Affiliate selling is touted arsenic a large mode to marque recurring, passive income. With affiliate-focused brands similar Wirecutter selling for astir $30 million, it’s casual to see why.

But however overmuch wealth does the mean affiliate marketer make, really? Is it really a bully concern model?

Today, I reply these questions and speech astir however you tin get your hands connected immoderate of this affiliate money too.

Affiliate marketers marque wealth by getting paid a committee to beforehand different people’s products oregon services.

For example, if you person an affiliate nexus connected your blog that sends radical to acquisition a merchandise from Amazon, you’ll marque a percent of each merchantability that happens arsenic a effect of clicks connected your link. Here’s what the dashboard looks like:

However, it doesn’t person to lone beryllium carnal products. 

You tin besides gain wealth arsenic an affiliate for online courses oregon software. You whitethorn person seen videos connected YouTube that are “sponsored by Skillshare” oregon “sponsored by Fiverr.” These platforms besides person affiliate programs.

Alternatively, you tin besides marque wealth arsenic an affiliate selling manager of a company. I’ll interaction connected however overmuch employed managers marque as well.

The mean wage of an affiliate marketer, according to Glassdoor, is $59,060 per year. It ranges from $58K to $158K, including “additional pay” options similar currency bonus, commission, tips, oregon nett sharing.

However, this is for a salaried employee. What astir a freelancer oregon concern proprietor doing their ain affiliate marketing?

According to a survey done by the Influencer Marketing Hub, here’s the breakdown:

In different words, much than fractional of each affiliate marketers marque $10K oregon little per year, portion lone astir 33% marque $10K oregon much per year.

That’s… not great. Certainly not capable to unrecorded connected successful astir countries. But I judge this is due to the fact that the bulk of respondents don’t bash affiliate selling full time.

Being successful the affiliate abstraction myself and connecting with hundreds of different affiliate marketers springiness maine a gut feeling that the bulk of full-time affiliate marketers marque little than $100K per year—likely astir $30K–$50K annually.

That said, this is from my ain idiosyncratic experience, not a survey oregon probe study, truthful instrumentality that with a atom of salt.

Revenue vs. nett profit

When it comes to answering however overmuch wealth affiliate marketers make, you person to instrumentality into relationship existent nett net numbers—not conscionable revenue.

Revenue is however overmuch wealth a concern makes before expenses are taken out. Net nett is however overmuch it makes after expenses are accounted for.

So nett is your existent take-home magnitude that your concern produced for the year.

That’s wherefore I accidental astir affiliate marketers marque betwixt $30K–$50K annually. This means profits aft expenses.

If those numbers dependable bully and you’re acceptable to start affiliate marketing, here’s however you tin get started:

1. Choose a niche
2. Decide connected a contented channel
3. Produce and beforehand your content

Step 1. Choose a niche

Your niche is the happening you speech about. It could beryllium a hobby, a lifestyle, a wacky subject theory, oregon conscionable astir thing else. So agelong arsenic determination are products, services, oregon courses to promote, you tin marque wealth from it.

To find your niche, inquire yourself:

• What americium I good at?
• What bash I like doing?
• What americium I funny about?
• What bash different radical archer maine I’m good at?

The overlap of those 4 questions is often a large prime for a niche. Or astatine the precise least, it volition get your caput reasoning about ideas.

For example, my answers whitethorn look like this:

• I’m bully astatine video games, writing, traveling, and playing music.
• I similar doing each of those things, arsenic good arsenic journaling, hiking, and chillin’ successful hammocks.
• I’m funny astir silversmithing, occurrence dancing, and motorcycles.
• Other radical archer maine I’m a large salesman and that I springiness large massages.

Based connected my answers, I person tons of niche options: traveling, hiking, video games, sales, entrepreneurship, and adjacent hammocks. It’s a amusive small workout to rapidly travel up with ideas.

If you’re inactive having occupation oregon privation to larn more, cheque retired our usher to uncovering an affiliate niche here. It walks you done however to find affiliate niches portion searching for things connected Google successful your mundane life.

As you tin spot successful the supra screenshot, Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar volition show accusation astir each keyword you hunt for, specified arsenic however galore radical hunt for it per period and however hard it would beryllium to rank for.

Step 2. Decide connected a contented channel

Once you’ve chosen a niche, you request to prime however you’re going to beforehand your affiliate links. You tin create a niche website, a YouTube channel, societal media accounts, oregon an email list.

My idiosyncratic favourite method is gathering a website and utilizing search motor optimization (SEO) to fertile the website connected Google. This lets you summation recurring, integrated postulation (and sales).

Check retired these Amazon affiliate websites to get an thought of what that whitethorn look like. 

For example, 1 of my websites is monetized by Amazon affiliates, and I constitute reappraisal posts similar the 1 beneath connected camping mattresses:

If this benignant interests you, a niche website whitethorn beryllium the mode to go.

However, conscionable due to the fact that you physique a website doesn’t mean you can’t besides beryllium connected societal media and YouTube. I’ve conscionable recovered it adjuvant successful my ain vocation to absorption connected and maestro 1 happening astatine a clip earlier moving connected to the next thing. 

Step 3. Produce and beforehand your content

Finally, you request to larn however to create astonishing content and promote that content to get eyeballs on it. 

Affiliate selling is simply a content-focused business. Without mastering contented creation, you won’t succeed. Whether that means penning blog content, creating videos, oregon taking pictures, you request to larn however to bash it amended than most.

But creating awesome contented unsocial isn’t enough. You besides request to larn however to beforehand your work, whether that’s to physique backlinks to your articles for SEO oregon conscionable to get views connected your videos truthful the YouTube algorithm shows them to much people.

Now you cognize the basics of however to go an affiliate marketer. But however bash you guarantee you marque the astir imaginable wealth connected that spectrum I shared earlier?

Here’s how:

• Start by uncovering the champion affiliate programs
• Improve your conversion rates
• Go for speedy SEO wins
• Negotiate for amended rates

Let’s interruption these down.

Find the champion affiliate programs

Amazon is large for beginners, but with a 1–3% committee rate, it is acold from the best.

The easiest and quickest mode to summation your affiliate profits is by uncovering amended affiliate programs that springiness 5%, 10%, and adjacent 50% commissions on sales.

The astir communal scope you’re apt to find is 5–10%. These are inactive astir triple what Amazon pays, truthful don’t fto that discourage you.

Improve your conversion rates

Beyond simply promoting amended affiliate deals, the adjacent quickest mode to maximize profits is by focusing connected conversion complaint optimization. 

Meaning, you should marque tiny improvements to your website that get much of your visitors to click your links and bargain your recommendations.

In general, immoderate things you tin bash to assistance conversions include:

• Using high-quality images.
• Creating telephone to enactment (CTA) boxes for your recommended products.
• Displaying examination tables truthful your readers tin rapidly spot differences.
• Making the #1 merchandise stand out.
• Building your marque and focusing connected E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust).

Example: Here’s a leafage that converts truly well, acknowledgment to these customized recommended merchandise boxes:

You tin person a developer marque these for you oregon usage an exertion similar Elementor oregon Thrive Architect. 

As for gathering your marque and establishing E-A-T, Wirecutter does an fantabulous occupation of this. It displays wherever it’s getting its accusation and, thus, establishing trust. We wrote a full lawsuit survey connected however Wirecutter does that here.

Go for speedy SEO wins

Most tasks successful SEO instrumentality clip to springiness you results, whether that’s creating large contented oregon gathering links. But determination are tons of low-hanging fruits successful SEO that tin amusement results overmuch faster if you cognize what you’re doing.

These include:

• Improving your interior nexus structure.
• Fixing your website velocity with caching.
• Reclaiming mislaid backlinks.
• Optimizing your rubric tags.
• Refreshing your content.

And more.

For example, erstwhile I refreshed the contented successful one of my guides, my rankings changeable up from presumption #3 to presumption #1 for the keyword “how to commencement a blog and get paid.” My wide postulation to the leafage accrued by 35% astir immediately.

Check retired our usher to speedy SEO wins to larn however to bash each of these tactics.

Negotiate for amended rates

Finally, the quickest and easiest mode to maximize your affiliate profits is by negotiating a amended complaint from your existent affiliate partners.

This won’t enactment for generic programs similar Amazon and Walmart, but it perfectly works for smaller brands. More often than not, if you’re already sending your partners a bully magnitude of traffic, it’s a no-brainer for them to summation your committee a bit.

Phrase it successful a mode that shows them you volition usage the other profits to reinvest and beforehand them adjacent more—it’s a win-win.

This is champion done implicit the phone, but adjacent a well-worded email tin summation your committee by a percent or two.

Final thoughts

So present you cognize that astir bully affiliate marketers are making nether $100K per year. But determination are plentifulness making overmuch much than that.

And you person options—you tin either go an affiliate selling concern proprietor oregon an affiliate manager for different company.

Both are lucrative options. One of my favourite affiliate programme partners has an affiliate manager making astir six figures per year—plus they gave him ownership successful the institution for nett sharing.

Either way, affiliate selling is an astonishing career. Want to larn more? Check retired these different guides:

• How to Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money successful 2022 (5 Steps)
• 21 Writing Tips to Become a Better Writer Fast
• How to Do Keyword Research for Affiliate Sites