This post may contain affiliate links.

Well, this week, I haven’t done what I said I was going to do at the end of last week’s post. However, I do feel that I have made some progress. I have caught up with five recorded sessions in the Beginners Advantage coaching program that I am in. Week 23 was a Q and A session in which I had submitted my first question ever. I went into more detail about it in a previous blog post that you can read here.
More Q And A
Weeks 24 and 25 were also Q and A sessions. Week 25 concluded with a talk about the importance of setting goals. Short term goals to be more precise. Sure, all of us have the ultimate goal of wanting to make more money; that’s why we’re doing this after all. But, in order to get there, we have to set ourselves short term goals that are not necessarily money related.
Consider Your Goals
Sure, you could say, my goal for this coming month is to make my first dollar. But how are you going to do that? Your goal could be wanting to add ten people to your email list or making and publishing five videos on TikTok in the next week. If you are embarking on the Facebook Lead Ad journey, your goal could be to research and set up your first ad and create an email sequence in the next month. You could further break that down into weekly, more manageable goals.
Where’s My Question?
About three weeks ago, I submitted another question that would have been addressed in the following week’s Beginners Advantage coaching session, but I wasn’t able to sit in on the live broadcast. Consequently, I lost track of the week it would have been addressed in (old age catching up with me). So, now I’m trying to catch up with the sessions so that I can see the answer. However, I have been doing some digging myself in addition to catching up.
What’s My Question?
The question was regarding “monetisation”. In the coaching, a couple of the week’s topics mentioned this subject and I was eagerly awaiting instructions on how to add links to offers in my blog posts and website. After six months, I still don’t have any of these; not that I have many subscribers on my email list to offer them to anyway. So, I listened to the sessions and no such instructions were forthcoming. I was wondering if I’d missed something along the way. I knew it had something to do with affiliate links but I only had a vague idea of what they were and how they work. The search and waiting continues.
Getting to grips with Social Selling
Week 26 was on the subject of Social Selling. There are two types: –
- Outbound – this is where you reach out to people to engage them in a conversation that can potentially lead to a sale. For instance, you have a TikTok account where you have been posting videos. Someone watches your videos and follows you. You can connect with that person through the direct message facility and having established a rapport with them and determined that they are following you for the right reason, i.e. affiliate marketing, you could eventually send them a link to an offer but only if it’s appropriate.
- Inbound – this is similar in some ways to the outbound method except that people reach out to you. Using the same scenario as above, the person having watched the video, leaves a comment or uses the direct message facility to contact you asking for more information. This could be as a result of you putting a Call To Action in the video, e.g. “leave a comment or DM me to learn more”. Again, you have the chance to establish a rapport and ultimately make the offer, if applicable.
But Wait, There’s More
Following on from this, Dean showed us where we could find more instructional videos on how to use direct messaging for outbound and inbound social selling. These are to be found in the Internet Profits Hub that we have access to, as part of our subscription to the Internet Profits Accelerator program. The one of particular relevance is entitled the FB Messenger Free Traffic Course, although the principles could easily be applied to any social media platform.
Discovering Affiliate Links
It was in here that I discovered a clue to the intriguing world of affiliate links. So, now I have a much clearer idea on how they work.
Essentially, each of the Internet Profits offers or products is accessed through a website address or URL (uniform resource locator). All of us in the Accelerator program have a unique identifier assigned to us. The affiliate link is simply the URL of the offer followed by a forward slash and your unique identifier. As an example, we would include this link in our website or blog embedded in a banner advertising the offer. So, when someone clicks on the banner/URL and hopefully buys the product, the affiliate link associates the sale with you, and you get the commission.
More Useful Links
Furthermore, I discovered a really useful feature in the Back Office section of the Internet Profits Hub. This allows you to create or generate “tracking links” that enable you to identify or track where your sales are coming from. This is done by adding a further extension to the affiliate link following another forward slash.
For example, let’s say my affiliate link for a particular offer is, “https://thisgreatoffer/myuserid”.
I can generate and use a tracking link of say, “https://thisgreatoffer/myuserid/website” to show that the sale was initiated through a link that was added to my website.
I could have another one called, “https://thisgreatoffer/myuserid/email” to track any sales initiated through an email I have sent that included that link.
A great tip, they mentioned, is to save all your affiliate links for any offers/products you intend to promote in a Google or Excel spreadsheet. That way, they are always handy if you ever want to use them.
How Long? Too Long
If your feel that your URLs are getting uncomfortably long, I was also shown how to create short versions of them using a free tool called “bitly”. See app.bitly.com for more details. For example, “https://thisgreatoffer/myuserid/website” could be shortened to “https://bit.ly/ajsite”. There, much nicer!
I think I’m getting close to the week in which I should find my question being addressed. It wasn’t in Week 27; that was another Q and A session, by the way. At this rate I’ll have answered it myself.
Have A Great Week
I’d be delighted if you’d like to leave a comment or let me know if you have any questions or just leave me a “hello”. I hope you enjoyed reading this and it has been helpful. As always, it’s been a pleasure to see you in here.
If you’d like to subscribe to my free newsletter, there’s a link in the side bar (or beneath this if you’re viewing on a mobile) or you can find a link here. (There’s a couple of gifts in it for you!) Who knows, this time next week I may even have something to offer in the side bar.
Until next time.
Take care.
Andy
Hey, Andy! Wow, you’ve been busy! It’s great to hear about your progress, especially catching up on those sessions and submitting your first question. Even if you haven’t completed everything you planned from last week, every step forward is progress, right? Sometimes, it just takes longer than we initially planned. And that’s ok!
I can relate to losing a question during coaching—I’ve done that myself! I hope you come across it this week!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I’m enjoying your journey!
By the way, you can add a clickable banner to your blog by going into appearance and widgets and adding an image with a link to your affiliate product. I hope that helps!
Take care,
Nakina
Thanks for the advice. That’s just what I needed!
Hey Andy,
I got to say yowza, that’s a. lot of video trading you got through! Great job! It sounds like your coming along quite well and learned much of what you needed with affiliate links. It’s okay you didn’t complete all you wanted thos week, the important part is you set goals for what you wanted to do which means you could track it. if you didn’t set those goals you would never know that. You’re doing great Andy, keep it up! Denny
I am about to submit my emails for the facebook lead ads to the Ask Me Anything platform next week. I keep forgetting to use it. Darn!! I feel our BA weekly classes are sufficient but other avenues are available, which I appreciate!
Hi Andy,
It’s fantastic to see your progress, especially with catching up on the coaching sessions and diving into the details of social selling and affiliate links. Your focus on setting short-term goals and understanding how to track and manage affiliate links shows a lot of dedication.
The Bitly tip is indeed a great way to streamline your links and make them more user-friendly. I’m really excited to see how your efforts will pay off and how you’ll continue to build on this momentum.
Keep up the excellent work!
Meredith
That’s a lot of stuff you’ve accomplished. With goals I find that even though I have a number of big goals I know are out there, I need to focus on one or two at a time, or else I’ll get overwhelmed. So I figure out what needs to be done, what short term goal can lead to the long term goals, and if it doesn’t get done I’ll never get to the long term goals. Then I just focus on that, and don’t let myself worry about what else I’m not doing yet.
Andy,
Great job with catching up on the coaching sessions. I am currently at week 25 so have a few to catch up on myself. Thanks for the tips on affiliate links.
Sherri
Hi Andy,
You’ve been the busy bee and that is fantastic!
I’m a bit like you when it comes to the Q&A; I’ve got to get away from that bad habit of not wanting to ask questions and trying to find the answer myself. Sometimes it would even be easier to just ask the question and move on to something else we need to do. (Working on that part as well!).
All the best!
Andy thanks for your insights, I never knew about the back office link generator. I’ll have to look into that as it sounds interesting. How do you see yourself using it?
Hi Ken,
I have set up three links to do with the TIE promotion.
https://rn132.isrefer.com/go/tieoffer/annnn/bsp -For TIE ad in my Blog Side Panel
https://rn132.isrefer.com/go/tieoffer/annnn/ebpn -For TIE ad in my Email Blog Post Notification
https://rn132.isrefer.com/go/tieoffer/annnn/leas -For TIE ad in my FB Lead Ad Email Sequence
I hope this makes sense. Please don’t click on any of them! lol
Hi Andy – Thank you for taking the time to share what you’ve learned. I learned the same thing this week but it was nice to see it from your perspective as I discovered more things from your post. There is so much opportunity in this business and so much to learn and having these resources is very helpful! Thank you!
Andy, it was interesting to read of your discovery of affiliate links and how to make them uniquely identify where they are placed.
Are you aware that instead of using the free “bitly” tool, that you can use a “PrettyLinks” plugin on your blog so that your links use the branding of your blog URL?
Using your examples they would look like
https://ajacobs-affiliates.com/website
and
https://ajacobs-affiliates.com/email
You are coming along with your business and I look forward to your further reports of progress.
Andy, It sounds like you’ve made great strides despite not hitting all your goals this week. Progress is progress, and catching up with those coaching sessions is no small feat. Your focus on short-term goals is spot on, and it’s a solid strategy for long-term success. Keep pushing forward, and I’m sure you’ll get your questions answered and see your efforts pay off. Stay persistent and positive! Thanks, Atif