Are People Really Making Money Online with Affiliate Programs?
By Edward
@trinale (1479)
United States
November 5, 2008 10:30pm CST
This was my question of the day:
Hi, my name is [hidden]. I have been working on my job for 21 years.
Things are changing for the worst there and I want to start now to
prepare for any major negative changes and early retirement. I have
been looking into the affiliate market area. I feel like I am
spinning my wheels. Am I wasting my time? If I work at this will I
really be able to make money? Are people really making full-time
incomes with affiliate programs? I have joined several programs like
viralurl and adlandpro but, get confused on what to do. I am willing
to work at this if it will make me some money. I need another way to
generate income outside of my regular job. If I am not getting to
personal Why are you still working a job?
Thanks for you time,
And my response was:
Hi [removed],
The short answer to your question is yes people are making fulltime incomes with affiliate programs. The majority of the more successful marketers have been at it awhile and don't tell how easy it was to build their businesses when the Internet was relatively new. They've spent years recruiting members, building their contact lists and honing their sales and copyright skills. It was really easy to get noticed to. Advertising was free or cost very Little. Heck, you could even get listed high up in Google and Yahoo for FREE!
As the Internet grew, so did the number of scams and con-artists. People are more and more skeptical now and reluctant to sign up for any programs that ask for money. As a result it has become more difficult to get people to join programs. Selecting the right program (or product) to affiliate with is not so easy either. Many people join affiliate programs based on the hype and promises and often end up trying to promote a program that really has nothing to offer.
I don't know what marketing and/or social skills you have nor do I know how much time, money and effort you're willing to invest in growing an affiliate Business, so I couldn't honestly tell you that you could succeed or not.
What I would advise you to do is to find a good residual income program that you can use yourself. This program will require you to make recurring payments (usually monthly), but you will also earn commissions from others you refer. When you refer enough members, eventually, you won't be paying anything anyway. The best way I can explain is by example. I'm a fan of web hosting because it's something I use and any serious online entrepreneur soon learns they need also.
I signed up with a hosting company that charges $24.95 monthly for all the bells and whistles and pays me $10 monthly for every customer I refer to them. I'm happy with their service so I start recommending them to others. With the first 3 referrals, I'm no longer paying for my hosting because I'm earning $30 monthly. The more satisfied customers you refer, the more you will make. If you should decide to stop promoting them and all the customers you referred continue using their web hosting service, you still get paid. If you get 10 customers, that's $100 monthly coming to you.
Now, take a program that only pays commissions one time for each sell. You join a program that pays you for every sale you make. These programs are usually free, but there are some that require you to buy their product before you can earn commissions for sales. A good example of this are the ebook offers I'm sure you've come across many times.
You recommend the ebook to 10 people in one month, you earn $100...for that
month...that's it. If you want to earn $100 the following month, you would have to refer 10 more People. If you stop referring, you stop being paid. See the difference?
Now, after you've chosen your path, in comes the hard part. Online promotion, a.k.a. Internet Marketing. How are you going to get the word out and let people know about this great program you've found? Some free methods currently used are traffic exchanges, safelists and forums. Some paid methods include purchasing google adspace, ezine advertising and pay-per-click search engines. All can get expensive and if you're not careful, can drive you to bankruptcy court!
I'm familiar with viralurl and adlandpro. Both programs are usually used to promote other programs, but that's the problem in itself. For those programs to be successful, you have to promote them to others who are doing the same thing you are...trying to promote their own programs.
And to answer your question, why am I still working?, in the beginning Internet Marketing was just a hobby for me. This was when everything was free and I just wanted to play around on the Internet. When I wanted to start learning HTML and building my own web pages, I started out with the free hosting companies and learned quickly I needed my own space so I could do with it what I wanted. That's when I got involved with affiliate programs. A few years after retiring from the
Air Force (after 24 years), I started thinking about that permanent retirement. I want to do that in about 12-15 years and it would be nice to have a little extra coming in. I figured if I start now, don't become a greedy, lying marketer, I would have time to build up with the company I chose. I rather spend 10 years recruiting 500 satisfied customers than to waste time replacing people who are going
to quit on me. It takes a lot of time to build a business and it just makes sense to start now instead of waiting until I retired starting from scratch.
If you ever need any help, advise, guidance, I'm always here to share my experiences and make suggestions on what I know. Since I've been doing this off and on for a little over 10 years, I'm sure I can be of some use to you.
Cheers,
Stan
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Just thought I share this with you all. What do you think?
No responses