The Damn Truth about Affiliate Marketing

The Damn Truth About Affiliate Marketing

Digital Marketing

There is an over saturation of affiliate marketing programs out on the web today and many so-called internet entrepreneurs who have become millionaires from such affiliate marketing programs. In all of the information I have consumed, I found very little to be helpful. If you are reading this, thinking “just tell me which affiliate marketing programs are going to make me rich” or “how do I get free traffic to increase my affiliate marketing earnings,” you might as well close out of the browser now, and just give up affiliate marketing altogether right now.

There is no secret success tool to get rich quick with affiliate marketing. Instead what I can do is share my own research with you about my trails and tribulations in the affiliate marketing world.

Affiliate Marketing

Let’s start off with which top 6 affiliate marketing programs I have used on current and past sites:

Google Adsense – PROS: One of the best affiliate marketing programs out there today. Awesome control panel, lots of media options for delivering ads including mobile based ads. Super easy to implement into any website,  including your YouTube channel. CONS: Very easy to get banned from program for sometimes no apparent reason, or false reasoning, typically “fraud clicks,” which is usually just bologna.

AdBrite – PROS: Very simple approval process and semi-relevant ads. Great media selection for delivering ads, including full-page ads. Simple to implement into most websites. CONS: Small payout for CPC, no big ROI.

ShareASale – PROS: Awesome GUI on the control panel, wide selection of advertisers. You pick which advertisers you want to place on your website, if advertiser accepts you as a worthy publisher. CONS: Control Panel not intuitive enough for beginners to affiliate marketing.

Commission Junction – PROS: Large selection of advertisers, easy to sign-up, multiple payment options. CONS: Almost to large selection of advertisers, which can be overwhelming and confusing to most amateur affiliates.

Kontera – PROS: Best link based affiliate marketing program out there in terms of GUI and implementation. CONS: Ads are sometimes not very relevant for your audience.

Chiticka – PROS: Could not find any, but kept coming up in my research. CONS: Non-relevant ads, Poor control panel, minimal delivery options for ads, not very user-friendly.

Now out of all of these affiliate marketing programs, I have only received checks from two of them; and that was Google Adsense and AdBrite. That is not to say the other programs won’t payout, but in regards to earning revenue the fastest, I got my first check from Google Adsense, then shortly after AdBrite. Granted it took over 3 months to get any sort of revenue. Don’t get a excited is was barely enough to afford, oh let’s say a Kindle Fire. In addition, I ran the Google Adsense and AdBrite advertising programs a lot longer then any others.

For affiliate marketing programs to truly work, you need a few good elements:

  • Lots of website traffic, I’m talking at least 1,000+ visitors a day
  • A clean and easy to navigate website
  • Original daily content
  • A strong following on social media websites like facebook and twitter
  • A decent size of the subscriber that you can email market to
  • Time and patience…

3 thoughts on “The Damn Truth About Affiliate Marketing

  1. I used shareasale and its not that good and had friends buy products in my blog to test and only show click count no sales !!!!! So Shareasale is a scam and dropshipping with a good site with items you choose is the best way if you have a good following blog or website and change your product time to time…, China wholesales site have many products to market and people market the same in stores and shops in tourist areas and gift shops……I have no faith in this style of marketing and Google adsense are picky and will turn you down if you have a blog that even speaks on facts and truth.., it is not relative to them no matter what and so-much for free speach ????? Ya Ok Google ! China did not want you any ways or face book do to security reasons…, say i.e. Spying !

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