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Is affiliate marketing a profitable business?

Anastasia AdCombo

Affiliate Manager
Affiliate Manager
AdCombo
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Is affiliate marketing a profitable business for affiliates? Or do only affiliate networks and advertisers earn on it? If you are just thinking about how to be involved in this sphere or move further there are some simple rules which will help you to understand that. Let’s get down to business.

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First rule. You need to spend at least 8 hours per day to make your affiliate marketing strategy work, especially at the beginning. Dude, if you dream that you can make just 10 clicks in your approved account and then just take all the cash you are wrong! For example, publisher Mr. Brown, who earned his first million rubles ($16 000) when he was 16 y.o., has been learning IT since he started to study at school. So, be ready to spend a lot of time on learning all the AM working principles. There is no easy money to get for sure. When you are in pursuit of getting easy money in affiliate marketing you can only fritter away your ad budget, that’s it. So, let’s talk about your budget.

Second rule. For a good start you should have your own source of the internet traffic: website, blog etc. or a good budget for your ad camping. You should have at least $1k to make it work in order to test traffic’s sources and make a try to earn a bit. If you don’t have money or your own source of good traffic you should be ready for a long challenging way in affiliate marketing or just quit.

Third rule. Be careful when you choose an affiliate network you will be dealing with. Check its website first. Everything must be clear even for newbies: its policies and FAQ (how to work with this affiliate network). Try to contact an affiliate manager. Look at his/her work: how soon he/she answers your questions, what the quality of his/her answers is. Do they help you or are there just common phrases without no particular information? If the qualification of an affiliate manager is high and he/she gives you specific deadlines of your problem’s salvation this affiliate network is quite good. Look through the affiliate marketing forums. In a professional community there are a lot of experienced people who just screwed up and lost a lot of money in the past and started to earn again. Their pieces of advice may help you to make the right choice. But look at a personal rate of these advisers; they should be hot shots in affiliate marketing. Moreover, remember, you don’t need to stop at one affiliate network. You can choose several of them and see with which your work is better. Do not be swayed by very high payouts. When an affiliate network has higher payouts than all the other networks it may be just a plan to attract affiliates. You probably will get lower approve rate in the end. So shouldn’t be so greedy and choose average offer’s payouts for not to lose more.

Fourth rule. Offers choosing and promotion. You should know the sphere which offers belong to. If you don’t know customers’ needs and seasonality of products you promote you won’t bring leads. For example, if you are not a professional you can ask Google (Google’s Product Search) about customers’ preferences. Pay attention to platforms for product’s promotion. It should be niche sources where your customers inhabit: forums, classified, blogs, public pages in social networks.

So if you want to make affiliate marketing profitable for you say “goodbye” to childish dream that you can get fast and easy money. Be ready to spend your time and money and you can make a good start in affiliate marketing. And after some period of time, you will teach newbies with your “profitable” pieces of advice at professional community forums.

Good luck!
 
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Great post, but I would like to comment on a portion of it that sticks out to me:

"When an affiliate network has higher payouts than all the other networks it may be just a plan to attract affiliates. You probably will get lower approve rate in the end. So shouldn’t be so greedy and choose average offer’s payouts for not to lose more."

This is definitely not always going to be the case. You should constantly work to eliminate the middle men networks and try to go as direct as possible, to rid yourself of any problems and get the best payout possible. While you may run into networks who inflate the payout and just scrub the leads more to balance it out, there are also plenty of direct sources and legitimate networks that get really awesome payouts and don't screw over their users.

And of course, you don't always have to do this and you can settle for an average payout.. sometimes there is no other option. But don't forget, even those networks with basic payouts and heavily brokered offers can scrub your leads and be dishonest. If you're driving high volume to an offer and you know your quality is awesome, be greedy and ask for a payout bump. That's my advice. The Account Manager will be more than happy to give you some extra love on the payout, especially if you can ramp up the amount of leads even more. As the person who is driving the traffic, you are the boss in a way.

Never settle for the first thing you see. Do your research and ask questions, there could be a better deal right next door!
 
Great post, but I would like to comment on a portion of it that sticks out to me:



This is definitely not always going to be the case. You should constantly work to eliminate the middle men networks and try to go as direct as possible, to rid yourself of any problems and get the best payout possible. While you may run into networks who inflate the payout and just scrub the leads more to balance it out, there are also plenty of direct sources and legitimate networks that get really awesome payouts and don't screw over their users.

And of course, you don't always have to do this and you can settle for an average payout.. sometimes there is no other option. But don't forget, even those networks with basic payouts and heavily brokered offers can scrub your leads and be dishonest. If you're driving high volume to an offer and you know your quality is awesome, be greedy and ask for a payout bump. That's my advice. The Account Manager will be more than happy to give you some extra love on the payout, especially if you can ramp up the amount of leads even more. As the person who is driving the traffic, you are the boss in a way.

Never settle for the first thing you see. Do your research and ask questions, there could be a better deal right next door!

Thank you for your interest in the article
Probably, you're right ;)
 
Nice post here. It's very informative for newbies in affiliate marketing.
Thanks for sharing it.
 
Everyone knows the mobile market is growing fast. According to certain forecasts, the world's gonna have more than two billion smartphone lovers really soon.

The crazy popularity of mobile devices is gonna drastically change the industry. It's all going from desktop to mobile, opening up a new reality and allowing the biggest brands to reach potential customers all over the globe.

This means affiliate marketing - especially mobile - is still at the beginning. With the right strategy and a comfortable budget, anyone can really tap into this market. Using the experience and expertise of a competent AM who shows you great opportunities and gives you cool tips for you to know how and when to invest, I'm sure this is going to be one of the most profitable businesses in mobile.
 
Great post, but I would like to comment on a portion of it that sticks out to me:



This is definitely not always going to be the case. You should constantly work to eliminate the middle men networks and try to go as direct as possible, to rid yourself of any problems and get the best payout possible. While you may run into networks who inflate the payout and just scrub the leads more to balance it out, there are also plenty of direct sources and legitimate networks that get really awesome payouts and don't screw over their users.

And of course, you don't always have to do this and you can settle for an average payout.. sometimes there is no other option. But don't forget, even those networks with basic payouts and heavily brokered offers can scrub your leads and be dishonest. If you're driving high volume to an offer and you know your quality is awesome, be greedy and ask for a payout bump. That's my advice. The Account Manager will be more than happy to give you some extra love on the payout, especially if you can ramp up the amount of leads even more. As the person who is driving the traffic, you are the boss in a way.

Never settle for the first thing you see. Do your research and ask questions, there could be a better deal right next door!


Thanks for the tips Jeremy! Can you elaborate a bit more on "go as direct as possible" ? Do you mean contact the merchants directly? If so, what steps and tools do you recommend doing this?
Cheers!
 
Thanks for the tips Jeremy! Can you elaborate a bit more on "go as direct as possible" ? Do you mean contact the merchants directly? If so, what steps and tools do you recommend doing this?
Cheers!


Thanks!

And in some cases, yeah you can try contacting the merchant directly. Most are going to be tough to get connected to and do business with, but thats one strategy I have seen work. A lot of the times they want to work with some sort of network or ad agency, not a direct affiliate. So it can be a bit difficult for some people. And sometimes even for us it's difficult, especially for EDU.

Somebody else here might be more helpful on requesting a specific Tool, but things out there do exist that allow you to see all the redirects on the campaign. This can help you skip a few levels and get a more direct source for the offer you are looking for. Another strategy is simply going to different networks and shopping around for the best price, or talking with your AM and finding out if they are direct with what you are looking for. You go through enough networks, you're going to find the ones that have an awesome assortment of direct deals, that the other networks broker from.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions let me know.
 
Amazing read indeed. Well of course it is. I make a good living with affiliate marketing and most imporantly I do what I love.
 
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