Am I Camping Out Here or Am I Advertising?

In my continuing new journey in Affiliate Marketing, it was recommended that I place my promotional ads at Online Classified Ad Sites. Many are free to join. Some only required that I register first. Others that I might not visit too often didn't require any form of registration. These would be good, if I wasn't planning to place my ads there too often, which seemed to defeat the purpose of what I was trying to do.

I got very excited when I received a few email responses to my earnestly written ads. The subject lines said things like "I saw your ad!" or "Question about your product?" Well of course, I immediately had to read and respond to those emails, thinking I might soon be making my very first sale.

Only to find out, those emails were from other affiliate marketers, once again promoting something to me. They knew I wouldn't hesitate to open those emails, with their misleading subject lines. They weren't at all interested in what I was trying to promote. It's not nice to get a newbie's hopes up like that, especially when the bill collectors are rapidly gaining on me.

One classified ad site seemed quite extensive. It must have been recommended to me, from one of those links I must have clicked on, from one of those emails I must have read, that I must have gotten from one of the members of one of those safe lists I must have joined. This could be the beginning of the big profitable Affiliate Marketing House that I'm trying to build.

This classified ad site had a number of services available for both their free members and their paying members. Some of these services included an email account, a traffic exchange, the ability to start a blog or web site from that site, and the option of becoming an affiliate member there. This wasn't just about placing some classified ads somewhere. This was much bigger than that. Here was a community where I could learn from others, and share my new and growing knowledge and experiences with many of them.

Shortly after I signed up there, I quickly received over 40 requests to become "online friends" with other members there. I've never made so many friends, so quickly in all of my life. That sure didn't happen for me in high school! At last I had finally achieved that lifelong dream, of quickly becoming popular. I didn't have to do much to achieve that popularity.

It reminded me of campgrounds. Recreational Vehicles, (RV's) all parked in that scenic location. Campers are usually friendly people, as many of these people seemed to be from this site.

So what, if many of the other campers parked at that site, had air conditioning, satellite TV, and screened in porches on their RV's. While I only had an icebox, no fridge, a portable radio, no TV and a fly swatter with my camper, and no screened in porch.

I mean... so what if many of them had already sold 100's of items, had years of experience in Affiliate Marketing and were now enjoying early retirement at their luxurious beach homes, while I hadn't yet sold one item. They still were requesting my online friendship. I was honored. I was grateful to accept those offers of friendship from so many people, who didn't know me at all.

Never mind, that a good majority of the people were once again promoting something to me, in the requests they were sending to me to be my "friend." What else should I have expected from a campground, ...I mean a web site that is a community based classified ad site, of other affiliate marketers and web site owners? I could smell the hamburgers cooking on the barbecues. I could hear the beer caps flying off the bottles. I couldn't wait to join them at the campfire my first night there.

Of course, the Internet definition of "online friends" is rather odd to me to say the least. I found myself wishing that there were other labels available I could've chosen, depending how it fit each individual. Such as "total stranger", "major player", "super salesperson", "practical joker", "evil twin", "outright enemy". At least I could have classified the individuals better, until some of them actually became my new "online friends".

I'm learning how to be more patient, which is not my strongest area to begin with. I'm learning I might have to wait a good amount of time, before I actually see any positive financial results for myself in trying my hand at Affiliate Marketing. I can only hope that when or if I'll ever make any money by doing this, won't end up leading me to bankruptcy in the meantime.

I'm glad I've joined this classified ad and community site. I've found the people there to be very helpful to me, as someone who is very new at trying Affiliate Marketing. Many of them have told me to contact them if I need any help. Others, have voluntarily given me links and pointed me in the right direction, of things they thought I might want to know about, without my even having to ask them about it first. I hope I'll learn more about Affiliate Marketing from the people there. With time, I hope that, we will indeed become good online friends.