What To Expect With Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a means of turning online action into cash! You don’t need any products of your own and you don’t need any experience. In fact almost anyone can do affiliate marketing. You only need an internet connection and a laptop.
But what can you expect from affiliate marketing? How much can you earn and when do you start earning from it?
I chose affiliate marketing after trying out several “online earning” strategies. Although making money with affiliate marketing isn’t a walk in the park, it’s definitely one of the simplest ways to do it. I tried other things such as Forex marketing, eBay and Adsense (earning through advertising clicks). I even tried to sell my own ebook, without much success.
But it was with affiliate marketing where the success seemed to come easiest for me.
What To Expect With Affiliate Marketing
That’s not to say affiliate marketing is “easy”, although it can be at times. The “ease” tends to come after a lot of work. I believe this is often the reason why so many quit too early. Unlike a job, you don’t get paid as an affiliate for “time served” but rather for results. If you don’t make any sales you don’t get paid. So if you put in a certain amount of hours, and expect to come away with a pay packet just for showing up, you’ll be disappointed.
On the other hand you can get lucky. In principle you could join an affiliate program, post your link online and make a sale instantly.
Some people seem to have faster results than others. It really depends on you. That’s why affiliate marketing is best suited to entrepreneurial types who want to be their own boss. They’ll work much harder for their own money, than they would in a job, for example for a pay packet.
If you’re highly motivated to be financially independent, affiliate marketing might be the ticket!
What To Expect With Affiliate Marketing – Hurdles and Personal Growth
I definitely wouldn’t have stuck with affiliate marketing as long as I have if I wasn’t interested in personal growth. In fact it was one of the main reasons to attempt such a challenging career.
I have been through periods of not earning from affiliate marketing and then earning large sums quickly. Then, it goes back to not earning much again. Each month is different when you’re getting the wheels spinning and in the beginning you can expect a lot of work for not much reward. While that’s not terribly inspiring, it’s the freedom it gives later.
You can earn passively from affiliate marketing and that’s one of my main reasons for doing in. Even after some time out, those recurring commissions still trickle in. Plus you can be your own boss. This means taking time off when you want, not when you boss allows it.
If you remind yourself of the reasons like these for doing affiliate marketing it inspires you to keep going through the rough patches.
How Much Can You Earn?
I’ve known affiliates who earn 6 figures and above from affiliate marketing and my income has always been sporadic with it. Still I’ve had months where I earn over $5,000 and months where I’ve earned nothing! But the sky is the limit and if you’re ambitious you can earn a high income if you choose the right program to promote and go about it the right way.
How long it takes to earn consistently depends again on the program you choose and your advertising methods. Some affiliates who use paid marketing have seen amazing results in less than a year. If you’re blogging, or using some other organic marketing strategy it will of course take much longer.
The benefit of a longer term strategy such as content creation is that you build up a “bank” of content you can use later. This content attracts the attention of the search engines and people will link to it – especially if it’s useful. This means over time you can benefit from passive traffic and therefore passive income from sales. But organic traffic is definitely a longer term and slower strategy than paid marketing.
Paid Marketing Versus Organic
Paid marketing also has the benefit of being scalable. So when you hit upon a strategy which is profitable, you can easily get more sales simply by increasing your marketing budget. With organic marketing this isn’t so easy. But the advantage or organic marketing is the slow burning trickle of traffic which keeps coming and you don’t pay for it.
Ideally you should definitely use some paid advertising, even if only a little. It’s much more difficult to get traction from organic traffic alone. Plus, if you’re in a competitive niche there’s a lot more competition.
It’s also definitely worth finding a product which has some kind of membership product attached. With a membership product you benefit from residual income from repeat custom. This piece of advice is worth a lot and it’s something I didn’t know or understand as a beginner affiliate. I choose to sell low cost items from Amazon and made tiny commissions.
Instead, choose high ticket items with subscription products which give you higher commissions and recurring commissions. It’s much easier to build an online business this way.
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