After coming off my very successful first month of being unemployed I was expecting things to go just as well if not better in my second month. It was much better but only if you don’t use dollars earned as the barometer of success.
I had determined that when I was going to walk away from my day job, I promised that I would not take any trips for the first 6 months. The reasoning is I would have a good measure of how much I could earn each month before incurring any major expenses.
The last thing I wanted to do was to get over my head in debt by incurring major expenses. Well it only took about 5 weeks for the desire for safety to go out the window and take off on my first travel trip in July.
If you know anything about you, you know that I LOVE to travel. I enjoy the experiences of seeing new places, cultures, food and ways of living. That is why I am working on membership in the Traveler’s Century Club whose membership is open to anyone that has been to 100 countries. I am only at 66 countries.
In July I was able to go on an adventure filled 6 day trip with my mother and younger sister to the north east part of the United States. Actually we visited 13 states and DC in 6 days while traveling almost 1,800 miles. For me being able to pack up and leave and go traveling with my family whenever I want is the barometer that I use for success and for that reason July was very successful.
Learning New Skills
In my mind the best way to be successful online is to continuously adapt and learn new skills. You can then apply those new skills to generate new income streams.
For the past couple of months I have been learning Facebook ads. I have successfully used it to promote affiliate products, drive traffic to my website and build an email list.
After seeing ads from other companies in my newsfeed, I decided to apply my new found knowledge of Facebook ads to something I know very well – Amazon Affiliate.
Lately with the changes in Google it has become harder and harder to get websites that promote Amazon products ranking. That has cut into my income stream that I have received from Amazon.
By combining Facebook Ads with Amazon affiliate I was able to generate a new income stream for myself.
Promoting Amazon with Facebook Ads
I recently saw ads from companies like Wayfair advertising outdoor patio furniture and hot tubs. This started me thinking that I could do the same thing.
So the first thing I thought about was these 2 questions:
- Which sex is more likely to go shopping?
- What one item would they buy when they go shopping
My answers to the questions were Female and Shoes (followed closely by purses). Let me know if you had a different answer that this.
So I went to Amazon’s website and started searching for women’s shoes. I only selected shoes that had a 4 star rating or higher and were priced over $100.
I took the images of 8 different shoes and put them in a Facebook Ad. I then ran the ad to women aged 34-44 that were married and college educated. I then ran multiple ads and hit only women meeting this criteria in Miami, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The ad send them directly to Amazon when they clicked on it. When someone purchases I get a commissions. After much testing I found that I found success with simple ads that showed multiple products and a buy now button. No other text on the ad. Here is an ad that I ran for Women’s Purses.
I have only been running these ads for a few weeks but I have had some great success even with the 24 hour cookie that Amazon provides.
In July I earned $648.28 from promoting Amazon through Facebook Ads.
Book Royalties
I keep saying each and every month and I am going to have to repeat it again this month: this is the most hands off method of earning income each month.
Each month I do absolutely zero work on promoting my books on Amazon yet they continue to sell each and every month.
In July I earned 47.71 in Book Royalties from Amazon.
Contractor Work
I spent several days helping out again at my old employer Aaron’s Inc. I was the primary person responsible for putting new training courses into our Learning Management System (LMS).
It requires you to be technical to manage the LMS and none of my co-workers have a technical bent. So with the development of several new courses they called me to help install these courses.
They also had some account courses that needed to be updated so they were removing all the current account courses from all the learning plans. We have a separate learning plan for every position in our retail stores, corporate, franchise, national support center, and service centers.
So for several days I went through and pulled out these courses from current lesson plans and installed new courses.
I don’t mind helping out when they need it.
In July I earned $281.25 from contractor work with my former employer.
AdSense
I will make this short and sweet. I earn adsense on several of my website with the most prominent website being my iHvacZone.
The only time that I check on my AdSense earnings is each month when completing my monthly online income report.
In July 2014 I earned $5.91 from AdSense.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads is my current sandbox of knowledge. I am learning many different ways to promote different items on Facebook.
I started making money online with affiliate marketing. I would promote somebody else’s product in return for getting a commission every time I produced a sale.
So I took my strength and applied it to Facebook Ads initially. If you missed it check out my post showing step by step how I used Facebook Ads to promote affiliate products.
The next evolution in my playing in the sandbox was to build an email list. Once you build an email list then you can start to monetize your list. I have a post showing how I created a much targeted list using Facebook ads.
My next step I talked about above in promoting Amazon products. This allows me to promote Amazon without having to worry about getting a traditional website ranked.
With all these different strategies I am seeing quite a bit of success with Facebook Ads.
Several people have asked me how I learned how to do Facebook Ads. I purchased both of Donald Wilson’s courses FB Architect and FB Ads Cracked Reloaded.
I learned from both courses. Thought the $997 price for FB Ads Cracked Reloaded is out of many people’s price points. I found the course provided many videos that he released prior to the training.
As I have been working with Facebook Ads I refer back to the content in both courses. If you want to learn about Facebook Ads without paying $1k for a course then you should definitely check out the FB Architect course. It only costs $1 initially to get into it and review the content and then you charged I think $97/mth for 2 months after that. But if you want to get into a course for only $1 you should check out this course.
In July I earned $2,407.81 from Facebook Ads.
Solo Ads / Email Marketing
With my work with Facebook Ads I have generated a big email list. This was one of the primary reasons why I just moved all my email lists from Aweber to GetResponse. The simple fact is that GetResponse is cheaper.
Now that I have built up an email list I am starting to monetize that list. Instead of sending them solo ads that people purchase from me I am sending them links to products that I am an affiliate.
With my recent travels in July I mainly neglected sending emails to my list. I had been sending emails to them every 3 days but that fell by the wayside in July.
In July I earned only $430.00 from email marketing.
Product Sales
The best way to control your destiny is to create your own products. There is no better advice I can give to anyone interested in making money online.
My primary product has been my Amazon Affiliate Bible. I have sold almost 800 copies of it since it was launched.
In July I earned $476.00 from the sales of my own products.
Giveaways
I mentioned that I was using Facebook Ads to build an email list. The traditional method of building a list is to give something away in exchange for someone’s email address.
I spent time in putting together a free graphics package as my giveaway. It includes almost 60 Megs of graphics.
If you use Photoshop, I include layered PSD files for you to edit. If you use a different graphics program I include PNG files. So everyone can use the graphics in Graphics Kit.
I then approached several owners of Facebook Groups that they had created for people that had purchased their products. All of these people had products that required the use of graphics in implementing the strategy they provided.
I put together a very cool squeeze page using LeadPages for people to opt-in to get my free Graphics Kit.
By advertising my Graphics Kit in these groups I was able to get over 220 people to my email list.
I created an autoresponder sequence to email the list on a schedule. As a result I ended up earning commission when someone purchased a product that I referenced in the email sequence.
You can get my free Graphics Kit here.
In July I earned $89.10 from Giveaways.
Affiliate Marketing
This is how I got started with making money online. It has the lowest barrier to entry. This is the best way I know of for someone to get started today with making money online.
As you can read above I use Facebook Ads as one method to promote other people’s products.
You do not have to limit yourself to promoting other people’s product that talk about making money online. You can promote other affiliate programs like Amazon and Rogue Fitness.
I recently ran several different ads for Rogue Fitness. Here is one of the ads that I ran.
I ran that ad on Facebook targeting people in high school and college that were into weight lifting. This was a very targeted audience. As a result I ended up getting quite a few sales from this ad. I spent less than $15 on this ad and made almost 8x that in commissions.
You can easily find affiliate programs that pay out 10% or more commissions on CommissionJunction or ShareASale. I am members of over a dozen programs through these two networks and I promote them all.
In July I earned $1,421.06 from Affiliate Marketing
My July 2014 Online Income Report
Compared to June my income in July dropped $2,743.42.
Most people would be very disappointed with that drop in income but I am not. As I mentioned earlier the opportunity to pack up and go on a crazy travel adventure with my family was worth more than the drop in income.
Tony Robbins says it best when describing what success is.
Success is doing what you want to do, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, as much as you want.
~ Tony Robbins
If I was still working at Aaron’s I would have had no vacation time available and would never have been able to make that trip. The fact that I was able to go on that trip is how I define success in July.
Here is the summary of my July 2014 Online Income Report
$648.28 Promoting Amazon with Facebook Ads
$47.71 Book Royalties
$281.25 Contractor Work
$5.91 Adsense
$2,407.81 Facebook Ads
$476.00 Product Sales
$89.10 Giveaways
$430.00 Email Marketing
$1,421.06 Affiliate Marketing
———-
$5,807.12 July 2014 Online Income Report Total
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Way to go! You say you spent days helping out your old company, and not for much money. They are lucky to have you.
Kimberly,
They always tell you not to burn bridges when you leave a job. Well I look at it differently – I never want to go back across that bridge. So I don’t mind helping them out especially since it is something I can do from home and not have to drive into their office.
Jennifer
What an excellent result for July. And you were able to squeeze a vacation in too. Just imagine what August’s earnings will be when you are able to devote more time.
What a great work life balance you have here. Thanks for the inspiration and the motivation to keep me going 🙂
Victoria,
It was a great month. I am learning a new skill in August where I am using Facebook to promote to offline businesses. Doing well with that right now.
Jennifer
Great Income report and yes it is all about the freedom and that has to be a priority. If you are paying the bills + some, why not make the most of the freedom internet marketing gives you to spend time having an adventure with the people you love.
Steve,
You are so right about the freedom. I no longer have someone dictating when I have to get up in morning to go to work or how much time I can take off for vacation each year or what time I want to leave work. Gotta love it.
Jennifer
Great income report Jennifer and still, not too shabby. I’ve always viewed earning a living online as a way to create financial freedom anyway; so that we can have more time to do the things that matters most in life and not have work run it instead. All that matters is your happiness and achieving your goals and purpose. Keep up the great work as always.
Keep inspiring,
Warren
Warren,
Thank you. It is definitely providing much more freedom in my life and I am enjoying it!
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer
This is my first time reading your blog and found it most interesting.
I think you have adopted Tony Robbins’ philosophy admirably.
I will be happy when I am earning $5800 pm even if it is a bit lower than the previous month.
However I didn’t grasp the difference between the two FB ad incomes.
Terry,
I am a big follower of Tony Robbins and his philosophy has helped in making my mind shift to get me here today. I broke out the Amazon advertising seperately because most people know me from promoting Amazon as an affiliate and I wanted to show it is possible to promote Amazon without having a website.
Jennifer
What a great journey is your life, fascinating to read!
About Amazon program:
1. You mentioned that the the URL is valid for 24 hrs, are you sure?
2. Usually amazon pays 6-7% of a sale, if you earned 650$ meaning you sold over 600 shoes in July only?
Zig,
Let me clarify. Amazon provides a 24 hr cookie for any leads you send them. So if you clicked on my ad for shoes and went to Amazon today but did not buy those shoes until 2 days from now I would not get the commission even though it was my ad that directed you to Amazon. If you had purchased within the 24 hour limit I would have gotten the commission.
Amazon pays commission from 4% to 8.5% based on the number of items you sell during the month. Remember that I am promoting purses that cost around $400 each. Most ladies when they purchase shoes or purses will also purchase other items with it including scarves, clothes, perfume – all of which you get a commission.
Jennifer
Awesome results with shoes affiliate programs. And I agree 100% for the drop of income, money isn’t what is most important. Doing what you love is.
Franck
Frank,
Everybody has something that drives and motivates them. For me it is not the possession of material goods. I much rather travel and see the world than possess a Ferrarri, mansion, airplane or boat. Though might make an exception for the airplane if it allows me to travel the world.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer,
I’m quite new to your blog but have been burning the midnight oil trying to read as much as I can! I’ve recently purchased your Amazon Affiliate Bible and am also very interested in FB ads.
I have a couple of sites myself and both are monetised (although they’re predominantly service-based sites as I run 2 freelance businesses). They’re doing ok money-wise but I’d like to earn more money online as it’s an area that I find personally fascinating.
So… my question! I only have a personal FB account (under a kind of secret name so only proper friends know it’s me) but to run a FB ad, I have to set up a fan page correct? When you run your FB ads, do you run them all from your Rate Race Grad FB account or did you set up another page/account to run them from?
The products (affiliate and otherwise) you promote on FB seem quite different so doesn’t FB ‘mind’ this or is the account you run ads from completely separate? Any advice you can provide would be appreciated. Your guides and posts state how to run the ad itself, but not from where!
Basically, should I set up a fan page for one of my websites from my pseudonym FB account or set up a completely separate one?
Thank you for your time Jennifer. x
Joanne,
You only need a fan page if you want to run ads in the newsfeed. If you only want to run ads on the right hand side then you do not need a fan page. I have multiple fan pages that I use to run ads through. These fan pages have been created under my personal account. Other people recommend setting up separate FB accounts that you run your ads through but I have not done that. I recommend promoting anything and everything that you cna make a profit on.
Jennifer
Great content Jennifer – I just came across your site recently and have been enjoying your posts – I am particularly interested in your Amazon success on Facebook as this is an area I am keen to try it out. I am a successful Amazon affiliate with websites but had never thought about facebook as a traffic source.
The $648 income is great but can you tell me what did you have to pay Facebook in dollars for the clicks to get this income (ie what is your profit?) and how many days did you run the campaign for?
Thanks again
Hey Bob,
Glad you found my website! I normally run campaigns for several days. With Amazon doing updates on their affiliate states every day I can tell by 8 AM tomorrow how many clicks and sales I made on campaigns that I ran yesterday. If I am not getting many clicks or sales then I either scrap it or chose a different audience. My ad spend for my Amazon campaigns was almost $180. I have gotten in the habit of getting my graphics done for my ads no later than 11 AM so I can start running ads by noon EST. I usually pause them about 10 PM and wake up in the morning to see the results.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer, another fantastic month, your posts really do inspire!
Just wanted to ask a little bit about the amazon on Facebook results, how much did you spend in Ads to make the $648?
Thanks
Hey John,
Glad that my posts inspire you to accomplish great things. I spent almost $180.
Jennifer
Another great income report, Jennifer. I really appreciate your straight-forward writing style and how you lay out exactly what you’re doing and what’s working best for you. I’m right there with you regarding Tony Robbins and the freedom to create our own futures. That’s wonderful that you got to go on such a fun adventure with your family. I agree with you about that airplane to help travel the world! Here’s to an amazing August! Stephanie
Stephanie,
Hope things are great with you and your blog! It is a great experience to do what you want. In fact today my mother drove down and is spending the night with me. We were debating where to go for dinner and we decided to go eat popcorn at a movie and that was our dinner. Love having that option in my life.
Jennifer
I really want to do email marketing and I checked out leadpages but the prices are monthly!! Yikes! Do you know a one off payment alternative I can use?
Ash,
Did you check out their yearly pricing? They offer something ridiculous like a 40% discount if you pay annually.
Jennifer
Jennifer,
Love this! Interesting point around Affiliate ads through Facebook. I am really thinking about diving into this practice to see how well it goes.
One question: Do your ads lead directly to the third-party affiliate? Or, do you build out a web page that talks about the product that they see and then if they click from there, they will go to the affiliates page.
Ron,
When I first started promoting I built my own website to promote the products. With Facebook I can eliminate the need to have that website if the affiliate allows direct linking. If they do not then I still have my website but my Facebook ads point to my website and then redirect directly to the affiliate program.
Jennifer
Jennifer,
Can you just link your Amazon Affiliate product links direct form a Facebook Newsfeed Ad and take the buyer straight through to Amazon or are you sending them to another website to make the purchase there?. I can’t seem to find much info on how to set this up – perhaps you should so a youtube demo as its clearly something that works well.
Thanks
Bob
Bob,
You realize that if you are a member of the Amazon affiliate program you are given an option to share any product on Amazon directly to your Facebook page through their affiliate bar at the top of the screen? Most people are not aware of this. Once you have this shared you can then promote that post on Facebook as an Ad.
Jennifer
Hi Jenifer,
Thank you for sharing this. Am glad that facebook ads is working for you. I have tried promoting affiliate products with facebook ads but i have not been successful.
Is there a way of reducing the CPC or the amount you pay facebook for every click you get? I am always quoted not less than $0.50 per click. Is that normal?
Ahmed,
I do not use CPC for my ads but instead use CPM. Actually I use OCPM. The better targeted your audience is then the lower your cost is going to be. So instead of using a big term interest like Golf you can start to narrow that down to a more targeted audience.
Jennifer
Is it ok with amazon TOS having direct affiliate link on an fb ad? Thanks and great tips by the way!
Ruy,
As I mentioned above, if you are in the Amazon affiliate program you can post any product from Amazon directly to your Facebook page using their affiliate tool bar at the top of the screen. Then you just promote this as an ad.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer, thanks for all the advice and great tips you are giving! Just wanted to try and clarify just one part of the process if you don’t mind.
You mention that you can use the amazon affiliate toolbar to post a product to your page which has your affiliate link attached and is a direct link so no landing page needed and then you can promote that post in FB Ads.
The only issue with this is that you have no control over the image or mass text given. In your example in your post on the handbags you mention creating your own banner, so i’m guessing you are direct linking with this, is that correct?
Just one more question, are your Ads Dark Posts or PPE type Ads?
Thanks again 🙂
John,
I do both. I post directly from Amazon for products that have great images. Outside of that I create my own images and link to Amazon. These posts are dark posts that are clicks to website.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer,
I really like your blog. I love how detailed you are with what you are promoting on facebook and the affiliate programs that you are using.
Would like to see more information on how you optimize your facebook campaigns.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks,
Andison
Andison,
Thanks for the kind words. I love sharing what is working for me on my blog. I will see about writing on optimizing Facebook campaigns in the future.
Jennifer
Do you think it would be profitable to promote Amazon books with Facebook ads?
Do you have to identify yourself as an Amazon affiliate in your ad before you promote their products on Facebook?
Could you use the pictures from Amazon to promote their products or do you have to create your own?
Do you know if you could use Bing Ads to promote Amazon products?
John,
YES YES YES and I DO! My mother has 2 award-winning children’s books and I run an ad almost weekly for her book. Not going to get rich doing it since the price of books on Amazon are generally less than $15 but I LOVE doing this for my mother because I am proud of her accomplishment. Yes you can use the image from Amazon. In fact if you open up to the book page on Amazon and you have your affiliate toolbar open at top of the screen just click on the facebook icon to share image directly to Facebook.
Jennifer
How do you identify yourself as an Amazon affiliate in your Facebook ad or post in order to comply with Amazon’s TOS?
Can you link directly to Amazon using Bing Ads or do you have to direct people to your website?
John,
I do not put anything in the ad stating that I am an Amazon affiliate. I would not have the link going to your website to be redirected because Amazon is against redirect scripts.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer
This is such a great blog and covers exactly what I am trying to do with Facebook and Amazon. I’ve been on Don’s Course and also FB Ninja and am working my way through stuff now.
I have a couple of questions I hope you don’t mind clarifying on your Amazon ads, specifically ad pictures. When you said you combined 8 different shoes into one ad, did you pick a few best sellers with 4 stars or over and plonk them in there?
I always thought with ads you had to target with one specific item but if you have multiple, then at first it kind of doesn’t make sense, but then thinking on it, it probably does make more sense, and you seem to have had results with it.
I was looking at best sellers and was going to make up a picture and wonder did you use Gimp or something similar to do that? If you don’t want to give away anything do you have a small training package on this that can help?
Many thanks for taking the time to help if you can.
Andrew
Andrew,
I put pictures of multiple products in the same category – i.e. shoes – so that people can see the wide range of options available. If I put pictures of only one shoe in the Facebook ad then people would only click on it if they liked that one shoe. By putting in multiple pictures of different shoes then people will click through if they like any of the shoes allowing me to reach a broader target market.
I use Adobe Photoshop for my ads. I take the images from amazon and put them into the collage of multiple pictures in one ad and then add text and a CTA button in the ad. Now that you can get Adobe Photoshop for as low as $9/mth there is not reason not to get it and use it.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer
Apologies, in my previous comment I meant to ask would you create a pic with multiple images of the same item, or multiple images of different items. I see your handbag one has different images but they all look pretty much similar items just glancing at it. However if it was shoes would you be better doing one ad pic with multiple images of the same shoe for example?
Maybe I’m making this more difficult than it needs to be lol!
Thanks again
Andrew
Andrew,
I stick with advertising the same product category like shoes or pocket books. i don’t put shoes and pocketbooks in the same ad. If you combine them to me that is like picking up a handful of rocks and throwing them at a target and hoping one of them hits it. I prefer to just stick to one category only in an ad.
Jennifer
Thanks for the info Jennifer.
Regards
Andrew
Hi Jennifer,
Is the Income earned was after expenses or before ?
Thanks
Jay,
Before,
Jennifer
Hi, you said: “if you are in the Amazon affiliate program you can post any product from Amazon directly to your Facebook page using their affiliate tool bar at the top of the screen. Then you just promote this as an ad.”
But now i trying to go in the Amazon affiliate program, but they ask me to give them my website address. So if i havent a website, i will never become in the Amazon affiliate program?:)
Thank you:)
Arunas,
To join the Amazon affiliate program you need to have a website to promote them. You can create a few website on places like weebly or wordpress to get started.
Jennifer
Can i give them i.e. friends site?
Arunas,
You should ask Amazon that question.
Jennifer
Thank you for help. So,I have joined the Amazon affiliate program. It is legal to promote Facebook link as an ad in Facebook Ads? If I understand correctly this Facebook link is available only 24 hours? So there is no need to run Ad more than 24 hours?
Thank you for answers:)
Arunas,
If I understand your question correctly, you are confusing the 24 hour cookie from Amazon with length of time to run a Facebook Ad.
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer–
We met at the Tanner Larsson SOB event in June, and I just want to congratulate you on how well you are doing! You are an inspiration.
Best,
Anne Bogardus
Anne,
It was great meeting you at the event. Thanks so very much for the congratulations. I want to share my Internet Marketing Journey with others so they know they can do the same thing. Hope to see at the SOB event next year!
Jennifer