I started actively using Aweber in October 2018, nearly six months ago. During those months, I’ve amassed over 100,000 monthly active subscribers and over 500,000 followers on Twitter. As you’d expect, the quality of my content has dramatically increased – not to mention my income. But… something has changed.
In the past, when I’d make a sale, or receive a new subscriber, I’d immediately log into my Aweber account and mark the occasion.
Now, I hardly do anything – business-wise – on my Aweber account. I’ve deactivated my account, so I don’t spend any time there. The only reason I keep it around is for the testimonials and case studies that I occasionally re-share on my blog. Otherwise, I have no use for it. And that’s just one of the many ways my life has changed since I started using Aweber.
My Subscriber Lifetime Value Has Dropped By Over 40%
As an affiliate marketer, my income depends on my subscribers’ lifetime value. To put it simply, I make more money when a subscriber spends more money over time with my company. This is why my income dramatically drops when a subscriber cancels their account.
In the past, when a subscriber would cancel their account, I’d lose a little income from them in the short term. But in the long term, their value would be more than made up for by the acquisition of new subscribers and the increase in revenue from existing subscribers.
That’s no longer the case. Since October 2018, I’ve lost 24 subscribers who’ve cancelled their accounts, representing a significant drop in my lifetime value. In some cases, I’d invested a lot of time into cultivating a relationship with a subscriber, only to have them disappear without notice. That’s a lot of effort that simply went to waste.
So, if you’re wondering whether or not to invest in a platform like Aweber, consider the fact that your subscribers’ lifetime value might be lower than you think. It’s an important point to make. And it goes to show that the effort you put in building a relationship with a new subscriber might not be worth as much as you’d hoped. You might be better off spending that time with your existing subscribers.
The Quality Of My Content Has Doubled
As I’ve already established, my income largely depends on the quality of my content. More often than not, the higher the quality of my content, the greater my income. This is why I’d encourage you to write more and blog more. Your articles would undoubtedly be better than ever before, and you’d continue to see significant growth.
Since I started using Aweber, the quality of my content has steadily risen, and so has my income. Since then, I’ve published six blog posts and two ebooks, and I’ve launched a podcast. All of this content is easily discovered and consumed on my blog, which currently gets around 30,000 visits per month.
This kind of growth is something to behold. It’s not easy to double your blog’s traffic overnight, but with Aweber, it’s completely possible. The trick is in consistently putting out fresh content that’s both valuable and engaging. This, in turn, will attract and retain higher quality traffic. As the traffic grows, so too does your income.
To back up my claims, take a look at my blog’s metrics. Between October 2018 and September 2019, I had an increase in both pageviews and unique visitors. In the past, I’d occasionally get an increase in pageviews followed by a drop in unique visitors. But since October 2018, this has NEVER happened. My blog is now pulling in around 45,000 pageviews per month, and as a result, my income has tripled. Not bad for a little over a year’s work!
In terms of content, I try to post at least once per week. Sometimes this means I’ll post on a Monday, for example, and then I’ll have a slow week. But even when I don’t post that often, I find that my content still gets found. And that’s because I consistently look for ways to improve my blog’s content and make it more valuable.
A lot of this content is driven by demand. If I see that my audience is actively engaging with my blog posts, or requesting certain products that appear in my articles, then I’ll likely write an ebook or two on the subject. Some of my best-performing blog posts this year have been about the insecurities that we all face as entrepreneurs. Since then, I’ve had a lot of requests for help, and so I’ve decided to create an e-book to help others better understand these issues and how to overcome them.
My Growth Has Mattered
One of the big questions that every affiliate marketer struggles with is whether or not to become a brand. That is, should you try to build a brand for yourself, or should you continue associating yourself with particular products that you promote on social media?
The short answer is both. Your continued growth as a marketer means that you should continue to build a brand for yourself, but at the same time, you should promote products that you believe in and that can potentially help your audience. Since October 2018, I’ve seen a lot of growth as a result of my brand. But without the hundreds of thousands of dollars that I’ve made from promoting products and courses that I believe in, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And that’s a fact.
In my opinion, the biggest misconception about affiliate marketing is that you have to choose between the two. You can and should promote a brand and continue to grow your audience, but at the same time, you should be thinking about establishing yourself as an expert in your industry. This is easier said than done, of course, but it’s an important point to make.
To give you a better idea of how all of this has changed my life, here’s a quick video that outlines everything. Keep in mind that this video was filmed before I canceled my account and, therefore, may contain some out-of-date information.
How Does Aweber Compare To Other MLM Software Platforms?
For a while now, I’ve been an active member of the Multi-Level Marketing community. This is where I’ve seen a lot of growth over the past year and a half. So it’s no wonder that I’ve been attracted to Aweber.
At first, I had high hopes for Aweber. Indeed, the platform does seem to have the potential to dramatically increase my income from a small blog. But after using the product for nearly six months, I’ve found it to be over-hyped. Here’s why.
The UI Is Unreliable And Can Be A Little Bit Clunky
When you launch a new product, especially one that’s as big as Aweber, you can expect there to be some growing pains. These growing pains mostly consist of glitches and unreliable features. To give you an idea of how frustrating this can be, let’s take a look at how the email verification process works on Aweber.
To set up my account, I had to verify my email address. This took several days, and during this time, I could neither confirm nor deny whether or not I’d received emails from Aweber. During this time, I also couldn’t log into the platform, which led me to believe that my data was somehow compromised. This, of course, was a huge source of anxiety.
Thankfully, after several days, my account was finally verified, and I was able to begin using the platform. But here’s the thing: while the whole email verification process was a pain, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected it to be. And it certainly wasn’t near as bad as some other platforms that I’ve tried out. But, as I said, once I got past the initial pain, I found that Aweber’s UI was pretty reliable – as long as you didn’t expect it to be fully functional.
In some ways, the unreliability of the UI is a feature, not a bug. If you’re familiar with the growth of online marketing over the past few years, you’d know that creating an amazing user experience isn’t a strength of modern-day software developers. As a result, most software companies, including Aweber, have focused on creating a solid foundation – one that can handle a high volume of traffic – before they start adding in the user-friendliness.