Understanding the Professional Affiliate Marketer

[Aminka Ozmun]

Just wondering if anyone here can provide some kind of insight into the professional affiliate marketer...I've always thought of affiliate marketing as side income, not something someone goes into full-bore, at least not from the start!

But it seems like for many people all they do is find stuff to sell in this way. Like, it's their day-job! Talk about work-at-home....

Anyway, any personal experiences would be lovely. Thanks!

[cassiopeia]

This is something I want to do. I dabble a bit in affiliate marketing, right now it is making me about a quarter to a third of the monthly income I'd be comfortable with.

Only thing is, it's a bit unreliable. A friend of mine was making good money from affiliate marketing when they closed down his account because they didn't like the methods he was using to promote his merchants. He had a couple of thousand in the account when it was shut down

[Peterw]

Originally Posted by cassiopeia

This is something I want to do. I dabble a bit in affiliate marketing, right now it is making me about a quarter to a third of the monthly income I'd be comfortable with.

Only thing is, it's a bit unreliable. A friend of mine was making good money from affiliate marketing when they closed down his account because they didn't like the methods he was using to promote his merchants. He had a couple of thousand in the account when it was shut down

This is why I don't give it any of my time any more. Also you're at the mercy of Google algorythm updates, got people scraping your content, going after your keywords etc. Web users are getting ever more savvy to spammy markeitng practices as well now and blocking it out.

I'm sure plenty of people are doing OK at it, but IMO to do well you have to have a real edge, very good content and really enjoy staying on top of the latest trends/mediums etc.

Not for me, I'm too lazy. I do like the idea of clicking buttons and getting money from the internet from home for a minimal amount of time spent working. That's why I trade

[chadcharlie]

Originally Posted by Peterw

This is why I don't give it any of my time any more. Also you're at the mercy of Google algorythm updates, got people scraping your content, going after your keywords etc. Web users are getting ever more savvy to spammy markeitng practices as well now and blocking it out.

I'm sure plenty of people are doing OK at it, but IMO to do well you have to have a real edge, very good content and really enjoy staying on top of the latest trends/mediums etc.

Not for me, I'm too lazy. I do like the idea of clicking buttons and getting money from the internet from home for a minimal amount of time spent working. That's why I trade

Yup, I agree. It is time consuming, time consuming! And the market changes quick! My dad started with it back in the AOL days in 98/99 and carried on with successful affiliate marketing until about 07/08 I think.

I jumped on some of his methods, but most of them require bot assistance, generating fake content, or fluff content, and EXTENSIVE gray-hat link building, or just flat out email spamming to generate traffic sufficient for conversions.

HOWEVER, there is something to be said about producing great content on a blog, and monetizing that blog. That not necessarily affiliate marketing in the old sense, but it does involve affiliate programs.

Steve Pavlina is a great example of this. Tim Ferris. Ramsi. Dooce.com (one of the original monetized blogs!), ect. If you can find a not-so-gigantic niche to be a competent writer in, you can monetize a good blog.

If you grow a site to 1,000 unique hits a day, which is small compared to "successful" site, and 1% of your traffic converts into a $25 to $50 purchase or payout (affiliate program, Pavlina's Site-Build-It, for instance.) you will generate $250 to $500 a day, or $7,500 gross per month on the low end, double that for he high end.

Read more about monetizing a blog. Pavlina and many others have great input on it.

Good luck!
Take care,
Chad.