Summary
| Campaigns Launched So Far | 87/100 |
| Revenue | $175 |
| Cost | $1,649.08 |
| Total Profit/Loss | -$1,474.08 |
Cost/Revenue So Far
That’s probably a lot of red for most of you guys but it’s normal for me.
Just another month in the IM world.
Teespring with FaceBook
I have a love hate relationship with Teespring.
I love it because I’ve done it for so long, I know it has the potential to make me a lot of money and setting up a campaign is a breeze.
I hate it because in the long term there’s so much effort that needs to be done to see decent profits and I’m trying to find something else that’s more interesting and has a better effort-return ratio. I’ve done it for so long it’s a little boring.
Tuesday was one of those love-hate days.
I set up a Teespring campaign, spent my first 50 cents, (yes 50 cents), and got a sale. I thought sweet! Surely this is a winner. Great engagement, cheap clicks and a sale in a niche I know sells over 10,000 units.
Then, next $40 not a single sale. Is this a winner or a loser? It’s sadly, a loser.
So I cut my losses and went back to the drawing board.
The most annoying is that I’ve made 5 sales with Teespring within this challenge but since they’re all in different campaigns and so didn’t meet the minimum production threshold I didn’t get paid. That’s about $50 I could have put towards my revenue.
Oh well. Moving forward.
Pay Per Call on Google PPC
My Pay Per Call Offer is still breaking even. It’s actually more at an overall loss than breaking even but at least I’m getting most of my money back and learning at the same time.
The main factor here is that, as time goes by, Google is picking my ads as getting better CTR’s than the ads it displays against and subsequently, reducing my cost per click. I’m getting clicks as low as $0.80 compared to the lowest being $3.00 when I first started!
I can leave this campaign as it is or pause it for now since I’m focusing more on mobile. I might do the latter.
Mobile Marketing
I’ve been doing so much research in this topic it’s all I can think about right now.
Mobile has been hot for the last couple of years. I’ve seen success stories of people making millions within a few months. Crazy stuff.
It’s still kind of hot and every now and then I’ll see someone making 3-5 figures/day.
I started looking into different traffic sources and different offers. I started reading on private forums what people seem to have success with and I’ve learned Sweepstakes and pin submit offers are doing quite well.
These are offers where people opt in to be in a prize draw and you get a payout if that action occurs.
They’ve been around for a long time but these offers are making a come back because many are now available to be promoted internationally.
I’ve made at least 50k+ selling things internationally so I definitely know and understand the potential here. The best thing is that it’s much cheaper to run international because of such little competition.
I signed up to a couple of mobile traffic sources that display pop and banner ads. These are the ads you see at the bottom of your phone or just when you open an app.
I’m going to run at least 3k this way to see what happens. I’d love to hit a break even campaign so I can learn the ropes of optimisation and scaling which is what you need to know before you hit a profitable campaign.
Either way, it’s an exciting space.
I’ve’ paused everything else.
Now it’s just mobile marketing. Let’s see where this takes us.
Next month, I’ll be doing a $2,000 or $3,000 spend mobile marketing challenge similar to this.
Mateen
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I think you’re going in a great direction doing case studies every month.
Thanks, I’m definitely going to be doing a lot more of these!
I think seeing red after month after month would put anyone off affiliate marketing. I can’t afford to spend another ($) 1000 usd on leadimpact. That’s my worry at the moment do you have any advice ?
Hey Mitesh,
This is a business that can earn you millions so most likely you’ll have to spend a decent amount of money to break in. Sure, there are some success stories of people hitting big numbers early but to really make this happen you need a decent budget.
I’m shooting for the stars so I spend a lot of money for knowledge. Others might be happy seeing small returns so spend more wisely. Maybe this is a better approach.
You might hit profit with your 1k, you might not. The only way is to try and see what happens!
A lot of this industry is luck. I hit profit on my very first PPV campaign. It was crazy lucky but it happened.
You never know till you try. Don’t be disheartened, everyone will have a different story to tell, so don’t match mine or anyone elses experience with what might happen with you.
Good luck!
Hey Mateen,
I seriously like your attitude in running your business.
these red numbers are scary. but you keep going anyway. in a smart way of course 🙂
I would like to know where do you get your knowledge from?
is there people to follow, blogs, forums ….
Keep it going man!
I like what you are doing
Neo
Thanks.
I get my knowledge from 2 sources.
1. Reading forums/case studies/youtube videos etc. My main source is from private forums where people are more inclined to share info and are serious about this business.
2. I learn from doing. The only way knowledge sticks imo is if you lose money from it. I can’t remember everything I’ve read online but I can remember every lesson I’ve learned through losing money. This is why I spend because it makes me an overall better marketer.
Hope that helps.
Great job at keeping at it! Hope to see more success soon!
Thanks man
any idea on why you are doing so bad with teespring ?
Nah, doing this bad is actually quite normal for me. 50-100 campaigns without profit is normal, any more then that and I’ll take a break.
Hi Mateen,
First of all, thank you for such a great blog – I studied your Teespring tutorial videos which helped me greatly in launching my first two campaigns.
Forgive me if I’m posting this in the wrong section of your blog but I will appreciate if I can get your opinion on the following:
1. After reading your blog post above, I’m a little worried and should I say discouraged.
In your opinion, is it possible to still make a full time income from Teespring? Or do you think the market is ‘saturated’ and/or too competitive at this point? All the other success stories of Teespring that I have read seemed to have expressed an interest in moving away from Teespring, citing the reason that it’s getting tougher and tougher to make a profit.
For me, I will like to think that the T shirt market is evergreen and people will not stop wearing them. And getting success from Teespring (assuming your designs are not too bad) is highly dependent on driving traffic to your offer successfully.
Your comment above to Carlos that you may launch 50-100 campaigns before seeing one that is profitable is concerning to a newbie though…
Especially for someone of your experience, it does prove that it is not getting easier. But is it still possible for a newbie at this stage to make a full time income from this?
2) This question is more of the actual campaign itself. I have followed your advice of setting up a Facebook Fan Page, posting my T-shirt offer as a post with image, and putting the link to Teespring in the description.
I put my ad spend at $10 a day and after 2 days of PPE, have more than 350 likes and maybe 45 shares.
However, no one seems to be clicking through to Teespring.
Is this normal? Am I doing this correctly? I just wanted to make sure that the link in the post description is the only way potential customers can click through to Teespring to view the offer?
3. Are there any other blogs, forums, Facebook groups…etc that you can personally recommend for me to learn more about this business?
Sorry for the long comment.
Thanks a lot for your time and looking forward to your reply!
Best regards,
Adam
Hey Adam,
A full-time income is very tough with the Teespring model unless you’re an experienced marketer and know how to turn cold customers into repeat customers and build an asset over time. Frankly, I don’t know how to do this so if you’re looking for a full-time business model you will definitely struggle with Teespring.
Teespring is there for $$$. Every now and then you’ll hit a unicorn that will bring in a fortune. This could be once a month or even once a year but they’re getting harder and harder to find.
I’ve had people that started with Teespring late last year and still made good money. It just depends on your efforts and in many cases, your luck.
50-100 camps before turning profit is a common case and is very real. I don’t want to be discouraging but I can’t sugar coat people along paths they’re not prepared for.
Business is a tough space. If we’re going to talk numbers, here’s a way experienced business people think about things,
Your first 50 affiliate campains will suck
Your first 100 blog posts will suck
Your first 40 YouTube videos will suck
Your first 20 business ideas will suck
Your first 30 investments will suck
etc
etc
Business is a numbers game, once you’re past the newbie phase and have learned the ropes, you’ll start seeing money.
In terms of your PPE Campaign, that’s normal. If people are not clicking through to the campaign, that means it’s a very share friendly campaign but not buy friendly. I.e, great work on the design but it’s time to tweak or start from scratch.
A good campaign will have high engagement and high click throughs to the design.
Cheers
Hi Mateen,
Thank you very much for the valuable insights and for the generosity of your knowledge and time. It is very much appreciated.
I understand your points and they’re all well noted.
If I may, can I ask another question?
When a campaign fails and you move on, do you personally try and launch another campaign/s in that niche to see if that niche can be successful (i.e. it may have been a design problem which is why it failed) or do you launch different campaigns in other niches (the initially chosen niche might be the problem)?
Once again, thanks again for your time and for this blog – may I take the chance to wish you greater success going forward in your Internet Marketing endeavors!
Cheers,
Adam
It depends.
Usually the niches I go for have been successful in the past so I know people buy.
Eg, grandparents, birthdays, pets, etc.
If it’s a new niche and I can’t fine previous shirts that have sold and mine fails, I’ll move on.
Thanks for the well wishes, hope you find something soon with Teespring!
Thanks again Mateen, all the best!
Cheers,
Adam