[the Thing]

Hi all,

I lurked for a while but I'm new. I find this forum quite odd and appealing at the same time because I had a "kind of similar but different" thing for a tech start-up idea while I was totally unaware that this kind of community exists, and my Swedish start-up mentors thought it was "interesting" to say the least, and every single person around me thought nobody would actually use this kind of thing. Anyway,

Is there any money to be made in affiliate marketing? I never did any kind of marketing, I'm a developer but so far I only worked for other people. I'm primarily talking about the kind of thing they talk about at (for example) Black Hat SEO forums, where everyone claims to make $200 per day on their passive income websites.

Has anyone here tried this for a living or supplemental income? I mean is there money to be made here? I'm looking to make some cash on top of my day job and I'd like to hear all y'alls affiliate marketing stories whether successful or not.

Cheers..

ps. I'm not sure if i should mention this other forum or not, I mean it's free anyway and I didn't post the link just in case, tell me if I should remove it.

[Rawmeo]

I explored this field a while ago, and I didn't find it lucrative. The market is saturated, VERY saturated, and the only people making money are the top dogs that do that for years, or the product manufacturers themselves. Plus, many people have increased skills at spotting affiliate links and avoid clicking on them.

[Killface]

Made between half a mil and a mil in a couple months, net, from it. I think I got lucky. Everyone else I know who started from scratch as a publisher failed. Now I manage publishers for an affiliate network for some extra money, and I see the lengths these guys go to in order to get traffic. Nobody is on traditional traffic sources anymore.

If you want to do it, it wouldn't be the worst idea since it forces you to learn a ton about the way business on the Internet works. But you will burn a lot of money. Read everything on wickedfire forums (all posts by ccarter) and builder society. All other forums are worthless. Particularly stay away from digital point and warrior forum. BHW seems to be a bunch of small time guys doing short term cash grabs for meager amounts.

My suggestion would be to create your own private label product imported from china that you control. Set up a website to market it and drive paid and organic traffic to it. This gives you a ton more control AND legitimacy in the eyes of higher quality traffic sources like Facebook and google who will insta-ban affiliates.

I just did this and it is making good money. It cost me under $2000 to start.

As an affiliate/publisher you are everyone's bitch. The advertiser will scrub you. The network will scrub you and take a margin as well. The offer may go down or have backend issues or pause and you will not be paid. The network can complain about quality and not pay you. Your traffic source will give 90% of the traffic to the highest bidder who is usually using some insanely complex blackhat technique that you don't know about. They will have tight restrictions on what you can and can't do. If the rules change or the source fries up, bye bye. I made life changing money but it wasn't easy being pulled ten different directions by all these parties, so now with private labeling I'm in control.

Skip the affilate stuff IMO

[travolta]

Affiliate marketing used to be easy a few years ago. I got into it back in 2011 when it was still possible to do it by yourself. Today in April 2015 things have changed a lot. The top 1% in the industry makes all the profit, and without a skilled team and a lot of capital you won't be able to compete. The industry changes fast and you have to be on top of things to keep up. You also need to have a lot of connections.

Is it still doable? Yes, but a lot of your success will be based on luck. IMHO you already missed the boat. It's a bit late to get started in AM and to have a chance of making a living. You can make some nice "passive income," but you'll be eating the scraps from the top guys and eventually just get wiped out. I have a love/hate relationship with AM. I hate how stressful it is, but I love the freedom and opportunities it's given me.

[mariann]

In general way affiliate market is the way to sell your products in a very easy steps like in affiliate marketing the business person can sell their products like electronic item, air ticket, clothing, car parts etc. In affiliate marketing a person can sell an insurance policies and promote their business online also. In fact affiliate marketing is the fast way earn money from all over the world.

[Afarang]

If you find the right product and can drive targeted traffic you are set. The problem people have is finding targeted traffic.

[worldwidetraveler]

I wouldn't build a affiliate business. I am not saying you can't be an affiliate but I would do so as part of my main business.

[fortysix]

I have definetly heard people making good money from this. However, based on my own spending habits, I can't justify high earning potential. Who here has actually purchased a product which was marketed through such means? The few online purchases that I do make, I always make through amazon. Same with other people I know.

Has anyone here actually purchased a product through affiliate marketing? Are links on amazon considered to be within the umbrella of affiliate marketing?

[Laner]

I have some made in Canada and made in USA products in the luxury category.

Any recommendations on how to get others out there to hustle my products?

[Afarang]

Affiliate marketing is big business and there's a lot of $$$$ to be made. The problem is it's one of the easiest ways to get started making money online and is the first avenue a lot of newbies pick. As a result you hear thousands of stories of people saying "there's no money it in, you only make a few dollars". That's because the newbies have no idea what they are doing.

Also true, not all products will give you a good ROI but there's thousands of people making a fully passive income from AF.

It has it's downsides as people have mentioned already but if you find a good product and the cost of acquiring traffic is less than your overall profit, you have made a passive business model that is always going to make money.

Now you shove more money on getting traffic because you know for every $1 you spend in traffic you will make $1.50 in sales. So instead of spending $1 in traffic you spend $1,000 and make $500 in profit. Then you spend $2,000 in traffic methods and make $1,000 in profit and so on.

The problem is finding the right product and the traffic method that yields a positive ROI.

[Bushido]

Disappointed by the scarcity mindsets being displayed. There is plenty of money to be made in affiliate marketing.

Better to stop wondering if it's possible and get to it. Start small. Try a ton of different ideas. Stick with what works and then scale it. Discard the rest.

Guys need an abundance mentality about money, not just women. This is something I have had to work on, but it's powerful once you get that the online markets are essentially infinite in scale and possibility.

You don't need to make millions anyway...wouldn't $5k/month be a good start? Or even $100?

It was never "easy" but what business is? There is tons and tons of money to be made.

Oh, and once you get big then make your own product. That's where the real big money is. And it's what I need to do.

[jamaicabound]

I'm not saying money can't be made in affiliate marketing but me personally have not had much success. I still do it a bit just because I like writing so its almost a hobby and maybe makes me a few hundred a month but no matter how much time and effort and even money I put in I hit a wall and can never break say $300 a month.

I also feel like this market is saturdated. Now that there's all these point and click website programs anyone can start a blog or get into affiliate marketing. You also have social media like facebook and pinterest changing policies and how the sites work to either block links, not show links, etc. At one time you could use affiliate links on pinterest which was awesome but they put a stop to that. Also, affiliate programs are getting worse. A few years back I was doing Netflix for $25 a signup no cc required, now everyone is paying less, shorter cookies, etc.

[the Thing]

(04-26-2015 06:17 AM)dreambig Wrote:  

wouldn't $5k/month be a good start?

Absolutely it would since that's around what I make at my office job. Problem is I have no idea where I should begin. There's tons of information out there in all those forums the credibility of none of whose is proven and I don't know where to start. Everyone has a "$xxx a day" thread but if everybody's making $ triple digits a day why is everyone saying that affiliate marketing is dead? This I don't understand.

So for example can you say, according to your own experience, what's the very first thing that I should do sitting in front of my computer ready to make $5k a month, and roughly how long before I get there?

[jamaicabound]

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

(04-26-2015 06:17 AM)dreambig Wrote:  

wouldn't $5k/month be a good start?

Absolutely it would since that's around what I make at my office job. Problem is I have no idea where I should begin. There's tons of information out there in all those forums the credibility of none of whose is proven and I don't know where to start. Everyone has a "$xxx a day" thread but if everybody's making $ triple digits a day why is everyone saying that affiliate marketing is dead? This I don't understand.

So for example can you say, according to your own experience, what's the very first thing that I should do sitting in front of my computer ready to make $5k a month, and roughly how long before I get there?

This brings up kind of an interesting question. Now I understand a huge part of the affiliate marketing business is selling products and services geared towards the affiliate marketing business but it makes me think if everyone is making a killing with affiliate marketing stuff why do they need to resort to selling programs?

Now I get thats part of the business but it reminds me of these no money down real estate programs and seminars, if your killing it in real estate why are you spending your weekends sitting in conventions trying to bilk hundreds of dollars out of people for some worthless program?

Affiliate marketing is a wierd thing. It's one thing to be an amazon affiliate or ebay partner network and put up reviews and sell actual product but I've tried clickbank and I suck at it, I know some people make good money but it seems everything on there is geared towards affiliate marketing. Its almost as if a car dealership were only focused on selling cars to other dealerships and not focusing on the retail client. Its this wierd kind of incenstious thing where all the affiliate marketers are spinning their wheels trying to sell to each ohter.

[Darius]

There are two ways to go about it.

1)Tried to get ranked in search engines for certain terms and sell products that way. The problem with this is that most terms are dominated by established players and there is no way you can directly compete with them for most keywords. Which means you have to be smart about how you get traffic. Making review type sites, using youtube, etc.

2)Build your own tribe/community and then sell affiliate products to them.

[Bushido]

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

(04-26-2015 06:17 AM)dreambig Wrote:  

wouldn't $5k/month be a good start?

Absolutely it would since that's around what I make at my office job. Problem is I have no idea where I should begin. There's tons of information out there in all those forums the credibility of none of whose is proven and I don't know where to start. Everyone has a "$xxx a day" thread but if everybody's making $ triple digits a day why is everyone saying that affiliate marketing is dead? This I don't understand.

"Everyone" is full of shit. Both the overly negative people and the guys selling affiliate marketing books.

Most people are not making anything online. Or very little. That's because most people do a half-assed job of things. They create a blog, make 4 or 5 posts then never continue it.

Ask yourself this: Are most guys getting laid with quality women? Nope. Even if you give them all the best tools and game techniques they simply won't make the approaches.

It's the same with affiliate marketing. Most people are going to fail because they choose to fail.

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

So for example can you say, according to your own experience, what's the very first thing that I should do sitting in front of my computer ready to make $5k a month

As simply as I can put it:

1. Brainstorm 10-20 ideas for a website that would offer its users value. Choose the one you like the most.
2. Register a domain for your website idea.
3. Then build a basic site (I'm assuming a blog here but it could be anything).

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

...and roughly how long before I get there?

There is such thing as a silly question. Here's another one back at you:

"How long will it take me to get laid with 9s if I approach every day?"

Maybe one day. Maybe never.

You want all the answers but the truth is that there aren't any. We are talking about a dynamic and competitive MARKETPLACE here. Nobody gives a shit if you make money or not. That's just how it works.

The answer is that you could make $0 or $10,000 per month. Or whatever other number I pulled out my ass. But honestly, I've yet to see anyone who put in some honest effort that didn't make at least one dollar from affiliate marketing. Even my beloved 57 year-old Mum made money when I built a blog for her! And it's still going strong with no updates in 18 months.

Stop looking for "The Answer" and go CREATE something. We all have value to offer. Every single one of us. I honestly believe that.

If you are offering people value then chances are you will find a way to make some money. Affiliate marketing is no exception - it's just another business model. Thinking too much about "how to make money" won't get you very far. Create and then create some more. This goes for myself too.

[the Thing]

(04-30-2015 01:56 PM)dreambig Wrote:  

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

...and roughly how long before I get there?

There is such thing as a silly question. Here's another one back at you:

"How long will it take me to get laid with 9s if I approach every day?"

Thanks for the other information. I'll rephrase my question:

How long on average did it take for people as far as you know who make at least $5k a month online? (average = total amount of time for everyone in the sample, divided by number of people in the sample. If you only have data on yourself just tell how long was it between when you started and the first moment you made $5k/mo. If you have data on yourself and someone else, add the two and divide by 2. ..... )

Thanks..

[Bushido]

I give up.

[HD668B]

lol so many bs on this thread
"getting ranked" = nobody is doing seo anymore, its all about paid traffic
"paid traffic only for top players" = considering clicks cost less than 1 cent, i started playing around with AM myself with 50$
"people are getting good at recognized affiliate links" = just lol, u will be using a custom domain name anyways for tracking

OFFER NETWORKS
http://www.clickdealer.com
http://www.adsimilis.com
http://www.mundomedia.com
http://www.advidi.com
http://www.flexoffers.com

TRAFFIC NETWORK
http://www.FACEBOOK.com (top right triangle icon -> create an ad)
http://www.leadimpact.com (pops)
http://www.adivity.com (mobile)
http://www.decisive.is (mobile)
http://www.exoclick.com (adult)
http://www.zeropark.com (redirects)

[redbeard]

(04-30-2015 01:56 PM)dreambig Wrote:  

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

(04-26-2015 06:17 AM)dreambig Wrote:  

wouldn't $5k/month be a good start?

Absolutely it would since that's around what I make at my office job. Problem is I have no idea where I should begin. There's tons of information out there in all those forums the credibility of none of whose is proven and I don't know where to start. Everyone has a "$xxx a day" thread but if everybody's making $ triple digits a day why is everyone saying that affiliate marketing is dead? This I don't understand.

"Everyone" is full of shit. Both the overly negative people and the guys selling affiliate marketing books.

Most people are not making anything online. Or very little. That's because most people do a half-assed job of things. They create a blog, make 4 or 5 posts then never continue it.

Ask yourself this: Are most guys getting laid with quality women? Nope. Even if you give them all the best tools and game techniques they simply won't make the approaches.

It's the same with affiliate marketing. Most people are going to fail because they choose to fail.

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

So for example can you say, according to your own experience, what's the very first thing that I should do sitting in front of my computer ready to make $5k a month

As simply as I can put it:

1. Brainstorm 10-20 ideas for a website that would offer its users value. Choose the one you like the most.
2. Register a domain for your website idea.
3. Then build a basic site (I'm assuming a blog here but it could be anything).

(04-26-2015 10:07 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

...and roughly how long before I get there?

There is such thing as a silly question. Here's another one back at you:

"How long will it take me to get laid with 9s if I approach every day?"

Maybe one day. Maybe never.

You want all the answers but the truth is that there aren't any. We are talking about a dynamic and competitive MARKETPLACE here. Nobody gives a shit if you make money or not. That's just how it works.

The answer is that you could make $0 or $10,000 per month. Or whatever other number I pulled out my ass. But honestly, I've yet to see anyone who put in some honest effort that didn't make at least one dollar from affiliate marketing. Even my beloved 57 year-old Mum made money when I built a blog for her! And it's still going strong with no updates in 18 months.

Stop looking for "The Answer" and go CREATE something. We all have value to offer. Every single one of us. I honestly believe that.

If you are offering people value then chances are you will find a way to make some money. Affiliate marketing is no exception - it's just another business model. Thinking too much about "how to make money" won't get you very far. Create and then create some more. This goes for myself too.

Great post.

[TheKantian]

Yeah, it's changed a lot. People are talking about 2011ish. I still remember 2005. lol.

Also it's not really "passive" anymore so be skeptical about anyone claiming to work 5 hours a month earning 30k a month.

[Chick Magnet]

Does anybody know of a good resource for learning facebook ads?

For google adwords, Perry Marshall's stuff is considered Bible. Is there an equivalent for FB?

[CaptainCrazy]

(05-29-2015 12:35 AM)Chick Magnet Wrote:  

Does anybody know of a good resource for learning facebook ads?

For google adwords, Perry Marshall's stuff is considered Bible. Is there an equivalent for FB?

Perry Marshall's Facebook book?

Pro Tip: Do not use Facebook. Just don't. Think laterally about traffic and promotions.

[travolta]

(05-29-2015 01:33 AM)CaptainCrazy Wrote:  

(05-29-2015 12:35 AM)Chick Magnet Wrote:  

Does anybody know of a good resource for learning facebook ads?

For google adwords, Perry Marshall's stuff is considered Bible. Is there an equivalent for FB?

Pro Tip: Do not use Facebook. Just don't. Think laterally about traffic and promotions.

Lol.

Greg Davis had a good program made last year. A lot of it is probably outdated by now though.

[travolta]

(05-28-2015 08:57 PM)TheKantian Wrote:  

Yeah, it's changed a lot. People are talking about 2011ish. I still remember 2005. lol.

Also it's not really "passive" anymore so be skeptical about anyone claiming to work 5 hours a month earning 30k a month.

Literally a lot has changed since January 2015. 2011 was so easy compared to now.