Online marketing – and specifically affiliate marketing – is a great way to make money. One of the questions we often get at BrandBuilders is: “How fast can you make money with affiliate marketing?” It’s a good question, and worth a detailed reply!
In this article, we’ll look at what the norm is on how fast you can make money with affiliate marketing. We’ll also look at some ways you can speed up the process so you can make money faster.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Since you’re wondering how fast you can make money with affiliate marketing, you probably know what affiliate marketing is. However, if you’re a new affiliate marketer, here’s a quick summary of what it’s all about.
With affiliate marketing, you enter into an agreement with a merchant or affiliate network. You agree to promote certain products or services in accordance with their terms. Then, the merchant or affiliate network agrees to pay you a commission on sales you’ve referred through your affiliate links.
Depending on the program, product, or service, you’ll be given a unique affiliate link or even several affiliate links.
You can choose from millions of products to promote. Unless you pay for advertising, which we don’t recommend, you have very little downside risk and huge upside potential. It’s a great way to make money online!
If you’re new to affiliate marketing, I suggest you read our article how to become an affiliate marketer. It covers many important aspects of affiliate marketing, including why free organic traffic is much better than paid ads.
How Fast Can You Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?
Okay, so how fast can you make money with affiliate marketing?
I’m not going to give you the standard “it depends” or “how long is a piece of string?” answer.
As a rule of thumb, you should start earning consistent commissions from affiliate marketing within 6 months to 12 months. This is not cast in stone, and is subject to many variables that will be covered shortly.
Here’s how some other sites see it:
“Affiliate marketing takes about 12 months to start seeing success.”
– AffiliateMarketerTraining.com
“Affiliate marketing will take anywhere from 6 to 8 months to start producing a consistent income, and more than one year to be making a full-time income.”
“Most well-made niche sites will see their first affiliate commissions within the first 6 months. But there is a huge difference between a site that makes a few bucks and one that is contributing 4+ figures to your bank account each month.”
AND
“In my experience, a good niche site won’t achieve it’s first $1000 month until somewhere between 12 and 18 months.”
“Traffic doesn’t start to pick up for the typical niche until somewhere between 6 and 12 months, and it will take at least 12 to 18 months for your affiliate earnings to be over four figures.”
Whether it takes 6 months, 8 months, or 12 months, one thing is clear: Don’t expect to make money with affiliate marketing in the first week! It’s going to take time before people will start clicking on your affiliate links.
But remember this too: the time will pass anyway. So the earlier you get started, the sooner you can be making money!
Case Study #1: TheFemaleBusiness.com
Every blog is unique and has its own story. The following blog was started by a student. The blogger, a lady called Valentina, has been very transparent about her journey.
Valentina started her blog The Female Business on the 1st of July 2019. Her mission is to help others start their own blog, and make money from it.
A hundred percent of the money she made during her first 6 months came from affiliate marketing.
Traffic
July 2019 – 1,798 pageviews
August 2019 – 5,056 pageviews
September 2019 – 5,485 pageviews
October 2019 – 4,589 pageviews
November 2019 – 5,190 pageviews
December 2019 – 11,066 pageviews
In July 2019, she had just under 2,000 pageviews. For the next 4 months her pageviews stayed around 5,000 pageviews per month. It was only in December 2019 (month 6) that she started getting a lot more traffic.
It’s normal for a new blog not to get a lot of organic traffic during the first couple of months.
Valentina did not post a lot of content to her blog in 2019 and didn’t pay much attention to SEO. A lot of her traffic came from Pinterest.
According to Valentina: “Pinterest is the best and fastest way to get traffic to a new blog, so the sooner you start using it, the better.”
She has been able to get 20,000+ pageviews a month from Pinterest in 2020.
Income (100% Affiliate Marketing)
July 2019 – $75
August 2019 – $25.21
September 2019 – $75.40
October 2019 – $110.20
November 2019 – $375
December 2019 – $450.61
RPM (Revenue per 1,000 pageviews)
RPM is covered in detail in our article how much traffic does a website need to make money. It’s a great way to see how well a blog is doing. The formula is very simple:
(Earnings / Pageviews) * 1,000
For example, in July 2019, Valentina had 1,798 pageviews and made $75.
($75 / 1,798) * 1,000 = $41.71 per 1,000 pageviews.
Here’s what it looks like for the first 6 months:
July 2019 – $41.71
August 2019 – $4.99
September 2019 – $13.75
October 2019 – $24.01
November 2019 – $72.25
December 2019 – $40.72
Looking at the above figures, her RPM is all over the place. This isn’t unusual for a new blog.
It’s easy to get discouraged if your blog doesn’t make any money in the beginning. Just know that this is normal for most new blogs, especially if you’re doing it all yourself. Don’t give up!
Case Study #2: AdamEnfroy.com
Adam Enfroy is a good example of what’s possible if you treat your blog as a real business. By working hard AND smart, he’s been able to achieve great results as an affiliate marketer.
Adam launched his website Adam Enfroy in January 2019. For the first 6 months, he worked 100+ hours every week on his website and full-time job.
By May 2019 (5 months in), revenue totalled $11,609, with 70% coming from coaching/consulting services and 30% from passive income, mainly from affiliate programs.
By June 2019 (6 months in), his website traffic increased to 46,355 sessions. He was making more money from his website than his full-time job.
By September 2019 (9 months in), his website traffic reached 133,391 sessions. The revenue from his website increased to $35,174 per month.
In February 2020 (14 months in), his website traffic reached 231,524 sessions. The revenue from his website increased to $45,152 per month.
In March 2020 (15 months in), his website traffic reached 303,960 sessions. The revenue from his website increased to $61,572 per month.
In April 2020 (16 months in), his website traffic reached 414,389 sessions. The revenue from his website increased to $74,484 per month.
In May 2020 (17 months in), the website traffic reached 444,461 sessions. The revenue from his website increased to $80,188 per month.
Notes on Adam’s May 2020 Income Report:
- All Organic (Free) Traffic – All revenue was due to organic traffic. Adam spent $0 on advertising.
- Affiliate Income is #1 Source of Revenue – Affiliate income is his #1 source of income. $63,373 of the $80,188 came from 64 different affiliate programs. The balance came from digital product sales ($4,515), and consulting ($12,300).
- 92.41% Gross Profit Margin – Expenses totalled $6,089. The largest expenses were the outsourcing of content creation. Based on revenue for the month of $80,188 Adam’s gross profit margin was 92.41%.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how traffic to his website increased over the 17-month period from January 2019 to May 2020:
January 2019 – 1,147 sessions
February 2019 – 2,053 sessions
March 2019 – 7,672 sessions
April 2019 – 16,920 sessions
May 2019 – 34,261 sessions
June 2019 – 46,355 sessions
July 2019 – 76,926 sessions
August 2019 – 105,056 sessions
September 2019 – 133,391 sessions
October 2019 – 141,348 sessions
November 2019 – 143,705 sessions
December 2019 – 178,021 sessions
January 2020 – 248,910 sessions
February 2020 – 231,524 sessions
March 2020 – 303,960 sessions
April 2020 – 414,389 sessions
May 2020 – 444,461 sessions
According to Adam: “This proves to me that you can start to generate some solid passive income by month 5 (or sooner).”
By May 2020, Adam had about 25,000 email subscribers. These are people who joined his list by entering their name and email address, and clicked on the “Subscribe” button.
Adam reported that 5% of his May 2020 revenue came from email marketing. 5% may not sound like a lot, but based on his turnover for May 2020, it amounts to about $4,000.
The two case studies illustrate how bloggers in the same niche can experience totally different results. Both Valentina and Adam are happy with the results they’ve achieved from affiliate marketing.
Key takeaways from the case studies on how fast you can make money with affiliate marketing:
- Affiliate marketing will not make you rich overnight. It does require hard work and a desire to succeed, but it’s worth it!
- There is a direct correlation between the time you invest in your business and the revenue it creates.
- Work smart. Use your time wisely and outsource what you can to achieve the best results in the shortest period of time.
How to Fast-Track Your Success
As mentioned earlier in this article, an affiliate marketer should start earning consistent commissions within 6 months to 12 months. This doesn’t mean you have to sit and wait for things to happen. There are many ways you can get more eyeballs on your affiliate links!
There are several things you can do to fast-track your success as an affiliate marketer and avoid common mistakes.
1. Have clear goals and the right mindset.
“Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don’t know.
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Having clear goals and the right mindset are essential if you want to be successful in life. This includes making money with affiliate marketing.
In the second case study we looked at, it’s clear that Adam Enfroy achieved great results from affiliate marketing. It wasn’t by accident. He had clear goals and knew what had to be done to achieve them.
According to Adam:
“I wanted to make real money in 3 – 6 months (not 3 – 6 years). To do this, I had to scale my blog like a startup. I focused less on writing and more on treating my blog like a business.”
Many people work 40-hour weeks and only spend 2 or 3 hours every week on their blog. There’s nothing wrong with that – as long as they don’t expect to make more money from their blog than their full-time job.
If you want to be successful in any business, you need to put in the time and effort. Making money online is no exception. If you treat your business like a part-time hobby, it will pay you like a part-time hobby.
2. Choose the right niche.
As we’ve seen in this article, it takes time to build a successful affiliate marketing business.
Finding the right niche is critical to your success. If you get this step wrong, everything you do afterwards will more than likely be a waste of time.
Here are some things to consider:
1. Choose a niche full of hungry buyers.
You want to be in a niche where people are looking for solutions to problems. They must be willing to spend money to get what they want.
Some marketers advocate that your niche should be full of desperate buyers. It’s not a bad idea, but I wouldn’t necessarily go that far.
What is true, though, is you don’t want a niche that’s full of tire kickers or window shoppers. You also don’t want a niche where people expect to get everything for free.
People searching for what you have to offer should have “buyer’s intent” and shouldn’t only be browsing for fun. They need to be willing to spend money when they find what they are looking for.
2. Your niche shouldn’t be too broad or too narrow.
A niche such as weight loss is a massive and highly profitable niche. However, weight loss is far too broad. You’ll quickly get lost in the crowd! In addition, you’ll be competing against many established affiliates marketing to the same audience.
Rather, focus on a sub-niche, such as weight loss for women over 40 with diabetes. It’s more targeted and it will be easier to establish yourself as an authority figure in your niche.
Don’t drill down too far, though. Your niche should be big enough to earn you decent affiliate commissions every month. You don’t want to be on the first page of Google and only get a couple of hundred visitors every month.
You need decent traffic to make good money in any affiliate market. As a rule of thumb, a website needs at least 50 page views per day to be profitable.
3. Know your niche or be willing to learn all about it.
In order to be trusted, you need to be seen as an authority in your niche. The last thing you want to do is post thin or basic content. The most successful niche marketers are those who are actually part of their target audience.
You should have an intimate understanding of your topic and your target audience. You need to know their challenges and what they want.
If you’re not currently an expert in your niche, then you need to be willing and eager to learn more about it.
Publishing quality content on a regular basis is key if you want to make money online with affiliate products. Even when you outsource your content creation – which is a good idea – you’ll run into problems if you don’t know your niche.
You don’t necessarily have to be in love with your niche. However, being passionate is often the one thing that keeps you going if your business is slow to take off.
Note: If you’re stuck finding a good niche, we can help! We’ve spent dozens of hours doing niche research and compiled a list of 1,452 niche ideas you can download for free. Check it out!
3. Outsource, outsource, outsource.
In real estate, there’s a common expression: “Location, location, location.”
If online marketing had an expression, it would be: “Outsource, outsource, outsource.”
Most new bloggers have limited time and little, if any, experience and expertise on how to build an affiliate website. And I’m not talking about slapping together an ugly-looking, poorly optimized site with thin content. That will be nothing but a waste of time.
Even if you can create a website full of high quality content, it still makes sense to outsource what you can. As the owner of a new startup, you can make better use of your time. Your job should be to manage your business, not to try to do everything yourself.
Outsourcing can give you a great head start by saving you a lot of time and effort.
Note: At BrandBuilders, we specialize in supplying premium content creation and high quality pre-made turnkey affiliate websites. These sites are fully optimized and ready to make you money right away. We’re also able to supply custom affiliate websites to fit your unique requirements.
4. Look for low-hanging fruit.
The low-hanging fruit on a tree is easier to reach. And it’s just as sweet as the fruit on the top of the tree!
A common mistake with affiliate marketing is new affiliates often choose highly competitive keywords that are hard to rank for. This is one of the main reasons they have to wait so long to get free organic traffic from search engines.
A search engine such as Google isn’t going to rank your content higher than that of a trusted authority site. This is especially true if you have a brand new website with a low domain authority and you’re targeting the same keyword as an established (i.e. trusted) competitor.