Affiliate Marketing Income – The Not So Fast Way To Make Money Online Without Your Own Products
Affiliate marketing has been promoted as a way to make money quickly, without the hassle of needing your own product. In fact, it is possible to make money from affiliate marketing, and there are some rare affiliate programs where the money, IF you make it, comes quickly. However, they are the exception and not the rule. Most of the time, the money appears after a significant amount of time.
At Clickbank, for example, the number one affiliate program for downloadable products, money is sent two weeks after the end of each accounting period, of which there used to be two per month, although they’ve just changed to biweekly. Most of the others have similar rules, with some taking even longer, until “the beginning of the month after the month after the month during which the purchase was made.”
Also, most programs also have minimums that must be met before you get anything. Of course, if you’ve only earned pennies, the delay won’t make much of a difference. Clickbank has an additional rule for new accounts, which can cause significant delays.
They require payments to be made with several different credit cards, including at least one Mastercard and one Visa. Since most people pay with PayPal, it can take a while for those conditions to be met and the money finally arrives. That is not mentioned anywhere in the various affiliate marketing literature. Even MyHelpHub.com, which someone had promoted as a much faster payment program, doesn’t pay faster. Maybe they used to, but by the time I got to them, they had clearly stuck to the conventions of the marketplace.
Some affiliate programs pay out faster, but have turned out to be extremely competitive. I had been counting on my only fast paying affiliate program to generate quick cash flow so I could pay my bills, but it took me months to make my first sale despite making it the main focus of all my ad campaigns. In theory, you can pay fast, but nothing, even if paid very fast, is still nothing at all.
I guess there are so many people trying to sell this particular seller’s products that the market is basically saturated.
So affiliate programs can be legitimate and potentially lucrative money makers, but the money from their efforts won’t show up in your bank account as fast as your funds will be depleted if you buy all of their products to make sure they’re worthy. of your investment in time and effort, or if you advertise your affiliate links via PPC.
If money is tight, don’t count on the affiliate’s money to bail you out when the Amex bill is due. It won’t be there yet, if it will. Being a good affiliate marketer can be expensive, and if you’re not careful, it can land you in financial trouble.
Not that this late payment is necessarily a problem for everyone. If you have a lot of money, you probably won’t care. And if you’re generally the thrifty type, you might like the fact that you couldn’t spend the money. Still, it’s good to know how long these things take and to plan for a long wait. And people shouldn’t have to look for the fine print to find out.
The other part they don’t tell you about affiliate income is how hard it is to earn anything. I’ve been advertising on EzineArticles, on my website (not the site with the most traffic, admittedly, but still), in ads, and on my startup list. Earnings so far: Totally unimpressive.
To do? Plan for the delay in time until the money starts coming in. Once you do, and get regular sales, it will work as advertised, with revenue every two weeks or so (for each affiliate link). At that point, you really won’t care how long it’s been since you earned the money. Until then, keep in mind the old saying: don’t count your chickens until they hatch.
In fact, if you want to hedge your bets, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, to continue the metaphor. To get started, go with several different affiliate programs. And then do something completely different:
Why not create your own product? Either from private label products or from scratch. You can sell your products directly through PayPal or your own shopping cart system, and if you have PayPal’s ATM card, you can get the money as soon as it arrives in your PayPal account, which is the time you made the sale. Very cool!
So if you want fast, sell your own products. If you want a smooth but not fast income stream, pick up some great products and tell everyone and your friends about them. The Best Approach – Combines the two, allowing you to have the best of both worlds.