Creating a team: How to setup/structure?

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tob

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Jan 7, 2007
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Hi everyone,

I think everyone reaches a realization in this business at some point. That realization is that we can no longer scale and grow our business as a one man show.

I'm at a point where I know exactly what has to be done to make a shit ton of money in short time, but I can't do it alone / fast enough.

Until now, I've been looking for offers, niche research, keyword research, keyword grouping, adcopy / banners, outsourcing landing page design, writing or outsourcing content, campaign/adgroup building and structure.

When it comes down to it, out of all the above skillsets, I think I am the best at building campaigns and optimizing / split testing. I like numbers. I think that the other areas don't require my direct attention all the time, and possibly could benefit from someone else's (possibly better) skills.

When some affiliate marketers build teams, they don't build teams to handle different parts of the process, they create a team of affiliate marketers and show them the way for a cut of profit. I don't like this because it would be a nightmare to sort out the revenue sharing in different circumstances and find the right set of people with the right skills to pull off. Has anyone pulled this off, is it working for you, any success stories?

My strategy is to cut up the process into roles for different members of my team.

- Keyword & Grouping Specialist
- Adcopy & Content Writer
- Landing Page & Banner Designer

By creating a team with individuals that are professionals in these areas I think I can compile campaigns that are like no other, unstoppable.

I would work with creating campaigns in msn/ysm/adwords, split testing ads, content, landing pages, running the numbers, optimizing and making suggestions for changes, not to mention running the team.

Has this strategy been implemented by anyone out there? I know of some larger affiliates that turned their affiliate marketing efforts into a real business with employees, this is what I want to do to have a sense of stability and long term growth.

If this is going to work I need to know how to find good people that aren't DP ass hats. Where do I find them, just straight up odesk/elance trial & error until I find them? Hire them locally and open an office. One thing's for sure is that I will use something like basecamp to manage collaboration.

I hope to gain some insights into how other affiliate businesses are run and also leave my thoughts here for others to ponder.

I look forward to hearing your stories.
 


It depends how much you're making, or plan on making. Is it enough to justify a full-time "team?" It may be better just to find a few core guys you trust, and keep going to them for business.

So find one landing page designer you really like (there are a few on here), and just keep ordering from him. Eventually you'll develop a nice client/designer relationship and can do bulk deals, whatever. The same goes for content writers (once again there are a few on WF). Honestly, I think you should leave the keyword grouping, etc...up to yourself. I mean that's really what's making you money. If someone else is going to do that they may as well do it for themselves.

Really, what is all comes down to is trust. Just build a network of guys that you really know and like and opportunities will keep coming your way. I know of people who partner up with each other because one can code and automate very well, and the other has immense resources. So one creates the system, the other implements it, and they trust each other enough to share the money.

It's all about trust!
 
This is something I've thought a lot about, here's my idea of what makes a good team.

Media Buyer

Basically You. In charge of everything, handle strategy / bid optimizations

Media Assistant 1

Builds campaigns. Researches keywords / groups keywords / Write ad copies / Puts shit together

Media Assistant 2

Records all the data, puts them into pretty charts in order to be easily analyzed by you. Helps run campaigns day to day by updating ad copy and letting you know if the data looks funny.

Articles / Landing Pages / Programming

Get outsourced.

Ideally I'd like to have someone I can trust handle the day to day bid optimizations while I focus purely on strategy and planning.

But yea having a team is definitely a way to go or else you'll end up being your own bottleneck. Plus you can take a vacation whenever and don't have to worry about how the campaigns are doing.
 
I think you are right, there will always be a trust issue.

Which is why I wanted to stray away from having other members of my team build & optimize the campaigns. I am good at this, and if they are/can get good at the other parts of the process it would really be a team.

The only way I can avert the trust issue is to offer revenue sharing. I can't think of a good way to structure this.

I would love to hear from someone like Diorex that has scaled his affiliate marketing business, possibly in a similar fashion.
 
This is definitely something I've been thinking of. I think you're no matter what going to need one or two people in the lead handling most of it. Then essentially outsourcing the rest. I've been considering 1x designer, 1x programmer, and 1-2x PPC specialists. That way, you're only 'trust' issues are with the one partner.
 
Dr_Ngo said:
This is something I've thought a lot about, here's my idea of what makes a good team.

Media Buyer

Basically You. In charge of everything, handle strategy / bid optimizations

Media Assistant 1

Builds campaigns. Researches keywords / groups keywords / Write ad copies / Puts shit together

Media Assistant 2

Records all the data, puts them into pretty charts in order to be easily analyzed by you. Helps run campaigns day to day by updating ad copy and letting you know if the data looks funny.

Articles / Landing Pages / Programming

Get outsourced.

Ideally I'd like to have someone I can trust handle the day to day bid optimizations while I focus purely on strategy and planning.

But yea having a team is definitely a way to go or else you'll end up being your own bottleneck. Plus you can take a vacation whenever and don't have to worry about how the campaigns are doing.
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The thing is with this is that you have one person doing nearly everything that makes the campaign successful, what is stopping them from just taking the data and running? Now, you might say "without me the campaigns won't be as successful, blah blah, etc etc".

You might be right. They might only be able to make, just for arguments sake say $1000/day, while with your skills and expertise the campaign could make $1500/day but after you take your cut, you pay the other employees, and whatever expenses you would only be giving them $500/day. They would be better off just running the campaign themselves.

My suggestion would be to break stuff up more (assuming you aren't working out of the same office) maybe have one person just get keywords, you then put the keywords into the campaign figure out which ones are converting and give them the data so they can continue to work on the keywords and expand.(They would know your keywords, but not what offer you are running (most likely), your payout, your ad copies, your bids, pretty much everything else, of course they could probably figure most of it out if they weren't retarded but.) You then "sub" out all the work like that. Have a content writer write all your ad copies (again, they could probably still figure out the campaign if they weren't retarded, but then again anyone can figure out this stuff with online tools like spyfu) Atleast this way they don't have access to the entire campaign. The only problem with this is finding people and taking out the time (your time) to do this.

Another option, which might work the best who knows, is to get a newbie to do it for you. (think nickycakes, im joking.) No, I don't mean a DP'er. Find someone with half of a brain who is willing to learn, listen, and apply what you teach. And you train them and then you have them work for you. They might be more loyal, less likely to steal your campaigns, but it would be a big hassle. Catch 22.

I think diorex (could be wrong) has a team that he works with, maybe ask him how he does it.
 
Yes - having someone know the whole meal deal is going to result in them breaking away and running alone. This happens in all businesses, but I think it can happen the easiest in this industry because the barrier to entry is SO LOW.

The more and more I think about this though, the more obvious it is that this mindset can't scale. You can't go from a 5mm company to a 50mm company with 1 person creating & optimizing campaigns.

I think this is a serious thought for us all, how do we make it long term and get stability.
 
I think the only thing you can do is find someone you can trust. If you both believe that you will make far more money together (like shoemoney and dillsmack.) than separate their will be a drive to work as a partnership, and it has to be just that, a partnership. If you have someone, a partner, running campaigns for you and they KNOW you are making $3,000/day off of it, and you pay them $150/day, their will be resentment and it just won't work out. Be fair, honest, and not greedy. It will work out.
 
Dr_Ngo said:
This is something I've thought a lot about, here's my idea of what makes a good team.

Media Buyer

Basically You. In charge of everything, handle strategy / bid optimizations

Media Assistant 1

Builds campaigns. Researches keywords / groups keywords / Write ad copies / Puts shit together

Media Assistant 2

Records all the data, puts them into pretty charts in order to be easily analyzed by you. Helps run campaigns day to day by updating ad copy and letting you know if the data looks funny.

Articles / Landing Pages / Programming

Get outsourced.

Ideally I'd like to have someone I can trust handle the day to day bid optimizations while I focus purely on strategy and planning.

But yea having a team is definitely a way to go or else you'll end up being your own bottleneck. Plus you can take a vacation whenever and don't have to worry about how the campaigns are doing.
Click to expand...


This makes a ton of sense. Just remember that just because you're great at AM/online media buys on your own, it does not mean you're a great manager/director of people. The folks who are going to do the best job are the ones what would never in a million years work for someone else.
 
bb_wolfe said:
This makes a ton of sense. Just remember that just because you're great at AM/online media buys on your own, it does not mean you're a great manager/director of people. The folks who are going to do the best job are the ones what would never in a million years work for someone else.
Click to expand...

idk about that one.
 
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if jon has create an affiliate marketing team.
 
it was a joke, I wasn't actually going to purchase the domain. Seeing as how he didn't actually want $20 for it.
 
When outsourcing, always have 2-3 people you use per task. Things happen and you always will have a second person trained and ready if the main person has something come up or chooses not to do it any longer.

Paying per job is better than putting someone on the payroll because you are screwed if you income drops unexpectedly and so are they. It also can change your legal responsibilities as an employer and adds to the paperwork.
 
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