptocurrency holding. Now doing something online as freelancer is not 1 step behind but 2 steps behind. Corporations took over everything and somewhere right now is forming a new decentralised internet, where maybe already some people are making money silently. As Gooner and other oldschoolers were doing money silently with affiliate marketing in late 90s.

It is important to look forward. Broke economies are a reality. At some point the bills will be paid and the bills for state are paid from taxes. The online gambling as we see now, can be taxed easily and heavily and therefore it will be taxed. The companies that keep stealing from us are crooks, but they became crooks after legalisation, regulation and taxation. In the end there will be just few betting companies in each country, they will not need marketing or rather marketing will be forbidden. And most of money from gambling will go directly to state. Just like by tobacco, where the tax is like 75% and keep rising.

[edmond.oddy]

Hello, I can help you with your affiliate website, I’m in this business for more than 15 years, had my own websites listed in first place in google search with the keywords like “casino bonuses” “freespins” “nodeposit” it took only 2 months to rank up a fresh domain with my methods/strategies...

[chaumi]

Wouldn't normally comment on stuff like this (not worth the effort)...and on this thread the posters so far will know what to do with it (as will most readers here who haven't commented)...but in the interests of stopping someone else who may not have the experience from getting pulled in

Hello, I can help you with your affiliate website, I’m in this business for more than 15 years, had my own websites listed in first place in google search"



If you'd just stuck with this intro you might have been OK (though probably not actually)......

but as soon as it went to this it was a shot in the foot....

with the keywords like “casino bonuses” “freespins” “nodeposit” it took only 2 months to rank up a fresh domain with my methods/strategies...

I will offer an apology if I'm wrong...but would heavily doubt it will be needed!

[edmond.oddy]

I just dont want to reveal my strategies detective ��

Wouldn't normally comment on stuff like this (not worth the effort)...and on this thread the posters so far will know what to do with it (as will most readers here who haven't commented)...but in the interests of stopping someone else who may not have the experience from getting pulled in





I will offer an apology if I'm wrong...but would heavily doubt it will be needed!

[chaumi]

I just dont want to reveal my strategies detective ��

Noted, then I apologise.

[edmond.oddy]

No problem, I understand that the line "it took only 2 months to rank up a fresh domain" is not real for todays metrics, ofcourse theres other strategies for long term...

Noted, then I apologise.

[edmond.oddy]

Dear Johan, I cant yet send direct messages so I cant reply to your messages mate, but you can add me via skype, will try to help you out

My advice to you is to do a lot of research to target the right markets. Market is saturated, that is the truth, but you can still find markets that has not got into the online casino trend yet.

[Former Member 14]

I just dont want to reveal my strategies detective

No need to be a smart-mouth, which frankly, I find very defensive. Facts are... you joined in Nov 2017, no web site listed, and the only posts made to the GPWA by yourself, are 5 in total. 4 of which are to this thread.

The other, was this one:

Iv got an idea that you will like for sure �� pm me if interested.

Other than this, you've not contributed anything of value to this forum. All it seems your here for is a "fishing" expedition, peddling, snake oil, as far as else anyone knows, because, in all accounts what you claim to offer is all talk...

In the 20 years I've been an affiliate; and I know a hell of lot of people in this gig, I have no idea who you are, Edmond.

Sure you could be legit, but given this forum is plagued with lots of similar self promoting offers, all trying to snag noob dollars, and we have no idea who you are, then unfortunately for now, your thrown into the ??? basket.

[edmond.oddy]

I didnt know that gpwa forum members are toxic like this, so much anger, maybe thats why I am not active so much in here.

The "detective" thing was just a joke, commenter understood that...

Want to know who am I? here you can check about my background - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmondoddy/ its in my gpwa profile.

No need to be a smart-mouth, which frankly, I find very defensive. Facts are... you joined in Nov 2017, no web site listed, and the only posts made to the GPWA by yourself, are 5 in total. 4 of which are to this thread.

The other, was this one:


Other than this, you've not contributed anything of value to this forum. All it seems your here for is a "fishing" expedition, peddling, snake oil, as far as else anyone knows, because, in all accounts what you claim to offer is all talk...

In the 20 years I've been an affiliate; and I know a hell of lot of people in this gig, I have no idea who you are, Edmond.

Sure you could be legit, but given this forum is plagued with lots of similar self promoting offers, all trying to snag noob dollars, and we have no idea who you are, then unfortunately for now, your thrown into the ??? basket.

[chaumi]

You have to recognize Edmond....your opening post sounded reasonably similar to something you would be getting 5 times a day from Nigeria (no offence intended to anyone here from Nigeria, just an example). I think you probably realize that now...and that (combined with everything else said) was a red flag even if you didn't actually deserve it