Transcript
Joe Troyer: Frankie says, “Joes, what is your thought on passive income sites like affiliate sites? Is that something we should do while building an agency?”
Joe Troyer: That’s a really, really good question, Frankie. Really good question. At the end of the day, I think that really depends upon you. It really all depends on you. But if I were you, I would figure out what my criteria is. If you’re considering it, start shopping. Don’t pull the trigger. It doesn’t mean you got to buy, but start coming up with your criteria.
Joe Troyer: For me, to be honest, me buying a, quote-unquote, “passive income site,” I probably wouldn’t be real attracted to. What I mean by that is I want a site that is diverse, and by being diverse, most likely, it’s not going to be too passive. Can it still be passive? Yes, but for example, I just looked at a niche site, it’s an affiliate site, and was helping a friend do some due diligence on the site. The site is being monetized exclusively through, it’s in one niche. It’s all through SEO. It’s being monetized, the Amazon ads and Google AdSense or an AdSense alternative and a paper lead type of offer. It’s a big national site. It doesn’t rank for local keywords. It ranks for huge, huge fricking keywords, like this thing gets a shitload of traffic.
Joe Troyer: From that point of view, Frankie, that’s like, kind of scares me. It doesn’t make a lot of money per visitor, and it’s reliant on AdSense, which you don’t make a lot of money per visitor, and Amazon, which you don’t make a lot of money per visitor. To scale out of that would be where I’d have to go mentally, like my plan to avoid risk would have to be how do I add on another layer, how do I then build an e-comm product to replace what I’m selling, and then how do I sell direct to a pest control or a couple of pest control companies so that I can make more money, so that I can diversify my risk, and I can spin off another income stream.
Joe Troyer: For me, Frankie, when I look at acquiring something, and I’m looking at that stuff these days, I’m vetting deals all the time, I’m looking at how can I 2X, 3X, 4X the company. If it doesn’t have that capability, I’m on to the next one. To really answer your question again, what’s your thought on passive income affiliate sites, I probably wouldn’t go there because, for me, I want to be able to realistically double, triple that thing in the next 12 or 18 months. That’s going to be really hard to do with a lot of these kind of opportunities that you see that are passive affiliate sites, just in my opinion.
Joe Troyer: One other point I guess that I would add is, Frankie is like, “Can you figure out how to make the two work in tandem so that they work together, so that you borrow leverage from one and to the other?” If you could find a lead gen site that is in the HVAC space, and then you work with HVAC companies, those two things work in tandem. The buyers are the same, the end customer is the same. You’re sharing pixels. You can leverage those two things against each other in a scenario where one plus one won’t equal just two. It’ll equal three. You got leverage. You got some multiplication happening there, if you will.
Joe Troyer: Does that make sense, Frankie? Figure out how you can have a bigger play. Don’t just buy it for the face value of “I’m going to buy this thing, and then in three years, I’m going to be able to pay it off.” Buy it, and figure out how you’re going to spin that thing into doubling, tripling, quadrupling, and you should be because, otherwise, you’re just not buying the right site in my point of view.
