Jacob:

Get off the hamster wheel of social media marketing, because if you post something on Instagram it's gone in a few days, right? Search is there for pretty much ever, it's evergreen content and you get found organically, it's not paid. Why wouldn't you do that?

Chris:

My guest for today's show is Jacob Cass, who I had the pleasure of running into in Sydney. And I've known Jacob for a bit of time now, mostly on social, and he's got an interesting topic, as we generally talk about branding and marketing. I think this fits somewhere in the middle somewhere, like affiliate marketing. And I was shocked to discover how much traffic he's been able to generate by writing, but also how much money he's able to make. So, let's get right into it. So Jacob, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory?

Jacob:

Absolutely, thank you for having me here today Chris. Yeah, super stoked to talk about this, affiliate marketing, passive income and all that entails. Who I am, my name is Jacob Cass, I'm the founder of Just Creative, which is a brand and design agency based in Sydney, Australia. It's also a platform for many other things, including a branding podcast, a community for creatives, a blog which is bringing about a million-plus page views a month, and a bunch of other elements to it as well but we won't go into it. To summarize, at my heart I'm a designer, I'm a brand builder, to simplify it.

Chris:

Okay. Now many of us might be familiar with this word, affiliate marketing, or the affiliate model. And let's set the record straight, what does it mean, define it, and then give us some examples please.

Jacob:

Yeah, let's start from the top. So affiliate marketing, what is it? It's a way to earn money by partnering with others. So as an example, I recommend a product, someone buys it based on my recommendation, and I earn a cut from that recommendation. So a big parter of ours, just to give you an example, is Amazon. And we'll get into this, and you can get started with Amazon as well. So I recommend a product on Amazon, someone clicks on that link, I'll get a percentage of that sale. And you can do that at scale, and we'll dive into that. So that's basically the premise of it, it's a referral model.

Chris:

Okay. So you as a person who builds trust and creates content that people connect with and enjoy consuming, if you recommend or share any links, and if they click on that link, and they make a purchase, you get some percentage of the sale. And in fact, this is how most of the things on Amazon are sold, right?

Jacob:

I assume so, I can't be certain. But yeah, at least from the web, if you're on someone else's website and they're referring you to Amazon generally it would be an affiliate most of the time, if they know what they're doing.

Chris:

Yeah, mm-hmm. And I do a little bit of affiliate marketing too, at the beginning it doesn't seem like a lot of money, it's only a few percentage points. But I think the Amazon model in particular, as you sell more the percentage actually goes up right?

Jacob:

Yeah, and then they have bonuses as well. So for example, Christmas and Black Friday, they will often double your bonus if you're a good partner as well. So there's definitely some bonuses with working for Amazon in particular, because maybe too early to discuss this, but how it works is, if you refer someone to Amazon, let's say for a book, you'll get a 5% commission on the book, which is nothing. However, if they went and bought their groceries and some pet food, and maybe a diamond ring, you would get a commission on all of those things in the cut. So, that's where it really gets interesting. Probably about 70% of everything I refer is in things that I don't even talk about, pet food for example, groceries, people are buying this when you refer them to the site, and that's where it can add up over time.

Chris:

I want to go back into your story a little bit more, which is when they go and click on your link, I think the term is like a cookie?

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

Somehow Amazon remembers you, so if you go in, you add something to your cart which you recommend, and they're like, "Oh, I want to go buy a car," Amazon honors the referral link for a period of time right?

Jacob:

Correct, based on the cookie, yes.

Chris:

Right. And then whatever they buy you're the beneficiary of. And the beautiful thing is Amazon makes money, the person doesn't pay any more for it, and you also make a little bit of money. So Amazon is sharing a bit of their profit with you.

Jacob:

Absolutely. And it's not just Amazon, pretty much any provider online, this is where it gets really interesting, has an affiliate program behind it, even the future does. So anyone can get started with this, and I really want to share this, because it's an under-tapped method and many people don't understand it or the potential of it, so they're leaving things, or money on the table because they just don't fully understand what it is, how to do it, and how easy it is to get started.

Chris:

Okay, so my natural question is to go back into time and ask you, how did you get into this?

Jacob:

Well, I started my first Amazon affiliate account, I think it was around 2010. And for about five, seven, maybe five, seven years I was making nothing, right? Because I didn't understand what it was, I had a few links here and there. But it was only probably about, I don't know, five years ago where I started to see some actual money coming in. Nothing major, but enough to see some traction on like, "Oh, this is really interesting." And that's when I started writing more, and around affiliate-style articles on the blog. And over the past three years, have hired a team and really scaled this up, because I now understand what works, what doesn't, and just scaled it.

Chris:

Mm-hmm. So you only started scaling in the last three years?

Jacob:

Yes. Let's put it this way, in the past three years it's 5x-ed in growth, versus since I started in 2007. So it was pretty steady for a long while, but then past three years I've really put the pedal to the metal, I should say.

Chris:

Yeah, okay, you put the pedal to the metal, all right. Now you're accelerating. I think you mentioned something like you generate over a million page views a month. In the scope of things, that sounds like a gigantic amount of traffic. Is it?

Jacob:

Well, it depends who you're comparing it to. For a sole business owner, I guess it's a lot. It really depends on how you compare.

Chris:

Mm-hmm. And before this made economic sense to you, what were you doing in the meantime? What was your day job before the affiliate marketing thing took off?

Jacob:

Well to be honest, I have had Just Creative, which is the brand platform, since 2007. So the blog has been the backbone of my business since the beginning, it always has been, it still is today. So it's the platform, and it's how I get clients for my brand services. It's also a blog for promoting affiliate-related elements, you know, tech goods, and design goods, and so forth. And it's also, as I mentioned there's other things at the beginning where I spend other, more of my time as well.

Chris:

Okay. Just so I understand this correctly, what percentage of revenue is your business based on affiliate marketing versus services?

Jacob:

Well if you asked me a few years ago, you would probably be like 60-40. But it's grown so much now, so it's much more than that now. So it's definitely a huge chunk of change for the business, for sure.

Chris:

Mm-hmm. So even in the beginning it was 60% affiliate marketing and 40% service, or the other way around?

Jacob:

Yeah, so it's kind of... Because it's grown it's changed over time, and I've spent my time at different places, put my focuses in different areas. So in the beginning I was more about brand services, and in the past few years I've turned into kind of like a strategist, and a coach, and a community builder, and that's where my efforts have gone, as well as hiring a team. So because I have a team now, they've been able to scale it without me doing as much work. So I used to be doing the writing and the SEO and everything, but now that I've outsourced that it's been able to scale.

Chris:

You've taught other people your system, and they're able to do the work that you used to do. So now what do you do with your time?

Jacob:

I manage the team and do the high-level strategy. So now I work with more partners, so I probably have about 100 different affiliate partners, or different verticals and so forth. But yeah, that's where I spend the time.

Chris:

I see, okay. When you say it's a huge jump, would you say it's like 90-10 now, or is it even more than that?

Jacob:

I haven't done the finances this year, but it's blown up, and it's, I don't know, probably 70-30. I don't know. I haven't done it yet, so...

Chris:

What do you predict it to be end of 2023?

Jacob:

Probably 80%.

Chris:

Mm-hmm, okay, so we see where this is going. It used to be 60-40, and probably by the time that you're listening to this on the one-year anniversary you'll be at 80-20?

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

Okay, very good. So it's the dream of most people to be able to do what they love, whatever it is. For you it might be writing and reviewing products, or just talking about what's of interest to you, opinion pieces, op ed stuff, and then to be able to make a living passively doing that. So let's go onto the next concept, which is passive income. What is passive income, is it a myth? Let's set the record straight here.

Jacob:

Yes, that's a good question around the myth side of it. So passive income certainly in the beginning is not passive. However there is a dip, and we've talked about this before. But once you get out of that dip, that's when things get interesting as well. The growth happens, and your time investment versus the money investment works out in your favor. So, it is passive eventually. I think about this like an oil well, right? You dig down in the Earth, you find the oil, and then once it's done it keeps pumping out oil. But it's incredibly difficult to dig down in the earth and create an oil rig. So I just think of this as like creating oil rigs everywhere, right? Different affiliate post, and you dig down.

Once they're there, once they're ranking, you're keeping up with maintenance, and that's where things get interesting again. I keep saying this, but that's how it works. So think about passive as a little bit of a dip, but over time that's when returns... It makes sense.

Chris:

I'm not a passive income expert, I do describe what we do as passive income, and allow me to share some of my thoughts with our audience here, and you tell me if you have a different point of view. We understand what active income earning is, basically you go somewhere, you clock in, you do the work, and you get paid for what it is that you do. This could usually be measured in time, or can be measured in widgets that you produce. So some places pay based on how many things you make, so if you make 10 things you get paid 10 times whatever dollar amount. Versus if you make 100, then you get paid 100 times. What passive income is, and the easiest example I would think of that is not going to start feelings about the oil industry is real estate.

If you own an apartment complex or a rental unit, that thing generates income for you, and it generates income as long as there's a tenant renting space from you. And you don't have to do too much, it doesn't mean you don't have to do anything but you don't have to do a whole lot. You might get an occasional call to fix the toilet, every 10, 20 years you might have to replace the roof. But it generates income for you, while not requiring you to actively work in the business. So some people who are opponents of passive income think passive income means I get to do nothing ever and make money, and that's some kind of fantasy, and probably in that way there are only a few vehicles that exist that allow you to have that kind of income.

If you invest in a mutual fund you don't actually have to do anything, it should pay you something. If you buy a Treasury bond, it will give you money, you don't have to do anything, and it's relatively safe. Now, what we're talking about is educational products, affiliate marketing, it is a lot of work that goes upfront. You're trading in a disproportionate amount of your time and energy for very little return. But over time, the slider works into your favor if you keep it up and know what you're doing. You will generate more income, and the amount of time that's required to invest in generating the income becomes less and less, and to a point in which it almost becomes like nothing.

Jacob:

Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many different types of passive income. We're talking about affiliate marketing right now, there's digital products, there's online courses, bringing out paid memberships, podcasting, real estate stocks, crypto, YouTube channels, advertising, drop shipping, flipping products. There's so many different types of passive income. So we really wanted to go deep on affiliate marketing, because this is a really under-tapped area and it's easy to get started. And I'd love to share with your audience like, how to actually get started.

Chris:

I love it.

Jacob:

And I had a chat with some creatives last time about like, what do you want to learn about affiliate marketing, what's the barriers? And they want to first know what it is, which we've talked about, and how to actually get started right? Pretty much every platform out there, or provider, has an affiliate program. What you can do to find it is scroll to the bottom of their website, and in the footer there'll be a link that says affiliate or partners. Most of the time it says affiliate program, and you click on that, and you can apply to their affiliate program. Amazon's just called Amazon Associates, and you can get started instantly, pretty much. You go to the page, become an Amazon associate.

And I will talk about Amazon today because this is the easiest one to get started with, right? Everyone sells something, or a product, or a service, and they have things that they recommend. So there's always something that you love, that you could recommend. So for example, Chris, the gear that you use, you could create a page that recommends all of this gear on one page, and refer people to that page. So, how do you actually do that? You go to Amazon Associates, become an Amazon associate. And then once you are, you go back to any product on the Amazon page, and at the top of the page there'll be a new bar, and you say, "Get affiliate link," on the top of that bar. And now you have this trackable link that you share with your audience.

If they click on that link, it's tracked back to you. So that's the basic premise of it, and you can go to any single Amazon page and get a unique tracking link for any product. And they have every product from A to Z, or Z. So this is a great place to get started. So think about what products you actually use, you know, your laptops, your computer, your camera gear. Or perhaps it's software, maybe you work in web design. You use a certain hosting platform or a certain provider, they will have an affiliate program. So, you can sign up to it. This is where it gets even more interesting, if you're selling hosting you can do this as a recurring model as well. There's so many different tactics.

I just want to get focused on Amazon though, because this is the easiest way to get started. So sign up, get the unique link, and then you can share that link, right? What I do recommend for people to do is create a standalone website, like a resources page. "Here's my gear that I use," this is the easiest way to get started. Especially people in film, you could... Or the creative industries, we use a lot of tech. So you can write all the tech you use, and get these unique links for all of these Amazon products. So when someone asks you, "Oh, what camera is that? You know you take really great photos," your camera takes really great photos, I should say. You can say, "Well this is the tech I use," and you send them there.

And that's when they can buy your stuff, and you'll get a commission. And it's a nice commission, where there's expensive products. But like I said, that model, if they go and pick up some supplies for their pet, you're going to get paid for that as well. So that is the number one easiest way to get started. And the second easiest way is the software that you use, you know? Is it Adobe, is it websites, hosting, or anything like that, especially people in this tech space. Go to the bottom of the footer and sign up to a program, and it's just the gear you use. That's the easiest way to get started. So I'll leave it there, Chris. I'm not sure if you want to pry into that further.

Chris:

So essentially what you're doing is you're saying people who are curious about the equipment that you're using, this is going to happen naturally anyways because these are questions we get asked all the time. "What's the lens, what's the setup, what computer, what phone are you using?" And so if you just go through one essentially, or maybe two extra steps of signing up for each product or software that you use as an affiliate marketer, you then generate a link that then tracks it for you, and it does it automatically. And then every single month or whatever, you get paid a certain amount of money. Am I understanding it correctly Jacob?

Jacob:

Yes, yes. So the next step from that would be, how do you actually get more people to that page? So, how do you market your resources page, your affiliate page? So think about your email newsletter, you could have a link in the bottom of your footer, you could have it in your email signature, you could have it on all of your YouTube videos in the comments and descriptions. You could have it on your Instagram link and bio link. So the more places it is, the more eyeballs go there and the more chance that you'll get commissions. So that's how the model works, and you can do this at scale with SEO as well, and that's what our platform is based around, is very SEO-driven.

Chris:

Tell me what that means. What is SEO-driven?

Jacob:

SEO, so search engine optimization. So this is where the scale happens, how you actually... That's what we've been doing the past three years, is just exponentially growing the amount of key articles that are ranking. So, how do you get found in search, in Google mostly? And it is about optimizing your keywords and your pages to be found more easily. I'm not sure if you want to go down this route, but that's the next level when it comes to affiliates.

Chris:

Well, I'm curious about it. Because okay, so if I create a page and it's just Chris' camera gear, and I list a bunch of things, and they're all affiliate marketing links. I make a few sales, I might make 50 bucks, I may make 200, $300, who knows. If you really want to scale and make more money, then you're going to have to find a way that people who are looking for this can find you other than the people who already know who you are.

Jacob:

Yes, so people that are actively looking are the ones that are going to buy in general. So if people for example type in, "Best camera for podcasting," you will want to be found higher up in Google. So they go to that page, and then they can buy the product. So that's where SEO comes into play, and that's when the scale happens. So, absolutely.

Chris:

Okay. We don't need to go into like a super-heavy SEO discussion. We'll park that for now, unless you think it's necessary to talk about right here. What do you think?

Jacob:

I think SEO is also another topic that people are scared of, right? Affiliate marketing, they don't understand it, they don't do it, they think it's too much effort. But the effort pays off in the long-term, once you set it up it's there, right? And the same with SEO. A little bit more technical, but 80% of SEO is the basics, right? So I will talk about the basics. The page title, so every single website has a page title, and that's where you're going to want your keywords. So, let's use that example again. Best cameras for designers, right? And that's the keyword. So in the page title that is what we'll use, the keyword, best cameras for designers. That's the most essential thing that you want to go for, that is the keyword, we're going after one keyword.

And that's the simplest thing you need to understand. So page title, that's... You can set a page title in every single website, and depending on the platform you use, WordPress or whatever, every single website has a page title. They also have headlines, so H1, H2, H3. Basically that's the hierarchy of the information on the page, and you want to make sure that your keyword is in those headlines as well as your description and your body copy. So it's really, really simple if you think about it. Put the keyword in the headline, put the keyword in the page title, and in the body copy. So that's the bare basics. What is difficult about SEO is making your site seem as a authority for Google, right? How to be seen as an authority. Without getting too much into it, it's about how many people are linking to your site and how authoritative those sites are.

So if you got a link from let's say New York Times and a link from a café on the store down the road, which one has more authority? So you want to get as many links back from authority sites to your sites, so Google thinks you're an authority. And it is more technical than that, but basically that's the second thing you need. So, quality content with keywords, and the next thing is links back to your site. So that's at a very high level how SEO works. I won't go into any more, I have tons of resources on SEO on my site and all for free if people are wanting to learn more.

Chris:

What if you're a smaller creator, you can't get those high-quality back links and you've optimized your SEO? Is there anything else we can do to get our site to rank higher?

Jacob:

Yes, so long-tail keywords. So this is just more keywords in the phrase. So if you're trying to go after a phrase that there's a lot of competition, you're likely not going to rank. So if you add some more keywords to it, you're more likely to be able to rank for it. As an example, let's say it's brand agency Sydney, right? There may be some competition for brand agency Sydney. However, if you were in the suburbs, let's say brand agency Turramurra, so this is a suburb in Australia, we have some weird names here, you're more likely to be found. However, the search volume will be much less. So it's about finding this balance between search volume and keyword difficulty, so they're the phrases that we use in the industry. It's like, how difficult is that keyword phrase? So it's about finding if there's people actually searching for that, and how difficult that keyword is. Find that sweet spot.

Chris:

Okay. I understand search volume, that's just volume of people looking for this phrase in particular.

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

Keyword difficulty, it's difficulty in terms of like how competitive it is?

Jacob:

Yes, yes.

Chris:

Okay. So you would like high search volume, low keyword difficulty?

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

Ideally?

Jacob:

Yep. And that is different for every person's website, because if you have more authority you can rank higher for more difficult keywords.

Chris:

You mean if I rank high for other words, then my likelihood of getting other difficult words is easier, or is that something different than what you just said?

Jacob:

If you're an authority in a niche, let's say our site, which is graphic design, creativity and tech, and we have articles on that, we're going to more naturally rank for those sort of articles. Whereas if I spoke about pet food supplies, Google doesn't see our site as an authority on that subject. So it's a little bit different, it's about what Google sees you as an authority for, and how many links are coming back to your site, and how well you optimize your content for ranking.

Chris:

Okay, makes sense. All right, where else did we go with this rabbit hole?

Jacob:

So affiliate marketing, and I want to get back to it, because SEO is like how you scale. But for people to get started with the affiliate marketing, I think understanding Amazon, number one, and how you can implement it into your business. The resources page is one aspect of it, and add in your link in many other places is the second. Another one that is very easy to do is to refer things to your clients, right? The products that you use, or services that you use, using affiliate links. As an example, websites, a lot of people have been doing websites, or using stock. So if you're referring clients to like a stock website, let's say Shutterstock or Adobe, you can give them a link where they go and buy a product.

So you're already monetizing something you're using every day, so that's a really great way to integrate it into your business and get some passive income going. Because you're just leaving money on the table otherwise, you're already using these services, so why not just give them a separate link? And once you've set up the link, you can continue to do this for years. And it's so natural, it's so easy once it's set up.

Chris:

Makes perfect sense. I want to tell you I'm a little guilty of this, because sometimes like, "Uh, I don't want to go on Amazon," right, "And find the product." I just tell them the name of the book or whatever it is I'm referring, because I don't think it's going to go anywhere. But then I forget, whatever they buy the rest of that period in their shopping moment, you're going to get the credit for. So a little item, it's a $10 item, can actually pay you a lot more depending on how much shopping they actually do.

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly. And you know Amazon, they recommend things very well, because-

Chris:

They do.

Jacob:

Yeah. Another thing people can do is collaborate with others. For example, the future, I collaborate with you, you have an affiliate program, and it's very much in line with that audience. You can work with other course creatives or other creatives out there to promote their course or their product. I have literally no products, and we're making bank just referring other people. Because it's this whole different model based on SEO, but it's affiliate marketing. As soon as you bring your own products in, you have other problems to deal with right? Customer service, and e-commerce, and all of that. So yeah, it's like, who could you work with, who else could you promote, who else could you collaborate with?

So what I've done is also brought in people who have that amazing products, and we talk about that product. So they have templates for designers for example, or an extension for Adobe Illustrator, and we showcase that. So it's more about sharing a product that's really high-quality and is going to resonate with your audience. Another model that you can use to promote other people's products.

Chris:

Yeah. I know we have an affiliate marketing program, just like you say. People apply, the team decides who they want to give one to, if they're credible, if they like them, because we don't also want to just give it to random people we don't know, like or trust. And then I didn't know you were an affiliate market for us until we bumped into each other and you were like, "Oh yeah, I'm with you guys." I'm like, "Oh."

Jacob:

Yeah, I was sending you thousands Chris.

Chris:

This is great, keep sending it. It works out for both of us. I assume that we sent some of it back to you?

Jacob:

Yes, you did, yes.

Chris:

Great.

Jacob:

That's how it works.

Chris:

I have a question for you that I noticed the other day, I was searching for a specific tool or resource, and I came upon this site that lists a top 10, and these are very search-friendly ways of organizing your page, right? The 10 best-

Jacob:

Yep.

Chris:

... apps to do captioning. So, here's what I found quite interesting. What popped up high in the search result, I go to that page, I look at it, "Okay, it's content." So it means that you could probably do a better job and supplant that person that's there. But the one thing that this person did was, they put their own product in their own top 10 list. How do you feel about that?

Jacob:

I think it's brilliant, I do the same thing. So top 10 branding podcasts is an example, right? I list all the branding podcasts out there, put number one as our own platform. It's a marketing tactic, and I'm all for that. As long as you believe that you're a good product, I think it's great. And there's also a gray area with other products. So that's why you have to be skeptical of these listicles, because the number one product is generally the one that pays the most. So I'm guilty of that as well, but I will never recommend something that I wouldn't use myself. So there has to be some ethics behind it as well. But yeah, I think SEO in general is a marketing tool, and it's just how you use that tool.

Chris:

Okay. So now you have a healthier perspective on how this stuff is done, and now you're like, "Oh, that's why that is, that's why they put themselves number one." Or, "Oh, maybe number one is the one that just gives them the most money."

Jacob:

Yep. No, it's exactly that. And you know, I've got clients from being on that number one spot, branding podcast, they click on it, they just want to learn more about branding. And then they listen to it, and then they contact you. So, it's a tool.

Chris:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

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Chris:

Welcome back to our conversation. So where else do we go from here?

Jacob:

We can talk about scaling, right? Through-

Chris:

Yeah.

Jacob:

... diving into how we've actually built out a team and the mechanics of that, and working with providers that have high commissions I think is more the future of where you could go with affiliate marketing if you actually put some effort into it. Like a few years ago, as I mentioned, about three years ago, I was noticing a pattern of these listicle articles. So this is where the secret sauce was, it was like as you noticed, people type in simple phrases. "What's the best of this," right? So, what's the best laptop for graphic design, what's the best monitor, what's the best camera? People want to know this information, and they go to Google to find it. And these are people that are actively looking for products.

So it is a really great way to scale. So we've done that at scale, and how we did that was provide a format for writers to use. You know, headline, intro, overview, and then they'd go and do the research on these products. And we used that model, and we gave it to multiple different writers, and we did this in different verticals. So if you've got videography, or let's say logo design, or identity, there's so many different ways where you can focus in the beginning, especially starting out. And I'm about to do this, start again, create a new site where we can just start from the beginning and see just as a trial, to see where things go. Starting from the beginning, see how possible it is. Because we have a lot of experience, a lot of SEO juice, starting this back in 2007 so we can do it easily.

But how can we actually create something from nothing, to create a new, niche topic website, and scale it from there. So we're going to use this model of the format in, hiring writers, giving them instruction on how to actually do that, and then posting it, and hopefully getting more links to our site. And that's I guess the next level, if you will.

Chris:

So you're going to create another blog site on a different subject that you can then repeat this entire process in?

Jacob:

Yeah, because now we have the system and what works. It's like, is this possible to do? Can we compete with low-keyword sites? So every keyword has a ranking out of 100, right? And you can find a sweet spot for your particular website. So for our site, it has a domain authority of 76 out of 100. Just to give you context, like New York Times would be about 100 out of 100, or Google would be 100 out of 100. We're about 76 [inaudible 00:33:01], so not too bad. We can rank for a keyword between 0 to 60 out of 100. But when you're a new site, you can only rank from 0 to 30. So in the beginning we're going to see if we can rank for keywords between 0 and 30, and scale up for those longer-tail keywords.

And that means we're going to get links back to our website from other sites, and then slowly grow. So this will be a bit of an experiment to see how we can actually use this model that's working for a high-profile site, but go for low-difficulty keywords. So that's kind of where we're going next.

Chris:

And will you then cross-reference each other, your blogs? Is that what you're talking about?

Jacob:

Most likely, most likely, yeah, yep.

Chris:

So you can borrow a little bit from the authority of one-

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

... and give the new one some juice and-

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

... back and forth it goes?

Jacob:

Yes, yep, yeah.

Chris:

Okay. Is this how you doubled the size of your company, do you think?

Jacob:

I'm not sure, that's what we're going to experiment with. It's just, can this model be replicated, you know? How can we take-

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Jacob:

... the affiliate model, listicles, and compete with certain keywords?

Chris:

And is your service business to help other people do the same thing, or is it something more than [inaudible 00:34:17]-

Jacob:

So I have no masterclass, or cohort, or anything on this topic. I just love sharing and educating people on this, and everything I have on my side is free, right? I don't sell anything, everything's free. How I do make money is from the referral model, and it seems to be working, so...

Chris:

Okay. Earlier you talked about how you're going all-in on this, putting the pedal to the metal as they say. And in order to be able to do this work and not be doing it yourself, how were you able to scale this idea that you have beyond you?

Jacob:

Yes. So in the beginning I was writing all the articles, so best monitors for designers, and I was monetizing that way. And then I'm like, "Well, I have actually people pitching me, saying, 'I want to share my products on your site.'" And then I was like, "Well, I don't have time for this." So I looked for writers on platforms like Upwork, and I think I just used Upwork actually, and onlinejobs.ph is a Filipino website where you can hire all sorts of talent. So those are two sites that I used to find talent, and then I found... A link-building agency contacted me, and they gave me a pitch, a presentation. And I don't usually accept pitches or calls, but they did a brilliant job in their email and it was very personalized.

So they said that they could grow my site with link-building, they showed me how in this presentation. I was like, "Oh my God." And then they identified many other problem areas on my site, like low page speed, poor theme, and un-optimized ads. And they got my attention, so this particular agency identified my weak spots, and then I ended up hiring them to redo my site, optimize the speed. And then they also helped with link-building as well, and they also had a content team. So suddenly I had this new resource that has really helped grow my business, then I had a couple of writers that I found from Upwork and OnlineJobs.ph So then I joined forces, and that is when this hiring and the scaling happened.

Because now I had a faster website, the ads were optimized. So Google Ads, and we haven't really talked about that either. And yeah, the team was growing. And because things were working, like, "Okay, well let's add another member to the team, let's do some more." And then we talked about strategy, and we hired some more. So it was just understanding what worked, diving into the data, and doubling down on the things that were working, and getting rid of the fat.

Chris:

Do you mind sharing how much money you spent, and if they were able to achieve the results, and how far... I mean, if they achieved it, how far... Did they exceed your expectations?

Jacob:

Yeah. So I'll give you some examples of costs for writers. I have writers that will do an article from $10 to $200, so if you get someone in let's say Pakistan or India, obviously it's going to be a little bit cheaper. And it also depends on the quality of the writer as well, just like anything. If you go for someone in the States for example and they have a very niche understanding of a topic, let's say NFTs or Web3, they're going to charge a premium. So my general sweet spot of cost is in between say 50 to $100 for an article, from about 2,000 words. So this is another thing I haven't really spoke about, but a lot of people don't like writing, and it takes up too much time. So they can outsource this for quite an affordable rate.

Chris:

Yeah, okay. So who determines then the topics for each one of the articles? So now we have an army of writers ready to go. Who gives them [inaudible 00:38:14]. That's what you do?

Jacob:

Yes, so that's what I do. So, that's the strategy portion. And I'm now training the team on how to do research, and they're actually doing this well now. So, how do you actually analyze other websites and keywords, and rank them based on the sweet spot of keyword difficulty and search volume? So what's really interesting is, we sometimes went for really high-difficult keywords, and people like Best Buy, Walmart, all the big boxes. And we compete with them on some keywords, which is amazing. So it's not always black and white, whereas this no go, if you have quality content, and people enjoy it, and they buy, then Google sees that as a really quality article and they'll put that up high. So that's, yeah, just a side note.

Chris:

So you have an idea for an article, you're like, "This is going to be hot." And you put the team on it, and they write it. Have you had duds before, or sleepers that you thought, "Ah, I don't know-"

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

"... if that's going to go anywhere," and then it winds up getting a ton of traffic? Share with us some of those ideas or moments.

Jacob:

Yeah, so you never know what's going to rank, you don't. That's why it's an experimentation. And one minute you're number one, you've got a feature snippet, and the money's rolling in. The next day, you're not on Google's page anymore. So it changes all the time, you have to... It's the game, right? And how it works is if you're updating your articles, and someone else brings out a new article, and suddenly Google's trying to figure out which one's better, you'll compete, right? So it's this constant game, and it's about improving your articles, and learning from what Google is doing. So it is a game, and there are tools to actually analyze these keywords. So Ahrefs is one I use, SEO Moz is another one, to analyze different websites, competitors, keywords, and keeping track of all of that.

Chris:

So, which one did you think was going to be hot and turned out not to be, and which one did you think was like a dud but wound up being a star?

Jacob:

Because we're doing it at scale, let's say we're doing best fonts for designers, or best serif fonts, best sans, serif fonts. There's like all these different keywords you can go after, and sometimes they'll rank, right? They'll rank off the bat, and as soon as you click publish, the next day they'll be like number one because Google's trying to figure out if it's good content or not. And then it'll just vanish, like, "Nope." Okay, that was a dud. But you don't get rid of it, you try again. You can add some more content, or you add some more keywords to it. So I never say it's like a finished, dud product, it just needs improvement. And some things will rank better than others, more naturally based on the authority of your site and what you're seen as an authority.

You know, we're doubling down on fonts right now, and it's going really, really well. So all of our font articles are ranking really high, and it converts so well because everyone loves fonts, it seems. In terms of duds though, there's dozens of them. Like tech articles, we tried the gaming industry, didn't work out. So our site's not known as for gaming, and it's a competitive industry, so that was a big dud. A new one we tried was NFTs and Web3, have recently got into that, and that blew up. So now we're competing with like NFT websites, even though we're not like an NFT site, we are competing quite well.

Chris:

So you never know, you've just got to try-

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Chris:

... make some adjustments. And you're saying it's a fickle place because articles, and Google's always replacing things with theoretically better results right?

Jacob:

Yes, exactly. And it's probably the same with YouTube, I'm not so informed with YouTube search algorithms and so forth, and I know you're heavily into that. So what have you been seeing in terms of YouTube's algorithm, and your thumbnails, and your titles and so forth? Do you handle any of that?

Chris:

Yeah, yeah. We're no geniuses when it comes to getting high click through rate, like say a MrBeast or Veritasium. These guys are able to make these thumbnails that everybody wants to see, and titles that are very interesting, they figured that part out. But we have found that if we produce a good, meaty, long-format piece of content, it will not take off right away, they're just slow burners. And then eventually get to 200,000 views, then it'll be a million views, and it generally will stay in the top 10 for as long as I can check it. So somebody's going to have to do something much, much better and more charismatic, or do something, new insights, and maybe they don't feel like they want to anymore.

Because oftentimes our strategy is we look up the keywords, we look at the amount of search volume, and we look at how much competition there is. And if it's stacked it's like, "I really don't want to swim in there, it's too crowded. I want to find a different topic that I could speak about that has less competition obviously, but has high search volume."

Jacob:

Yeah, yeah. It's the game. When you said top 10, what did you mean by that? Is it your top 10 or...

Chris:

Google's top 10, or YouTube's top 10. If you were to search, and hopefully it'll work for you, if you were to type in branding or typography or something, you'll see us in the top 10.

Jacob:

Oh, okay, like as a channel?

Chris:

Just the video itself will appear, yeah, as you're searching for videos.

Jacob:

Well how do you actually go about keyword researching then for like a YouTube video?

Chris:

You can use tools like TubeBuddy, and you can type in your title, and it will tell you with the meter like hot, or cold, or hot meaning be careful, green is like really good, right? Red is too super competitive, it's bloody. It's not to say that you don't want to do it, but just letting you know you want to find like... Just like you, high search volume, low competition, that's the name of the game.

Jacob:

Mm-hmm, yeah. That's the challenge, right?

Chris:

Yeah.

Jacob:

But then if you do create something really great, right?

Chris:

Yeah.

Jacob:

And gets into that top 10, that's what you want to go for.

Chris:

It's the juice.

Jacob:

It's the juice.

Chris:

You've got to go for it, yeah. You know, you don't want to win at something that nobody's looking for, that's no good. So what we've learned is, when you use terminology that common people don't use, you're probably not going to do well. You need to learn to phrase your title, your keywords in ways that normal people who don't know what the answer's going to be might not even know how to phrase the question.

Jacob:

Exactly.

Chris:

If you can predict that then you're going to do well.

Jacob:

Yeah. But on the other side of it, if you go after long-tail keywords, just low volume, and you do this at a mass scale, which is what we're doing, that's another tactic, right? If you just go after phrases that people... There's not much volume, but yeah, there's a lot of opportunity because there's no competition. So that, if there's no competition, the longevity of that article and how you monetize it, that's where the sweet spot is as well, that's what we're finding. So there's no competition if you can do it at scale, and you have that system, it's very lucrative.

Chris:

Let me ask you for your professional opinion here. You said that the search results get replaced and updated all the time at Google, one day you're number one and one day you're not even on the list anymore. Do you find that Google's way of ranking is fairly egalitarian, like the best articles or the best videos do wind up being at the top?

Jacob:

They've got some pretty smart people working there, so I'd assume so. I rarely find a number one spot that doesn't answer my question.

Chris:

Yeah, same. I guess they would not be the number one search engine if they started to mess around with that, right?

Jacob:

Case in point, case in point.

Chris:

Yeah. Let me ask you this other question. I won't tell you what I do, but I just want to ask you how you feel about it and whether or not you practice this or not. Let's say you're thinking about another article, and you go and search, and you find the number one-ranked article. And you look at it and you're like, "That's all right, I think I could do much better." Do you use that as a foundation and then say, "I'm going to do that, but I'm going to do it better"?

Jacob:

I'm not doing the writing these days, but we definitely do refer people to... You can type in a keyword and it'll give you the top 10 results, so you can look at those 10 results and then analyze them and create something better with more keywords in them. So there's all these different tools that will suggest keyword phrases based on the volume that are actually coming through in real-world time, that you can use in adding to your article.

Chris:

Okay, so you would consider searching and looking at what's ranking as foundational, as part of the research process, to know what's been done?

Jacob:

Oh, 100%. I would not do it without it, yeah, 100%.

Chris:

Yeah. I think some creatives get all bent out of shape over that kind of stuff, like, "Well, you're going to be heavily influenced, you should just create work in like a box," you know?

Jacob:

Yeah. I was actually at a video conference last night with some videographers and we were having this conversation about like the research that we do. And some were like, "No, you should research so you can get influence from it." But other people were like, "No, you're going to get influence, and it come across as like copying." So it's like, how I see it as, what keyword phrases are they using, and why are they in the number one spot? Like, you can learn a lot from that, just using the subheaders and so forth, and the keywords and the content. And that can help inform your structure and add keywords to your articles. But how you actually elevate and outrank those people is by improving it, and getting more keywords in there, and actually answering people's questions, and providing more value ultimately. So, that's what it comes down to.

Chris:

Okay. Now, I happen to know the answer to this question, but I imagine someone listening to this podcast and saying, "Well, it all sounds fine, but really what are you making in terms of like the percentage of a couple of sales?" Can we talk numbers a little bit?

Jacob:

Yeah, let's do it.

Chris:

Okay, so at the end of the-

Jacob:

We should have done this at the start, so we kept more people interested. Because that's why we're doing it, right? And-

Chris:

Yeah.

Jacob:

... you can make some good cash from this.

Chris:

Well, let's say that a full calendar year, say from January of this year to December, what do you project in terms of revenue? And then maybe you can talk about profit too.

Jacob:

Mm-hmm. I'm going to talk about Black Friday, because we've just had Black Friday in November. So this is our record month for November, and we've just crossed the six figure marks on affiliate marketing alone, right? We're-

Chris:

Wow.

Jacob:

... referring other people's products. So, that's incredible. I would never have thought that two years ago, it just blows my mind thinking about that. And that's all passive and profit, right? So that's taking out all expenses, writers and everything. So it definitely can be lucrative if you're doing it at scale. I know this is the whole system, it's the whole business, but I don't want people to lose sight of affiliate marketing and just starting. That's really why I want to talk to you, Chris, and your audience, is to get people started in affiliate marketing, and understand what it is, how to implement it, and how easy it is. So what we talked about, get inside it with Amazon and those platforms, that's what you have to do to get started.

Once you set it up, you have some momentum, and that's when you can start adding more to it over time. But if you don't have it then, if you don't start, then you're just not going to do it, it's not going to happen. So anyone listening, I'd really encourage you just to set up an Amazon account, associate's account, sorry, so you can get started. And then you can scale, right? So that's where we're at now, and we're scaling with hundreds of different partners. So talking about the finances, some of our top partners are Adobe, Envato Elements, so this is all in the creative industry. Envato Elements is a crazy good deal, so any creative here that hasn't used it, that's a great person to work with.

Skillshare is another one, Canva even, Design Cuts is another one. So these are some of my top partners. But then there's all these little ones, right? So they're probably my top 80%, but the other 20% are really interesting. They're little oil wells like we've planted that there's no competition, and over time we've just posted one article, it's stayed there for years, and it's just pumping out money right? It's just little ones. But if you keep doing it it really does add up, and that's how we've been able to grow. Like I said before, throughout seven years we were just making chump change because we didn't really understand it, we didn't know how to do it at scale, but we've learned from that. So yeah, hopefully that gives some insight.

Chris:

Yeah, you must be getting excited because you're hitting your microphone a lot now, tapping it.

Jacob:

Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry.

Chris:

Yeah, "Now we're making money, it's great," and just knocking the microphone over. Okay.

Jacob:

Sorry, guys.

Chris:

I want to talk about something here. Now, you're saying for the period of Black Friday, which is... Is it technically from Friday to Monday, or is it a little bit more? But it's a matter of just a few days, right?

Jacob:

I would say probably two weeks, right? So you have, people start their sales early, I know you guys probably a couple of weeks earlier, so it's other two-week period, yeah.

Chris:

Okay. So for about two weeks you generated an additional six figures in affiliate marketing referral fees?

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

And presumably the article's already written in the past, it's not like you're writing them just that day?

Jacob:

Yes.

Chris:

So that's why you're saying this is like pure profit, it didn't require extra effort?

Jacob:

Oh, it definitely did require some extra effort. So I had email campaigns working with different partners, so exclusive deals through my email newsletter list. But these were all things I've done in the past, so recapitalize them from last year, reused some updated links and so forth. So it was kind of like exclusive deals that were really, really good deals, right? Like 50, 60% off. So it's like a no-brainer not to buy them if you're even thinking about it. So that sort of thing was really lucrative, and also this year Amazon pretty much doubled commissions over this period, and even after December, so it's really awesome for top providers, and Adobe as well. So these are my two top providers, and they're doubling...

Well, not doubling but close to it, commissions, over this period. So it's really a good time to promote if you put your effort in, November-December. It kind of balances out in January when everyone's off a bit, but yeah.

Chris:

Right, okay. Well, I want to say this because we have people who listen to our content from all over the world, and in some parts of the world making $12,000 a year is a lot of money, and can help to provide for you and your family, and in some places it's $24,000 a year, and that's what an attorney might make that had went to and paid for a lot of schooling, and spent a lot of time learning what it is that they do. So for me, I want to encourage people who are in the creative service space, if you design a logo, you build websites, you write copy for marketing campaigns, to develop some form of passive income, as Jacob mentioned before, there's many different ways that you can make passive income, but the one we're talking about today is affiliate marketing.

It sounds like really low-hanging fruit. If you naturally use something that you love and would recommend, and you already do today, why not build out a little bit of a page, learn a little bit about SEO, and follow best practices? Just low-hanging fruit, and put up the links, and let that start churning for you. Maybe you're planting a tree, not drilling an oil well, but it'll bear fruit for you. Maybe not today, but down the line if you keep doing this. Because could you imagine, for many of you, that if... And you can look at it one way or the other. Like if you just got a bonus check for $30,000 at the end of the year from yourself, what that would do for you and your loved ones if you had an emergency, if you had a giant plumbing problem, this would make a lot of that stress go away.

What you're doing really is you're trading on the trust that you've built up, and you're saying, "I personally endorse these things, I like these things," because you should not recommend things you don't like or use. This is kind of critical, right? Because you can do more harm to your reputation to your brand than good in terms of you just trying to get some money. What I find fascinating is, in this world right now we don't trust advertisers anymore, we don't trust that the brands are real. So what we do is we validate and we cross-reference, we put their name in Google, and we look at things like these blogs, these reviews, listicles, and we see what people are saying. And if it's consistent across multiple touch points, we can then assume hopefully it's not all highest-paid affiliate marketing.

But that there is some journalistic, what do we call that, integrity, some journalistic integrity there that we can trust, and then we'll buy, and this is why advertisers and marketers like affiliate marketing. Because someone else is endorsing it, so you don't have to take our word for it, you could take their word for it. Anything you want to add to that, Jacob?

Jacob:

No, no. I'd love to give a challenge to people just to make this actionable, because-

Chris:

Let's do it.

Jacob:

... if there's a challenge, then you can actually earn something from it. So create the Amazon associate's account, think of a product you really, really love, and share it on your biggest platform, right? Tell people why you love this product. Maybe it's a book, everyone has a book. You're making your first cents or dollars from that recommendation. As long as it's coming from a trusted place and you have an audience, you'll make a sale, and you'll get a taste of it, and then you can do that at scale right? So that's the challenge, set up an account, an Amazon associate's account, and share one product that you love with your audience.

Chris:

By the end of this year, just do it.

Jacob:

Yes, good, yes.

Chris:

By the end of this year, put a timeline on it. Now as you can see, you have some stuff behind you. I have lots of things behind me, like I have a lot of books, and I do like to read books, and I recommend books all the time. What I don't do all the time, Jacob, is I don't add the affiliate marketing link, which I already have, because I have an Amazon associate's thing. So maybe you're challenging me to, I need to do it and we'll see what happens.

Jacob:

Yeah, who knows? I do encourage it, totally. You are doing it on the future, I see it in the YouTube comments and so forth.

Chris:

Yes.

Jacob:

So you're definitely doing it, and that's where you're getting most eyeballs, so it makes sense to do it there. It's a little bit more less passive when you have to manually do it each time, like sharing a post, so it's not as scalable that way. However, you never know what people will buy. And most people will be interested in tech gear like you're using now, so there's some change there for sure.

Chris:

Yeah. I have something set up through, I think it's called Kit.co?

Jacob:

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

Chris:

Which is pretty easy to set up, and it's visual, like it's the exact product. It seems to be really built for people in our industry. But I'm not actively promoting that, that's in my bio link somewhere, but it's not like on a webpage where I document it and talk about all the things I use. That would probably be a lot more effective, right?

Jacob:

Yeah, absolutely. So the more places you can promote it, the more eyeballs you get, and the more chances you have, for sure.

Chris:

Right. And so if you're thinking about longevity, I think what I'm hearing from you Jacob is, eventually you need to get this onto your blog page because it's searchable, it's not ephemeral, like say on social media, those things disappear. It can be very difficult to search once the post gets stale. And if you really want to do passive income, you really do need to find a home for it. And you probably want to put the effort and energy into it, so that people can get value from reading what it is that you have to say, and perhaps you can teach them something. And then by the way, here are all the products. I do need to say this I believe, when you do an affiliate marketing you should disclose that this is an affiliate marketing link.

Jacob:

Yep. Sometimes it's a bit harder to say it in every single post, but we have it on our website at the top of every single page that it is affiliate.

Chris:

Right.

Jacob:

So it is, and by Amazon's guidelines you have to, especially on YouTube, you have to disclose an Amazon link. And you type in the link, and then you put in brackets Amazon. So, that's the correct way to do it for Amazon links.

Chris:

I see. Yeah, we don't want to run afoul of the law, and then damage our partnerships with these companies, yeah.

Jacob:

I have done that. So Amazon has a weird... You can't share directly in a newsletter to an Amazon page, so I got picked up on that a couple of times for putting it in my newsletter. So you have to link to another page, like a page on your own website, and then it goes to theirs.

Chris:

I wonder why that is. Is there anything else that we need to talk about?

Jacob:

I think we've covered a lot. We definitely went a bit deeper in terms of the SEO and the advanced side of it. I just wanted to bring it back, and to get started with an account, and get a resources page up, and get those low-hanging fruits when it comes to working with your clients or people close to you, recommending products that you love and use every single day, that's the lowest-hanging fruit. And you can get started with that so easily, and implement that into your business very easily. So, make sure you do that, and accept our challenge, and share something that you love with an Amazon link. I'm not associated with Amazon, it's just the easiest way to get started.

Chris:

I imagine this podcast is going to rank really well for the word Amazon affiliate, so we'll see what happens there. Well, I'm going to say this. I know you weren't directly challenging me, but challenge accepted, I'm going to do it, I'll let you know how it goes. Now, before I ask you for your references and your links, let me ask this other question for our audience. Let's say somebody's like, "Oh my God," they pulled over on the side of the road, they're like, "This is freaking great, I need to do this." What are additional resources, not your own, like books, or articles, or courses that they can get into so that they can learn more about this?

Jacob:

Yep. So there's a couple of topics, right? We've talked about affiliate marketing, we've talked about passive income, and SEO. So, SEO, the number one tool I use is Ahrefs, A-H-R-E-F-S. It is a paid tool, but it allows you to analyze websites, and find out keyword difficulties, and understand how you can rank for your own website. And this is something that my business has been built on, SEO, search engine optimization. And that's how I find clients, it's how I get traffic to the site, and everything. So it is a really worthwhile tool to learn, SEO. Because it's organic, people are actively searching, and you get off the hamster wheel of social media marketing. Because you post something on Instagram, it's gone in a few days, right?

Search is there for pretty much ever, right? It's evergreen content, and you get found organically, it's not paid. Like, why wouldn't you do that? It's just a no-brainer for me, but I'm a little bit biased. But it's organic, right? So that's the number one tool I'd use to learn more about SEO. They have courses and everything, and a tool, and so forth. Affiliate marketing, Pat Flynn has an amazing course on affiliate marketing. Pat Flynn is another big person in this space with passive income and blogging. There's a lot out there. I don't want to refer to my site, but we do literally have everything on blogging, SEO and all on there, all for free as well. I don't have courses, I have no cohorts, I'm not selling you anything, it's all for free, so it's there to be used.

Chris:

Now, if somebody's curious about finding out more about you, where's the best place for them to go to find some of these resources?

Jacob:

Yes, so justcreative.com is where you'll find everything, all my socials, Just Creative as well. Mainly on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, where you'll find me. We do have something called the Branding Briefcase, which is a free download, it's a bundle of design, business and design resources all in one bundle for free, which you can download. You'll see it pop up on your screen in exchange for an email address, love to have you on my email so you can keep in contact, and get all those free resources and so forth. So, thank you.

Chris:

Perfect. Jacob, it was a pleasure talking to you. Thanks for sharing so openly, and I hope our listeners get a lot of value from this. But if you do nothing else, at least try this one thing, right? Just a quick recap, create an Amazon affiliate account, which will take you just a few minutes to do because most of us are on Amazon already, it's not that far away from that. And then to share the challenge, let's make it super simple. Share a book that you love, and then include the affiliate link wherever you post and create content. It could be anywhere, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, just share it somewhere and see what happens. Thanks for coming on.

Jacob:

Thank you Chris, cheers. My name is Jacob Cass, and you're listening to The Futur.

Greg:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app, and get a new, insightful episode from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do, and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode, and thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by rating and reviewing our show on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me? Head over to the futur.com/heychris and ask away. We read every submission, and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com.

You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.