Scaling to a 7-Figure Sale: Affiliate Marketing Beyond SEO

In 2019, we heard from a couple guys on The Side Hustle Show about their part-time website.

At that time, FinvsFin.com was about a year old, and already doing around $20k a month in revenue.

The primary strategy was to:

write in-depth product reviews and comparison posts
drive traffic from Google
monetize with affiliate partnerships

A few months ago, that business that started as a side hustle sold for a 7-figure sum.

Co-founder Alex Goldberg is here to catch us up on what’s working today in a volatile SEO landscape and how website owners can still position themselves for success while relying less on organic traffic.

Tune in to Episode 617 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

the traffic source that saved Fin vs Fin during SEO volatility
how to de-risk your business from organic traffic dependence
the basics of ads arbitrage for your niche
how to secure profitable partnerships
for the latest about Alex’s new project, check out Paid Media Affiliates.com

Table of Contents show

The 7-Figure Exit Moment

When I asked Alex about the moment that wire hit his account, his response was surprisingly down-to-earth.

“I can say it’s not super life-changing. Maybe if I had a few extra zeros on the end, it would be, but maybe not as well.” Alex says.

He didn’t go out and buy a yacht or a mansion. Instead, he treated himself to a golf lesson and a nice dinner with his wife. It’s almost anticlimactic in a way, because as Alex explained, you’ve been building toward it for months with due diligence and negotiations.

But it’s still an incredible achievement. After all, the website started in 2018, which many would consider late to the game, turned into a 7-figure exit.

Diversifying Traffic Sources Away from SEO

When Alex described his site as being like “a flamingo standing on one leg,” I could relate.

For a lot of content sites, that source is SEO. You work hard to rank for certain keywords, and you’re rewarded with a steady stream of organic traffic. Until you’re not.

All it takes is one algorithm update to knock you down and take a serious chunk out of your revenue. That’s why I loved Alex’s idea of proactively diversifying where your traffic comes from:

Build an email list
Grow a social media following
Invest in paid ads

The first two are all about creating your own audience. Instead of playing the Google game, you’re bringing people into your own ecosystem.

But Alex said this was challenging for Fin vs Fin at first because “health and wellness” as a whole was too broad.

It’s a good litmus test to ask yourself, would someone sign up for an email list about this?

For Fin vs Fin, Alex explained how the topics needed to be more specific. The more niche, the better. Think: hair loss, skincare, sleep optimization, etc.

Since building an audience can be slow-going, especially if you don’t have a super-focused niche, the guys decided to pursue paid ads as another traffic diversification strategy.

With this, you’re not waiting around for Google to rank your content or for people to discover you on social media. You’re taking control of your traffic and scaling up what’s already working.

How the Big Players are Buying Traffic

Hims vs Roman vs Keeps: Which Hair Loss Subscription Works Best? Article — Source: https://finvsfin.com/hims-vs-roman-vs-keeps/

Alex noticed that a lot of the big publishers in his space were playing the paid traffic game.

We’re talking about heavyweights like Forbes, The New York Times, and other major newspapers.

It’s a classic case of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” These big publishers are buying keywords and driving traffic to landing pages, then making money as affiliates. It’s a strategy that’s hiding in plain sight, and one that smaller publishers can learn from.

But there is a restriction. You’re not allowed to bid on drug names like Viagra or Finasteride for hair loss unless you’re a pharmacy.

The other thing to watch out for is bidding on branded terms. Some affiliate programs forbid this in their terms of service.

The fear from the advertiser’s perspective is you’ll drive up their costs and siphon off sales they would have gotten anyway. They don’t want partners competing with them on their own turf.

But Alex explained there are some ways around this. The first is to show the advertiser how your messaging is different and could appeal to a different segment of their customer base.

Think about those “Brand X vs. Brand Y” type keywords. The prospect is clearly in research mode. In a lot of cases, people would rather get an “objective” third-party opinion than hear from the brands themselves.

What is Social Whitelisting?

Source: https://ecommerce.cloudflight.io/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-whitelisting-on-social-media

With social whitelisting, you give your brand partners access to run ads through your own accounts. So the ads look like they’re coming from you, but the partner is actually creating the content and footing the bill.

You can find out which brands are running ads in your niche by scanning the Facebook Ad Library. Just enter your geography and some relevant keywords, and you’ll see all the active campaigns.

Alex suggests approaching brands by positioning it as an experiment. You can say something like, “Would you be willing to spend $2000, $3000 on ads to fund this experiment and see if it works?” As he pointed out, that’s pocket change for many brands.

One caveat: social ads tend to attract a lot of comments, both good and bad. And on your posts, that feedback is going to fall on you. So make sure the brand has a plan to manage these comments.

This strategy is definitely something to consider testing if you’ve got a strong social presence and some brand partners who are hungry for growth.

Landing Pages and Costs Per Click

What does it actually cost to get someone to your affiliate offer? And once they’re there, how do you get them to convert?

First off, forget about your regular content pages. As Alex put it, “Really creating a separate page just for paid that has as few exit ramps as possible, except for to the affiliate partners.” We’re talking stripped-down, focused, and conversion-optimized.

Here’s what that might look like: a top 5 or top 10 list, minimal navigation, and clear calls-to-action.

In terms of numbers, in competitive niches like health and wellness, costs per click can get pretty steep.

Alex was seeing anywhere from $3 to $6 per click, and here’s how Alex made it work: “If you can break even with or you can make the math work out such that you’re breaking even just with that first partner, that means anybody who clicks on position 2 through 5 or 2 through 10 and generate some commission is just profit.”

These numbers will vary depending on your niche. When I started almost 20 years ago, I was getting clicks for around $0.25 cents. The key is to know your numbers inside and out and continuously optimize.

Tech/Tools

At the end of the day, all the negotiation and optimization in the world won’t matter if you don’t know your numbers. And when you’re running paid ads, there are a lot of numbers to keep track of.

For Fin vs Fin, this meant investing in some serious analytics infrastructure. And for that, they relied on a platform called Trackonomics.

I’ve had great success with Affluent myself, and Lasso is another solid option. The key here is to have one central place where you can see all your data.

The beauty of a tool like this is that it gives you a bird’s eye view of your business. You’re not just looking at individual campaigns or partners in isolation—you’re seeing how they all fit together.

Mistakes Along The Way

Alex had partners become upset about the keywords that they were bidding on and basically told him to change their strategy and stop bidding on some keywords.

And in some cases, some will be kind of threatening. But in every case, he’s been able to ask for forgiveness. “It’s immediately paused. Let’s figure out a path forward that works for both.”

What’s Next for Alex?

Alex has a new venture: Paid Media Affiliates.

He’s created an online course that’s all about helping other entrepreneurs and side hustlers tap into the power of paid media for their affiliate businesses. It’s a particularly timely offering, given the current volatility in the SEO landscape.

If you’re intrigued by what we’ve discussed today and want to dive deeper, I’d encourage you to check it out.

Alex is offering to chat with folks about whether this strategy could work for their niche.

Alex’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

2019: “Be extremely persistent.”
2020: “Figure out the first model, then the challenge becomes thinking outside of the box.”
2024: “De-risk as much as possible.”

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