Aug 20 2007
Affiliate Programs: The Big Money Maker
Google Adsense is good as the steady, consistent earner but that’s boring! I want the thrill of the big sale… a dollar a day isn’t going to cut it anymore and that’s is where affiliate programs come in.
If you can find programs to match your target audience then these babies can pay off big time. Yesterday I sold a travel insurance policy through one of my sites that earned me nearly $90 in one go. That’s a lot of Adsense clicks let me tell you.
While the potential for huge earnings is there, finding the right programs and setting them up takes a lot longer than slapping some Adsense code on a few pages. Unfortunately I let my laziness get the better of me and put off exploring affliate programs properly until early 2007. Up to that point my only affiliate was through Hostelworld and I was lucky if I earned $5/month from bookings. Actually, most of the bookings from my site were my own!
Spurred on my other people’s remarkable stories of affiliate success, I decided to put more effort into this area. It’s a bit of a half-assed effort with only a handful of affiliates, but it’s a start. Here are the companies I use:
There are more out there like Commission Junction plus programs through individual companies, but other things like writing and designing new websites always seem to get my time ahead of scouring the net for products to sell.
Affiliate Sales Earnings
Affiliate sales earned me just over $500 last month but most of that came from one company. If I could spread the risk around a bit by getting some other programs up to speed then I’d feel a bit more confident. I really should put more time and effort into developing this area so it’s something I’ll be working on.
Finding good affiliate programs takes time, like I mentioned, and can involved sifting through a lot of unrelated affiliates on each of the networks (Trade Doubler, Clix Galore etc.) until you find a few that are good matches to your content and target market. Once you find one that pays off though it’s worth it.
I like to cheat sometimes and head over to my competition’s websites to see which programs they’re using. Sometimes you can’t tell they’re using an affiliate program because they use tricks to hide the affiliate links that show up in the bottom left hand corner of your browser (I’ll show you how to do this in a later post) but viewing the source code will reveal all. Sneaky, yes, but a huge time saver too.
I’m still learning by trial and error and really need to set more time aside for finding affiliates… damn this laziness of mine! I’ll keep you posted on my progress though once I get off my arse and get to work.
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go.
Hi Kristy,
I didn’t see any affiliate links on your website.
How are where do you put your affiliate links ?
Thanks,
Tushar
http://www.everythingfinanceblog.com
Hey Tushar, good point! I don’t have an advertising/affiliate links at all on this site basically because it’s brand new and I hate ads and want a break myself from looking at the damn things.
I’ve got several other websites on the go though. For example I have one that is about driving around Europe where I have affiliate programs for campervan rentals, hostel bookings and insurance. Another site about London has links to affiliates selling memberships to flat finding websites. I’ve got lots of travel sites with travel insurance affiliates etc…
Sign up to a few of those programs I mentioned and have a look around for affiliates that might match up. I think there are categories for finance related programs so you might find a few that will suit your blog.
Hope that clarifies things a bit!
Kirsty
Its always good to promote high paying affiliate programs in the beginning. Even a single conversion will give u very high returns.
Targeted traffic is the key for conversions !
Sounds a little bit encouraging. I had to go back to this post since I finally had the time to check out affiliate programs. Somehow I was able to nudge my husband into monitizing his website. Some pages on his site look awful now that we only have the codes showing (ha! ha!) since we couldn’t figure out how to make it work for the past week. This weekend he’s starting to question if it’s worth the effort. We started with ebay and we realized it’s the CJ that I’ve usually seen mentioned in places I’d been to including here. We also checked out Amazon.com affiliate program, and so far we’re still stuck in these 2 places. I guess, it’s still a long way to go.
Hi Kirsty,
Interesting and some good info. Thanks for that.
I hope your travels are going OK, and to plan.
Yes it sucks when PP freezes ones account with no prior warning, happened to me when I was in Thailand and dropped me in the Sh.t but as you say, with PP reading the large print is sometimes more important than the small print.
Any way, enjoy your travels as I did at one stage in my life and when you do get it all out of your system (it took me 4 and half years) come home!
Regards,
Jon