Last night I was on a Webinar with PPC-Coach.com’s Will talking about success in Affiliate Marketing. Below is the text transcript. I’ll have a copy of the audio on the site soon! If you have any additional questions I didn’t get to last night, feel free to post them below in the comments section and I’ll be sure to answer them!

Where do you live? Are you married? Any children? Animals?
*I just recently moved to Huntington, West Virginia. I?ve been living in Beckley, West Virginia for the last two years, but just recently moved to Huntington to be close to my girlfriend of 3 years. She?s currently in school pursuing her Masters Degree in Communication Disorders. I don?t have any children but I plan on starting a family one day in the future. I love dogs, but unfortunately don?t have one at the moment. My family puppy Cooper actually got ran over this summer, so we did get a new one, but it has been a very hard thing to get over. The new puppy, Chance, lives with my parents.

How did you get started as an affiliate? Share with us your story?
* Before I get started, let me say this is a long story. So please listen carefully as I have about ten years to cover. December 25, 1998 my parents bought my identical twin Brother Richard and I a brand new Gateway computer for Christmas. At the time, the Internet was just becoming popular, so they decided it was time to upgrade our old Compaq and get a machine that was faster. In the late 90s the Internet was just becoming really popular. Ever since I heard of the Internet I wanted to learn how to make websites. When I was just 13 I was fascinated about how I could create a page that could be read by people all around the world in the comfort of their own homes. It was amazing to me that this was even possible.

On Sunday, December 27, 1998 I decided it was time to learn how to make a website. While other kids my age were out playing video games, action figures, etc. I was spending 8+ hours a day on America Online trying to figure out how to generate HTML. I finally ran across Geocities (a free website provider) and started a website titled ?Sportsfan_13?. The website was built using their free online software. It was nothing special, but I was able to post news about the NFL, NBA, NCAA, Pro Wrestling, etc. As time progressed I finally got my brother Richard involved. He too thought it was neat that we could create a publication like a magazine and it could be read by people all over the world. Eventually we realized we could use Microsoft Publisher to create a better looking design and began to update the site every Tuesday. While the site never gained much popularity the skills we learned were priceless.

Over the next several months Richard and I created multiple websites. We eventually moved away the free Geocities websites and purchased domains for $70 a year. We were able to use Hypermart.net as a free web host and created sites such as ProWebResources.com (a webmaster resource site), MarshallFootball.com (a website about Marshall Football), and several more. Over the course of a year I became a HTML expert. I could open up notepad and bang out a web page within minutes. I also learned a lot about networking and how the Internet functioned. December 25, 1999 I asked for a dedicated web server for Christmas. Yes, I was the 14 year old kid that asked his parents to buy a $100 a month server. Now keep in mind, during this entire time we didn?t even think it was possible to make money off the Internet. We just did it for fun.

Once we had the dedicated server it wasn?t long until we were frustrated with only getting 20 – 30 hits a day and decided we had to brainstorm to find something that was going to get read. We didn?t want money. We just wanted more people to read OUR stuff. January 2nd, 2000 while I was in the shower, Richard starting screaming for me to ?hurry and get out he had something big?. He discovered the domain name wcwwwf.com (the name of the two most popular wrestling promotions) was available. He informed me that professional wrestling was getting super high ratings and suggested that we started a website focused on pro wrestling. That evening we registered the name, put up a simple ?coming soon page? with a counter and went to sleep. The next morning we woke up in SHOCK to see that the coming soon page had already been visited over 400 times! We were thrilled to have what we always wanted; an audience.

We went on to create a professional looking site that reached hundreds of thousands of people each month. In May of 2000 we were approached by guy named Jose. Jose informed us that he owned a popular network that had an affiliation with UGO. He said that we could place his ads on our website and make money them. Richard and I were skeptical but told him to send over the contract. Since we were underage my father had to co-sign the agreement. Fast forward a few months we were making more money than the average working professional and were only 15. We both wanted to quit high school to pursue our Internet careers but our parents made us stay in school.

Things continued to go well until the December of 2000. Just days before Christmas, the ?dot com crash? was happening and UGO decided to drop most of their publishers. We were already owed money the previous month and learned we weren?t going to be paid for December either. Richard and I were disappointed, but since we weren?t in it for the money it didn?t matter. The only problem was our web server bill was up to $600 a month. We had saved a lot of money so we used our savings until we could find another ad deal to bring in some more solid revenue. Months went by and our savings grew smaller. Richard and I also began to take interest in girls, parties, etc and decided it was time to take a break and sell the website. We wanted to be ?high school kids? and not spend every day behind a computer monitor.

In the summer of 2002 Richard and I were told by our parents that we couldn?t lie around the house during our break school we had to work. Our father owns a local hardware store and told us he wanted to put a new computer system in and wanted us to head up the operation. We began to work for him full-time but got sick and tired of waking up every morning at 7 a.m. and having to go be told what we could do, when we could take lunch, etc. We both love our father, but it was better to keep our relationship father-son based than boss-employee based. After a while we began to use our weekly paychecks as a funding source for starting up a new Internet business. We decided to get back into professional wrestling by using an old domain we had registered, WrestlingUnlimited.com.

Months went by and we were finally able to begin making money online once again. In early 2003 we found out WrestlingNewsWorld.com (a very popular pro wrestling website) was for sale. Using some of our profits we purchased the name and took ownership over the site. We finally had our revenue back to where it was in 2000 and headed off to college to pursue degrees in business. During our time in college we created several more websites, a web hosting company, and various other online-based businesses.

In 2007 we were both getting close to graduating West Virginia University both with degrees in Business Administration. We pondered the decision of obtaining a Masters Degrees but unfortunately the Dean said ?we didn?t have enough real-world work experience? and were unable to enter the program. I shared the admissions committee the same story I just shared with all of you. And yes, they rejected both of us their program. As luck would have it, the next year their business program we under heavy scrutiny as it was discovered that they had given Governor Joe Manchan?s Daughter a degree without completing the required course work. So it was a blessing we didn?t get in as the program has lost all of its credibility. So to Bonnie Hammer and the rest of the WVU School of Business & Economics SCREW YOU!!!!!!

After graduation we moved Morgantown, West Virginia back to our hometown of Beckley, West Virginia, setup an office and started running Gray Internet Technologies, LLC as a full-time business. It wasn?t until February of 2008 until I stumble on a post the Digital Point forums that some guy had posted claiming he was making well over $100,000 a month in affiliate marketing. My eyes light up as I thought this would be a perfect industry for Gray Internet to penetrate and make additional money. As many of you, I spent money on eBooks, forums, research, etc. trying to learn how to promote CPA offers using Search Engines (Google/Yahoo/MSN). May 6, 2008 I stumbled onto PPC-Coach.com. Like many of you, I had some success promoting offers on Adwords, but it wasn?t until I joined these forums and became active that I started seeing real success with Affiliate marketing?

How long did it take you to become effective at ppc and search engine marketing?
* It took about 2 months spending virtually every second of everyday online (I?m not joking. I didn?t sleep) and some lost money before I became effective at PPC and SEM.

What was your most profitable month ever? Is it reasonable to think that others can have similar success to you?
*About $500-$600K. Yes, it just takes hard work.

What were the biggest obstacles you had to overcome?
* Credit Card companies are impossible.

What are the biggest obstacles that you observe others have in getting good at traffic generation?
* Too many people are focused on one source. There are hundreds if not thousands of other PPC platforms out there. So what the volume sucks. That just means you have to get more going.

How did you start funding campaign when you first started. Money savings, credit cards or personal loans? What advice can you give guys with not so much of a cash flow?
* Money savings. I?m going to be honest here. I don?t want to shatter anyone?s dreams because it is possible, but if you don?t have some money to invest and are willing to lose some money you?ll never be successful in this industry. To start affiliate marketing you need to have a job as well as money saved up. It?s impossible to start this industry without some capital. But for those of you with limit cash flow start with small campaigns. Will?s ?poll method? is very well with this, because you can spend $50 – $100 and you know if the campaign is going to work or not.

How many campaigns are you running now? How many did you test to get to this number?
* Unfortunately, I?m not going to give out this number. It?s a lot though. I became successful at PPC marketing working on my own but it wasn?t until May 2009 when I partnered with one of my best friends, John Kirkpatrick that I began seeing such astonishing results. John was really big in the Incent industry and without a doubt he?s how we are at we are now. He?s the person who helped me realize there were more PPC and traffic options than Google/Yahoo/MSN. You can?t overlook the smaller search engines.

If you had 40 hours to setup a campaign how would you spend those 40 hours? (40 hours being a normal ‘work week’). Campaign selection, lp, keyword research, etc..?
* Campaign Selection: 1 hour, Landing Page: 4 hours, Keyword Research: 35 hours
Campaign selection is pretty easy. Ask you?re A/Ms what the hot offers on their network. If they work for other people, chances are they?ll work for you. Don?t spend hours on your landing page but be original. Chances are people are going to rip your lander once you get big. If you?re ranking in the top 10 for a popular keyword for any period of time, someone is going to steal your page. You can wine, cry, try to sue them, etc. But get over it, it happens. What you want to do though is create a page that is DIFFERENT than the other ones. Write your own content or pay someone to write it for you. You don?t want to spend a ton of time on it, but don?t be scared to be different.

You want to spend most of your time on keyword research. The traffic is what is going to make or break your campaign. You can have the nicest landing page in the world, but without traffic it?s useless. Remember in my story when I talked about all Richard and I wanted was an audience? Get people to your page.

Then when it’s setup how much time would you spend monitoring that campaign?
* You want to watch the campaign closely but by closely I don?t mean refresh your stats every 5 minutes. Once you get things going get off for a few hours, let things run. After about 24 hours you can quickly determine which keywords are converting and which ones aren?t.

How do you research a niche before deciding to have a crack at it?
* There are not many major niches out there that we aren’t in. But before cracking a niche we like to see: 1) How popular is the offer 2) How much competition is there 3) What traffic sources can we run the offer on. Look at it this way. Wouldn?t you rather be a big frog in a little pond rather than a small frog in a big pond?

What do you think the future will be for affiliate marketing?
* Affiliate marketing is only going to continue to grow. With the current state of our economy companies are looking for more effective ways to advertise. Using affiliate marketing companies are guaranteed a sale or a lead. This is much more effective than a newspaper/magazine/or television ad. As more companies become familiar with technology the industry is only going to grow.

Anything you want to add before we take some questions?
* Yes. I need to thank two people; my brother Richard and my good friend John Kirkpatrick (also both business partners). Without my brother Richard I would still be working on a website that gets 20 hits a day. It was him that thought ?outside the box? and came up with an idea that helped begin my Internet career. His innovativeness has allowed our business to grow at break-neck pace and always be months ahead of competition. As I?ve already said, John started working with us this past May. John has quickly become one of my best friends and someone I have the upmost respect for. I?ve also told many people that John is the smartest person I know. Without him we would not be anywhere near the level we are now. He?s the person that took affiliate marketing profits several thousand a month to several hundred thousand a month. So the bottom of my heart guys, thank you both. This success story is not just about me, Ryan Gray; it?s about all of the ?Super Affiliate Twins? – Ryan Gray, Richard Gray, & John Kirkpatrick.