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This is the most detailed and insightful review of www.STMforum.com, the Stack That Money premium forum, on the internet with a review from the past at the end to compare how far it has come in 12 years! It represents the most popular paid membership community of super affiliates featuring members like Charles Ngo, David Atias, Taiwo Balogun, Matuloo, Manu Cinca, John Crestani, Ian Fernando, Zack Franklin, Oded Gendler, Eric Gyepes, Mitesh Muley, Kulwant Nagi, Andrew Payne, Servando Silva, FbQueen, and many more.
This highly detailed and granular honest review includes screenshots from inside the members-only area to show you what goes on there. You’ll see the current stats, information about top sections, and what kind of information you can find within.
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As I begin to write this, it just hit me that I’ve been a paid member of the Stack That Money forum, better known as STM Forum, since January 13th, 2014! Time truly flies when you’re having fun and making money online!
It’s been 9 years since I’ve happily called this forum my hangout, my home away from home in cyberspace. Here I’ve met a lot of amazing people that I can truly connect with. You won’t stumble upon clueless people and answer their ’What do you do?’ with an ’Oh, I’m a web designer’. It’s a rehearsed line that I always have to say in real life since no one in Hungary understands what the word affiliate marketing means and what an affiliate marketer actually does.
Thanks to STM, I’ve met my first-ever JV Partner, with whom we generated over 3 million USD in profit from CPI App Installs. It’s also the place where I met some incredible Nutra affiliates, with whom I have masterminded and made another successful million-dollar-running skin and diet trial in European geos in 2015/2016.
They say connections are everything, and it’s one of the ‘hidden privileges“ members of STM enjoy – they get to connect, mastermind, and share failures and successes with other people who are in the trenches with them. I am living proof that having a network to bounce ideas off of can lead to loads of success.
Another reason why being part of STM is such a massive advantage is the community. And who are the key elements in this community? The moderators! My favorites are vortex (Amy), matuloo, and stickupkid (he shares valuable information). Here’s why they are highly respected:
1) They are always online (do they even sleep?)
2) They are very kind and cool people that can introduce you to numerous important contacts. These can help you get exclusive deals and offers, meet new potential partners to do joint ventures with, and much more!
3) They hold your hand! So, if you’re just getting started in affiliate marketing, the moderators on STM will take time to explain in detail what you can do next, where you messed up, what you should try, etc.
Joining the STM forum is a HUGE and WAY BETTER deal for you if you’re trying to break into the industry, while on a budget. For example, if you were to buy any course for $500, $997, $1497, $5000, or even $14,000, the creator of the course wouldn’t be holding your hand despite the high price tag. Sure, they would educate you on certain concepts, but you’re on your own after that. However, on STM, you pay a low monthly price of $99 and get UNLIMITED 1-on-1 time with the most experienced affiliate marketers. On top of that, the mods are here to help you every single time!
At the time of my writing this review of the STM Forum, there are 50,587 threads, 423,675 posts, and 23,065 members in total. The most users ever online simultaneously was 1,159, which is insane since the affiliate marketing community is quite small. During the day, there are always a bunch of people online ensuring that whenever you have questions, they’ll be answered quicker than you can blink!
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Site Navigation
As soon as you’re signed into the members-only area, the site will take you to a page with your membership information, including direct access to the FORUM and HELP & SUPPORT.
After entering the forum for the first time as a proud STM member, you’ll see the main menu bar with sections like the Member Area, AW Conferences, Training Videos, Exclusive Discounts, and various other resources and tools. In the top right corner, you’ll find the settings, mailbox, and profile buttons (with the log-out option).
Right below the main menu bar, you’ll see a quick access bar that you can use to browse the newest posts, the newest threads, and many other useful things related to the community and your personal account. The main forum page displays the Top 10 stats table, showing the latest posts, the top posters/top thanked, and the latest members. Of course, you can modify this table to see more data like most viewed threads or top thread starters. You can easily do this by opening the drop-down menu.
Scroll down some more and you’ll uncover all the forum’s sections, where the magic happens! The site is adaptive and user-friendly, meaning it can be used easily both on mobile and desktop.
You’ve also got the option to reply quickly or in detail where you can add emojis, links, images, and all the good stuff you’ll typically find on a forum. Furthermore, you can embed YouTube videos if you wish. That’s something I often do to show something I can’t easily explain in words.
The Content
Now you’re probably wondering – what the heck’s on the other side of STM? What do people discuss there? What kind of information and golden nuggets can you find? What specific info is going to make you money?
Well, the STM’s content is geared toward newbies and advanced affiliates alike. It’s a literal digital affiliate marketing encyclopedia that gets updated daily! There’s currently a total of 16 sections on STM, with a ton of subsections.
To make it easier to review this incredible amount of information in ONE reading, I’ll give you the down low on what you can find within each section and why it’s worth accessing. Let’s jump right into it!
New Members Area
A newly added section that helps new members get familiar with the way things work here, as well as gives them a chance to introduce themselves to the community and start making connections. This is where you get to share your experiences, skills, and your life goals!
New members will find all the important onboarding rules and guidelines right here, with easy step by-step-instructions to get you set up as fast as possible. You’ll find how-to guides tackling the most common subjects, like the fundamental skills required to launch your first campaign, the concept of affiliate marketing, and more. If you have any questions regarding the forum, look no further than this section!
Concerned about how to begin making connections? What should your first post look like? Worried about first impressions? There’s a full guide on that!
Don’t know which sections to prioritize and not get caught up in hundreds of daily posts? Don’t know how to use the Forum’s tools either? There’s a complete to-the-point walkthrough for all this, too! It’s all a quick read!
News and Information
This section is home to announcements and up-to-date information about the affiliate marketing industry. Here you’ll find weekly news updates recapping the latest developments on STM, important changes from traffic sources, new products, services, cool trends, and much more.
You can also catch up on the latest news in the industry by hopping over to AW Conferences (Affiliate World Conferences) in the navigation menu, the #1 affiliate marketing conference in the world. Here you can learn about the speakers at future conferences and secure ticket deals and discounts.
If that doesn’t satisfy your appetite for all things affiliate marketing, there’s more! You’ll find awesome iStack training live event replays and lessons, job opportunities from AffJobs, discussions about networking events in your area or near you, as well as special deals and discounts exclusive to STM Members.
The Best of STM
The very existence of this section should be enough to convince you that STM is a genuine treasure trove of affiliate marketing hacks and secrets. As you can imagine, you’ll find the greatest and most relevant threads right here! They’re even neatly divided into 2 subcategories: Best Recent Threads (those no older than 6-12 months) and Best Evergreen Threads (the best threads ever, dating back to the birth of STM).
So, if you’re ever wondering what’s the best STM can offer me, there’s a section for that! Of course, if you’re looking for some info you could use to your advantage right away, the content within Best Recent Threads should be more applicable. Though, keep in mind that things have a way of changing in a matter of months in the world of affiliate marketing.
Success, Wins, Achievements
If you are looking to get inspired, be sure to check out Success Stories! This section features true tales of other STM members who joined as newbies and struck gold. Here are some post titles (they are unbelievable but true):
- zero to 20k/day within 3 months of starting affiliate marketing
- Journey to $682,816 in 2021
- $6,200 in one day
- $22k Day
- New High Score – 1155% ROI & 15k profit days
- $1,200 in a Day With Maxbounty – Anyone Else Earning With Maxbounty in 2022?
- A $2000 Revenue Day
There are also success stories that tug at your heartstrings. For example, I read one about a young guy who was married with two children. They used to be really poor, and he would work two different jobs just to make ends meet. Fast forward to today and he’s making $1000 daily, working part-time, and spending the rest of the day with his family! There’s another guy who started working in affiliate marketing not too long ago. His luck turned impressively quick and he just announced that he bought his dream car!
There are over 220 more success stories to keep you motivated and reassured that YES, it is possible to make an insane amount of money with affiliate marketing. The stories confirm that NO, it’s not a false assumption, it’s not MLM, and it’s not a scam (God, I can’t stand all those naysayers and non-believers).
Storytime! I won an STM Award a few years ago for My Ultimate Spying Guide and an iPad that my 3-year-old daughter uses to this day. Unfortunately, in this section, you won’t find any mention of these awards. However, it does offer a great place to discuss your goals, post about your milestones, and share some of your past or active winning campaigns.
If you need a motivation boost, I highly recommend diving into the Revenue Milestones subsection. You’ll discover raw experiences and real testimonials of people who are successfully profiting off of affiliate marketing, thanks to the knowledge they’ve accumulated on STM.
I can’t stress this enough; it’s not fake news, as Donald Trump would say; there aren’t deceitful video testimonials from Fiverr that cost a measly $5 bucks. These are 100% honest reviews that encourage you to keep going during rough times when you’re losing money testing new things (or buying data, as they say).
After all, there’s no room for lying on a platform full of newcomers and experts all in the business of learning and growing professionally together.
Networking Hub
The Networking Hub section is all about, you guessed it, networking! In this corner of the platform, you get the rare opportunity to interact with other members from beginner to expert level! You’ll find mastermind invites on different traffic sources for newbies and seasoned professionals.
Are you understaffed? Did you know you can look for employees right here? Just post a job ad in the subsection Outsourcing and Employment. Chances are you’re much more likely to find a great potential employee in the STM community, than anywhere else.
There’s even a subsection with virtual live events or better yet invites to live Zoom calls hosted by Amy (vortex), where you can enjoy the company of your fellow STM members while you all work on your projects.
Some of the subsections are devoted to exchanging information on upcoming networking events. Interested in meetups between STM members? You can take a look at the Other Events and Networking subsection, where people like to arrange get-togethers around major events and conferences. You can host one, too!
STM Treasure Chest
Want to see what the leaders of affiliate marketing have to say at important world events? Want a quick recap of past international conferences? From Ad World to Ecom World to Creator Conf, members can watch all the conference speeches one by one. Happy binging!
But it’s not all talks and takeaways! If you ever need help with a landing page ASAP, there’s a subsection with free landers and other lander-related threads. Moreover, this chest wouldn’t be complete without some exciting additional discounts and bonuses on tools and traffic only available to STM members.
Vendors
This is your go-to section if you’re interested in mingling with other product owners, learning how to make your offers/products, or simply looking for direct advertisers to work with to skip the middle man, aka the network.
The subsection STM Marketplace is, as the title suggests, a marketplace for buyers and sellers to exchange business. Here you’ll see offers and discounts on various services, tools, software, websites, and more. Buyers are free to post about services they need, inviting providers of such services to contact them. Ain’t it neat?
Within these walls, you can find exclusive CPA offers from the networks, deals on things like programming, design, virtual assistants, and many other services affiliates need to launch their campaigns. Also, there are great deals on trackers, spy tools, and many others.
I personally use and recommend MagicAdz for Facebook spying. You can sign up here for a trial. Moreover, I recommend AdPlexity for mobile and native traffic – you can sign up right here.
Under the Vendors section, you can buy and sell accounts to different traffic sources, get new partners for Joint Ventures (JV’s), where you do all the work and the other person pays for the traffic (or vice versa) or agree on some special setup via STM-members-only chat or Skype.
As you can see, there are sufficient well-organized vendor-related subsections for newcomers and seasoned members alike, inviting you to join the interaction between successful buyers and sellers. Looking for specific affiliate offers? STM invites you to share what kind of offer you seek and wait for responses to come flooding in!
Have an exclusive offer or traffic opportunity you’d like to promote? Head on to Exclusive Offer Opportunities. And if you’re just browsing for direct advertisers, there’s a subsection for that, too!
The Newbie Zone
THIS IS THE #1 PLACE TO START FOR NEWBIES!
The intro area is the place to start by introducing yourself when you join, and by checking out the intros of other newly joined members. Who knows? You might meet someone on day 1 who you can chat with on Skype and further your knowledge on affiliate marketing together, all while discussing your dream car and what’s better – Las Vegas or Thailand.
The second place to go is the subsection Traffic Source Guides. This is where experts share their insights on the best practices for running campaigns and structuring them for different traffic sources.
No two traffic sources are the same, so these insights are precious information for anyone trying to make it in affiliate marketing. In fact, the secret to most expert affiliates’ success is mastering each traffic source and learning what makes it tick.
In this subsection, you’ll find the must-read step-by-step guide called Vortex’s 40-Day Pop Tutorial. It’s a super detailed tutorial on how to get started when you have ZERO experience and start making money in affiliate marketing.
The section also includes numerous useful guides that can help answer a lot of questions about everything needed to get started with affiliate marketing.
Moreover, The Newbie Zone features a sub-section called Other Newbie-Friendly Tutorials, that offers instructions explaining everything in a newbie-friendly way. They’re accompanied by screenshots and videos showing you how to do all the little details that go into running a profitable ad campaign and buying media.
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General
This section has almost 50,000 posts on its own, so it’s a big one. The place I like to hang out the most is called the Affiliate Marketing Forum section, as it’s got all the best discussions on more advanced topics. For example, there are technical guides to cloakers, trackers, different spying guides, tools, and many other useful things for those more advanced in this area. This is where you can learn how to do crazy stuff, like clickjacking, content locking, high CTR image tricks, optimization techniques, scaling methods, and much more.
Are you competitive? Go over to Affiliate Contests and compete for cash bonuses, giveaways, and other prizes!
In the General section, you’ll also find Masterminds. I used this section a lot to join tons of awesome Skype groups and Telegram masterminds, where people talk live about strategies for FB Ads, Google Ads, Native, Pops, and PUSH.
Traffic Sources
First off, this part of the forum’s dashboard is huge! You’ll see that traffic sources are divided into two sections, FREE TRAFFIC SOURCES and PAID TRAFFIC SOURCES. If you’re looking to increase traffic to your offer, you can check out these sections and see posts, questions, tips, and guides related to your traffic source. For example, if you’re an advertiser on Facebook, you can get real-time help from other people and read about the best ways to get the cheapest clicks and highest CTR to increase your profits!
The Free Traffic Sources section features discussions on organic content marketing, tips, and tricks on how to boost organic traffic for different platforms. If you’re into SEO, there’s a whole subsection with loads of case studies, tutorials, and tips! You can even get feedback from other fellow members on how your active campaigns are doing.
Paid Traffic Sources is all about learning and finding new ways to boost paid traffic for your chosen platform. This section is devoted to different paid traffic sources (TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.), eCommerce in general (drop-shipping, etc.), and native traffic sources covering Taboola, Outbrain, RevContent, to name a few. I published a ton of their tracking tokens on my blog (if you are interested, look them up or check out my favorite tracker REDTRACK, whichhas most of them built in already).
There’s also a section on EMAIL. I met a really successful mailer in this section who makes over a million dollars each year sending emails. Crazy!
Then there are search traffic subjects, mobile traffic, video ads, Pay Per Call, and Display, like Google Adwords, Bing, Search, and many others. Frankly, there are too many to list! ?
Technical & Creative Skills
As a proud TECH NERD, this section speaks to me! I like to attribute my success to my creativity and tech-savviness. There are always a million ideas popping up in my head (of course, most are bad but there are always some killer ones). STM has a section devoted to creativity and technical skills, which are paramount to success in the media buying world for an affiliate marketer working off performance.
Here you will find the Tracking Campaigns section which has a wealth of knowledge covering everything from setting up various trackers to adding new offers and traffic sources to setting up special redirect paths. Tracking is vital for campaign success! And STM has guides on everything from P202 to the big boys, like Binom, Thrive, Voluum, and my personal favorite and the one my team’s using – RedTrack.
Indeed, campaign tracking is the lifeblood of successful affiliate marketing. You need to know where every click comes from, how they got converted, and all that jazz. Furthermore, you need to know which one of your banners brought you the most sales, which angle was the top converter, which device (used by website visitors) brought you the most conversions, and the list goes on.
Truly, there is an infinite amount of things you can track. But without a tracker, you can’t compete against affiliate marketing experts and their super teams. Luckily for you, STM has you covered, providing guides on all kinds of state-of-the-art trackers you can easily use to learn and implement your tracking systems.
Next, there’s an entire section devoted to Programming, Servers & Scripts. In affiliate marketing, we use a bunch of killer scripts to boost our profits, including BackButton Script, pop-under, pop-over, and special opt-in scripts to get people to register for our lists and whatnot every time. We also require a variety of powerful web hosting solutions, including dedicated servers and shared hosting with unique IP addresses.
Did you know you can use GeoIP to target a web user’s city, state, or country? That’s something you’ll learn how to do right here, on STM! What about tricks to automate deploying tons of servers to host unique landing pages all over the cloud? Yup, STM has a guide for that, too.
Did you know that page load time can directly affect your Google ranking? Well, you’ll learn that it also impacts CVR (conversion rate), so the slower the page, the fewer conversions. That’s why STM even has a guide on how to optimize for A,A,A performance!
Obviously, there’s even more groundbreaking content on STM ranging from A to Z! But to get to them, you’ll just have to look them up for yourself! It’s a good thing they offer a 3-day money-back guarantee in case the STM experience just isn’t for you. But it will be, trust me!
If you hop over to the section Design -Imagery, Banners & Landers, you’ll find step-by-step guides for design tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, Muse, and more. Find out how to create high CTR banners, how to optimize landing pages using A/B tests to learn what lander type earns you the most conversions, etc.
Since we’re on the topic of landers, a company called Banners & Landers creates landing pages, WordPress sites, and creatives for a bargain!
Copywriting, Conversion & Psychology – here’s another favorite section of mine on the StackThatMoney premium forum. Why do I like it so much, you ask? Because ANGLES and COPYWRITING are the key elements to long-term success in this business! Of course, you can just rip and run content you find using spy tools like Facebook Creative Library or AdPlexity and call it a day. However, copy-pasted creatives and landing pages will never perform as well as original ones made from scratch.
So, this section can help you learn about the underlying psychology and give advice on how to write high-converting advertorials and ad creative texts that get great click-through rates!
Extras
This is the section where all the subjects that don’t fit into other categories find their place. Put simply, it’s a cozy and more relaxed area. First off, the Off-Topic subsection is filled with random discussions from how to overcome a lack of motivation to what everyone’s favorite steak restaurant is to arranging meetups in real life!
People exchange tips on how to be more productive in the Managing Work, Life & Money subsection. My good pal Charles Ngo is the king of productivity tips and many of his secrets are shared right here on STM, in this particular section. Other than that, people discuss financial topics, like investments and taxes, help each other out, and share thoughts and ideas.
For example, if you live outside of your home country, and are having trouble setting up a merchant account for your online drop shipping business, you’ll find the solution here! Or you might be making $30,000 a month and really don’t want to spend half of your cash on taxes. Well, you don’t need to, because STM is full of multi-millionaires sharing the best methods they use to minimize taxes and keep as much money as possible.
STM Members are travelers, hence the Travel subsection. They work on laptops while at the beach or a mountain resort. Sound appealing? You can do it too with a little help from STM! People are sharing some amazing travel hacks on there, showing you how to get the cheapest airfare deals and which places are worth visiting as an internet marketer.
You’ll discover all the must-see landmarks and the things you shouldn’t miss out on in different destinations. Some guys even talk about all the ladies they’ve met, their personal experiences, and impressive travel stories.
They remind me of Gerard Dela Porta, famous for his Mr. Romance persona, who’s charmed 18-year-old beauties all across Thailand!
If you’re not into the ladies of the night, no worries! There’s a bunch of successful ‘family’ affiliates active on STM, and every day more and more are joining the ranks as the community grows. You’ll find loads of helpful tips on what to do at conferences, what to bring along with you, how to talk to CPA network representatives, how to network, and so on.
Of course, health is of massive importance, especially if you’re chained to a desk and staring at your computer for multiple hours a day. In line with that, there are some great nuggets of wisdom in the Fitness & Health subsection, tackling what to eat, when to eat, diet plans, work-out-routine advice for affiliates – recommended exercises, what not to do at hotel gyms, etc.
STM is home to the most famous affiliate marketer and health and fitness buff, FitAffiliate, Andrew. This guy amazes me whenever I chat with him. He’s a seriously smart fella and a true super affiliate! If you’re for inspiration and a guide on balancing successful work life and a healthy lifestyle, you can check out his blog here!
But that’s not all there is to it! If your business is still feeling the after-effects of Covid-19 and need some advice, or you’re simply curious about the latest related news, you’re free to check out the Covid-19 Think Tank subsection.
If you’re a crypto enthusiast, STM’s got just the place for you! The subsection Cryptocurrency & NFTs is perfect for people interested in or serious about investing their affiliate marketing profits into crypto risk.
STM has been around for years, so it’s going to have some ’outdated’ posts, but those have been neatly organized under the subsection Archived threads. After all, many of them could still hold some valuable information for us!
Localized Discussions
STM strives to be a welcoming platform to affiliate marketers from all over the world. As such, it now supports and offers discussion in various languages, including French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and more! I won’t dive deeper into what these sections have to offer, as I don’t speak those languages.
However, the biggest benefit here is that you can meet people that speak your language whatever it may be. Here are some of the subsections included in the localized STM forum: STM en Français, STM in het Nederlands, STM auf Deutsch, STM in Italiano, STM en Español, etc.
Old But Still EPIC
STM is an enduring and widely respected forum, having influenced thousands for over a decade. However, the platform didn’t always have so many members and threads. I mean, zero is where everything starts, and you gradually build it up from there.
The credit for the STM forum’s many achievements should be given to its cofounders, Lorenzo Green, aka Mr. Green, StackMan (Jordan), and Besmir Bregasi. These guys used to run a lot of campaigns and submit an endless amount of case studies, tips, and tricks.
Be sure to check out their posts here, as they are the crème de la crème of this community. Mr. Green for one has built a multi-million mansion in New Zealand, all paid for by affiliate commissions! Nothing tops learning directly from guys who made it in their life running camps, right?
My favorite supermod, the legendary Caurmen who recently passed away wrote some of the most detailed guides that helped plenty of people earn millions of dollars online. Many of his posts have now been moved into this section and labeled as old information, but they’re still worth reading.
The systems and strategies he described aren’t that different from those used today. Only the policies that limit what you can and cannot do on traffic sources have changed in 2022.
Luckily, STM is always at the forefront of what’s happening right now! It’s all thanks to their hard-working moderators, like Matuloo and Amy aka Vortex, who continue to share the latest information via case studies and how-to guides that can be useful today. You’ll see some of their earliest posts here, as well. They’re old, but gold!
Apart from this, STM members are free to travel back in time and see earlier Facebook And Ecommerce Live Event Replays, as well as replays of speeches from the 2019 Affiliate World Asia conference.
Help & Support
It’s a formality, a section every serious platform needs to have on offer. Help & Support is by far the least exciting section, where you can enquire about invoices or fix account-related issues, like not being able to log into STM, having trouble accessing the account, etc.
This is the place you visit to solve administrative issues, like changing your username, and other problems related to STM membership. Nonetheless, it’s a vital source of dull yet valuable information.
Pricing
STM Forum is competitively priced at $99 per MONTH, which is a steal if you think about how much value you get out of it.
Let me elaborate on that. If you were to purchase a course, which usually discusses a single method used to do one thing, you would pay at least $500 for it.
If you’re looking to hire an expert like me to work 1 on 1 with you via Skype, I would charge you $2000 per hour since it’s not worth my time otherwise.
On STM, after becoming a member, you’ll obtain access to a platform managed by not one, but over a dozen full-time moderators! All of them are tasked with helping you and ‘holding your hand’ through your journey.
It doesn’t matter what your personal story is; whether you’re a newbie looking to quit your 9-5 job and become a full-time affiliate marketer; or whether you’re a family man tired of working two jobs to keep your family afloat and looking for a fresh start in a place where you can make millions. Maybe you’re interested in learning how to promote physical products and services or you want to cash in on dating campaigns, sweepstakes, or even health and fitness-related offers. You can do it all with STM’s assistance!
STM’s moderators treat everyone with an equal amount of respect, offering assistance and suggestions to all, and even following up with you to see how you’re doing. All this for a measly $99 a month.
People that can’t afford $99 a month shouldn’t even consider starting an affiliate marketing business. Additionally, a successful affiliate marketer needs tools, a developer, and a designer on hand. In case you work alone and don’t have additional support from such people, you need to be a jack of all trades. With that in mind, $99 a month is an incredibly low price to pay for the amount of knowledge you can acquire.
Not only will you get access to full-time hand-holding, but you will also be able to learn and receive help from other affiliate marketers, people who recently got started just like you, people that have been at it for a while, or the super affiliates like myself (iAmAttila), Charles Ngo, John Crestani, Eric Gyepes, and many other active members of the STM community.
In sum, here are the pros and cons of having an STM membership:
Pros
- A wealth of knowledge
- The biggest super affiliates in the world use STM
- You can network with people who understand what you do
- Obtain access to hand-holding and other such support to help you find profitable solutions
- Insane value for $99 per month
- Exclusive members-only discounts to conferences, SaaS tools, services, and more
Cons
- Not meant for people who are looking for a ’push button’ way to make heaps of money
Conclusion
Based on my personal experience, let me summarize why STM is actually worth way more than $99 per month.
I joined STM in January of 2014 and have been a member for 9 years now, as well as one of the happiest members. I speak candidly when I say that STM has allowed me to meet extraordinary people and grow as an affiliate marketer. The learning curve is INTENSE when you join. It feels like your brain is being upgraded with fresh new data you never knew existed at lightning speed, just like in the movie Johnny Mnemonic.
I thank STM every day for my success in making over 7 million dollars online ever since I started my affiliate marketing business, and for the connections and knowledge gained from the forum and its wonderful members. How did I manage to build an empire, you ask?
Well, while I was running CPI installs years ago, I met a guy who told me that I could run app installs on Google uncloaked. This encouraged me to fearlessly test a bunch of angles until I found high-converting ones. In line with that, I was also able to contact the Clean Master offer owner directly, as I had met them through a PM on STM, and get a higher payout vs running it through a network.
>> Click here to Join STM <<
After that came the Nutra phase, wherein first we promoted trial offers with JumbleBerry and then with C2M, both of which I had met and heard about on STM. Iwas able to connect with the right contacts from the right networks, get approved instantly since they knew me from STM (skipping the phone interview and other bureaucracies), and got the best offers right away that were not public on the networks. Thus, I managed to spend $5-6 per CPA and get paid $36 in return, which is an incredibly high ROI if you do the math.
Today, my full focus is on PUSH, which I first heard about from MR PAYNE, a legendary and terribly intelligent moderator on STM. This guy was running PUSH seemingly from the day Google Chrome enabled it. What’s more, he created his own traffic source, which gave him access to free traffic.
His tips helped me get a head start before everyone else started hearing about Push and all the big networks, like MegaPush, RichPush, and ZeroPark.PUSH started advertising its own push traffic source offers. Indeed, being an STM member gave me a huge advantage. Without it, I would’ve learned about push much later like everyone else. And as we all know, more competition equals a lower profit margin, which makes things harder.
If you want to be ahead of your competition and be part of a continuously growing and evolving community, staying on top of current affiliate marketing trends, and sharing how to make money in 2023, join STM FORUM! I guarantee you will not regret it! Become one of us!
>> Click here to become a STM Member <<
STM FORUM Review circa 2017
Short Review:
STM or StackThatMoney is a premium (paid) affiliate marketing forum that was started by Stackman, Lorenzo Green and Besmir in 2011. Over the years, it has evolved and today is one of the top affiliate marketing forums where super stars and well known internet marketers hang out. There are countless guides, tricks and tips being shared every single day by people that don’t work 9-5, instead they live the dream most people dream of, travel, and work from their laptops earning $XXXX to $XXXXX profits per day for real.
The content is geared towards newbies and advanced affiliates alike and has a little bit of everything, it doesn’t matter if you are interested in learning how to promote physical products, services, or want to get in on running dating campaigns, sweepstakes, or even health and fitness related offers. At $99 per month, this is THE first investment you should make if you are seriously thinking about quitting your job and working for yourself; there’s so much gold that you will feel like brain is going to explode, but the second you start implementing what you learn here, will be the moment you will be well on your way to success.
>>Click here to get your password to the members area!
Introduction
I heard about StackThatMoney from a friend many years ago, I started out in paid media buying on IMGRIND which is now gone; it was an OK forum tons of info for newbies entering the paid advertising world but I wanted more. My friend told me, there’s a kick ass forum that has advanced topics where real superstars like Charles Ngo, Finch, Jason Akatiff (aka smax0r), Jeremy Shoemaker (shoemoney), John Chow, and many other well known internet marketers hang out, so I knew I had to sign up.
This was now 4 or so years ago? Wow time flies, anyways. STM was awesome, in true sense of the word ‘diving in’ that’s what I did, I consumed the knowledge, they have so much stuff it really gives a headache and offers a sharp learning curve. Not only is it an online forum, but they organize real life meet ups where multiple times a year we can put name to face and vice versa. It is one of my favorite affiliate marketing forums by far. What’s awesome is they offer a money back guarantee, so you can explore the forum with no worries and see if its for you.
>> Take a look around the members area right here!
The Content
At the time of this writing, there are exactly 33,625 threads and 298,459 posts. I can’t even imagine how many millions of words that would be, more like multiple yearly series of an encyclopedia of affiliate marketing – that’s updated every single day! Yea a WIKIAffiliate!! that’s it.
At any given moment there are usually around 500 people online, so if you ask a question it will be answered super fast. This is awesome, because I know it sucks dearly if you have to wait and wait and wait DAYS to get an answer to an important question right? Anyways, on STM no such worry.
The forum itself is broken down into many sections, and those into sub-sections. In no particular order, this is what you can expect to see:
News & Information:
In this section they cover important announcements in the industry, post about upcoming details on affiliate conferences all around the world you can attend and mingle with like minded people and pick up a trick or two for free; affiliate marketing challenges, contests where you can take part in to win special prizes by competing against other teams from STM in fun challenges. Ask the expert interviews that let you as an STM member ask questions to super affiliates, and well known industry figure heads like Drew Whitman (the dude that wrote the Cashvertising MUST read book – get it here if you haven’t yet!), Dan Ariely, Charles Ngo, and many more. There’s also weekly news updates to what happened on STM in case you missed it, as well as special area for must have tools and discount coupons you can do to save on them.
The Newbie Zone:
This is for people just joining in, those that are interested in ‘firing their boss’ and leaving the 9-5 life behind and working for themselves, when they want, how they want. The newbie zone contains an intro section where you can introduce who you are, where you come from, what your experiences are and skills, as well as what your goals are – what you want to accomplish in life. There’s also a VERY detailed (and I do mean VERY) guide on how to get started, that teaches you all the basic skills you need to get your first campaign up, as well as answering the most common questions, like what is this affiliate marketing and how does it work? This section has so much useful information for a newbie, that i’d take me 10 pages to spell it out, best if you take a look yourself here. There’s also the ONBOARDING ZONE, which will take you by the hand and guide you through an intricate series of step by step instructions to get you setup and going as fast as possible – making everything easier than you think. Of course, if you have a question, there’s a Q&A section where the top notch experts of STM like Matuloo, Caurmen, Zeno, Erik or others from the community.
STM Indexes / Information Hub:
This section is the ‘library’. It is full of all the step by step guides, case studies written by StackMan, Mr Green, Besmir where these 7 figure super affiliates expose HOW they made their mega millions. (YES Mr Green does have a multi-million dollar mansion in NZ, all paid for by affiliate commissions!) Nothing beats learning from guys who really made it, made it running camps right? There’s also killer traffic source guides where experts share their insights on the best practices and ways to run campaigns/structure them for different traffic sources. This is very important, because no two traffic source is the same; in fact expert affiliates’ secret includes mastering each traffic source to know how it ticks. There’s also an important section devoted to ANGLES, if you read my blog you know I am a big advocate of split testing angles, angles are the way you present your offer to people – the words you use, so it grabs their attention and they want to interact with your offer and sign up! And if you thought, this is already a shitload of stuff – there’s more. They also give you gigabytes and gigabytes of free landing pages and banner ads, as well as images that were tested and proven to be high CTR images – you can use this simply by cut and pasting them into your campaign and make money. Yup, it’s also on the forum!
The General Section
In this part of the members only STM forum, you will find the free for all, advanced Q&A section as well as the success stories section where you can read amazing and truly awe inspiring stories of STM members that made it big. There’s a guy who had a young family, and they were really poor, and he was working two different jobs just to keep their bare minimums met; but now he’s making $1000 a day, working part time and spending most of it with his family. There’s also another guy who started not so long ago, and his luck turned quick and now he just purchased his dream car. There’s a ton of amazing and real stories here, shared by other STM members – no bullshit, just the real deal. (Hell I count as an STM success story too after switching from SEO when Google killed the fun!) If you are a product owner, or you want to create your own products, there’s a section in this area as well, where you can mingle with others and get help with your problem, or find out new opportunities. The masterminds section is where you may post, or find others who are at the same level as you and team up to help each other out and reach new successes together. This is one of my favorite sections because it allowed me to meet guys who run the same kind of campaigns and me, and let us bounce ideas off each other in real time.
Traffic Sources
Now this section is huge, it’s broken down into many sub-sections: Mobile, Facebook, Plenty of Fish, Adult Traffic (NSFW), Native Ads, Display like Google Display Network, Search/PPC like Adwords/Bing/Yahoo/AOL, E-mail, Pay Per Call, PPV, Video, SEO and more.
These parts within the traffic sources allow you to focus on exactly what you are running – if you are a Facebook advertiser, you can get 1 on 1 help and read the newest tips and ideas that help get the cheapest clicks and highest CTR to increase your profits. You can also learn about e-mail best practices (for example, I learned that you do not need to use aWeber, MailChimp, or other email software that charges you a lot the more subscribers you have on your list, instead you can commission a programmer to write a script that collects emails then you can use Amazon to send emails, for 1/100th the cost of these mail services, cool eh?) There’s also the thing I learned about SEO, that after Google killed the traditional ways of SEO which I was banking hard with (good old xrummer spamming days), today people rely on PBNs to game Google and get their site high on the SERPS. There’s also a lot of other things I learned, but again, it would take me a real long time and probably 10 pages if not more (yes I like 10 pages haha) to write it all down. What will you learn? I guess you should look around now and see for yourself!!
Technical & Creative Skills
This is my favorite section since I am a proud TECH NERD! Tracking campaigns – tracking is the lifeblood of successful affiliate marketing, you need to know every single click, where they came from, how they converted and all that jazz. You need to know which one of your banners brought you the most sales, which angle was the top converter, which device the visitors that converted the best came from and the list goes on. There’s truly endless things you can track, and without a tracker you just can’t compete in today’s day and age with affiliate marketing experts and their super teams. Luckily for you STM has you covered, as they provide guides on all kinds of state of the art trackers you can use with ease to learn and implement your own robust tracking systems. Programming and servers is also covered in great detail as having a super fast server is key to getting more conversions, you also need to use different scripts to squeeze out every single drop of profit from each visitor. You do this using different tricks covered in this section, you won’t believe how awesome they really are until you implement them in your own campaign, they do increase your profits by a LOT. In affiliate marketing, design is super important, but not many people are skilled designers right? I know, I am not one – luckily for these people I created Banners&Landers that does banners for $10 each animated or not, as well as a suit of other awesome services like ripping landers – but lets stick to the topic at hand. The design section here shares guides for Photoshop, Illustrator, Muse and GIMP you an use to whip up awesome banners and even more amazing creatives (they are not the same) for your campaigns in a few minutes yourself, if you are the DIY kinda guy or gal! Remember I mentioned Cashvertising (get it on amazon)? That book is THE copywriting bible for affiliate marketing; if you haven’t read it yet no problem as the Copywriting, Conversion and Psychology section on STM has you covered with the ‘readers digest’ version of that book and many other awesome ones like the AdWeek book – raw tips, you can jot down, and implement in your multi variate tests right away. Yes, another profit increaser!
Vendors, vendors, vendors – yea STM has a buy/sell section too.
Here you can find anything and everything from Hello Kitty AIRBNB flat share offers to awesome products on how to become a teespring t-shirt selling pro to discounts on spy tools that are must have for any affiliate, to special deals when you preload cash on traffic sources you will get extra credits for free. You’ll save a shitload of money if you check this section every now and then.
Extras (aka the lifestyle)
There’s a section on STM devoted to the lifestyle everyone dreams of, and it’s real. Let me tell you a little story, when I was 17 I started working at Netnation, I was a tech guy then a sales guy there. It was all right, but I hated having to get up at 6 every freakin morning, take the train, arrive by 8AM, then slave there for 2k a month and then get on my journey at 5PM to get home and arrive dead and tired and lifeless around 7PM ish. Dinner, some time to watch a TV show or movie, and then sleep and rinse and repeat. I was always dreaming of being able to come and go as I please, and doing what I want when I want. Not in a million years did I imagine, that this thing I’ve been doing now full time for the past 10 years come November is going to be the life changer for me. The extras section talks about travel, where to go, what to see, how to get the best cards to get the most points, how to score kick ass villas, how to go on epic adventures – all while working from your laptop. There’s also a section devoted to banking (yea we need a lot of special setups, for example, if you are not in a specific country, you might have a hard time to get a merchant account which is vital part and a must if you want to sell physical products or drop ship online – so yea they have a solution how to get stripe if you are not from the stripe countries too). There’s also great discussion on tax and optimizing taxes, when you make $30,000 a month you really need to be smart about taxes, you don’t want to pay half of that – you don’t have to!! You can legally minimize and optimize and since STM is full of multi millionaires, they talk about the best tips, and methods they use to minimize taxes paid and retain as much of their earnings as possible. There’s a section to outsourcing, where to hire the best employees, how to train them to get your game to the next level (or you can just hire Banners&landers to do the work for you and save the headache…)
Did you know? Affiliates are serious about making money, but they are also serious about staying healthy? The body must remain a well oiled machine so it can perform at its best when its crunch time – the top affiliates know this, so they are big time into health and fitness. Yes, you’ve guessed it there’s an awesome section on this. One of my multi-millionaire buddies is a real example of success + healthy living, his name is Andrew, aka fitaffiliate and you can actually check his blog here. A section like EXTRAs wouldn’t be complete with an off topic, shoot the shit, anything goes section, so yes there’s one named just like that right here too!
Localized Discussions
Since STM has grown drastically over the years, there’s a lot of international members and there’s chance to speak and ask questions in your own language. The local discussions are available in French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese as well as Russian. I don’t speak any of these languages so I can’t really offer any insights into what kind of chit chat is going on in these areas, but they are there.
The Community
The STM community is a tight knit group of people that not only work together, but they play together. I know, I have amassed huge friendships from STM, people that were cyber friends and these days we take vacations together with our families. When you share so much challenges, and successes it really helps deepen the relationship with a lot of people you meet online. Some of the guys I met online are like real brothers to me, brothers I can rely on if I need a quick injection of cash to fund a campaign, a helping hand when I am struggling with a campaign, or just a listening ear when I am having problems in my personal life. You too can expect the same kind of community feeling, if you feel that no one really understands what you do, or what you want to do (hell most people think I’m a web designer LOL) then you will feel AWE’d when you join STM, because there will be people that just GET IT! It will make things so much easier you know?
>> Start making new friends now that will help you make millions online!
Site Navigation
After you sign in to the members area, a main top navigation will await that gives you direct access to the FORUM, STM TOOLBOX, Member Profile, Networking Events, and Support. On top top right, you will have access to your mailbox, profile settings, and log out button.
Below the main menu is the quick access bar that you can use to browse the newest posts, new threads and many more things related to the community and your personal account (list of friends, messages, settings, etc)
The main forum page shows the Top 10 stats, like latest posts, who are the top posters/top thanked, latest members – you can modify this and select from various options using a drop down.
Scroll downwards, you will uncover all the forums where the magic happens. The site is very responsible and looks great on mobile as well as desktop. You have the option to quick reply, or reply in detail where you can add emojis, links, images and all the standard good stuff you typically find on a forum. You can also embed youtube videos if you wish; something I often do to show something I can’t really explain in words that fast.
>> Click here to explore all the amazing content on STM members area right now!
Conclusion
StackThatMoney aka the STM Forum is one of my go-to resources and favorite affiliate marketing forums. They have a lot of information that spans many different verticals and niches and it’s not heavily focused on one type of campaigns like other forums out there. What is awesome about STM and why it is one of the top premium forums out there is the team behind it, these guys are serious, they are professional, you can reach them anytime and they will respond. The price is $99 bucks a month, which is not cheap especially if you are new – but if you are a successful affiliate, then it really is like a cost of a bus ticket for real. Nonetheless, they understand these days there’s a lot of scam and bullshit going on in the world, people promising you this and that, only to take your money. Since these guys, my friends that own STM are stand up kind of guys, they offer a 3 day NO QUESTIONS asked money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. So really, there’s no risk. But trust me, you will love STM – I wouldn’t say so otherwise.
Click here to get your username & password to the members only area on STM!
How it looks inside the members area (various screenshots):
2 thoughts on “A Very Detailed STM Forum Review 2023 (Just Updated)”
Hi, I’ve read your guide and I find it very accurate!Thank you.
I’d like to ask you something: how much I need to start affiliate marketing? I can pay for the 99$ but I have to earn right away… I don’t pretend to make big money right now, 500 $ or less pro month is ok for me now… in this way I can invest my money better and I hope to earn more. I’m jobless, in a critical condition but I want to change my life. I’m alone, no one belive in this “thing” called Affiliate Marketing but I do.
…I can’t afford to pay too much and this is the biggest problem that I have. Maybe you find my comment stupid but i really want to change my s**t life.
… sorry for my english.
Laura
You should become a freelancer, affiliate marketing is not a savior when you don’t have money. These days its harder than ever to make money with affiliate marketing.
Freelancing on the other hand, is money for your time right away with no risk. Check out upwork.com, if you have no skills then your option as a freelancer is quite limited. I’d suggest virtual assistant, that does research or other mundane tasks. Charge low hourly wage to get contracts, prove yourself, build up positive feedback, then you can raise your hourly price later. If you go in with high price and no history/feedback, you won’t get any jobs to do.
Good luck