Things are moving, they are just slow.

Im deep into driving traffic. I have come across some real issues with my statistics. I am working though those to get a better grasp on the entire image. THIS is the grind, this is the blood, the sweat, and the tears This is what is going to make me rise above, it is the hard part.

Diving in deep!!!!

I am doing what I have never done before. I have been driving traffic with one traffic source, one campaign to one offer for several days now.

Im not making money, and it is slow, but I am making progress. I am learning and I am going to crack this thing very soon.

How the fuck does this work?

So you saw some affiliates having success and now you wanna do it too.

Two things to tell you, first, you can do it, second, you will fail along the way.

Why? Cause you have to build successful campaigns, you don't discover them.

I have been thinking about this for a while and what it all means so I put together an analogy that I really think explains things.

The first step ... you know that people are making money with CPA marketing. So you get on the internet open up a website and the first thing that you see is this.

Thats right, a bag of puzzle pieces... successful campaigns are like a puzzle that you have to put together bit by bit. Process after process...

After a while you start to understand a few things and you dive into your first campaign, you have hosting, tracking, domains, offers and you even know what offers you are going to run.

Then you have something that looks like this.

You have everything laid out ready to go. This is the analogy that I was talking about. Finding profits are going to be like looking at this pile of puzzle pieces and understanding what it is an image of. Go ahead, read some forums, do some research, it doesn't matter how much you read, or research you will NEVER understand what this is an image of. It is the same with profits and successful campaigns. No matter how much you read forums, or research ideas you will never know what a successful campaign looks like until you start  taking action.

So you dive into traffic junky, start looking around, start putting together a campaign this is like turning over the puzzle pieces and sorting them by edges and color... the image is still a mystery.

WTF? Where are the profits? Dive in and keep trying. 

Finally got everything sorted and your traffic is running.. .clicks are coming!! 

This is when you are going to start to understand things. Oh hey, I see how this is kinda coming together. But you still do not see the total image. You have to keep applying work by optimizing your processes. 

Slowly, the image will start to come together. Oh hey, look a conversion (and a cloud) but no matter what, you are still looking for the image, where is the success? 

Finally things are starting to come together, you can see that your campaign has some potential. Dontt panic, keep driving traffic. 

After some ad spend, you can start to see an image come together. You can tell that there is potential. Start tweaking, optimizing and measure what you do. 

Profits are there, but they take a LOT of work...

You have to turn over the pieces to put together the puzzle, The more pieces that you turn over and fit together, the easier the end result is to see. 

What happened?

Vacation was long, too long. I really missed work. What I waned to make sure that I did when I was away from work was process what I am doing and where I am going. 

Several takeaways are:

I dont work as much as I pretend to work. I got almost just as much done while working 10 times less.

With media buying, Im chasing profits not processes. 

I need to be building systems that work, refining processes, not chasing a $20 a day campaign.

Test looking for opportunities not profits. Im just trying to find profitable campaigns. I need to be looking for opportunities. 

I need to be setting performance goals over financial goals. I should launch 1 campaign a day, not just hoping for a $100 a day campaign. 

Mindset 

Remember getting lost while driving? I have no idea where I am but I am confident I can get to where I am going.

I need to approach campaigns the same way. While I never know if it is going to be a winning or loosing campaign, I should at least understand that I can make ir profitable or take away data on new opportunities.