I discovered a couple problems 2 days ago so decided to pause the Facebook/Instagram ad that I’ve been running. Cost per click has been about 15 cents which I think is pretty good, although my cost per person who signs up for a giveaway is probably at least double that, and higher yet (probably close to 50 cents) for every person who joins my Facebook group.
Anyway, I discovered a couple of issues both regarding referrals that are serious enough to pause ads.
The first problem is a delay in assigning an affiliate ID to new subscribers after they sign up for a giveaway. This results in missing information on the page they see immediately after signing up. With no affiliate id assigned, they don’t have a person invite link that they can send anyone or share on Facebook.
So that’s problem 1. The other was that when they are able to share their personal invite link which takes their friend to our giveaway page, the first person’s affiliate id is not being put on the signup form (as a hidden field) so they don’t get credit for the signup.
I have a developer in Bangladesh working on these issues, but he’s been sick so it’s taking longer than I wish to fix.
In addition to him, I also have two other guys, both in India, working on other things. Unfortunately, I’ve had trouble finding one person who can do everything which makes coordination a real headache.
One guy, who knows Google Apps Script, has written a script that populates a Google sheet with a list of people who have signed up for each giveaway and gives extra entries to those who’ve referred other people. The script also helps me select a random winner. I wanted it done this way so people can see the list and watch as I select a winner during a Facebook Live.
The other developer is working on my website to list deals/offers (Groupon for now) on pages sorted properly with filtering options. I’ve also asked him to do the same with prizes. Currently they’re on a page controlled in my HighLevel account, but if I have a lot of prizes, which is my intention, it makes more sense to treat them as a custom post type and publish them on my WordPress site. But I need to use a HighLevel form for the signup – the same form for every prize which makes it complicated. The Bangladesh guy is a javascript expert which is needed in order to get the signup buttons to work properly, but he doesn’t know anything about WordPress, so I’m trying to get him to help my WordPress guy, which has been difficult because he’s been kind of flaky, too.
I think all three of these guys have other jobs that prevent them from spending much time on my stuff. It’s a bit frustrating.
The big question is how long and how much money will I have to spend on advertsing and dev help to begin seeing some income. I owed money to the IRS this year because I had a small gain from the sale of my house (which ironically is the only reason we’re still afloat) so we’re currently sitting with a little over $10k in savings, but draining fast. It’s a race against time. I may very well be forced to get a job to keep things going. Probably the biggest issue is just beliveing I’m on the right path. Self-confidence is a major challenge. I’ve had so many failures in the past that it’s easy to get discouraged, but I’m finally running completely out of resources and time so need to make this work.