Interview With Thor & Gummi

“we received 10 million hits on our website in a single month”

Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you started working in affiliate marketing

To this day we have made millions in sales for the affiliate networks we have worked with.

 

But we’re just two friends who grew up in the same street together in a small country called Iceland.

 

We have had similar interests and hobbies throughout our entire life and have played the same sports together since we were young.

As we grew older and became teenagers we became very active in the gym, and that’s where our internet marketing story begins.

It started in 2012 as a hobby.

 

As a byproduct of our interest in building muscle and spending our day at the gym, we created a Facebook page where we would share all kinds of workout tips and gym memes that we found hilarious.

 

Eventually the group started growing and then growing some more. It became obvious that there were a lot of people on this planet that shared our interest in the gym. Until eventually thousands of people were following our page.

 

That’s when we made our first dollar online.

 

A person contacted our page and asked if we could post a link on our page for $5 (this was back when organic Facebook reach was amazing and Facebook didn’t have a good advertising platform yet), we said yes and created a PayPal account.

It felt amazing to see those $5 in the account.

 

But wait a minute…

 

If someone is willing to pay us for posting something on our page, that probably means it’s worth a lot more than the actual $5, right?

 

At least that’s what we thought to ourselves.

 

So, we immediately started thinking of ways to keep this going.

 

That’s when we started experimenting with creating blogs.

 

We opened our first blog in late 2012, but we didn’t really know what we were doing and eventually we closed it down to open up a new one that had a more marketable name.

 

On that new blog we tried many different things to try and make some money. Including:

  • Placing Google AdSense banner ads on our pages
  • Selling our own t-shirts
  • And of course affiliate marketing.

What we like about affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to worry about all the boring stuff that’s involved with having your own product.

 

We learned from selling our own t-shirts that customer complaints, the shipping stuff, accepting credit card payments, making sure your website converts and dealing with people wanting to return a product takes a lot of effort and hard work.

 

And that’s not why we started doing this.

 

With affiliate marketing you can help good companies make the sale, get a fair commission for your work and that’s it, you’re done. You don’t have to worry about anything else.

 

That was a huge plus for us. We eventually dropped everything else we were doing online, except for the affiliate marketing and became laser focused on growing our sales as affiliates in the fitness niche.

 

With time we became good at it and have been able to create a lifestyle for ourselves that we could not even have dreamed of when we first started.

What traffic sources do you use to promote and which do you find the most effective?

We started in social media, so we’re really good at creating free viral traffic using social media platforms.

 

But we like to diversify.

 

It’s important to have multiple different traffic sources so we use a combination of social media, SEO and email marketing for traffic.

 

That way we’ll always have income even if one traffic source goes down. For example if Google updates their algorithm in a way that hurts our search appearance, we can always rely on getting at least some traffic from our email list instead.

 

Most effective in terms of conversion rate has been search engine traffic. Because then you’re getting super targeted traffic onto your website. People were literally searching for the solution that you then presented them with. As opposed to free social media traffic, which is more of a “spray and pray” tactic.

 

But social media can be super effective as well when done correctly. If you can attract a huge following you can always instantly create massive traffic to new offers and articles, again and again. We can make a large 4 figure in a single day from our social media pages alone just by publishing a new article to our channels, but with that said it has taken us 5 years to create a following that’s capable of creating that kind of a traffic boost.

How important do you feel growing your own brand is in affiliate marketing?

Super important. You have to be more selfish. If your only goal is making a sale for the affiliate network you won’t be able to get repeat visitors and repeat sales as easily.

 

You need to get people on your email list and to like your Facebook page. That way you can increase your conversion rate by following up with visitors that didn’t convert into buyers, or send them new offers and then tell them about new articles you’ve just published and instantly get a massive traffic boost.

 

Plus with time you’ll have a valuable asset that you could sell for a lot of money in case you ever want out of the game.

How long have you been with HN and what attracted you?

We’ve joined in 2015. What attracted us was the support they have, multiple different payout methods to choose from and of course great commission.

How do you choose products to promote?

We only promote products that actually are one of the greatest in a particular niche, have a nice website design to showcase the product and have a nice fair commission.

Are there any websites or social channels in your niche which inspire you?

Well, not sure about that. But we do recommend everything that Russell Brunson has put out. He’s a super smart internet marketer that can teach you a lot of things about selling and making money online. Things that you can easily apply to affiliate marketing. We have one of the best conversion rates on the HN network, partly thanks to his information products.

What has been your biggest success to date?

It’s a lot of small steps and milestones along the way that stand out.

 

For example we’ll always remember the time we made our first $5, then when we made our first $1k, then $50k.

They’re all equally memorable.

 

The time we received 10 million hits on our website in a single month is and was a big success as well.

What motivates you to keep working month after month?

One of the downsides of being your own boss is that there’s no one around to tell you what to do and to hold you accountable. That can be a huge challenge but with the years we have created good habits that help keep us on track.

 

We both have a very strict morning routine to help with that.

 

As soon as you wake up, have had your coffee and listened to an audio book related to sales, money or mindset you must write down your top 10 goals in life and business. Every. Single. Day. No questions asked.

 

You must ask yourself what it is that you really want. It can be financial freedom for you or your family. Something materialistic like a fancy car or your own apartment. Or maybe you want to travel the world. Whatever it is you must remind yourself every day of your “why”.

 

That way you always stay focused and motivated.

 

For further reading of this I recommend you to read (or read again) a book called Think and Grow Rich.

If you could share one lesson you’ve learned or tip with other affiliates what would it be?

Be more selfish. Promote your own brand and get people on your email list and get people to your Facebook group. In the long term you’ll have a much more valuable and profitable website.

 

You’ll have a brand that you could possibly sell for a large fee. You can build up authority in your niche, and being an authority website could easily double or triple your conversion rates.

 

Plus by owning (at least a portion of) your traffic you’ll always be safe and able to get traffic and make sales. You don’t want to be on the mercy of search engines alone.

 

Bottom line: Always re-invest a portion of your income in building your brand and growing your list.

What are your goals and what do you plan to do to reach them?

Double our sales with HN.
 

By focusing more on getting more organic SEO traffic and growing our email list.


Good luck to you!


Thor & Gummi

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