Your Affiliate Marketing Income

swecs · #1 11-05-2010, 11:38 AM

i completely understand if people don't want to discuss this, but i'm just really interested to hear about how affiliate marketing is working out for people, specifically in relation to what kind of income does it bring you, or how important is it to your income or business?

i don't expect people to offer numbers, but for example, does affiliate marketing bring you enough money to partly or completely live off it? or is it just pocket money? or are you yet to see any money from it? how hard are you working for your money?

i can start the ball rolling by saying that i've dabbled in affiliate marketing for many years, and it has always just been "pocket money" - the amount i've earned from it hasn't been anything significant. but late last year i decided to try and make more from it, to try and replace some of my more traditional income (web design) with it. after 6 months i would say that it has grown to provide around 25% of what i would consider enough to live on, but it has been HARD WORK!! the good news is that the income is trending up, and when it reaches where i want it, i can probably back off a bit with the work, but i don't see that happening for maybe another year or so at this rate...

anyway, how is affiliate marketing working out for you? is it providing any genuine return for you? do you find it interesting? fulfilling? difficult? not worth it?

Cheers
Graeme

Gavin · #2 12-05-2010, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by swecs

i don't expect people to offer numbers, but for example, does affiliate marketing bring you enough money to partly or completely live off it? or is it just pocket money? or are you yet to see any money from it? how hard are you working for your money?

i can start the ball rolling by saying that i've dabbled in affiliate marketing for many years, and it has always just been "pocket money" - the amount i've earned from it hasn't been anything significant. but late last year i decided to try and make more from it, to try and replace some of my more traditional income (web design) with it. after 6 months i would say that it has grown to provide around 25% of what i would consider enough to live on, but it has been HARD WORK!! the good news is that the income is trending up, and when it reaches where i want it, i can probably back off a bit with the work, but i don't see that happening for maybe another year or so at this rate...

anyway, how is affiliate marketing working out for you? is it providing any genuine return for you? do you find it interesting? fulfilling? difficult? not worth it?

Cheers
Graeme

I've been dabbling in AM seriously for about a year now, I didn't start making any $ for 9 months then I started dabbling in PPC
Affiliate marketing sales and leads currently brings me pocket money - 150-200 per month (80% direct PPC 20% website) looking to up the seo over the next couple months and see if I can crank some visitors and hopefully sales.

The real money for me comes from charging for 12 month listings to ppl like WAHMs and the likes where many won't bother with AM, but are happy to pay $60 for a 12 month listing.

This is the whole reason I'm currently working on a local bus directroy for my site (which should be ready to launch in a few days) with free and premium listings avail... Watch this space!

prepaidplans · #3 16-05-2010, 05:57 AM

I also work full time (in Marketing) and have been dabbling with AM for almost 2 years. The income has grown steadily over the past 12 months but certainly not enough to quit my day job nor even go part-time.

I think I have mentioned it before in this forum, the issue I see in Australia is that not enough companies are involved in it (particularly for the industries I do AM for) and even were they are, budgets come and go and tracking systems sometimes fail and so I see a lot of wholes in it as a business model.

Never the less, I have no plans of quitting. What is enjoyable is seeing an idea come to live and traffic resulting from it. Then you start to wonder how do I make money from this? For someone who works in marketing, I find it very useful because most marketers have no idea about AM nor SEO, so it differentiates you somewhat.

speed_e · #4 21-05-2010, 04:22 PM

Affiliate marketing is my, and my wife and two kids, sole income and has been for three years. It can be volatile but it tends to even out in the long run. The industry is always changing. So, there are challenges, but big upsides too. I'm not limited by the number of hours in day limiting what I earn. Plus the flexibility of working from home with a young family.

I agree with some of the comments in regards to the state of affiliate marketing industry in Australia. It is no where near the US and UK, IMO. Maybe that's why I don't focus on Australian traffic much.

swecs · #5 21-05-2010, 04:48 PM

wow speed_e, that's great! i always hear about people out there who earn 100% of their income from affiliate marketing, but never actually met one! congratulations, and it gives me hope.

so you focus mostly on overseas networks/traffic?

also, if you don't mind me asking, did it take you a long time, or a lot of effort, to reach 100%, or did it happen quite easily for you?

Cheers
Graeme

speed_e · #6 22-05-2010, 08:51 AM

There are quite a few of us full-timers around. Perhaps they're just not active on here. I have meet many of them both here in Melbourne and at events in Sydney.

I reckon it is about half and half between guys with authoritative sites they have SEO'ed to the hilt and the other half PPC guys.

I'm in the latter half. PPC and other paid traffic sources. Probably 95% of it targeted OS. Any stuff I do do in AU is tyically offers on the networks I deal with OS. Given I paid for my traffic daily the Australia networks payment terms don't really agree with me.

I reckon I was like you guys for 2-3 years before going full time. It was a bit of beer money on the side. Then I took some leave when my family started and decided to have a full on go at making it the sole income. It always takes a lot of effort. Affiliate marketing (unless you had the most perfect setup) is not a passive income.

Keep at it though. The benefits are definitely there, even as a part time additional income to you regular full time job. By the end of my old career, I hated it. Use to like it. I was high paid, comfortable conditions and all.. but just didn't like the idea of commuting, working for a set amount and being surrounded by a bunch of inefficient idiots. I needed affiliate marketing, or something else, to be able to work for myself and leave that unhappiness.

swecs · #7 24-05-2010, 09:48 AM

Thanks for the insight. We'd be in the first half you talked about, "guys with authoritative sites they have SEO'ed to the hilt" - we specialise in SEO, so we're building a suite of sites that rank high in the organic search results and send traffic to the merchants. it's a heck of a lot of work at the start but i'd hope that in the long term it produces good income that perhaps requires a little less monitoring, I don't know.

having said that i realise that PPC is an important part of traffic, we've used it a bit, and obviously it's a big success for you. I'd imagine that when you're living off affiliate marketing 100%, then the amount you're spending could be quite high, and the potential for things to go wrong sometimes is always there - i guess that's what you mean by "It can be volatile"?

but great to hear you're doing well at it, and that you know of others too. it's given me a bit of encouragement and i think i'll revisit adding PPC to our mix too.

Cheers
Graeme

faststeady · #8 24-05-2010, 12:02 PM

it took me six months part time to get to around $1k per month, then 3 months longer to get to $5k/mth and whilst i've been part time now for 4 years, i earn more affiliating than working

the first part of affiliate success is the hardest, and once it "clicks" growing exponentially is not as difficult as getting started

Moldydish · #9 24-05-2010, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by faststeady

it took me six months part time to get to around $1k per month, then 3 months longer to get to $5k/mth and whilst i've been part time now for 4 years, i earn more affiliating than working

the first part of affiliate success is the hardest, and once it "clicks" growing exponentially is not as difficult as getting started

Dang that sounds good! In 9 months you hit the income of, what would be in annual terms, around 60k and that was only part time. Does it mean that if you quit your job and went full time in affiliate marketing you would be on around $120k per year at least? Or does it level pretty much at where you have it now?
'

faststeady · #10 24-05-2010, 07:28 PM

im in gambling so it can be volatile, i enjoy my job so don't desire to move to full-time

dont be scared to outsource, how many times do you hear small business people working in their business instead of on it???

the web's no different

cheers

Moldydish · #11 25-05-2010, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by faststeady

im in gambling so it can be volatile, i enjoy my job so don't desire to move to full-time

dont be scared to outsource, how many times do you hear small business people working in their business instead of on it???

the web's no different

cheers

It sounds like you have great business sense and the ability to balance your interests.

Often on the forum the successful marketers speak of the hard work involved at the inception of online marketing projects. It seems also important that the marketer has natural business acumen, the ability to make sound decisions and a heart for the work.