Welcome to Affiliate Marketing for the Technically Challenged...  We're glad you're here!

The content of this site has been directly taken from the paperback we co-authored, Affiliate Marketing for the Technically Challenged.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

We define Affiliate Marketing as the process of earning commissions through other people’s products.  

Let’s say a prospect has a dog that keeps digging up their lawn.  So they go to Google and type in “how to stop my dog from digging up the lawn”.

Google will then display a page of listings including paid advertising, articles and videos offering relevant products.  

As an Affiliate Marketer you are acting as the middle person who has referred a prospect to the content they are actively searching for.

And in return for directing or actively recommending a product or service you receive a commission.

Some programs pay for every referral you send (usually a lower amount ranging from a few cents to a few dollars). While other affiliate programs will pay a percentage of each new sale made.

How Much Money Can I Make?

There are many different products, both physical and digital, which you can promote in exchange for commissions that can range from around 2% to as much as 100%.

This greatly depends on the company, industry, type of product and the price point.

For physical products you can expect anything from about 4% to 40%, while digital products tend to pay from about 25% to 75%.

The elite marketers are earning 7 figures yearly from Affiliate Marketing alone.

They drive PPC traffic to affiliate landing pages—and can easily spend one million to make two million back, simply by being the middle man.

Mark’s website businesses make combined yearly sales in the mid 7 figure range.  His success comes from both affiliate sales and sales from his own products.

But what about the “average person”?  How much is realistic for you to make? And how long will it take?

The average person can easily make a full time passive income in Affiliate Marketing.

How Long Will it Take to Earn Money?

It is possible to make six figures within the first year in Affiliate Marketing, as Mark did.

But how long it will take you depends on your level of experience and whether you are using free or paid traffic.

If you are using free traffic it can take as long as several months.  Using paid traffic can be a lot faster, but involves higher risks and upfront capital.

Ethics of Being a Responsible Affiliate Marketer

As an Affiliate Marketer is your job to find leads and if possible, presell the lead on the product or service you are promoting.

With this comes a certain degree of responsibility (assuming you wish to conduct business ethically).
There are many affiliate programs that will offer you high level commissions on sales you make (with many being better than their competitors).

However better commissions does not mean a better product. And here lies the problem…
You as an Affiliate Marketer want the programs with the best conversions and best commissions. While your prospects want the best quality product.

This sometimes creates a dilemma that must be overcome. It’s one we have faced all too often...

Personally we care more about the quality of what we refer than the commissions we make.  Long term this is a strategy that does pay off (as trust is built and people will continue to listen to our recommendations).

On the flip side there are some Affiliate Marketers that take the short-sighted route who give in to the temptation of a fast cash injection.

They do not give any thought as to whether the products they’re promoting are any good or not.
The bottom line is what you choose to promote is up to you.  Just choose carefully.

Who is Affiliate Marketing Best Suited For?

Anyone can be successful in Affiliate Marketing.  It is real.  It is possible.  And with the right determination and knowledge anyone can do it.

You don’t need to have any previous experience and any skills you need are easy to learn.

Knowledge is power!  And when you know what to do you will be all the faster in making your first commission.

We have noticed that those who succeed the most are those who really enjoy themselves the most.  

We suggest it is best if you are enthusiastic about the first niche that you enter.  Having a genuine interest and passion helps with your motivation.

And motivation is very important in the beginning. Once you master how to make money in the niche you’re naturally interested in, you then become excited by the fact you’ve actually made some money.

You can then use this excitement to branch into other niches where you have less knowledge. Here you can still succeed—because you’ve understood how to make money with your first niche.

Affiliate Marketing suits those who are driven enough to stick to a plan and see it through to completion.

It’s easy to allow yourself to become distracted by tangents and “fads” that can work but may not. 

There’s a lot to be said in sticking to what works and not deviating from that. It is no coincidence that many of the top Affiliate Marketers love numbers.  They enjoy checking their stats.

And they love to analzye. They check which numbers are converting and which aren’t. They can then use this information to get the maximum return on investment of their time, energy and resources.

If you are already a business or product owner then Affiliate Marketing provides an excellent way to leverage these and generate additional income without much effort.

Pros to Affiliate Marketing...

Affiliate Marketing is often the first “making money online” model that people start with. And for good reason.

It is one of the easiest.  Take a look below to find out why…

• Low Effort
  
  As an Affiliate Marketer you choose a product to promote, so you don’t have to spend time creating your own.
  
  There are no customers and associated customer service headaches to deal with as the product owner or service provider looks after these for you.
  
  And you don’t need to have a merchant account (which is a means of taking money online).  Setting up one of these can carry its own frustrations.

• Low Cost Entry
  
  You don’t have to spend any money making, supplying or buying your products.
  
  You don’t have to source and warehouse the products.
  
  And you don’t have to spend money on a team to support you—because you can get going on your own. 
  
  (We still recommend having a team to grow your business, but you can get started without one initially.)
  
  

• You Learn Marketing
  
  As an Affiliate Marketer you learn about how to market a product, without getting bogged down by everything else.
  
  Later when you have your own product (if that’s something you choose to do) you will know how to market and promote much more effectively.
  
  You’ll understand the affiliate mind-set and how to best support your own affiliates—as you have been one yourself.  You will also understand which factors convert the best and which to avoid.
  
  

Cons of Affiliate Marketing...

Despite all the great things about Affiliate Marketing, every business model has its downside.
Let’s take a look at the other side of the picture…

• Less Money
  
  Because you are not the product owner you will not receive the full potential of the profit margin, just a commission on the sale.
  
  And depending on the terms of the affiliate program you sign up for, you may get paid on the front end (first) sale only.  You may not get to share in the back end (such as upsells, cross-sells and recurring sales).
  
  You also won’t get a share in back end sales made to that customer over their lifetime. That is the commissions the product owner will make referring other products and services to that customer.
  
  We don’t see this as a limitation though. With proper planning you can capture leads and create your own back end…
  
  By building a list you can mail out a follow-up newsletter or e-couse series (via an autoresponder) where you can regularly promote other people’s products.
  
  In this way you’re able to create even more profit from each lead you generate.

• Less Control
  
  As an Affiliate Marketer you don’t have much control.
  
  If the product owner decides to stop selling their product, change the commission pay-out or even cancel the affiliate program there is little you can do about it.
  
  This has happened to Leon and it may well happen to you.  Just be forewarned.
  
  In addition to this it is your reputation on the line.  If the product owner does not deliver what they say they will, provides a poor quality product or refuses to issue refunds then their actions will make you look bad.
  
  And people do remember!

• No Authority Status
  
  The final disadvantage is that you don’t build the authority status that a product owner does.
  
  There are ways to build authority that we will look at later, but one of the most powerful ways is simply to create your own product.
  
  With all that said, Affiliate Marketing remains an awesome way to get started making money online.
  
  

3 Biggest Mistakes in Affiliate Marketing...

There are many mistakes we’ve witnessed over our combined years of running successful businesses online.  

Here are the most common three…

• Giving Up Too Early
  
  The biggest error we see affiliates make are those that jump from one strategy to the next –without “sticking it out” to make their previous approach work.
  
  To illustrate the first mistake we’d like to give an analogy…  Imagine you plant a rose bulb deep in a pot.  You place it in the green house, get the temperature and light right. You water it once, maybe five or six times.
  
  But then after a week or two you haven’t seen a rose yet, so you simply stop watering it.
  
  Just because you can’t see any results yet, it doesn’t mean your rose bulb is not going to grow or flower.
  
  This is the same as Affiliate Marketing.  You open up your affiliate account and see you haven’t been paid any commission checks yet.
  
  This is not a worthwhile way of measuring success.  You may be approaching the “tipping point” or close to making decent money.  But if you give up too early you’ll never find out if your progress was just about to be financially rewarded or not.

• Laziness
  
  The second biggest mistake we see are those who create poor quality sites with poor content that don’t benefit their prospects in any way.
  
  It is lazy to have a site that has no thought put in.  It is also lazy to participate in “black hat” methods. 
  We recommend steering clear and being suspicious of any method that looks like a “magic bullet”.  

• Failing To Build A List
  
  There are many Affiliate Marketers out there who build traffic, yet fail to build a list. This is the final mistake we often come across.
  
  You are leaving money on the table if you don’t build a list.  And having list safe-guards yourself… 
  
  If you were to suddenly lose all your traffic overnight, you can still make money from your list for a long time.