How long does affiliate marketing take? To make money with affiliate marketing does take some time. You should expect to work hard at affiliate marketing for at least 6 months before you’ll see any tangible results financially. But there’s a few things to consider too.
You can’t really put a timescale on it because there’s so many variables. It’s a little like joining a gym and asking how long it will take to get six pack abs! It depends on your current body shape, diet and levels of discipline.
Just joining a gym won’t get you six pack abs. You’ll need to apply yourself to a training program and a diet which supports that training. What other habits will stand in the way? Perhaps you like a few drinks on the weekend? Or you have an ice cream addiction.
In this case, you could be slowing down your six pack progress without knowing! How important are six pack abs to you? Would it be “nice” or are you doing it for an important acting role? Everyone’s motivation is very different and your mindset has a huge bearing. I’m certainly not fussed about putting in the work for six pack abs! But building an online business and making money from affiliate marketing massively motivates me!
How Long Does Affiliate Marketing Take?
With an exercise program you can break down the variables in much the same way as you can in building an affiliate marketing business:
- How motivated are you to get six pack abs/ make money with affiliate marketing?
- What current habits are likely to slow you down or compete with your new habits?
- Who around you is supporting you and cheering you on?
- Which friends or family members would rather talk you out of it?
- What competing activities/habits will be likely to slow down your progress?
- How much time every week will you commit to your long term goal?
- Which actions will you do on a daily basis no matter what you feel like?
Affiliate Marketing Fast Or Slow Lane?
Affiliate marketing is not all that cut and dry either! It’s not like a gym where you can see all the exercise equipment and pick your time slot. Affiliate marketing is a big industry and there’s many different avenues you can go down to create an income with affiliate marketing.
Some products will pay only 3% commission should you make a sale. Others will pay you 40% or even 100% in some cases. Which products would you choose based on this knowledge?
The value of products is another consideration too. Would you rather promote a $10 product and earn 3% commission, or a $2500 product for a 40% commission? Assuming all other things are equal, and the same work is involved, you would surely choose the higher ticket product.
Marking your products can be done differently too. Would you rather spend 10 years building content or 6 months running advertising campaigns? If both actions led to a regular income online, all other things being equal, which would you choose? But what if running advertising campaigns involved more risk and investment?
Would you rather sell products which gave you a recurring income, or products which only paid once? For the same amount of effort, of course the answer is the recurring income product which pays recurring affiliate commissions.
How Long Does Affiliate Marketing Take – Knowledge
Looking at the questions above should give you an idea of how you want to do affiliate marketing. Which direction you choose to work in, and the products you use will have a bearing on the time it takes to make money with affiliate marketing. Your knowledge will also have an impact. Ideally, you could download the knowledge from top affiliates straight into your head – like how Neo learns Kung Fu on the film The Matrix!
But unfortunately it takes a little longer to do this in reality! If you surround yourself with affiliates who are on the journey and more importantly, ahead of you in affiliate marketing, you will learn much faster. Go it alone, and you could have a long, difficult journey ahead of you!
Much of the early actions you’ll be taking on your affiliate journey are based on what you know, or think you know. So you can see how important your knowledge really is, when you consider that it is the foundation of everything you do as an affiliate. Another analogy: a rocket heading to the moon can veer off route by hundreds thousands of miles with if only 1 degree off course.
As an affiliate, you want to continually correct your course, as a rocket does. If you set off in high hopes all by yourself, it’s much easier to veer off route and get lost!
Marketing Strategies – Fast & Slow
Your marketing strategy will also have a massive bearing on your journey time with affiliate marketing. With paid marketing, you can get your business running quite quickly, although it will cost you more in marketing budget, and product investment.
With blogging, you can save money by not paying for advertising. However, your journey time will be considerably longer than if you were to use paid marketing. You can of course use a combination of the two, according to your circumstances and budget.
One of the fastest strategies, for those with money to invest, is to use a high ticket product range which includes multiple earning strategies:
- High ticket digital products which pay 40% commissions on sales you make
- Recurring commission affiliate products – earn ongoing commissions for each sale you make
- Multi-tier commissions – earn from sales made by your referrals.
- A built in sales team – closing sales on your behalf.
- A range of products – earn commissions from products bought by your existing customers
See SFM Digital Business System for more on this model.
With a model like this, you can more easily afford to use paid marketing strategies and still earn a profit. For smaller products, which carry lower levels of commissions, it’s much more difficult to use paid marketing and come out with a profit. Paid marketing is fast and you can scale it up when you have a profitable campaign. Just turn up the budget to make more sales!
With cheaper marketing strategies like blogging, for example, it’s not possible to scale in the same way. You need to create more content which takes time. If a blog post works well, however, you can run paid advertising to it, to generate more sales.
The Chinese Bamboo Tree
Warning: another analogy! If you plant a Chinese Bamboo shoot, you might be forgiven in thinking that it’s dead, and give up! In fact, the Chinese Bamboo tree does nothing for four years. So you can water it and fertilise it, and nothing will show – for four whole years!
But in a six week period the Chinese Bamboo tree grows to be 90 feet tall! It has also been measured to grow 48 inches in a 24 hour period!
I’m not saying your affiliate business will take five years, but it could do depending on the marketing strategy and products you choose to promote. Some affiliates get their businesses to phenomenal levels within 6 months – given the budget, investment and mindset. Others can take years if they have a different reason, or aren’t prepared to make the financial investment.
I like blogging, which very much is similar to the Chinese Bamboo Analogy.
How Long Does Affiliate Marketing Take – Your “Why?”
Your “why” has a lot to do with how fast you can build a profitable affiliate business too. In the community I’m in, I know members who have built their businesses inside of a year and left their jobs. Their “why?” was to get the hell out of a job they hated! It was a burning desire they were reminded of every day! So they had a huge motivation to make their affiliate businesses work as quickly as possible.
They also were employed too, which meant they could invest in building their business model quickly, alongside their jobs. My situation was a little different and I had a couple of part time jobs, but little income. So I focused on using my spare time for blogging instead of investing in paid marketing – which is notoriously slower. A longer route but more suited to my circumstances.
Get Started
If you’re ready to start your affiliate marketing journey today, you can access a free video series by clicking on the image below.