Hey there, name’s Vitaliy and I do affiliate marketing full time. Last year (2023) I earned over $110,000 in this business and you can see some of those income reports here:
Now in terms of how I did it and how I do it in 2024 (and beyond), that’s exactly what I’m going to be explaining to you in this article as one of the things I do is help others who are new/struggling do this too.
Affiliate marketing is in my experience one of the best ways make money online and whether you’re a beginner or someone whose struggled to make it work, you can succeed, the income potential is limitless and my goal in this article is to give you a roadmap to follow so you can unlock that potential for yourself.
At the same time I want to be real with you in terms of what it takes to get to that point, what to expect and what mistakes to avoid along the way. So let’s get started!
Affiliate marketing explained:
To start off, I want to explain how it all works: Affiliate marketing is simply the process of YOU promoting other people’s/companies products online (blogs, YouTube, social media, ads) and earning commissions for each sale made. There are literally MILLIONS of products you can promote across a wide range of affiliate networks that pay you an X amount of money and I break it down into these 4 categories:
- Low ticket commissions: $1-$10 per sale
- Medium ticket commissions: $30-$99 per sale
- High ticket commissions: $100-$1,000+ per sale
- Recurring commissions: Earning commissions every month for each sale (like membership sites).
Earning potential breakdown:
Let’s just say you are promoting a mountain bike that’s $5,000 and the company which sells it has an affiliate program that pays you $500 per sale (10% commission). Here’s how it looks:
Making 10 sales like these a month would equate to $5,000 in passive income generated and this is one of many different examples out there. But this is based off theory. Let’s talk real life now:
Real people making real money in affiliate marketing (the proof):
I want to showcase some real success stories in this business (including my own). I’ll start with the ones that are part of a program called Wealthy Affiliate which taught me (and the others below) this stuff. They help people build affiliate businesses on ANY passion they have in life (test drive them here, risk free) and here are some of the many success stories they have:
My story to success:
I showed you some of my results above but it didn’t start that way for me. In terms of how I got here, I’ll keep it short:
I was a freshman college student when I discovered affiliate marketing and at the time, I didn’t have good guidance on how to make it work, so the first few years of my “career” were a bust and I didn’t make much.
However, because I was stubborn and didn’t want to live by a typical career based job, I kept digging into this business and eventually found the right guidance and help from the Wealthy Affiliate program I mentioned above (more on that program later). But in due time:
- In 2008 I was able to make about $30,000 in a year
- In 2009 I made my first $100,000+ in the business
- From 2009-2024, my income reports hovered between $60,000-$180,000
Today I live very freely in that I get to work when I want and travel. That photo you see is me exploring Sedona Arizona, one of many beautiful places I’ve been fortunate to check out and throughout my trip I was able to earn while I was doing so. This is all possible for you as well when you reach success in this business, so let’s talk about that now…
The formula to affiliate marketing success (a beginners guide):
Affiliate marketing has many ways it can be done successfully, but here are the steps I recommend everyone follow in the following sequence, especially beginners to this:
- Choose a topic you love: As affiliates, it’s our job to convince people to buy stuff we’re promoting. But it’s much easier to do when you promote stuff you love, so for starters, I recommend choosing one or more topics you love in life and starting there. There are literally COUNTLESS topics out there to choose from and COUNTLESS products you can promote as an affiliate, but base your choice on PASSION 1st. Trust me, the opportunities will come with that.
- Build a website on it: A website is the foundation of your online business. This is where you will be getting visitors and promoting your products.
- Get visitors to your website: Success in affiliate marketing comes down to getting targeted visitors to your website and there’s many ways to get them. For beginners, you’ll want to start with Google, Bing and YouTube. You do this by creating content on your chosen topic and reviewing products. Then people will see those reviews/content on search engines and thus visit your website. More content = more visitors = more profits.
- Earn money via affiliate marketing: When visitors come to your website, you can then promote affiliate products to them. More visitors to the site = more potential sales made
For example:
- You love mountain bikes, so that’s your chosen topic
- You make a website focused on mountain bikes
- You create content on your website about mountain bikes. This content shows up on Google, Bing and other areas. You get visitors to your website (say 10,000 a month)
- You promote 1 or more mountain bike products as an affiliate on your site. Let’s say you promote 1 mountain bike at $500 a sale and make 10 of them every month. Your affiliate website will then be earning $5,000 a month
Want help setting all of this up correctly? Start here:
Click here to join Wealthy Affiliate for free
If you have ANY questions about Wealthy Affiliate, affiliate marketing in general, feel free to contact me below!