Gold Did Affiliate Marketing Work in 2020? (Target $10K)

Affiliate Marketing Diary 2020
(September 22, 2020 - December 31, 2020)

Spoiler

Affiliate Marketing Definitely Works

I lost my job due to Covid-19 and I have no other source of money so I started my affiliate marketing journey in lockdown with $25 invested in a domain name and hosting

Before I started I read in lots of place that affiliate marketing doesn't work so I decided to try it for 6 months full time 100% effort and see what happens

• Start date: August 2020
  
• Budget: $25
• Target: $100 a day by Christmas
• Niche: Clothing/fashion
• Commission range: 5-10%
• Traffic source: Google organic search

Month #1 Target

• $40 daily commission
• $1200 monthly commission

Month #1 Results

• $25 daily commission
• $750 monthly commission
• Visits: 30k
  
• Views: 85k
• Revenue: $12k

Month #2 Target

• $60 daily commission
  
• $1800 monthly commission

 

Week 6 update
Just passed $1k commission milestone
Got burned by one program
Will read program terms carefully before promoting in future
Starting to plan ahead for Xmas/winter campaigns

 

Week 7 update
Started promoting $100 products instead of $20 products
Result was 50% week-to-week increase in sales/commissions

 

Some things that are working

1. Regular product research
2. Keep applying to new programs
3. Sign up to network and partner email list
4. Use 2-step verification where available
5. Find ways to increase AOV
6. Keep notes on analytic software

I learn this too FAILURE IS PART OF SUCCESS STORY

 

Glad I found this community
Today I started learning PPC
My plan is to test Xmas products with SEO
Once I have a clear picture will start paid adverts

 

Good questions @AmNovice

1. My budget is my time - 5 hours a day for ave $50 = $10/hour (above minimum federal hourly rate)
   
2. 100% SEO - will add PPC in October for festive shopping as @Andy Hoang mentioned above (October-January) on specific products linked to long tail search queries (example 'brown mongolian cashmere winter jacket for women' which retail to $2k @ 5% commission = $100 a pop so if the PPC acquisition per sale is $10 then I'd make $90 on each PPC sale, minus the cost of my time)

For scaling very important to automate everything you can, that way you spend less hours and earn more money (keep track of hours and work), this week I'm automating all my reports and tracking work completed in Google Calendar

 

Example formula

• Product A (blue sunglasses) cost $100
• You make $8 earnings per sale (8% commission)
• If you sell 10 sunglasses a day it's $80 (x 7 = $560/week)

Go to Wordtracker and search blue sunglasses
Keyword volume is 1,433 visits/month (US)
Further down list is blue mirror sunglasses 678 visits/month (US)
Now you decided to promote blue mirror sunglasses

• Register the domain name bluemirrorsunglasses.com for $1
• Register hosting for $10/year
• Register SSL for $5/year
• Set up CMS
• Install e-commerce platform
• Add products (ONLY blue mirror sunglasses)
• Start to rank on Google after 3-4 weeks

That's what I did now I'm earning $50/day ($1500/month)

To do this successfully I cannot stress enough how important it is to read and apply the Google Webmaster Guidelines

 

Not trying to be mean but SEO is not slow
You are slow at SEO
Just read and apply the Google Webmaster Guidelines
Same as you read and apply Google Ads Policies

 

This is what I did

1. Go to Google Webmaster Guidelines
2. Copy and paste into Google Docs
   
3. Highlight each point
4. Create SEO checklist
5. Apply to your website

Be under no illusions
It takes A LOT of time and effort
There are easier ways to earn (PPC)