StackThatMoney: Breeding Super Affiliates
May 23, 2013 Posted by Tyler CruzThere is certainly no shortage of places to discuss and learn affiliate marketing out there. There are literally dozens of large forums dedicated to such discussion, most of them free.
But there’s one place that is quite a bit different than the rest, and that place is called StackThatMoney.
StackThatMoney is a private affiliate marketing forum that costs a monthly subscription fee of $99/month. I have written about and even reviewed similar forums in the past, and still highly recommend these places, but if I could only choose one private affiliate marketing forum, it’d be StackThatMoney.
20-Minute Screencast Tour and Walkthrough
In addition to this written post, I went ahead and recorded a 20-minute screencast tour and walkthrough of StackThatMoney as well, for those of you too lazy to read and/or who would like to see how it looks from the inside.
The screencast is available in HD:
(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see it.)
Why I Love StackThatMoney
If you used to wonder where all the big boys in this industry hang out, now you know. STM is full of true successful, experienced, and proven affiliate marketers – and if I tried to compare myself to them, it’d be like comparing an ant to an 800 pound gorilla.
But just because STM has a lot of ballers isn’t what makes it great. Here are a few reasons why I love StackThatMoney:
Positive Atmosphere:
Even though there are some guys there who will spend more on Facebook in a day than most people make in a year, there is no stupid posturing, put-downs, bragging, etc. Everyone is relatively modest and there to learn and help others.
It’s not a forum to brag about how much you make or make negative comments about others, but rather to share tips, ask questions, and learn how to make more money.
Guys making millions of dollars a year don’t think they’re too good to rub elbows with those newer in the industry, and you’ll regularly see them offering killer tips and advice to those very people.
Killer Tips and Knowledge
With so many truly successful affiliate marketers as members, there is so much killer information available that it easily pays for the subscription.
I personally believe that the "Follow Along" campaigns offer the greatest method for affiliate marketers to learn the game and turn their campaigns profitable. It’s like having a few dozen successful affiliate marketers over your shoulder as you work on your campaigns, telling you what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and what you should be doing.
STM covers so many areas that you are likely to find information that is conducive to whatever it is you’re running, whether it be Facebook, AdWords, CPV, mobile, media buys, adult, etc..
Active Community
Despite being a "private" forum and charging $99 a month, word has spread throughout the affiliate marketing community because it is an extremely active forum.
For example, as of one second ago, there are currently 288 members online on the forum. These are actual paying members – not bots, spiders or guests. Of those 288 members, 5 of them are site staff/moderators/admins.
If you create a thread, you’re going to get responses – quality responses.
Free Campaigns
It may sound crazy, as any sane affiliate marketer will never reveal their campaigns, but there are actual full campaigns revealed on StackThatMoney by some real big affiliates.
And when I say full, I mean pretty much everything you need to know including traffic source, targeting, offer, ads, landing pages, and angles.
Usually most of these campaigns will be campaigns that they used to run, but there are some that are revealed that they’re still actively running. And these are not $5/day campaigns either, but we’re talking about campaigns where they’ve netted anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 profit from them.
They are a great way to see what works and to get ideas from, or if you want, to straight out copy (although you’d be best to make a few adjustments here and there).
Success Stories
In order to provide motivation and inspiration to its members (as well as good marketing material), StackThatMoney has a sub-forum for Success Stories.
Here is a screenshot I took of this forum. Check out some of the thread titles:
What’s amazing is that the vast majority of these threads are from members who weren’t making anything when they first signed up to StackThatMoney.
I’m telling you, StackThatMoney is breeding super affiliates.
Sample Forum Threads
Here are some forum threads that I copy/pasted from the forums, in order to give you a rough idea as to the type of content available:
- Best Places to Live for Affiliate Marketers and internet marketer communities
- Converting Landing Pages (round 2) PSD + HTML
- One Dirty Leadimpact Trick to Outbid Your Competition
- A Campaign That Made Me Over $80,000 In Profit!
- Here’s 1 of my Campaigns Making $800+/day on Average! (daily deals)
- (Newbie/Intermediate Guide) Complete Guide To Facebook Ads
- Make A POF Dating Campaign Profitable In 24hours
- $500,000 Profit – An Old Ringtone Campaign On Facebook.
- Finally 1k/Day: About Damn Time
- Reaching My Goal of $1,000,000 Revenue
- Is FB Asking For ID For Bumps On All Accounts Now?
This is the type of content you can expect to see on a daily basis.
Tools, Landing Pages, and Discounts
I left this section at the end because I personally feel that the community and informational content is what makes StackThatMoney so great.
But in addition to everything I already covered, a subscription to STM also includes free access to a wide selection of tools, landing pages, and discounts.
Tools & Services:
Available to members are a couple dozen affiliate marketing related tools and services (not including whatever is made available from members in the forums!) including (but not limited to):
- Adult Ad Spy – Brand new and something they’re proud of (competing adult ad spy alone charges $200/month)
- Plenty of Fish Ad Uploader
- Plenty of Fish Spy Tool
- STM Mobile Tracker
- Various Affiliate Related Calculators
- Keyword Tools
- Domains Tools
- PPC/PPV Tools
- etc.
Landing Pages
Spread throughout the forums (search is your friend) are threads where people give away free tested and proven landing pages, some even complete with source PSDs.
Discounts
Also available to STM members are special unique discounts to various 3rd party tools and services such as CPVLab and WhatRunsWhere.
Conclusion
If you’re serious about affiliate marketing, I highly recommend joining StackThatMoney.
Whether you’re a newcomer struggling to find your first profitable campaign, or an experienced affiliate marketer who is making 6-figures a month, StackThatMoney is an incredibly useful resource that is easily worth the monthly subscription price of $99/month.
Are most of these marketers (including you) peddling dating sites? It seems the more I hear about PPC etc., it usually involves dating.
Since you haven’t replied, I will assume you guys deal mostly with dating and adult related offers.
Was this post paid or is it to drive affiliate commission?
While there is a plethora of great content on there, almost all of the good stuff is a couple years old. All of the campaign reviews and quality posts were from 2011/12. The current follow-alongs are a joke imo. Most of the advice given is generic, and really is there to motivate people to keep trying, but not really helpful. I remember one follow along where the payout was like $2.50, and the guy was bidding $0.70. Non one replied stating the obvious, just instead replied with something to motivate them to keep trying.
Not sure how many paying members are there, but say 500 active paying members, at $100/month is $50,000/month of almost pure profit. Brilliant business. It is too bad they don’t continue to post good info for 2013.
Is it worth $100/month? I would say yes, for maybe 1 or 2 months so you can download or read all the of the old stuff, but after that, spend the $100/month testing campaigns with the info you learned.
Just my thoughts.
I’ll just reply by saying this:
Last week I discovered a small and simple post in a thread at STM that didn’t really get much attention where a member shared a traffic source he had used in the past.
I decided to try it, and my first campaign there turned out to be profitable right off the bat. I’m now working on scaling things there.
It’s “little” things like these that make the subscription so worthwhile. It only takes 1 or 2 things like these to pay for a yearly subscription.
Tyler is an affiliate marketer so how is it wrong if he’s…driving affiliate commissions? I just checked your blog and there’s nothing of value there.
2 things: did I suggest it was wrong for him to post affiliate links? No, it was a simple question (that, btw, wasn’t answered 😉 ). Second, my blog is my personal blog, not “for value’ or whatever you’re looking for.
Thanks Patrick. Very true. All of the private affiliate forums seem to be dying now. No good info in the last 6-12 months.
I’ve been a member at STM for over a year now. I’ve never bought an affiliate related product since. Just the tools a lone you get with the membership are worth well into the thousands of dollars!!!
Thanks for the post tyler!
Thanks for the post tyler, we have some processes in place to pump out premium cae studies and guides that are directly related to the top trends in the current AM scene, as its a very fast paced industry. The 3 of us owners were actually hanging out in Amsterdam together this month to sort that out!
There is always the valid question asked whether its worth $99/month. I will personally guarantee you will not be able to make a better investment in this industry for $99/month.
To respond to Patrick’s post, if you have a very limited budget (only a couple of hundred) to make affiliate marketing work for you, I would not recommended even starting. However, If you have a bigger budget, then a $99/month investment is well worth it. You only need one tip, guide, idea to kickstart you to make even just $xxx/day for a yearly subscription to be well worthwhile for you.
Just my 2 kiwi cents 🙂
Very good review, Tyler. This post has been shared and “kingged” in the IM social networking and voting site – Kingged.com and the below comment left:
Good review of the StackThatMoney affiliate marketing private forum, by Tyler.
The truth is that while $99 might be a lot of money to those just starting out with Affiliate marketing, it’s small change for the big guys, or even those who know the value of “insider” tips.
And I think that’s what affiliate memberships like StackThatMoney provide their members with. The fact that lots of top affiliates, with years of experience and a ton of money to their names, hang around there should show there’s a lot to gain joining.
Just the “Follow Along” campaigns can prove very valuable for those who always want to look over the shoulder of those taking REAL actions and achieving results in affiliate marketing. Not to mention that one can actually ask relevant and direct questions and get answers.
Lastly, nothing stops one from joining to see if it’s as good as it claims. I think it’s worth checking out.
Thanks for the review, Tyler!
http://www.kingged.com/stackthatmoney-breeding-super-affiliates/
Thanks for the review, I’m going to take a closer look. Affiliate marketing is one of those parts of IM that’s actually a lot more difficult to do than you would at first think. I make money from ecommerce, I’ve had some good paydays from launching my own products but never really made much from affiliate sites. It’s something I’d like to get into.
OK, I’ll check this one out. Anyone have any experience of how this compares with Wealthy Affiliate?
I second this. It will be good to know how it compares with Wealthy Affiliate. Anyone?
I cannot afford all the Forums and paid podcasts etc… I guess the people who cannot afford to read the forums, FAIL? Dooh!!
You shouldn’t be attempting affiliate marketing if you can’t afford a least $1,000/month in the first place. Affiliate marketing is all about spending money…
This is a pretty bold statement and if your motive is to attract new people and make money off them its working!
I signed up! Hopefully I can find some gems of information. So far I’ve been reading a lot in the first day and did find a bit of information I am going to test out. Hope it works!
Thanks for sharing Tyler.
Don’t forget to participate there to really get the best bang for your buck. Hint: Follow-along campaigns.
I relish, result in I discovered just what I wass looking for.
You’ve ended my four dday long hunt! God Blless you man. Have a nice day.
Bye
My webpage hosting ips tv (Lawrence)
I wonder why successful affiliate would lose them time helping beginners, or hanging out on forum specially if they are so busy.
It’s not just for beginners. They learn from each other too 🙂
Do stackthatmoney forum members get special priviledges to create a plenty of fish advertiser account?
I’m trying to make one but they aren’t open to the public on their registration page for a few years now.
I would join just for that!