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When I posted my September blog earnings of $10,899.83 a few readers replied asking for advice with affiliate marketing. Given nearly $4,400 of that income was from affiliate sales - the largest single source of income - it’s easy to understand why people want further explanation in this area.

I’ll be frank with you, the area I make money from affiliate sales, is a highly competitive one, and I would probably make about twice or thrice as much money if I was doing what I do in a different niche. Selling affiliate offers to people interested in making money online is one of the hardest markets to sell in because it is over saturated and people are very skeptical. Unless you are the Rich Jerk or John Reese, two guys with huge email lists of people who love to buy Internet marketing products, you will struggle in this industry.

If I didn’t enjoy the topics of blogging and Internet business (especially combined together) and I was more interested in affiliate marketing just for the sake of money, I’d enter other affiliate markets like dating or ring tones (although these are quite saturated too) or go hunting for under serviced niche markets, where Internet marketing techniques will work even better because people are not used to them. A search of the various products you find at affiliate networks like Commission Junction and AzoogleAds provide plenty of inspiration for industries to enter as an affiliate marketer, beyond selling make money online products.

Not surprisingly, the Internet marketing industry is one of the most mature when it comes to Internet marketing tactics and as a result, the customers are over exposed to all the techniques we love so much, such as - namesqueeze pages, email marketing, sales copy, testimonials, etc. That’s not to say there is no money to be made, but you really need to be on top of your game. Other industries will be more forgiving.

I’ve been tempted many a time to jump ship after experiencing conversion rates lower than 0.1% on promotions I’ve done for Internet marketing products, although that might be more to do with the type of person I attract rather than the market itself.

The lesson here is that if you plan to enter the affiliate marketing arena and focus on Internet marketing products expect serious competition, and you better know how to find people who buy, which is an art form in itself!

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at how you can use a blog make affiliate income.

It Starts With The First Sale

The first money I ever made from affiliate marketing came from my blog. The grand total - $13 - and that was a couple of days after posting the article I had spent two hours slaving over hoping to make some big cash.

At the time I had an audience of 500 readers a day, although that may have been over exaggerated because I was using Webalizer to track my numbers, which generally provides a higher total compared to other statistics packages (Google Analytics for example shows less than half the visitors that Webalizer does). I was told about 2% is a reasonable conversion rate from people who know these things, so I assumed that would mean I would get at least 10 sales based on 500 readers.

I was like - Wow! if I can get 10 sales of an affiliate product that pays me $13 per sale, then all I need to do is write a great blog article to make $130 bucks! Do that a few times a week and you have a pretty darn good income, was what I thought to myself.

Rather than put in a half-hearted effort I wanted to be genuine and recommend something I knew was good, which I had used myself, from someone I respected and wasn’t too expensive (I didn’t think my readers had a lot of money at the time). I wrote my blog post, talked about how good the product was, used a little bit of scarcity because I thought the product offer was due to finish at the end of the month (turns out it wasn’t), published the article and then went to bed.

You can see the article here (incidentally the offer is still active - so much for scarcity!) -

Limited Time Special Price On AdWords E-Book

I woke up the next day, powered up my computer, opened up my browser and email, and excitedly looked to see if I had made any sales during the night.

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I just received the email from ReviewMe that they have launched their affiliate program and are paying out $25 per referral. Here’s what their blog states -

We are excited to announce our very cool affiliate program is ready for your blog! Not only will the affiliate program drive traffic to your individual listing at ReviewMe which will encourage review sales for you but it will also pay you $25 for any referred sale even if the visitor does not purchase a review from your blog.

I must admit that’s a good combination - you get paid for the review and the referral if they buy from your site, or if they buy a review from another site you still get the $25 referral fee. Needless to say, I have begun implementing my referral ID into posts here on my blog.

ReviewMe have also set up a badge you can apply to your blog that includes your affiliate ID and entices people to purchase reviews. The badge for Entrepreneurs-Journey looks like this:

Get In Now!

As a blogger who makes good money from affiliate programs I suggest you start promoting this one as soon as you can. The earlier you start the more you will make because the market is not saturated yet. Once everyone knows about ReviewMe it will be tough, especially for those of you with smaller blogs, to make any money from programs like this, but if you act early you have a much better chance of signing up new people.

Custom Pricing

ReviewMe have also changed their system so bloggers can determine the price to charge. I know for some bloggers this will be great because they can increase their fee and not impact their sales (perceived value anyone?). In my case I’m going to leave the pricing as is for now because I’m happy with the amount of review requests I receive at this time.

Praise For ReviewMe

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the service ReviewMe offers. The pricing structure is very rewarding and more often than not the review requests I receive are for very relevant and interesting subjects. Of course I get some that I either cannot do because they require too much research, or the topic is not relevant enough to my audience, or I’m traveling or too busy, but there are enough that I can do that it brings in a few hundred a month.

I’ve also offered some of the paid reviews to the Small Business Marketing & Branding writers whenever they come up, splitting the income with them if anyone volunteers to write the review.

That being said, writing reviews is a fine art and it can be hard not to feel like you are selling out just for the money. You have to think like you are writing the article because you are genuinely interested in the topic and not doing it for the cash, which, when the topic is relevant, is easy enough, but if it’s a little off-topic or a subject you no little about, it can be hard to make a review interesting.

Praise For Patrick Gavin

I don’t know if his companies are profitable yet given the focus at the moment appears to be on customer acquisition at both Text-Link-Ads and ReviewMe, but I have to give big props to Patrick and his partners behind the two sites.

Patrick’s come up with two very simple ideas for how to monetize blogs and offer advertisers great value. The services are perfectly positioned as middlemen in the transaction between advertisers and bloggers/site owners, both use a many-to-many business model so it’s possible to scale quickly without needing to increase resources significantly and the execution of the businesses has been great. The sites are clean and simple and the service is delivered with ease. I suspect both companies may well become multi-million dollar enterprises if they are not already.

I just wish I was as fast acting and thinking as Patrick and his team - they are definitely doing something right!

If all this is new to you, check out Text-Link-Ads where you can buy and sell text links and ReviewMe, where you can buy and offer reviews on blogs.

I also wrote an article when ReviewMe launched here - Should Bloggers Accept Money For Reviews?.

Yaro Starak
Reviewer

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I’ve been thinking for a while how I feel about affiliate marketing and how I conduct promotions on this blog. It’s well know that many bloggers promote via affiliate programs to make commissions, which is one of the ways I monetize my traffic here at Entrepreneurs-Journey. At the moment affiliate income is the second best money earner for this blog, after direct ad sales.

Many people take issue with affiliate promotions arguing that bloggers should disclose all links that are embedded with affiliate tracking code. Some bloggers purposefully do things like include an (aff) note next to affiliate links to remain transparent with their audience regarding affiliation, believing it helps to ensure their credibility remains intact.

I’m all for transparency and previously made use of the (aff) notation on my affiliate links. I’ve also begun posts by explaining my affiliate relationship with the product mentioned in the article.

Recently news circulated about new laws that may impact how affiliates promote online.

I’ve read the opinion of other Internet marketing bloggers who see no reason to disclose affiliate links since that’s the business they are in - affiliate marketing.

Brian Clark mentioned that the (aff) is not good copy - and I agree.

In the past I’ve felt some heat as a result of promoting products on this blog, especially products from Internet marketers who use hype to sell their goods.

As you can see, there is a lot of data that goes into the decision of how to handle affiliate links on your blog, and I’ve decided to make a few changes.

My New Disclosure Policy

I am no longer going to use the (aff) notes next to affiliate links. I believe it is bad copy and hinders the flow of reading, and could also reduce click-throughs. Where I believe it necessary I will, within the article itself, explain my affiliate relationship to a product I am linking to. However I will not do so every time I include affiliate links in an article.

I have no desire to damage my reputation or, if a law comes in regarding affiliate disclosure, risk possible legal problems (although I’m not sure if new laws would affect Australians). I believe I am a credible blogger and not placing an (aff) next to affiliate links will not do any major damage to my reputation. If you disagree that is certainly your right and if you decide to discontinue reading my blog as a result, that’s also your right, but I think you will miss out on a lot of good content.

I want to remain transparent with you, which is why I’m going to flat out state right now that I am an affiliate marketer and you can expect to see affiliate links here on my blog. I receive a commission if you purchase a product after clicking through my affiliate link.

You will usually spot affiliate links on this blog based on the /yaro-recommends/ component of the URL, however not all affiliate links include it. If you ever have any concerns regarding affiliate promotions on this blog you can contact me. This information will be added to my terms of service and privacy policy, when I update them shortly.

I expect a lot of people are tired of affiliate link disclosure issue - I certainly am - and this is likely the last post I will make on the topic. I’m sorry if anyone feels mislead because I no longer use the (aff) next to my affiliate links or they feel I am misleading others who may not realize I am earning a commission.

As I’ve said many times before, I believe since the majority of content I produce on this blog gives plenty back to my readers, I earn the right to promote via affiliate programs now and then to earn some financial reward for my efforts. I will continue to work hard to produce valuable content and as always, it is up to you to decide what you purchase and whether you go through my affiliate link when you do so.

I thank every person who has ever bought via my affiliate links. You motivate me to blog more often and provide me with the financial freedom to devote time to blogging and helping others.

Yaro Starak
Affiliate Marketer

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Cut to the chase - Join Rich Schefren’s Affiliate Program.

As many of you know I’m currently enrolled in Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits 12 month coaching program. I pay $397 USD each month to gain access to the course materials and weekly conference calls with Rich, with the goal of learning how I can grow and systematize my Internet business.

The main reason I joined was to learn how I can continue to grow my business and make money without having to work each day. Since joining the program I have taken several steps to automate BetterEdit.com, my main business, which now almost runs without me and has grown 50% over the previous 12 months - it will likely break the six figure revenue milestone this tax year.

Without the financial and time freedom my business provides I could not invest the energy I currently do into blogging and well - fun stuff like traveling around the world, eating at nice restaurants, spending time with family and my favorite - sleeping in. Hopefully later in the year it will also result in the purchase of my first home - a big moment in anyone’s life.

While I certainly cannot credit Rich for all my success I strongly believe what he teaches are the fundamentals to achieve all the goals I mentioned above, and lots more. In this case, for the right people who are motivated and already have some Internet business sense, the program is ideal.

Rich’s program is not a system you replicate to make money online like other products you have seen me promote at this blog. These are core business principles. His materials teach you how to successfully build a real Internet BUSINESS.

This is not a method to make money online, a technique or system, or a piece of software. Rich teaches you how to leverage your key asset - your own unique talents - and translate them into a viable business model that runs without your direct involvement or a means to take your existing Internet business, automate it and push profits through the roof.

You are given the foundation and all the key materials, but it’s still up to you to put the pieces together. At least this way you start out knowing what really works and you just need to apply it to your situation with Rich’s help along the way.

The Doors Are Opening Again

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