If you're new to the world of online selling and want to know more about making money from it, then you've come to the right place! If you're looking into joining any sort of affiliate program, such as ClickBank or Shareasale, you'll soon discover that there's a lot to learn before you start earning commissions.
When someone clicks through your link and makes a purchase, they're usually charged by their credit card provider. You don't really see this charge until after the transaction has been made, but you will be credited with a small percentage of what was spent. This amount varies depending upon which type of affiliate network you use (CJ Affiliates, ShareASale, etc.)
This article covers some basics regarding affiliate marketing and explains how much affiliate marketers generally earn per click. We also cover other aspects like tracking commissions, checking them through third parties, and measuring results. Keep reading below if you'd like to learn even more about this topic.
The first thing to understand when trying to find out just how much money you might expect to receive each time you sign up people to one of those networks is whether these networks offer high-quality products. Generally speaking, the higher quality the product, the better chance you have to earn a decent return.
But let's say you're not interested in selling physical items. What if you were offering digital goods? Or perhaps you wanted to sell services rather than tangible things. How do you measure success? Good question. The answer is complicated, but here's a rough idea.
A good rule of thumb is to aim for 2% - 3% of sales converted over time. That means every sale you generate should result in approximately $2-$3 worth of profit for you. Of course, there are exceptions, so keep reading below to learn ways to improve your earnings.
Once you've signed up customers to join your affiliate network, you need to track their activity. As mentioned above, once a customer purchases something you've recommended, you may be credited with a commission based on the price of whatever item they bought. You can usually access this information via your account page.
You can view all sorts of details about this process, including where exactly the referral came from, and how often they purchased similar content. It's important to note that sometimes, especially with larger companies, you won't actually be able to see who referred them. In this case, you'll typically only be given a general code number.
Amazon offers a tool called "Affiliate Central" within its website that allows you to monitor your progress. Here, you can review your total conversions, broken down by country, category, and product purchased. You can also filter by date range. By default, it shows you data going back 90 days.
To check your own statistics, simply log into your Amazon account and head to Products & Services > Associates Center. From there, select View All Conversions. On the next screen, you can choose specific dates to look at.
For example, you could set the date range to 1 week ago, 1 month ago, or three months ago. You can change the date range by clicking the arrow button beside the current selection. Also, it's possible to limit your search to certain countries using the dropdown menu under Country/Region.
Keep in mind that the numbers shown here aren't necessarily accurate. For instance, Amazon doesn't always record correctly how many times a user clicked through your link compared to how many times they purchased a specific product. Additionally, it isn't clear how many users actually ended up purchasing anything while visiting your site.
So, take the figures presented in this section with a grain of salt. They're just intended to give you a feel for the overall trend.
There are two main metrics used to measure the performance of affiliate programs. One is revenue. Revenue refers to the money earned from advertising. When someone places an order through your site, that count would be included as part of the total. These figures are available to you via your dashboard.
Another metric is traffic. Traffic refers to the number of visits generated by the ads placed by your company. Again, this figure is easily accessible via your dashboard.
It goes without saying that both of these measures need to increase in value for anyone hoping to succeed in affiliate marketing. However, there are several factors that affect how well your efforts perform.
One factor is competition. Do you live in a highly competitive market niche? Are your competitors generating lots of traffic? If yes, then you're likely having trouble getting noticed, regardless of how great your offerings are.
To combat this issue, try promoting yourself alongside others in your industry. There are plenty of opportunities out there for partnerships between businesses -- especially ones that share common goals. Don't hesitate to reach out to potential partners either.
Another big variable affecting your ability to achieve good results is the size of your audience base. Obviously, bigger audiences mean more exposure, but the flip side is that they require a correspondingly large budget to promote effectively.
In terms of your own personal situation, you must ask yourself whether you have enough resources to invest in an effective campaign. Even if you're working full-time, you still have bills to pay and families to support. So, consider carefully whether or not investing the necessary funds now will help you later.
Finally, another major factor influencing your business' growth is your level of experience. Is this your first attempt at running an online store? Then it's probably best to stick to smaller sites that cater towards beginners.
However, if you're already familiar with eCommerce platforms, you'll benefit greatly from focusing on larger sites. With more advanced tools at your disposal, you'll have greater control over the types of visitors attracted to your site. Plus, you won't have to worry about learning new skills because everything comes naturally.
Ultimately, though, it boils down to trial and error. Try different methods and techniques to see what works best for you. You may find that, after doing this for awhile, you begin to notice patterns in your successes and failures. Once you've identified a few key areas of improvement, you'll become more efficient and ultimately more successful.
Have you ever wondered how much money you could possibly make in affiliate marketing? It's unlikely that you'll hit the jackpot immediately, but you shouldn't lose hope. Learning how to build a profitable business takes practice, persistence, and dedication.
Hopefully, this guide helped shed light on some basic questions concerning the subject matter. To learn even more about affiliate marketing, you might want to read our guides on:
Why affiliate marketing is becoming increasingly popular
How to choose the perfect affiliate partner
How to create a winning affiliate strategy
And, why affiliate marketing is not dead yet.
If there's one thing that I've learned from my time as an online entrepreneur and working with other people on the internet, it's that you never know what someone else will say or do until they actually show up.
For example, if somebody asks me "how much does Amazon pay for affiliates," then I have no idea whether they're talking about commissions or percentages. So when I'm asked this question by someone new to their first affiliate program, I'll often respond by saying something like "what kind of commission?" The answer might be "$50 per sale" or "2 percent." That may not seem like a lot but remember that these numbers aren't set in stone. They fluctuate and change depending on things like your audience size, competition, and more.
But even though nobody knows exactly how much they're going to make right off the bat, there's still a lot of information out there about how much affiliates typically make -- including some pretty specific details. For instance, let's take Clickbank.com, which has been around since 1999 and currently boasts over 900,000 active members who generate millions of dollars every year through its network of thousands upon thousands of affiliate marketers. According to statistics published by ClickBank itself, the average ClickBank affiliate makes $4,942 each month, or roughly $60,000 annually. (Note: These figures were provided by ClickBank.)
So how do you figure out how much you want to pay affiliates? And why would anyone ever choose to become an affiliate rather than just selling directly at retail yourself? Let's look into those questions and see if we can find any answers.
The amount of money you pay out varies widely depending on what type of product you sell and where you sell it. If you work exclusively within ClickBank, for example, you could potentially make anywhere between $1-$5 per click-through using our recommended strategy. This means that if you had 10 salespeople making $100 profit per sale, you'd end up paying them $500 total. It also doesn't include any additional costs associated with running ads, such as ad tracking software, banner rotation services, etc., but we won't go too far down that road here because it's really outside the scope of this article.
That said, let's consider two scenarios. First, imagine that you have a very competitive niche market. You're competing against hundreds of similar products, all of whom offer very similar benefits to customers, yet only yours offers the extra bonus of earning cash back. In this case, you can probably expect to start seeing a higher rate of conversions thanks to a number of factors, including brand recognition, high demand, and good reviews. Under these circumstances, you could easily double your earnings simply by adding the option to earn cash back.
Or maybe you don't care about getting clicks at all! Maybe all you need to worry about is finding buyers quickly, converting them successfully, and closing deals that last longer than 30 seconds. If that's true, you can certainly save a ton of time and effort by offering free samples instead. Some popular examples of this include the likes of SkinnyMeals.com and BellyFatBurner.net, both of which provide free trial packages before charging full price for membership. Not only do you avoid customer objections, but you avoid having to keep track of credit card payments after signing up. Instead, you have an almost instant source of recurring revenue whenever a buyer signs up.
In either scenario above, you can definitely increase your profits substantially by giving away free trials. However, once again, note that not everyone will be interested in doing this. Those looking for quick results and short term gains will likely be turned off by freebies, whereas those seeking long lasting relationships with clients will prefer to stick with traditional subscriptions.
There isn't really a hard and fast rule for determining how much you should charge affiliates. Ultimately, it depends entirely on your own personal preference and goals. As mentioned earlier, however, most top earners charge somewhere between 2% and 5%, although that range is quite broad.
Being an affiliate definitely takes a lot of work, especially early on. When you first start out, you'll spend countless hours crafting content and building trust with potential prospects. Once you begin generating traffic, you'll need to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously while keeping an eye on everything to ensure quality control. After that, you'll need to monitor performance metrics to optimize conversion rates and identify opportunities for improvement.
All of this can feel overwhelming, especially when you're starting out fresh without any prior experience behind you. Still, it's important to realize that affiliate marketing is a highly scalable business model. All you need to grow is consistent effort, persistence, and willingness to learn. While it may initially appear daunting, the rewards are well worth the investment.
Of course, there's another side to the story. A lot of people sign up for affiliate networks expecting to make huge sums of money overnight. Unfortunately, the reality is that it usually requires years of consistency and dedication to build a sustainable income stream. Even among successful affiliates, the vast majority of them started out struggling financially.
It seems that there's always room for growth, but it can require a tremendous amount of patience. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to speed up the process. Just a few simple tweaks can help you maximize your efforts while minimizing mistakes along the way. We recommend checking out our post detailing five common affiliate scams to stay safe.
Now, let's talk about how much you should pay affiliates. Like I mentioned previously, it differs based on the industry you operate in and the nature of your products. Here are a couple of general guidelines we use when setting prices for different types of products.
CPA (Cost Per Action) products: CPA products are ones in which you earn commissions on leads generated through advertising. Typically, these lead generation methods involve creating landing pages, writing articles, promoting social media channels, and more. The goal is to drive traffic to websites that perform certain activities and convince visitors to complete a desired action, such as filling out a form or downloading a file.
When calculating compensation, we generally try to target a minimum payout of $10 per sale. We aim to reach this level by ensuring that our advertisers' sites receive enough attention via Google AdWords and Facebook Ads to turn a decent profit.
PPC (Pay Per Click): PPC advertisements allow you to bid on keywords to display sponsored listings alongside organic search engine results. Generally speaking, you'll pay a small fee upfront plus a share of the final sale price. It's also possible to create custom bids, meaning you can specify exact terms and conditions for your ad campaign.
We tend to focus on targeting low CPCs ($0.05 - $0.30), which allows us to place a large volume of ads across several platforms at reasonable cost. Again, we strive to hit a $10 threshold in order to cover our expenses and put some money aside for future expansion.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO refers to techniques used to improve website rankings on major search engines. Many people assume that SEO involves keyword stuffing, link farms, and shady tactics. Nothing could be further from the truth! Properly optimized websites rank better organically, allowing users to discover relevant content faster and easier.
Typically, we aim to achieve a maximum of 20%-25% ROI on SEO projects. This ensures that our efforts produce measurable results while leaving enough wiggle room to continue expanding the business later.
Many affiliate managers claim that becoming a successful affiliate marketer is easy. Of course, this is mostly false. Successful affiliate marketing is a complex skill that calls for a deep understanding of various areas including user psychology, copywriting, search engine optimization, and more. To succeed, you must develop a solid grasp of how to apply these skills effectively and consistently.
Fortunately, there are several resources available to teach you the ropes. Most importantly, you should check out our list of 101 best affiliate courses to kickstart your journey. Beyond that, we recommend trying to attend local meetups and conferences dedicated to ecommerce topics. You'll gain valuable insight from experienced professionals and hear insider tips straight from the horse's mouth. Finally, you can always seek advice from friends and family members who already run successful businesses. Remember, everyone starts somewhere.
Ultimately, the decision about how much you'll pay affiliates comes down to supply and demand. If you think that your competitors are underpaying, then it's perfectly logical to follow suit. On the flipside, if you believe that you're receiving fair value for your service, then there's nothing wrong with taking home a little bit more.
If you're new to online business and don't know what affiliate marketing means, then this article will help you understand the basics about affiliate networks like ClickBank or ShareASale that have lots of products available at one time. You'll also learn some tips on how you can start making money with your own website using these affiliate networks.
But first things first - let's talk about how much people actually make as an affiliate marketer! If you've ever wondered "what does it take to be successful?" I'm going to give you my best guess based on real-life experience and the numbers from ClickBank (the largest affiliate network) and other major affiliate networks.
The answer might surprise you...
This post contains affiliate links which may benefit me financially if you decide to buy something through them. You should not purchase any product recommended here unless you thoroughly check their return policies and terms before buying.
Let's begin by talking about ROI in affiliate marketing. This term refers to the amount of profit gained per dollar invested into promoting certain products. It sounds simple enough but there are several factors involved when calculating ROI. The most important factor being the conversion rate of visitors who click through the link to the merchant site where they eventually bought the item.
Next comes the question of how often should you promote an offer and how much traffic should you send to each ad campaign? And lastly, how big should the landing page be? All of these questions affect the final number you get for your investment. So, without further ado, let's dive right into the topic and see how much different types of affiliate campaigns make.
ROI stands for Return On Investment. In short, it represents the ratio between the total sales volume generated by a particular promotion and the cost associated with running said promotion. An easy way to think about this is that ROI equals profit divided by expense.
In order to calculate ROI, you need to find out both expenses and revenue. Let's focus on the latter for now and assume that all clicks lead directly to purchases. Then the formula would look like this:
(Total Sales Volume / Total Expenses) x 100 = Profit Per Click
For example, if you spent $50 on advertising for a particular product and got 1,000 sales, then your ROI would be 50/1,000 x 100 = 5%.
So how do you go about finding the total costs required to run your affiliate promotions? Well, the easiest way to figure this out is to add up the following three categories:
Costs Associated With Creation Of A Landing Page
Advertising Costs
Commission Paid To Your Partner Network
Once you know those figures, divide your overall profits by them. For instance, if you had an average profit of $100 after paying commissions to your partner network, then your actual ROI was 10%. Note that the above calculations only apply to direct sales. Indirect sales such as Amazon Associates doesn't count towards your ROI since there isn't any cost associated with creating the landing pages.
Now, let's turn our attention to indirect sales. These involve third party sites, usually owned by merchants themselves. They allow affiliates to place ads and sell items while earning passive income from the sales made on their platform. Here's the catch though - you won't receive any commissions until somebody buys from the merchant site itself. That's because the merchant pays commissions to its partners instead of receiving payment from customers.
Another interesting point worth mentioning is that even if a customer makes a purchase on the merchant's site, there could still be no guarantee that he came across your ad via the affiliate link. Most websites use cookies to track users' activity and assign them unique IDs. When someone visits another part of the same site, his ID gets sent along with him. However, if you create multiple accounts and visit the same account on various platforms, your cookie ID remains unaltered. Therefore, the chances of getting credit for referrals decrease significantly.
Still unsure whether direct or indirect sales are better for you? Keep reading below.
Affiliates must keep two things in mind when deciding on percentages. First off, you want to maximize your earnings while minimizing the effort you put forth. Second, you should aim to maintain consistency over time. As a rule of thumb, 80% is considered a safe bet. So, let's say you spend 20 hours every week working hard to increase conversions. Then you'd probably go for around 40%-60% depending on how well your efforts were yielding results.
Of course, there's always exceptions to this rule. Sometimes you just gotta work harder than usual to hit your target. Some examples include launching new offers, improving existing ones, testing changes in design, etc. Still, try to stick within the range mentioned above. Otherwise, you risk losing interest in the process altogether.
Also note that the more popular the product you promote, the less likely you are to succeed in generating substantial revenue. Why? Because the competition is higher. Also, you wouldn't want to waste too much energy trying to generate high volumes of low quality leads.
Lastly, remember that each offer has a limited shelf life. Once it expires, your ROI starts dropping rapidly. Therefore, when choosing which offers to promote, you should consider how long they remain viable.
It depends on your goals. Is it to build a large audience overnight? Or maybe you're looking forward to building a reliable source of residual income? Either way, you should set realistic expectations.
Here's why: if you expect to make thousands of dollars per month from affiliate marketing, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Yes, you can become rich very quickly. But that requires massive amounts of capital, patience, and luck. Plus, there is almost zero chance of achieving success if you lack relevant skills and knowledge.
On the other hand, if you plan to build a small blog, you stand a greater chance of succeeding. Even if you fail to reach your monthly targets, you can still continue to attract readers thanks to the power of word-of-mouth. Remember, if you don't ask, you never get anything. And if you're serious about starting an online business, then you absolutely must create a website with compelling content.
Finally, let us address the issue of profitability. How much do affiliate marketers make?
There is no standard definition of what constitutes a typical affiliate markup. Each network works differently and there are plenty of variables. What follows is a general guideline that applies to most affiliate networks.
A few years back, the top affiliate networks used to charge anywhere from 4% to 6%, which nowadays seems quite reasonable considering the current economic climate. Today, however, the rates vary wildly. CheckoutCJ.com charges as little as 2.5% to 3.3% whereas ShareASale currently offers a flat 15% on top of any sale. Other networks such as LinkShare, Commission Junction, Clicksor, and SmartBid also have varying fees ranging anywhere from 8% to 12%.
As far as the payout goes, Clickbank alone processes millions of transactions every day. According to data collected by StatCounter, they received roughly $1 billion in payments in 2014 alone. While most of those funds come from individual sellers rather than larger companies, it's clear that ClickBank is a profitable company.
Keep in mind that every single penny counts. Since affiliate networks typically require a minimum payout threshold to operate properly, you shouldn't expect to break even after spending hundreds of dollars on advertising. If you want to cut down on expenses, you can opt to work exclusively with smaller networks such as Rakuten Advertising, Post Affiliate Pro, and Shareasale.
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.