Affiliate marketing

[steve70]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has had success with affiliate marketing either
through Amazon or any other programme?

Can a decent monthly income be made or do you require tons of daily traffic to even earn a few pounds? I know it takes patience but was wondering if income could be made.

Thanks

 

[Tom @ Click Miners]

I used to do relatively well with Amazon. I'm talking here few thousand pounds a month.

You will need good deal of traffic do make money. My conversion rate (once I've sent someone to Amazon) was around 5%. Considering CTR you will need few hundred visitors/day unless your CTR and then conversion rate is significantly higher.

Good part of Amazon affiliate program is that you are being paid on all items brought by the visitor you have sent. So if you have a website about books you will get commission on Kindle if someone buy it through your website. You can expect great spike of sales during the Christmas period.

The trick is to choose items you promote. You can have a website promoting cheap stuff such as books which generate little commission but will improve your commission rate on Amazon. Then go for items valued £100. Amazon got commission capped on £7 if I remember correctly.

Sweet thing about affiliate marketing is you earn money while you sleep (if you set up everything correctly).

You may need more than one website to make reasonable money.

There are other affiliate networks which offer much higher commissions. Some offers such as casino may get you £50+ per sales generated through your affiliate link but usually are harder to get.

 

[StevePoster]

I think casino is harder to promote when it comes to affiliate marketing and this is due to the tight competition in the market compares to ordinary product and services. Additionally, you have the advantage if your website is well established and known in the industry.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

The £7 limit only applies in EU. US Amazon pays full commissions. So make you affiliate site for the US market and you'll make more money for the same number of sales - you'll need to register separate affiliate IDs for each country.
Yes you can make money. You'll make more money if you content is useful in itself. Also try and get people on a mailing list (with useful content), they'll buy more.

 

[intelligentppc]

Unless you have a site with decent organic traffic, the way to make serious money with affiliate marketing is to find a merchant with a high 'per lead' payout and generate leads for them using a website and Adwords/Bing.

I have earned 5 figures per month using this method for many years, so yes it works.

The key to success with affiliate marketing is getting in early, whether that means a new product or a new traffic source. It's not long before a profitable market gets saturated and you have to make hay while the sun shines.

Now is the time to get into mobile if you haven't already.

 

[Mad Frog]

I've a series of old bingo/casino sites that I set up years ago and do about 20 mins work on a month (across all sites), they regularly bring in £300-£500/month.

 

[steve70]

Thanks guys I really appreciate the excellent advice.

I was wondering Tom do you still do Amazon affiliate marketing and do you still earn well with those?

I'm thinking of going into affiliate marketing but what stops me is whether someone like me who has little SEO and website skills can generate 1000s of visitors per month.

 

[intelligentppc]

You don't need thousands of visitors a month if you have a high commission product/service.

 

[steve70]

Thanks

Do you know of people who are making sustainable income with affiliate marketing. I'm going to do my research and hopefully start as I've been thinking about it for a while.

 

[intelligentppc]

The answer to that is yes, but you must understand that it is much harder than it used to be. For instance with affiliate lead gen the ROIs are not as high, and you have to invest more to get more back.

 

[Tom @ Click Miners]

steve70 - I still do affiliate marketing but it's not a primary source of my income. I do different things now because affiliate marketing is not a real business.

I know people will argue with that but:

- you don't have a full control of product price
- product or offer can be discontinued
- affiliate program may be shut down

Simply put you have little control over what's going on. The only thing you control is your website - other stuff can change and screw your business within days. If you want to make it sustainable chose the niche wisely. Go for so called evergreen niches - things like sport supplements for example will not go away quickly. Things like acai berry may be fashionable for few months and dry up quickly. If you are sort of a marketer who can adapt to changes quickly you will make money on those kind of offers.

To stay in affiliate marketing you need to be able to build solid websites with real added value - then you can think about steady income.

 

[intelligentppc]

If anyone is interested I am launching an affiliate network focused on mobile very soon. PM me for more details.

 

[Whittie]

I was wondering if anyone has had success with affiliate marketing either
through Amazon or any other programme?

Yes, takes lots of trial and error, but don't give up, it ends up as passive income!

Can a decent monthly income be made or do you require tons of daily traffic to even earn a few pounds? I know it takes patience but was wondering if income could be made.

It can, huge amounts can be made, I know someone making 20k a week, which is rising. I've spent the last 3 years coming up with different methods to promote affiliate ties. My conclusion is pretty much your question, it takes bags of traffic and patience, also dependent on your affiliate deal. I love affiliates that are ongoing, once the user registers, you've got 10% of their spends for the period they continue to buy etc

Once you have a breakthrough you can end up earning a couple of grand a month quite easily, and once you have that formula you can set up several sites similar.

 

[Whittie]

If anyone is interested I am launching an affiliate network focused on mobile very soon. PM me for more details.

Send it though, could be good

 

[biomed86]

If anyone is interested I am launching an affiliate network focused on mobile very soon. PM me for more details.

I'd be interested in more info on this, I'm into affiliate marketing and looking to get into the mobile market!

OP - it takes a lot of trial and error, but like others have said choosing a good niche and patience is important. I know people making a great income but it took them lots of time, research, test and test again, building relationships with vendors etc. If you're prepared to put the work it, you can get something good out

 

[alexdigital]

Hi,

I'm an affiliate marketer. I've done it for a while now and it's had it's ups and down.

A few years ago I was able to make a few thousand a month by employing SEO companies to rank sites full of affiliate products, but nowadays this doesn't work so well.

Since then i've decided to promote products by providing decent content. My Youtube channel (see my sig) has recently started to get quite a few views and my affiliate income is up to a nearly £500 per month. You'll notice I recommend website hosting and premium Wordpress products in my videos.

It can be done, but it's not quick and easy thing, you gotta put some work in..

On another note I created an Amazon store using a WordPress plugin.. Take a look here.

It's been up about 8 months and i've done minimal work on it and it's earning £50 per month or so. It actually up for sale on Flippa if you're interested..

Good luck.

 

[david64]

If you join an affiliate middle man like CJ.com or affiliatewindow, you can rank advertisers by how much they make on the network. So you can use that as a starting point as to what may be worth promoting.

Some good advice is provided above. I would add that you should look at doing something substantial, rather than a cheap throw up. This doesn't have to be huge amounts of content. If I had more time, one I would like to do is a domain price comparison site. Its not too much work and the current offering is poor. However, any of these niches are going to take some time to get embedded. I worked on one site for 9 months before it started to get any decent traffic.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

My advice would be to choose an uncrowded niche, buy a Google optimised affiliate website and start loading up lots useful content that also targets long tailed keywords. Build up the content until you start to see the visitors rolling in and then choose feeds from Affiliate Window (or similar) that target the right products to the right pages, so the traffic you send through is properly qualified. Affiliate Marketing is set to be worth about £15 billion in the UK alone this year, so it is a great market to get into

 

[AmarDigital]

Amazon Associates was recently updated and the commission rate is dependent upon what category the product is in.

As stated previously, the benefit of Amazon is that you get commission on whatever they buy and not what they originally clicked though to.

I met with the head of Amazon Associates for the EU last year and he told me that the average split is roughly 60/40 between people purchasing what they originally clicked on and another product. Great potential there.

Also, a note on conversions. I was also told that the top Amazon affiliates are hitting around 20% conversion rate. Personally I hit about 6%. Clearly room for improvement for a lot of people!

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I met with the head of Amazon Associates for the EU last year

Perhaps you could email and ask why the commissions are limited to £7 max...?

 

[AmarDigital]

Perhaps you could email and ask why the commissions are limited to £7 max...?

I did and they told me that it was being lifted....

Updates to the EU Associates Operating Agreement Effective March 1, 2015

"The limitation on Advertising Fees of £7.00 does not apply to Qualifying Purchases of any Products."

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I did and they told me that it was being lifted....

Updates to the EU Associates Operating Agreement Effective March 1, 2015

"The limitation on Advertising Fees of £7.00 does not apply to Qualifying Purchases of any Products."

Well, that's cool... but still doesn't explain why the limit was there in the first place... I had thought maybe it was some stupid EU rule, but I haven't been able to find any possiblities.

 

[AmarDigital]

Well, that's cool... but still doesn't explain why the limit was there in the first place... I had thought maybe it was some stupid EU rule, but I haven't been able to find any possiblities.

Yeah, I'll be honest when I met with them a lot of the responses were either "it's an EU law" or "we can't talk about that right now.."

Still though, was nice to be invited to their head office. They got their best UK sellers in 20+ different verticals in a room and plied us with muffins.

 

[garyk]

On another note I created an Amazon store using a WordPress plugin.. Take a look here.

It's been up about 8 months and i've done minimal work on it and it's earning £50 per month or so. It actually up for sale on Flippa if you're interested..

Good luck.

Nice looking site but really 78 times monthly net profit? I've bought on flippa but never really look for anything more than 10-12 times monthly profit as purchase price.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

I've had some success with affiliate marketing, but in general it is more difficult now than 11 years ago when I started. To have success, think carefully about the type of products you will promote, and whether the commission being offered will be worth your time.

 

[alexdigital]

Nice looking site but really 78 times monthly net profit? I've bought on flippa but never really look for anything more than 10-12 times monthly profit as purchase price.

Point taken, although i'm not sure you've done the currency conversion.

I've reduced the price any how..

-Alex

 

[garyk]

Point taken, although i'm not sure you've done the currency conversion.

I've reduced the price any how..

-Alex

OK Just 37x monthly net then!

 

[Kevin Duffy]

I was involved a few years ago with numerous affiliate maketing programs in a futile attempt to leave my job in Social care Management. After about 18 months I found them all to be rubbish, i.e. KBGold, Karatbar, CapitolGaming etc..

However on a whim took up a free affiliate a couple of weeks ago and have hammered it and finally, after years, I making money daily, lots.... the kinda stuff you read about!!!

So until 14 days ago I thought they were all utter rubbish.NOW I love it again!!!

It can take years to find a decent product. Don't go thinking the first one you do will make you rich and NEVER spend your own money on one until you are making money..

I repeat NEVER spend your own money!

kev

 

[intelligentppc]

Don't go thinking the first one you do will make you rich and NEVER spend your own money on one until you are making money..

I repeat NEVER spend your own money!

kev

Interested to know who's money you spend?

 

[Kevin Duffy]

Money I make from the product... i.e getting paid. Then If one wishes to outlay cash on promotional material, cards, adverts etc, What until you have got paid from the programme or product. I made £58 on my current project before I spent on it...

Took me 6 hours to make that.... Some products sell themselves. Those are the only ones to focus on. If someone says you gotta input X amount 9 times out of ten its a bad product.

 

[intelligentppc]

I've been doing affiliate marketing as my full-time income for 10 years and I have never found anything which didn't require at least a bit of upfront advertising spend. But then I've always done PPC and never SEO.

 

[Kevin Duffy]

I am lucky... I have some very big twitter accounts & have a lot of skill at hitting certain demographics via twitter....

see @FreebetsWin

 

[Craig hogg]

I am lucky... I have some very big twitter accounts & have a lot of skill at hitting certain demographics via twitter....

see @FreebetsWin

Kevin,

I realise its been around a year or so but how are your business ventures doing now and how did you get started?

 

[Alan]

Interesting thread re-opened.

It reminded me I have an Amazon Affiliate account, just took a look, I have been an affiliate since 2007!!!

(total earning in 10 years = £30 note to self: build a website )

 

[Idosell Shop]

Affiliate programs work well if you do it well.
- Choose right affiliate partner- volume does not mean value.
- Control affiliate program and chose the right channels.
- Choose precise offer- affiliate program is about the generation of the first order, building customers base to work on later on.
Since you already gained customer trust this is a good base for later on.

Affiliate program is only an element of omnichannel marketing.

 

[Gordon McNevin]

Thousands of people in the UK make an income each month with Amazon, much much more on other affiliate programs. But, you need the numbers, and Amazon only has a 1 day cookie! There are many affiliate networks out there but Amazon do have a huge amount of products and also nice rates depending on the type of product.

Short answer: Yes (lots do)

If you want a long answer you must ask the right questions ;-)

Tip: It's a lot easier to convert someone who is already 95% there than suggesting something they might need.

 

[mugatea]

I started with Amazon Associates over a week ago. I get about 5-600 visitors a day with a conversion rate of 4.23%. I'm making about £1 a day. lol. Is it poss to make more money or should I just be happy with that?

 

[webgeek]

If you can convert 24 a day, don't you reckon a better paying offer would be the way to go? No doubt.

Every offer that has ever paid me, or a client that I've worked with, WELL, in the past, was a deal directly with a site, not through an affiliate network program. Sure, there's been money made from a number of networks, but peanuts compared with real offers.

Then again, the best paying situations come from sites having traffic who start selling their own products they've sourced.

If you own the traffic and you own the product(s), you'll do well, especially if you can do 4%+ conversion rates.

 

[justinaldridge]

I've been generating an affiliate income for over 12 years and of course it still works. Big price comparison sites are just glorified affiliate sites, as are many others. Some of my SEO clients have what are essentially affiliate sites but that's their business.

I have many sites in the travel industry and now branching into the the wedding industry and there are so many opportunities.

Amazon, for me, has always been the worst in terms of generating a decent income. Commissions are just too low in general. Commission based or lead based set ups work best for me.

People tend to think that earning an affiliate income should be easy but it does require enormous effort. It's just like setting up and running a business. It takes time and you have to try out different affiliate products and campaigns to see what works best for your traffic and industry.

You can make a living being an affiliate, and a very good one at that. But it does require a lot of effort.

 

[Alan]

Well I re kindled my Amazon Affiliate account and knocked up a micro review site

Conversion click -> Amazon 18%
Conversion Amazon -> Order 33%
Conversion click -> Order 6%

Avg Cost per order conversion £1.59
Avg revenue per order £1.95

Happy days

Unfortunately its so niche it wont scale so avg 1 order per day = £0.35p per day net = £9.80 per month

I guess I could flip it for £100

Or repeat the excercise 500 times