Many bloggers skip over affiliate marketing. They either think it’s too hard, that it’s a waste of time, that they will turn followers away, or that their followers just won’t be interested.
In fact, I recently asked various bloggers how much they were earning from affiliate marketing. The most common answer was somewhere around $500 or less.
Some even said $0.
This included several bloggers who receive 1,000,000 page views or more every month.
These bloggers all have the same problem. They don’t realize how much money they are leaving on the table, and they have no clue how to approach affiliate marketing the correct way.
This is just crazy to me, because I’ve never really had a crazy amount of page views. Even when I had less than 100,000 page views a month I was still earning a decent amount of money through affiliate marketing.
Last month, I earned over $50,000 through affiliate marketing, and I expect that to stay stable or increase well into the future.
Plus, no follower has ever complained.
This is one thing that often scares bloggers and social media influencers away from affiliate marketing. They are afraid of what their readers will say, and they are afraid that they will come across as slimy sales people.
That’s just not true. I haven’t had a single person complain about the affiliate products that I promote on my blog. Some people have even told me to promote affiliate products even more because they don’t notice what I am promoting.
When done the correct way, affiliate marketing can be a great form of income. Plus, you can do this without turning your readers away! If it’s done the right way your readers will actually prefer to see what products you are interested in, and they will have no problem making purchases through your affiliate links.
Note: I recommend checking out my online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing and I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you’re a blogger, then you NEED this course.
Affiliate marketing is great for many reasons, as you will read below.
Affiliate marketing is somewhat passive income.
Affiliate income is great because you can create a post, review, etc., and that post may earn you money years down the line with minimal work needed to maintain it.
But, It’s not entirely passive. You will need to build a following, publish content consistently, built trust, and more. You can earn income from one affiliate link or one blog post for a long time, with little work needed to maintain it.
In fact, I’ve earned over $300,000 from a single blog post – How To Start A WordPress Blog On Bluehost.
There’s less work than creating your own product.
Affiliate marketing isn’t easy, but there are things you don’t have to worry about when comparing affiliate marketing versus creating your own product.
You don’t have to ship anything, create the product, handle cancellations, manage customer service, and more. Yes, you will have to build your following and earn your readers’ trust, but it can be a great way to increase your income, especially if you already have loyal followers.
It’s affordable.
The affordability of affiliate marketing is another reason it’s a great way to grow your income. You don’t need to create any products or spend time building a product.
You don’t even need a website, as you can start promoting affiliate products on social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you do decide to have a website, that can also be relatively affordable, because starting a website doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting.
You can get paid for promoting products you believe in.
I’m sure there are many products that you love. So, why not get paid for telling others about them?
Plus, if you truly enjoy a product, it will be easy to promote. You’ll already know everything about the product and you’ll have no problem being enthusiastic about it. If the product has helped you, it will probably help others as well, and people will appreciate your honest review.
There are many options for products to promote.
There are so many different products, services, and companies to promote. There’s something for everyone!
Products you could promote to your following include:
- Financial companies
- Cell phone apps
- Digital products, such as online courses, ebooks, and more
- One of the millions of items on Amazon
- Travel booking websites
- Blog-related products, such as website design, website hosting, and more
- Clothing
- Home decor
- Craft items
- Outdoor gear such as bicycles, tents, backpacks, and more
Now, I’m not saying that affiliate marketing is a get rich quick scheme, because it’s not. You will have to build a loyal audience who trusts what you have to say, and this is not always easy. However, if you are able to build a following that is interested, then you may be able to earn a great living promoting products that you already enjoy and believe in.
You can work from anywhere.
One of the best benefits of affiliate marketing is that you can do it from anywhere. As long as you have a loyal following (even if it’s just a few people), a laptop, and an internet connection, you can grow your affiliate income well into the future.
Due to my blog and affiliate marketing I am able to travel full-time. It’s really a great thing!
Are you interested in affiliate marketing? If you have a blog and are brave, please share what you earn through affiliate marketing as well as your page views. Sharing will help everyone!
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Affiliate marketing income has been something that I’ve been semi-working on since last year. I’ve made a little on Amazon, but not enough to withdraw yet. I made $50 in April with another company. I was happy because I know that’s a start. I plan on working on more affiliate posts in the near future.
Awesome!
Right now I am using affiliates links but definitely need more traffic. In work and all in good time! 🙂 Excited for the course.
Thank you 🙂 I can’t wait until I launch it.
I’ve seen lots of bloggers recommending not to start on monetising until you have a good following/page views. What do you think? 🙂
I think you can start whenever. The key is that you don’t want to be overwhelming or pushy. With affiliate marketing, you can make an income without being pushy by recommending products that you love.
Francesca, I was told that a lot too when I first started blogging, and now believe it to be incorrect advice.
By monetizing your blog from the start, your readers will be used to ads and affiliate links on your site. If you wait until “after you’ve built your folowing/ page views” you could shock your readers.
Best of luck.
Michelle, I’m so excited for your course but one thing I worry about is that after one full year of blogging I am still getting hardly any traffic. I am working my way through a class about how to increase your traffic and affiliate marketing sales through Pinterest so we’ll see if that works but yeah traffic remains o be a problem for me. Will you talk about that in our course?
I talk about traffic a little bit in my course, but my course is mainly about affiliate marketing, so it’s not something I go super deep in. Whatever your traffic is though, the course can still help you to increase your affiliate income because it’s about making conversions out of the followers that you already have, no matter how low that may be.
Great information Michelle!
I am working on growing my partnerships with more affiliates. This is definitely a long term goal for me!
Amanda
Thanks!
You made an awesome point, affiliate marketing is cost effective and you don’t need to create your own product or service, nor do you have to deal with shipping or orders.
It does take time though, but through persistence and experience, it can be a profitable business model.
Yes, for sure!
Affiliate income is the holy grail for most bloggers I know. I like it because the possibilities are endless.
Yes!
Thanks for the post and I’m looking forward to learn more from your course. My traffic definitely needs to increase but I earn pretty much nothing affiliate income. Does Amazon count? If so, then maybe a few dollars a month. Yea, I really need to work on that. I will include affiliate links when it fits but haven’t written a review post about a specific product. Do you think it’s important to have an entire post relating to that product or it works best to incorporate it in the post when talking about a topic?
Yes, Amazon’s affiliate program definitely counts! 🙂
I think both ways are a great strategy. I talk about both in my course 🙂
I have about 4000 page views a month right now and have made about $95 in my first year of blogging through affiliate links. I haven’t really focused on it much, but the success I’ve had came from Republic Wireless and Bluehost. I’m not a natural marketer and just want to write relevant personal finance posts that entertain people. Would sure love to earn that kind of income and travel though!
There are plenty of ways to do both 🙂 It is possible!
What are the best affiliate marketing programs for a business blog? I run one at startuptipsdaily.com, and i want to start monetizing it in a really neat way.
Thanks.
I talk about the exact ways you can find affiliate programs in my course. I recommend you sign up for the waitlist 🙂
http://fund-rise.live/waitlist%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Affiliate income is alot easier to generate than people think. If you spend some time at this you will see certain clickrates and buy rates and u will see that for example for each 50 visitors you will get 1 result. Just keep on going and you will get a much better income than with alternatives like Adsense. Affiliate marketing is worth it. Also you can write articles about certain products, not just list the banners with your other articles. Influencing your readers to make an even better income is so worth the while.
Thanks for the post! In my head, I always think affiliate income would be really hard but I think once I got a system down, it might be easy to manage and even grow. Thanks for the ideas!
You can do it! 🙂
I thin the problem of most bloggers 1)they are too concentrate to growth the audence first 2) they dont know how to “sell” the affiliate products right way
As i understood the most common mistake is that bloggers WAITING 1,00000000 views or watever. The point is that you can earn even if you have 1000 views! Depends HOW do you offer products and which audence it is. Blogger can start to earn from day 1 if to do it right way and NO NEED to me focus on growing audence ONLY! If the blooger doesnt earn 1 year (ONE!!YEAR!!) it means something went wrong!
I started my blog in April. I am slowly getting readers. I have used some affiliate links from Amazon. People have checked out the products I talked about in a relevant post, but have not purchased anything yet.
I recommend signing up for my affiliate strategy waitlist 🙂 http://fund-rise.live/waitlist%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
My affiliate income has been increasing steadily since I started using Pinterest to increase page views and becoming more organized about the whole affiliate process. Can’t wait for your course!