|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Web site product
or service page:
Apple iPhone Entry.
Marketing
method: Banner,
300 x 250, ran on web site for 1 month.
Total affiliate earnings: Advertiser paid $5.00 per lead,
earned $445.00. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Product or service:
Screensavers download offer.
Marketing
method: Blog entry,
Text Link, ran on blog for 3 days, then
rolled off.
Total affiliate earnings: Advertiser paid $1.65 per lead
(CPA), earned $146.85. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most of the
advertiser offers we run are targeted to the "general public", in
other words there's a good chance that most of the people that saw
the above ads might have wanted an iPhone, have seen the Magic Ads
on TV or they wanted some free music for their iPod etc. This is a
just a small sampling of the many affiliate program links we have
online, there are many more that we don't want to bore you with
here, but we hope you get the general idea that affiliate marketing
IS profitable. If you want a long term stable income without
managing email lists, blasting your offers to subscribers and
constantly "selling" then you need to get into affiliate marketing
soon, you might as well... everyone else is!
Like anything else
in life, your results will depend entirely on the effort and time
you put into your affiliate business. Place one affiliate banner or
text link on your home page and tweet for the remainder of the day,
OK maybe you'll earn a dollar or two average per day and by the end
of the month that $30 to $60 will pay your cable bill for you (yep,
free money). If you're happy with that amount then you are still an
affiliate marketer, and you are making money so all is well. You can
make less then us or make more then us, it's really up to you to
determine that part of the affiliate income formula.
Just a
reminder... if you
have a dog related web site you sure don't want to waste your time
and web site real estate running cat product ads although "general
pet" related ads are OK. Always advertise what your visitors might
be interested in and NEVER what you like or "think" maybe they could
like. Guy sites, guy type products, if you have a younger market, go
for cell phone goodies, ring tones, social network related products
and services. For oldsters like Margie and I... think diabetes
monitors, hover round, AARP, medical related and those kinds of
things. ->
Be your own visitor, yep put yourself in their shoes... then advertise
very closely to what "they" would be interested in and you'll do
just fine!
Lastly the case
studies above are some of our better performing advertising offers,
there were others much better then the ones listed however with some
Affiliate Management companies you can only go back so far so we
didn't have access to the information for those gems. There have
also been some ads that we ran that did little to nothing for us as
far as earnings. Do you remember the upside down growing tomato
plant that was on TV? Well, we saw that it was getting a bunch of
air time so we poked around the back offices of a few of the
affiliate companies we're
with and found it, placed the ad online and... nothing for an entire
week - so we pulled it and moved on to something else. Later we
realized that it likely was not a problem with the product, but a
problem with the time of year and our timing. We placed the ad
towards the end of summer... not enough time for most people to
order it, receive it and grow any tomatoes before fall and winter
hit, so we learned the hard way but that's what it's about
sometimes.
Bottom line... don't
just pick an ad, place it on your web site or blog and then and walk
away. Ensure you are offering targeted products to your targeted
visitor. Check your stats to make sure people are clicking on your
ads, signing-up and earning you money. If they are and it's going
real well, upgrade to a bigger ad and give it some more room on your
site to increase your earnings. If something isn't working
re-evaluate if you want to try a different ad (bigger banner, switch
to a text link etc.) or whether you just need to "cut your loses"
and try a new product or service. Lastly timing is important so no
gardening plant ads in Autumn, no discounted t-shirts in Winter, and
no space heaters in the springtime - sheesh.
Margie and I are "part time" affiliate
marketers, by that I mean she's a housewife (and damned good at it)
during the day and I still work my 8 hour shift 5 days a week every
week except on holidays or when I'm burning up some of my vacation
days. During the week I spend an average of 2 hours each night
online checking mail, updating affiliate links, initiating link
trades and doing general webmaster maintenance. On weekends we're
either doing yard work, traveling North to the big city or just
relaxing and getting ourselves recharged for the upcoming week.
As mentioned on our
about page, the money we earn online each
month covers our mortgage, car payment with a few hundred dollars
left over for extra savings plus a little more for fun stuff and
entertainment. If we wanted to be rich we'd become full time
affiliate marketers, however we all have to balance our work life
with enjoying life itself. At our ages it's no longer about the big house
by the beach or the expensive European car. For us it's about enjoying our
upcoming retirement and because of that it's the little affiliate marketing
we do now that generates a nice extra income stream so that we're
lined up for a much nicer retirement later on.
And the
final word here on our "Show Me the Money page...
 The
least amount Margie and I ever earned was $5.80 in one
day, that was the day we earned our first affiliate commission ever
and boy was it an exciting moment (serious) for us. It might sound
silly to you and you might think five bucks is a waste of your time,
unless you realize that we didn't email anyone, we didn't call
anyone, we didn't even pay for traffic and it had absolutely nothing
to do with my regular 8 hour shift! It was a lone banner at the top
of our one page "beginner" web site (do you remember the "Get
My Web Site" place mentioned on our about page?). Someone happened
along and clicked on it and they purchased! That day we did our
happy dance (at our age we stood in one spot and just waved our
arms) and it's that one wimpy sale that motivated us to expand our
affiliate marketing.
The
most Margie and I ever earned in one day was
$1780-ish, we still smile when we talk about it. We know it was a
fluke, pure chance, and it probably won't ever happen again but
we're OK with that, we experienced it and that's all that matters to
us. It turns out that a news site picked up on our newbie web page
in an editorial about people "attempting" to earn money online, the
competition, the scams out there etc. We were one of three sites
used as examples to illustrate "beginners online trying to earn
money". A couple smaller news sites picked up on the big story,
followed by some popular blogs grabbing it and finally the story
spread virally through email, mostly Yahoo. The second day our
affiliate commission tapered down to around $840, then $530, $290
etc. after seven days it was all over, the smoke had cleared and our
traffic settled down to where it normally was. We totaled all the
affiliate company earnings and we cleared just over $3800 in a 7 day
period, amazing? You just don't how amazing it was to us. Will you
start off and earn that much in 7 days, probably not, will we do it
again, we sure hope so... however you just never (never) know if and
when it will happen.
If we had to do it
over again we'd only change one thing. We would have built a web
site, joined affiliate companies and learned how to generate
traffic... much (much) earlier in our lives.
David |
|
|
