"There is much more than just tracking a general LTV. The technology exists now so that people can gather much more technical data. For instance here is my data from shoemoney.com email list from my PAR Program account:
But you can even drill on a very granular geographic level also. Also in the PAR Program you can track via source. So for instance I know that Males on Facebook, interested in Advertising, ages 21-24, located in California are the highest dollar value."
2) You've been building an email list organically through your site for a long time. Have you experimented with paid acquisition for your email lists? If so what are some best practices you can share about that?
"I have experimented with buying leads, paid posts, guest posts etc etc. The highest dollar value by person on my email list, not by ROI but by products purchased LTV is by far free traffic to shoemoney.com. Next would be referrers from big sources like my wikipedia page or techcrunch bio or other sources like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, etc etc etc.
Social paid traffic is completely worthless. I am always amazed how much I get paid to do sponsored tweets. The most being $5,000+ for one tweet. No way companies are getting a return on that… but hey if your company wants to pay me thousands to tweet about whatever I am down.
Now paid traffic for me is worthless. I have done it on a CPA and also just purchased cpm traffic. doesn't even move the needle.
Of the 10m+ I have made off of my email list since I started it probably .01% came from paid/social traffic."
- Followup: One thing I'd like to ask you to clarify is your stance on paid traffic. Your graphic at the top indicates that you care a lot about which social networks people are on, and track the interests that provide the highest ROI. Yet you say that social paid traffic is worthless.
Is the reconciliation of the two statements that all your efforts in social are organic? Or do you mean paid tweets (the example you gave) don't work? Or something else? It's hard for me to imagine someone with as much knowledge of yourself not being aware of affiliates making lots of money off Facebook ads, for instance.
"Let me rephrase that in my experience working with clients and my own stuff Social Traffic has been worthless. Paying people to tweet and stuff like that.
With that said it does have a value branding wise. If you think about it like this. I paid 1k to have the @UFC channel tweet about how awesome my ShoeMoney System product is. I got zero sales from it BUT being able to use a fortune 500 company as a testimonial… that is something that they would not even do. So the branding play can be worth it.
Organic Social Traffic is a whole different story.
In the end it all comes down to giving people value and building a relationship with them. Its like paying for sex vs building a relationship for a lifetime. Sure you can get a quick bang for your buck but its going to leave you feeling high and dry… and broke (hey I need to patent that line)."
3) You're talking about customer acquisition and retention at Conversion Conference. Can you share some morsels of what you'll be teaching at the show?
"For sure. The front end acquisition of a one time website visitor's email can be done many ways.. but thats not really the big nuggets.
We have gotten 5 of our PAR Program clients to anonymously contribute data from 40 million dollars purchased through emails that went through our system. We have quantifiable data to things like:
- When do women open emails
- When do women make a purchase from those emails
- What browser's do women use.
- What is the value of an email that is tied to a social network vs one that is not.
- How long on average until a person makes a buying decision (this will open some eyes).
- And it goes on and on…
You have known me for a while and know I am not into theories. I am into quantifiable facts. And that is what we have."
4) If you have a relationship with someone in Facebook – i.e. they fanned your page – to what extent is it worthwhile getting them to also join your email list? Or vice versa?
"Its always worth a try inside your page. I would rather build apps for contests and stuff where you can obtain the email on the front end."
5) The PAR Program you run – a marketing agency of sorts – seems to be a mashup of various ideas you've developed and worked on over the years, from email marketing to demographic research to local/whitelabel affiliate marketing. Is there a process to how you see the different parts of the puzzle fitting together?
"Yea if you look at my track record… Everything I have ever done was something I built for myself then just made it available to other people. So NextPimp the site that took me from unemployment to 6 figures a month in profit, was a simple site that converted ringtones and wallpapers for any phone.
Next was ShoeMoney Tools a simple set of seo/ppc tools I built in house then offered it as a monthly service. Hell even the blog is something I wrote about items as I was learning them… other people found that useful so it started a following.
AuctionAds was the biggest home run… I took technology from ShoeMoney Ads and built it around the eBay affiliate program. 4 months after launch the advertising network was doing over 2m/month in revenue and I sold the site. Lots of other things a long the way.. again things I did for myself and then just charged others to use them or monetized them otherwise.
The PAR Program takes a one time website visitor and turns them into a life long customer. Like everything else that I have done well with, its something that I use daily for my own marketing. I have sold over 10m+ of my own and other people's products via email. Now I take over the in house email marketing and acquisition/retention of companies and crush it for them [clients of the PAR Program]. Its really great because each new client is a new company for me and challenge to make them as much money as possible. We are somewhat selective though on who we take on. I am investing in each client in that I do all the copywriting and will also consult with them on marketing efforts. You would be amazed at the companies who want to sign up that don't even really believe in their own product… but think by just having me involved its a magic bullet.
The PAR Program had a bit of a dip. I invested low six figures and it probably cost a lot more than that because it became a huge focus of mine and I [was] looking at the quick buck affiliate marketing stuff. But we powered through because it truly is a remarkable product.
By the way – if you're curious here is all the data we can gather with our PAR Program:
6) One of the things that stands out about your success is, as you put it in the ASW keynote, is doing what others are unwilling to do… notably you mentioned the dip with Auction Ads. How do you push yourself through the dip? And when (if ever) do you choose to quit?
"O I have had some painful learning experiences. Sometimes there is a reason why people are not willing to do something… I have diverted away from my mantra of build something you would use yourself… every day .. and had probably a 95% flop rate on those that didn't meet that criteria. [I think Jeremy means "stuff he'd use every day," as opposed to "I have diverted ...every day." ]
People always ask me my secret on why we have had so many successes. Well for one I dunno I would consider all of them successes. Even though they produced many millions in profit. NextPimp was printing money and it slowly died down revenue wise because I moved on to the next thing. When I sold it in 2010 it was for less than a week of revenue that it was doing a few years earlier.
With AuctionAds I sold that company 4 months after it had started and was just starting to print money. But I didn't have the experience or education to take that from a 10m company to 100m company.
What surprises most people is that I was a one man shop, with a full time programer, until 2008. I had no experience or education in hiring or building a "real" company.
The real magic bullet is what some would consider failure. I consider it tuition. [emphasis added]"
7) Who, outside of Shoemoney Media Group / Capital, are the top 3-5 marketers you see out there?
I imagine most people would expect me to say Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, etc etc… but the truth of the matter is the top marketers are guys that you have never or will never hear of. A lot of "no name" people will come to my Elite Retreat conference and blow me away with what they are doing.
"If you want to listen to smart people then John Reese, Frank Kern, Aaron Wall would be my pics. You don't have to buy anything… just watch how they work. Aaron Wall – I can hear him now yell at me for grouping him with the "guru's" and does not think of himself as a marketer but show me another SEO that has done as well as Aaron. Not only does has he sold a $99 ebook for many years (7 years now?) but he also has a forum on seobook.com and other services.
The guys that market themselves as marketers… bleh. As much as I like Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin and consider them friends its been many years since they have sold anything themselves."
8) Last, what've you got to sell that everyone should hop on the bandwagon for n buy NOW?
"O geez. I have some good stuff on udemy.com just search for shoemoney. I have sold thousands of products on there (Local Marketing Blue Print & Make Money Online – Shoemoney System). But to anyone out there don't chase the latest thing. I have written extensively about people that started on free platforms writing about what they like and building multimillion dollar empires."
