February 7, 2025
Stacks of Hundred dollar bills

How to get the Benjamins

by Don Clasen

You may be tempted to think it’s too late to get into Affiliate Marketing, that all the best spots are taken and the best money streams too.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Although affiliate marketing is already a $12 billion a year industry, the truth is, it’s only getting started. To give you some sense of perspective, the total GDP for the world stands at about $80 trillion a year now! You think there’s not room for you to get your fair share of that?

Just think about it. If you had bought Apple stock in the 1980s, what would you be worth today? Well, the affiliate marketing industry is still in its beginning stages and there’s plenty of room for growth.

affiliate marketing trends chart

Why? Because advertising is changing. You know how major corporations like Coca Cola love to do “image” or “branding” advertising. They will spend huge amounts of money on TV promoting oil companies for instance. They don’t do this because they think the average viewer is interested in buying an oil well or is even able to. They do this to keep their name out there.

But this belongs to the heyday of Madison Avenue, with large advertising agencies handling large accounts and keeping their clients’ names out there and free of bad reputation. With the advent of the Internet though, a new kind of public relations came about—customer rating reviews. Now the buying public can weigh in on what they think of products and a company’s service. This has brought a new level of democracy and accountability into the marketplace like never before. More than ever, companies are rewarded according to the quality of their products, their customer service, and their regard for their public image.

Even better, it has opened the door to a new kind of profit sharing called Affiliate Marketing. Instead of paying gargantuan sums of money to Madison Avenue, companies are willing to share some of the sale with “affiliates,” who either love the products themselves or who just want to get in on something good. It’s a win-win-win for the vendor, the affiliate and the customer. And the percentage of commission is bigger than the puny amounts that, say, Amazon pays out.

A Different Economy

The US and indeed, the world economy are much different now than they were a generation or two ago. When I was growing up, the focus was always on getting a good education in order to get a good job that would set you up for life after you retire.

Those days and that economy are long gone. Good jobs have been shipped overseas for cheaper labor and what are left here pay less and offer fewer benefits. As everyone knows, you’ll never get rich working to make someone else rich, and the wages people make are barely paying the bills. Add to that the threat of inflation now, and how are you going to make it through the future? What is your plan?

Well, affiliate marketing is just the small business opportunity for you! In fact, I think of it as “the perfect business.” Just think of all its advantages:

Other people’s products. With most small businesses you are in a way, “buying a glorified job” for yourself. It may be a job without a boss (which can be a distinct advantage if you hate your boss!), but you still have to be there “on it” every day, often with even longer hours.  You have to have capital to invest in inventory or raw materials which may be risky. You have to deal with shipping, customer service, returns, employees—all kinds of headaches and hassles.

With affiliate marketing, you don’t have any of that to worry about, because you promote other people’s products, yet you get a percentage of their profits. They fulfill the orders, they take care of returns, customer complaints and everything else. Yet you get paid automatically. They will usually even provide all the marketing materials, things they’ve spend a lot of time and money on testing and perfecting. All you have to do is bring them traffic.

In fact, affiliate marketing can run on virtual autopilot, freeing you to have more time to pursue the things you want to do in life. Even “while you’re sleeping,” money will come rolling in 24/7, 365 days of the year. How can you beat that?

Digital Products. You can promote and get a percentage of almost every product or service under the sun, but with AM there’s an even better opportunity in digital products. With a digital product such as an ebook or a study course, once the work has been done by the author, there’s nothing else to pay for (inventory, raw materials, etc). So they are often willing to share higher payouts with whoever brings them traffic.

Those percentages can be up to 80-90% depending on what it is. This can bring in greater amounts of money quicker for the affiliate marketer than other types of sales and online businesses.

Even better yet, write the materials up yourself. Or use the aid of artificial intelligence software to write it up for you. Or farm it out to ghost writers on Fiverr for very little. Every sale you make is pure profit.

Residual Income. Residual income is revenue through royalties, commissions, recurring fees, sales and the like. The idea is that once a work is done or a system set up, revenue comes pouring in without any further, or at least much, work to be done.

This is how songwriters, performing artists, authors, insurance agents whose customers renew every year and the like become so rich. Once they finish a work, every time a copy of it is bought, they get paid a royalty or percentage, all handled by other entities. Just one hit song, a popular novel, or hit movie screenplay can sometimes set a person for life.

If you don’t make your money through residuals, you’re probably working according to some form of hourly wage. If that’s the case, then the only way you can increase your income is by working longer hours or working harder or more efficiently. And if the latter is the case, then that’s only if you’re self-employed. If you’re working as an employee, you’re even less motivated to do so.

All the same, there’s a cap on all that. It can only take you so far. But with affiliate marketing you can leverage your time and skills. The sky is the limit.

Scalability. You can take affiliate marketing as far or as little as you want. You can set up as many offers or systems as you can handle or leverage, or you can just do it part time for an extra little cash to pay the bills. It’s all up to you.

Flexibility. You can work when it suits your convenience, and you can literally “take it with you” everywhere you go. All you need is a laptop or, if you can handle it, a mobile phone.

And because of the Internet, you can do it from any location in the world. Affiliate marketing professionals are often called “digital nomads” because they hop from country to country, seeing the world, all while making money, often with a minimal amount of oversight on their part. If you like to travel, this is definitely the business for you!

The Learning Curve

But as with all new businesses, this one comes with a learning curve too. As such things go, it’s not a very steep one, but you should expect one all the same. It’s like a rocket lifting off a launch pad. At first, it’s expending a lot of energy but moving very slowly. But as it accelerates it has tremendous momentum behind it.

There’s a new vocabulary to learn, new tools to use and new people to meet. All these can take time and getting used to. But they’re really not that difficult, and even if you’re a complete newbie, you can start making sales in no time.

So I would encourage you to consider affiliate and online marketing for a business. And that’s what this website is dedicated to. At AffiliateFeast, I provide you advice, offers and the best opportunities I can find. It’s all for you to take advantage of. If you have any questions you can just write me at [email protected].

2 thoughts on “Affiliate Marketing-The Perfect Business

  1. Sorry for the delay Ben; I spent most of October in the hospital, but I’m fine now.

    To refine that article even more, I think anyone’s best best is creating one minute ads on YouTube designed to get viewers to click through to your sponsored product. Since Google owns YouTube, they are willing to push any new entry to the first page of results to give it a boost. And the money is fantastic.

    Can I add you to my mailing list Ben? I could send you more suggestions in the future. I belong to a fantastic group of marketers out of London. Your email is [email protected], is that right?

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