Welcome to Automaton Affiliate Connection
UUUUUUUUGH!!!
How often have we sighed in frustration while trying to put together all the pieces to a successful affiliate marketing campaign? Or maybe, some of you have screamed, AAAAAAAAAAGH!!
Yes some of us have been there too. Either you scream in desperation (horror) or you sigh in utter fatigue tapping, and cutting, and pasting, and dragging, and dropping; repeat.
What are we all doing? Well, living the ultimate laptop lifestyle of course. Just become an affiliate marketer (they say), go through hours and hours of training (they don’t say). It’s easy, you don’t need any skills, you don’t need to store inventory, you don’t even need to sell (yeah right), just a little work and promote this link and watch as sales rush to your Stripe (PayPal) account.
Then reality hits you. You know, that time when we all realized how much sleep we lost. The days we let go by without doing anything with our friends or family. We start to get overwhelmed with the steps, yes the tedious steps and technical crap we don’t even understand (check this box, disable this, enable that, goto settings, shorten your links…)
Filming YouTube videos and using editing software. Music and pictures for you articles…
Not to mention the writing, all that writing. 
You find yourself buying and subscribing to a bunch of digital tools you never knew existed. Many such tools requiring a monthly subscription. (Hmm, some programs never really said we needed to make more purchases we don’t have the money to invest in.)
Do I have a credit card with enough space for another purchase? We so called “doers”, who keep paying for our business expenses using credit cards because we only have enough money in the bank to pay for our personal monthly bills. Why… why do we keep making purchases with money we don’t have?
We tell ourselves, if we can just get this done for you system (DFY) all set up (did you notice how some DFY systems require you to set them up?). Well, we can earn all that money back and then some. We can finally pay off those high interest credit cards and maybe even raise our credit scores due to all the extra money we will be making. We are doers after all. We keep doing, and doing, and doing till we either make it happen or give up completely.
Then months go by (for some of us just days or weeks) and we still haven’t gotten any real results. Maybe a few subscribers here and there of people just like us (trying to make this online thing work). We might even have made a sale or two. Maybe $17, $8, $32, $0 … some of us get that little over $100 dollar sale maybe even a close to $200 dollar sale once.
More months go by and you realize that you have paid more money on training and monthly subscriptions than actual sales. (Don’t get us started on all that money dumped into solo-ads). We may have made some money but we have certainly not made a profit. Now we are in more debt than ever before. Our families are worried about us and our decision-making. We feel out of touch and foolish, we may even feel scammed.
Now for the scramble to make back all that we have lost. 97% of us simply drop out and give up. Some of that 97% try to get their money back. Many of us don’t get their money back and simply think of it as a life’s lesson never to be scammed again. While others start impulse buying opportunity after opportunity to find, “The One”, the chosen business opportunity that will make up for all the loss. 🙁
Some of us realize that it was never about making easy money. Others of us become trolls and bash every online opportunity, trying to discourage all from ever trying. Screaming, IT IS ALL A SCAM.
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED:
Interview with Automaton Affiliate Connection’s founder, Emanuel
At Automaton Affiliate Connection (AAC), we have also been there and done that. In fact, our founder Emanuel, has been a doer for years. “Online marketing has always made sense to me, and truth be told affiliate marketing is actually the easiest to get into for very little money”.
AAC: Why do you say that affiliate marketing is easiest to start?
EMANUEL: “because it is…everything the super affiliates say about affiliate marketing is true. It is the easiest to get into for the lowest cost. You can even start affiliate marketing for free”.
AAC: If affiliate marketing is so easy to start, why do so many affiliate marketers fail?
EMANUEL: “Listen closely, I said that affiliate marketing is easy to start…I never said it is easy to make a profit. Affiliate marketing is about promoting products or services to others. The hope is that others…(potential customers)…will purchase what we promote resulting in a commission. That is a very simple business model. I promote something…someone else buys what was promoted. That’s all word of mouth, you can blog about products, talk about your experience with a product on social media…talk with friends and family. Write physical sales flyers (pen on paper)…promoting something you like or want others to like is very easy to do. It just doesn’t guarantee a sale”.
AAC: So, why do so many affiliate marketers fail?
EMANUEL: “Like I just said…just because it is easy to promote something does not guarantee a sale. Just because you build a website does not mean you will have customers. There are two very important things you need to make sales as a new affiliate marketer. Number 1…you need low cost to start. Let me explain…the low cost to start your business is different for each person. If you are broke, have no money, don’t have access to money…maybe you don’t even have a job. Then you need a FREE, or very low cost to start your affiliate business with FREE tools.
If you have a small surplus or flexible funds…like funds you would use to go to a restaurant or a movie once a week…then you could do a more moderate cost program with tools requiring a small monthly subscription… Likewise, If you have a large savings with a high credit score, or multiple partners who can invest with you, then a more aggressive business start up could be the way to go. Whatever is low cost for the one starting their business. This way you have the funds to operate your business to hopefully make a profit.
You can’t grow a business if you are not profitable.”
ACC: You said “there are two…things you need to make sales”?
EMANUEL: Yes, number one is a low, affordable, start-up cost…and…number 2…you need a source of traffic. You need customers to see your offers. More importantly, targeted customers. You want to put your offers in front of people looking for those products or services you are promoting. When you put products and services in front of people who are already looking for said products and services…then you will make sales.
Not all online business models work for everyone. Many super affiliates will promote training programs to help people get into affiliate marketing. So many affiliates get trapped into a sales funnel of up sales and add-ons. This isn’t bad pursay..but..if you do not have the funds to purchase a training program, no technical skills, and you have very little time to implement said program, how will you ever make the program work for you? Some of these programs have hours of video, and unfortunately many programs that have upsales and add-ons confuses a newbie even more. Failure happens mostly due to the overwhelming task of the learning process and the lack of funds that put a new affiliate into the red…or negative. Any successful business needs profit in order to grow. You can’t grow a business if it is never profitable.
AAC: We thought that mind set was the main reason for failure?
EMANUEL: “Hmmm…Is it mindset like so many claim? Partly, someone with the proper mindset knows never to give up…but, I have found that the bigger problem resides in matching an affiliate program with the doer. A new affiliate marketer who has no job and no capital to start a business should not be encouraged to invest in a high ticket program that will make their struggles worse. If a super affiliate only advertises how easy it is to make money, why wouldn’t you purchase the program? If you keep saying how easy it is, then of course, anyone would want to try an easy way to make money.
Like I said…just because it is easy to promote something, does not gaurantee sales. A newbie with no money to invest should be encouraged to perform a FREE to very low cost program that features FREE marketing strategies and tools. Once a broke marketer starts to make money, then they should be encouraged to invest some of that money made…through sales…back into the business and try low cost paid marketing strategies…then when sales increase reinvest into medium cost marketing strategies…and so on.
AAC: Interesting, so when did affiliate marketing start working for you?
EMANUEL: When I realized that I was spending too much time on marketing and not spending enough time on growing a list of subscribers. In other words, I realized that I needed to focus on building contact information over sales. Many new affiliates rate their training programs on the number of sales they make, or how much money gets deposited in their bank account. This is a rookie mistake. Research has confirmed that most customers do not buy until they look over an offer seven to twelve times…7 to 12…Your initial sales will only account for 2% or less. In other words, for every 100 people that see your offer you may make one to two sales. 15 to 20% will buy 7 to 12 ads later. How are these customers going to see your ads 7 to 12 times? You need their contact information, like name and email address. When I realized that I needed to spend more effort on building a list of contact information, I started looking into Done For You business programs.
ACC: What is a Done For You business program?
EMANUEL: A Done For You business or…DFY….are businesses that have already been built from scratch. Essentially, they are massive sales funnels pre-built for affiliate marketers. Some programs already come with popular offers and weeks of emails that have high engagement potential. These systems have usually already been tested by a BETA test group who have found success using these DFY programs. Finding a few helped me avoid having to write tons of ad copy and e-mail responses. I just down load the e-mails into an auto-responder and promote a link to an Optin page that does the selling for me. Using such systems helped me increase subscribers dramatically. Using such systems made my work load lighter. All I had to do was focus on driving traffic to mylink. Some DFY programs have ways for you to plug-in your own products that you want to promote. I especially like looking for DFY programs that have 30 days or more of autoresponding e-mails, one of my favorite systems has a whole 365 days worth of autoresponding e-mails. I also found bot software that helps with automatically increasing subscribers.
ACC: What is bot software?
EMANUEL: Bots are the wave of the future. Bots are like having virtual workers who promote and respond to potential subscribers. They are becoming more and more sofisticated. Bots can answer questions and even promote up sales for you… more importantly, they help gather subscribers for future sales. Automated business systems are the paid more the future is headed. That’s why I am creating websites that feature some automated programs that helped me focus my marketing. Automaton Affiliate Connection is one of such sites featuring some of my favorite DFY systems and bot technology affiliate programs.
THE FUTURE OF AUTOMATON AFFILIATE CONNECTION
We hope that you will all find this site informative and helpful when it comes to finding ways to optimize your time building an online affiliate marketing business.
This site will focus on the ever expanding world of business automation tools and services.
If you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and we will be more than happy to help you out.
All the best,
Emanuel
Founder of Automaton Affiliate Connection