CTP Badge Hunt - My Story Of Affiliate Marketing

Made in Canva

If anyone have missed it ClickTrackProfit is running a Christmas Badge Hunt right now, you do certain tasks like signing up for someones list for example, and get rewarded with a badge for that, plus some CTP XP.

Now Zoltan (@ph1102) just announced the task for his last badge, and that is to write about your background in affiliate marketing on CTPtalk, and here is the post and video where he makes the announcement, The Last Badge Announcement.

My Story Of Affiliate Marketing

My story as an affiliate marketer has not been a very successful one, I have tried some things here and there, but the thing is I have not made a lot of money from it.

The Start

I started to look into this kind of business around 2008 and the recession, I felt that I needed to make some money aside from a normal job, just to have a more secure economy if the market tanked.

Around that time I discovered ClickBank and that you could make money by promoting other peoples products and earn a commission on the sales that you generated, the advice I got was to buy visitors and make a profit on the margin, that was not great advice.

So therefore I looked for other opportunities and ended up with some even less desirable options, and decided that I should not invest money but earn them instead.

Paid Surveys

That lead me to Paid Surveys, which I did use until the beginning of 2019 when Steem required my time instead, though I still have the accounts for them, and this is the most money I have made online, around $2500 in total.

In the meantime I also wanted to get referrals to these Paid Survey programs and earn affiliate commissions on them, and since some of these programs also had Paid To Click (PTC) advertising I used that to promote and got some referrals, though most of them was not interested in completing surveys.

I also looked into the Traffic Exchange and Viral Mailers to get more visitors, and I found CTP during that time, and I went about it all wrong, I tried to build traffic by promoting TE's in other TE's, and I did not build a list, so the only thing that happened was that I wasted a lot of time.

My First List

In the early 2018 I decided to build a list, I used the AIOP autoresponder to set it all up, but without any experience I only made an email follow up series, no ebook and no contact with the subscribers after the follow up had ended, so my success was limited.

I got over 100 subscribers to the list, but only 1 of them signed up to AIOP and he did only stay for 2 months, I still have the list though, but I have not been actively promoting it since March of 2019.

Apart from that I also made a rebrandable ebook that was all about how to set up a list with AIOP.

Enter Steem

So I joined Steem in January of 2018 and that was because @jongolson talked about it on Facebook, but it was not until January of 2019 that I really started using it on a daily basis, before that I had just made very few posts, less than 10 if I remember correctly.

The reason that I started to blog daily on Steem was that the Wordpress blog that I had got hacked, and right then I was also tired of maintaining a Wordpress blog, it needs a lot of attention just to keep running, so I went with Steem instead to be able to focus just on creating.

Ever since then I have learned as much as I can about Steem, I started with a daily blog, then I got involved with the Seven77 movement which also got me the courage to do videos on DTube, plus I started with Actifit and I still do that every day, and I really love this dApp, it keeps me healthy and clears my head to be out walking.

In April of 2019 I made 2 ebooks, one called Blogging With Steemit, and the other Fund Your Steem Adventure - Without Taking Money From Your Own Pocket, and they can still be downloaded in the Free Downloads section on my Discord server, though the information is not entirely up to date any more.

Then in the very beginning of August of 2019 the CTPtalk tribe was launched, and I had been looking to combine Steem with affiliate marketing for a while, so I jumped in right from the start, and I have been learning how to really do affiliate marketing the right way from the training in CTP and by adjusting what I had learned before.

What Went Wrong Before Steem?

Here I want to add some analysis and conclusions of why I have had success with Steem and CTPtalk and why I had very limited success before.

Now I can argue all I want that I lacked experience and knowledge on how to do affiliate marketing, but the fact is the methods that I tried to use, like driving traffic by surfing for it was all based on doing something I did not like to do, and therefore I could not be consistent with it.

Ever since January of 2019 I have been active on Steem every single day (maybe missed some due to HF21/22), and I continue to be here every day posting, commenting and upvoting, and I love it, that's the difference, Steem and CTPtalk is my passion and I would do it regardless of how much money I can make from it.

On the other hand forcing myself to surf for credits in the TE's just got me bored and depressed, I did not like it and always tried to get other people to do it for me by getting referrals, but that was never enough to make it selfsustaining, and my only motivation was always money not passion.

The only success I really had was with the Paid Surveys, they where not as boring as surfing for credits, but without lots of referrals it did not bring the desired leverage that I wanted.

So my conclusion is that I need to be passionate about something in order to succeed, passion for Steem and CTPtalk is what drives me and why I have been and will continue to be consistent here, and that is also what I need to use for my affiliate marketing journey going forward.

The Future

In my time with the CTPtalk tribe I have made and published 2 ebooks and 3 email lists, and I have plans for about 10 more, 3 of which I have already started writing on, and I already have a lot of subscribers to my lists, plus 3 refererals in CTP.

I even have plans for an ebook about taking some TE's and Mailers that are not as boring to use and apply a strategy to them that uses a small amount of time each day and focus on building leverage consistently, that way working around my distaste for surfing for credits, minimum surfing and maximum traffic over time.

Creating ebooks is something that I have found that I am passionate about, and the really great thing about that is that they got my name on it, which builds my brand regardless of who gives it away.

And building my brand is what I focus on the most, that is what has got me the most subscribers so far, and referrals, I still need to send out a few more emails than I have done so far to those subscribers, actually using my list.

So that is what my focus will be on going forward, continue to create content and engagement on Steem and CTPtalk, and continue creating ebooks, plus do a small amount of surfing for credits each day consistently and building leverage and my brand.

Thank You!

Thank you very much for reading this post, I hope it's not been too boring reading about me, I wish you a Happy New Year, and ...

Stay Awesome!

Sincerely,
Erik Gustafsson
https://flaxz.dblog.org/
https://www.ctptalk.com/@flaxz

This is all my own personal opinion, do your own research before investing, and seek legal counsel if uncertain.

---

Join me on Discord: https://discord.gg/F6cCZ2N

Join me on ClickTrackProfit: https://clicktrackprofit.com/flaxz

Guide: How To Create - Your Own Sales Funnel

---

Sign up for free to my email lists and ebooks, click the banners below.

Graphics made in Canva