Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It For You? A Checklist

You’re reading this because you want to make more money from your blog, and you’re probably wondering what the pros and cons of adding affiliate marketing offers are.

Yes, affiliate marketing is still very much worth it in 2023. I personally speak to thousands of publishers who are Lasso customers, and they are making more money from affiliate marketing than they ever have before.

Whether you’re a new blogger, or already have a site with good traffic, this post gives the hard truth about whether it’s right for you.

The Affiliate Marketing Industry By the Numbers

The affiliate marketing industry is worth over $17bn in 2023.

Data is unbiased, so let’s first examine a few stats that paint a picture of why affiliate marketing is still a good idea.

Google Trends shows over a 300% search interest increase for the term “affiliate marketing” over the past five years:

But that’s not all.

Blogging is the main way for affiliate marketers to generate sales, with search engine optimization (SEO) being the number one traffic source. Paid ads are also a huge affiliate marketing source.

And here’s the kicker.

81% of brands use affiliate marketing programs (Lasso included!), while 15% of total digital advertising comes from affiliates?

Businesses are still pouring money into affiliate marketing, which is good news for you.

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Can You Actually Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, you can absolutely make money with affiliate marketing. For example, if you can drive 500 clicks to affiliate products per day, and earn $0.50 earning per click (EPC), then that’s $250 per day in earnings.

At Lasso, our Founder, Andrew Fiebert, walked away from his 9-5, turning his online businesses into full-time incomes before starting Lasso. His personal finance site earned over $400k per year.

And using what he learned from his sites, now at Lasso we help affiliate marketers worldwide double or even triple their affiliate incomes with our eye-catching product displays (like this one below).👇

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If you’re still unsure, Google “blog income report.”

You’ll probably encounter stories from bloggers like Adam Enfroy who generated over $800,000 per year ($600K was strictly passive income from affiliate revenue). 

We’ve personally helped website owners like Barron Cuadro create custom shopping displays for products focused on men’s style. Or Khris Steven, who educates marketers on the latest tools, trends, and strategies to scale revenue. 

And our Head of Marketing, Jamie I.F., earned $452K from his affiliate sites in 2022, at an 88% profit margin.

But it’s not easy. Building a successful affiliate marketing business requires:

• Time
  
• Patience
  
• Hard work
  

The average affiliate marketer earns around $5,000 per year, and the top 10% of affiliate marketers make $50,000 per year. So if you want to make significant earnings, you’ll need to be in the top 10%.

Now, let’s explore when affiliate marketing might be a good idea for you.

You can read this thread about his approach.

I have built two niche sites that have generated over $2.6M million in *just* affiliate revenue since Jan 2018.

That’s an avg of $51.4k/month for 4+ years. 🤯

I’m going to share what I’ve learned.

My first thread 🧵👇

— Andrew Fiebert (@andyfieb) June 6, 2022

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When Should You Consider Affiliate Marketing?

Is affiliate marketing worth doing? Yes, if you’re one (or more) of the following:

1. You’re passionate about the topic
   
2. You’re an expert
   
3. You already have an audience or traffic
   
4. You already sell a product, like a course, that you can bundle affiliate offers with

1. You’re Passionate About the Topic

Passion and curiosity about the niche will sustain you when others quit, and see you through until you start seeing big results.

At Lasso, we have customers in various industries, and the successful ones share a common trait: they care deeply about their niche.

The passion to find the less-known facts about something, or the new ways of doing things, make you the go-to source, and shows Google you’re an expert, which will then drive traffic to your site. And with this traffic, you can convert affiliate sales.

2. You’re An Expert on the Topic

Selling is easier when you know what you’re selling.

Perhaps it’s a tool you use daily to run your business, or a hobby you pursue on the weekends.

Either way, you’re familiar with the products.

As a result you’ll be able to make recommendations based on insights nobody else knows, building trust and helping your readers understand which products are really best for them. This makes them fans, and makes them convert – so you get the affiliate commissions.

Sidenote: You can also search our database of over 8,000 affiliate programs categorized by niche, to see the commission rates.

3. You Already Have Traffic / an Audience

Perhaps you haven’t considered affiliate marketing yet, but you already have a lot of followers on social media, a lot of organic traffic to your site, or a large email list.

Even better, if you already get traffic to product review content, you can seamlessly add affiliate links for these products and earn money. 

When using Lasso, you can even connect to Google Analytics and see which product links on your site get the most clicks.

Based on this, you can prioritize adding affiliate links to those products, and tweak your content to better convert into sales.

4. You Have Your Own Products That Complement Your Affiliate Recommendations

If you already have a product for sale on your site, bundling it with affiliate offers can make you even more money for the same number of sales and customers. 

For example, at Listen Money Matters we use the turnkey platform, Roofstock, for locating rental properties.

We loved them so much that we became an affiliate.

Later, we created an online course about our rental property investing approach. It goes into great detail about how we use Roofstock’s platform to determine whether a rental will yield a positive cash flow.

The people who buy the course can then sign up with Roofstock, and if they do, we earn additional commissions from Roofstock, in addition to the course sale price.

When Affiliate Marketing is Not Worth It

Here are some situations where it’s not worth it.

1. It’s a Poor Product or Cash Grab

Some companies try to lure you with high commission rates, despite having a horrible product.

Don’t be swayed if you don’t believe in the product, for two reasons:

1. A high payout isn’t worth it. Your reputation is on the line. 
2. Often these still don’t pay well, as conversion rates are low. Measure all programs using EPC (earning per click) rather than the commission rate.

Always lead with value. Always ask yourself this question: “Does this product bring value to my audience?”

The answer should always be a resounding “Yes!”

For more information, we’ve also written about the simple ways you can find great products for any affiliate niche.

2. You Have ZERO Interest In the Niche

If you’re only doing it for the money and you don’t care about the topic, it’ll come through in your content.

You won’t be motivated to find the information that really helps readers, or triggers them to buy.

And you won’t succeed in affiliate marketing for two reasons:

3. You won’t convert sales well, as your content doesn’t connect or add as much value
4. Your content won’t rank on Google, as it won’t have the helpful information Google look for in their Review Guidelines

3. You Have No Patience

Success in affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and it requires patience and persistence.

Building traffic, gaining trust from readers, and generating sales can often be slow, and you might not see profits roll in overnight, or even in the first few months.

The key is to keep going, to remain patient, and to stay motivated. It’s about nurturing your audience, building trust, and offering value. If you’re willing to stick at it for a year, you’re already in the top 10% of people who try affiliate marketing.

Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing

Pros

1. No physical product or service, and no hassle

With affiliate marketing, there’s no inventory management, shipping logistics, or customer returns. Your only responsibility is to promote and sell the product or service. 

While it is mostly passive, products can go out of stock and require action to prevent you from losing income. Though, there are tools such as our Lasso out-of-stock product detector that even manage this for you.

2. No clients, and few people to answer to (only affiliate managers)

With affiliate marketing, you have no clients to manage or work for, and you are your own boss.

The only person you’ll likely interact with is the affiliate manager for the products you are promoting. 

And you’re on the same team with the brand’s affiliate manager anyway: you both want to make more sales and earn more money.

3. Work your own hours, live wherever you want

Affiliate marketing is a digital gig, and you can work from wherever there’s an internet connection. You could be sipping a margarita on a beach in Bali or cozied up in your home office. The choice is yours. 

4. Very low startup costs

In contrast to traditional business ventures, affiliate marketing requires no significant upfront investment. You have no product creation costs, and no office.

Your only costs are your laptop, hosting, domain name, and internet connection. 

If you already have internet and a laptop, you can realistically pay:

• Hosting: starts at around $4/month for basic hosting, which includes WordPress
• Domain name: around $12-15 per year from registrars such as Namecheap

For more on starting for cheap, we have an article on how to start affiliate marketing with no money.

5. It scales well

When you’ve hit the jackpot with a winning product, affiliate marketing scales like a dream. The beauty of this model is that growth doesn’t necessarily mean more work for you. More traffic equals more profit, creating a snowball effect that can rapidly scale your income.

You can hire writers and scale for certain affiliate offers when you have skills in a particular niche. Or, if you are good with paid ads, you can scale PPC ads to your affiliate offer pages and make even more money.

Cons

1. Very competitive, and difficult to rank in some niches

Affiliate marketing SEO has become more and more competitive, with so many big brands starting to do more affiliate marketing content, and all vying for the top spot in search rankings. In certain niches, securing that coveted #1 position can seem near impossible.

Big publishing houses like Hearst, Red Ventures, Future PLC, and Dotdash Meredith own dozens of the biggest online publishers such as TechRadar, CNET, Bankrate, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and many others.

For the biggest, most competitive terms, you’ll often see 7 or 8 or the top 10 rankings be taken by these monopolies.

So, you’ll often need to find less competitive keywords to try to rank for.

2. Takes time to learn, and takes time to see results

As a beginner affiliate marketer, you’re like a one-man band, juggling several tasks at once. You’re a copywriter, an SEO specialist, a WordPress genius, and a buyer psychology guru, all rolled into one. All these skills take time to learn.

There’s also the “Google Sandbox” for ranking content for SEO. It can often take 3-6 months before your content starts earning good rankings on Google, so this requires patience.

How Does the Affiliate Marketing Business Model Work?

With affiliate marketing, you make money from promoting other people’s products or services. When they buy using your affiliate link, you earn a commission.

But it doesn’t always have to happen on your website. You can promote products wherever your target audience hangs out.

This could also include:

• Webinars
  
• Newsletters
  
• YouTube video content
  
• PPC (pay-per-click) ads
  
• Email marketing campaigns
• Social media posts and influencer partnerships
  

FAQs

Here are the most common questions we encounter regarding affiliate marketing.

Is affiliate marketing worth it for beginners?

Affiliate marketing can be worth it for beginners, but you should not expect to get rich quick. For writing product reviews, these take time to get traffic from SEO, and for buying paid ads, this takes time to master and scale profitably. So, if you’re a beginner, you should understand that this takes time.

How much money do affiliate marketers make?

Your earnings can range from a few dollars to thousands, depending on your niche, products, commission rate, and skills. Well-known affiliate marketers who have published their earnings include Andrew Fiebert who earned over $400K per year from affiliate marketing on a personal finance blog, and Jamie I.F. who made $452K in 2022 from his affiliate sites.

Why Do Affiliate Marketers Fail?

There are a variety of reasons why some fail while others don’t. Here’s a short list:

1. You give up or burn out.
2. Suffer from lack of focus (aka shiny object syndrome)
3. Write things nobody cares about because you don’t perform keyword research.

Simply showing up weekly puts you light years ahead of most affiliate marketers.

How Long Does It Take to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?

That depends on your business model.

If you’re running ads to affiliate links, you can start getting data and making money almost immediately. But if you’re creating content to rank on Google, it can take 6-12 months before you get the traffic needed to reach $1,000 in monthly affiliate income.

Building an engaged audience takes time, and creating a full-time income stream that lets you walk away from your 9 to 5 can take years.

This tweet from Matt sums it up nicely.

Here’s a realistic expectation about building an online business no one will tell you.

It takes at least 4 YEARS of consistent output!

Think of it like getting a college degree. Show up, put in the work, & graduate.

— Matt Giovanisci (@MattGiovanisci) June 7, 2022

How to Start Affiliate Marketing

So, now you know you can make money with affiliate marketing and when it’s worth it.

Are you curious to take your learning to the next level and learn our approach to building profitable niche sites that have earned millions in revenue?

If so, you should read our beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing, and sign up to our weekly newsletter with the top affiliate marketing tips.