Chad is a real expert at traffic generation AND active at the forum frowned upon by all other “real” marketers, the OTHER “WF”
Why?!
Find the answer to that and much more in this interview! You can find him at ChadHamzeh.com.
Tell us a little bit about yourself Chad. Where are you
from and how old are you?
Hey Kang, first let me say thanks for contacting me for the interview, it’s appreciated. I’m 31 years old from Calgary, Canada. So as far as affiliate marketers go, I’m a senior citizen, or so they say.
How long have you been doing affiliate marketing?
Not too long actually. I started really going hard back in July of 2009, and my first big success around October of ’09. Before that I owned a small web design business for about 9 years, and also worked as a business analyst at our telecomm up here. I think that job helped me learn to read data a bit easier than others, plus with my design background, it seemed affiliate marketing was a good fit to get out of the cube.
You’ve been very active on the warrior forum, and we know REAL affiliate marketers don’t hang out there. So WHY?!
Hahaha… Well I knew this would come up sometime. First and foremost, it helps my business. This shouldn’t reflect poorly on my customers in any way whatsoever. I provide a good product and service, they’re happy and get results, it’s all good. Understand one thing. People on the Warrior Forum are pre-disposed to buying courses and such in the WSO (Warrior Special Offer) section. It’s a great testing ground if you have a relevant offer.
If you were thinking of creating a legit bizopp and wanted to do some cheap testing with hungry buyers, that’s one avenue. I’ve known this for a while, and I also know the poor quality of a lot of these courses. I was interested in coming up with a legit course on paid traffic generation, and knew that I could go in and pretty much brute force my competition out. The result has been tons of positive reviews, and about 700 sold through there alone, and that’s only front end revenue. It’s a very cheap source of traffic and buyer leads, which for me have been the strongest leads I’ve generated. Is the traffic as abundant as when I’m doing buys in verticals outside of IM? No, but it builds me an asset and has very little upkeep for me. When I last mailed my buyers list an upgrade to my course, I had a $43 EPC when factoring in up sells. When was the last time an affiliate marketer did that? My customers were happy with the product and service, I was happy, it was all good. Did it happen overnight?
No, I had to provide good value in posts that didn’t really take me much time anyway. The other thing I do want to address, and this will piss some people off, but there is this misconception that there are no REAL marketers on the Warrior Forum. Listen, I know a lot of people on Wickedfire have an elitist attitude and think their shit doesn’t stink, but to me what I see on Wickedfire is a handful of guys providing good value that know how to drive real traffic, and then the rest dumping on “newbies”, dick rolling them and thinking it’s funny (lol, yes I was dick rolled when I first went there). All the while knowing only how to peddle Flogs and Advertorials and “grind”, always chasing their next meal. Not building anything of merit. Sure, sure, I ran big numbers with flogs and advertorials too, I think many did… and I’ll be the first to admit that while the cash is nice, let’s be real, it’s not hard to sell something that is a risk free trial with a fake blog or news site.
There are guys on the Warrior Forum running real numbers to a real herd of people that come back over and over to buy their products, in and out of the IM niche. Wickedfire has some great traffic buyers, and some of them are doing the right things to maximize their visitor value, and some just drive so much volume that it doesn’t matter if they’re building an asset or not since the law of large numbers comes into play. But, is everyone on Wickedfire or Warrior Forum for that matter a good “marketer”? Hell no… everyone bashes the “gurus” but then those same people go sling a $1.95 RFT bizopp. I give respect to some gurus. Do you know how much skill it takes to sell something for $2,000 online? Especially when everyone says the gurus are scamming you? That takes a lot of skill to do, and takes a lot of trust. haha, sorry I rambled there, I tend to do that.
Kiddin’ aside, I’ve gone through your traffic black book course and there’s no doubt that you’re the real deal. Do you like being an advertiser more or being an affiliate?
Hmm, I like certain aspects of both really. I like the larger visitor value and chunks of money that each transaction brings in when selling my own products. I like that I can buy my traffic and not worry about making a profit on the front end. I can spend almost double my product price on the front end if I wanted to acquire a buyer lead, and since I know my 1 click upsell converts at 30% for a $497 product, I can still make out well. I can give affiliates 100%+ commission for my front end product and have others send traffic. It’s great seeing big sales randomly show up by people driving traffic for you. The challenges of selling my own stuff is that in the info product space, unless I just plan on doing a basic plr quality bizopp, I’m a bit of a control freak on quality. With our fitness product for example, that took so long to make, and now we’re testing.
I still need to test as I would as an affiliate to get the offer converting, but now I also need to test backend processes and sales as well. Shopping carts can be a pain as can merchant accounts. The best thing about being an affiliate is the time to launch. I can launch several campaigns a day if I wanted on self serve platforms. It’s great, no worries about product creation, offer page creation etc. The disadvantage is that I don’t own the backend process, which isn’t all that bad. I think the best advertisers are also affiliates themselves. For example, with our fitness info product, we want to add a somewhat legitimate risk free supplement trial to the backend, as an affiliate. If someone just paid $49.99 for your course, closing them on an accompanying supplement is much easier especially if it’s an RFT. It’s a no brainer.
The only disadvantage in this case is it can’t be a 1 click upsell. A lot of straight sale bizopp advertisers are also affiliates to upsell call centers which sell generic business coaching. They give their buyer leads to the call center for “VIP coaching”. It’s a good model.
You seem be be proficient at a ton of traffic sources: Facebook, POF, Google Adwords, Media Buys, PPV, you name it. What are your thoughts on focusing on one thing until it works or diversifying right from the start?
I think it’s absolutely essential to focus on one thing to start. That’s just my opinion anyway. And not just traffic, even focusing in one vertical will help newer marketers get to profit quicker. Now, in banner buys sometimes we’ll just match the demographics of the site to several different verticals which are relevant to that traffic.
But for the most part focusing is easier for those starting out. Myself, I focused originally on Adwords Display Network and then did direct to site buys. When Google became rowdy with affiliate marketers, I focused a bit more on Facebook as a means to test demographics before going direct to relevant sites. As far as PPV and POF, I usually use those in a scaling strategy, so I almost always start where I feel strongest, and take proven winners elsewhere if needed/desired. Most people don’t stick with one thing to see it through. Every traffic source you mentioned can make you good money. I recommend diversifying afterwards sure.
What is the future of Google Adwords?
Haha, does anyone really know about what Google is going to do outside of Goog? Hmm, I’ll go out on a crazy limb here and say they’re probably going to keep their hate on affiliates in place. Especially rebills and all that. Contrary to popular belief, you can still run CPA stuff on Google. It’s really good quality traffic, always has been for me. I wouldn’t recommend driving 100% of your traffic by them though. If you’re a product owner in a vertical they seem ok with, then go for it. We’re testing our fitness product on there, and we got a rep to review our lander for “unrealistic claims” and such.
What do you do outside of Internet Marketing?
I had 18 fights between MMA and Muay Thai, and now I coach and train MMA fighters when I can. I work quite a bit, so otherwise I hang out with my wife and baby daughter, and workout myself. I think it’s important to keep your health up to par when you’re spending most of your day sitting behind a computer.
So you coach fighting. What are your thoughts on this?
Ha! Well, I’m not sure what Barman looks like and I’ve never met Jeremy in person, so I’m not sure who has the reach advantage. And obviously, who has actually trained? I think Jeremy has trained before or does currently, not sure. That’s why we have the fight though right? To find out who’s the real deal on that night. I’d love to see it and hope it happens. I think it’s really healthy to fight, to be honest, especially when it has nothing to do with 2 guys being drunk or really pissed off at each other. Sharing combat is a beautiful thing, and can tell you a lot about yourself. Not sure who I’m rooting for in this one. Barman has some funny posts, I support his posts about crappy push-button Clickbank products, but not so much about guru bashing (see gurus vs. bizopp rebills above). I like that Shoemoney has put together a solid funnel and he has a good business going for him. I think the real winners here are the fans.
What are your business goals that you can share?
I want a business I work “on” and not “in”. I want continuity income coming in. I want to create a really high converting low priced offer for affiliates to start getting a good amount of buyer leads coming into the funnel everyday. Basically, all my goals revolve around me wanting to work 10 hours a week or less, lol… I’m not lazy, not by a long shot actually, I just think that building an “engine” so to speak that runs itself for the most part, is more conducive to the lifestyle I want.
I like to ask successful marketers about their mindsets because I think it’s so important. Can you share a little bit about your take on that?
You know, I think we all have our good days and our bad days. Honestly, I put a lot of pressure on myself. But basically, I don’t give up. If I believe I’m doing the right things, I just don’t give up. I’ll be there at the end, always. I don’t dwell on set backs and mistakes. I learn from them, and push forward. It’s the only way.
Any final tips for beginning marketers? Will Traffic Black Book show them the magic button to press to generate thousands of dollars a day?
On the marketing side, understand that it comes down to traffic and conversions. When all the info overload is clear, that’s what it’s about. Following that, focus in a vertical/market, focus on a traffic source, master your ability to get a high CTR on your ads, and plug converting offers into that structure. As for your mindset, understand this is a business and not a get rich quick scheme. Stop chasing shiny things and know that it’s going to take a lot of work.
That’s why I tend to say to focus on a market, when marketers focus first on the actual people that are going to buy or fill out their offers, they tend to stay focused more. And as for Traffic BlackBook… absolutely, this is THE 7 click secret that will generate torrents of traffic and heaps of cash on demand!!! Kidding aside, nothing will do that, but it’s my opinion and the opinion of many others that it will give you the principles needed to shortcut yourself a bit, and learn from my mistakes.
