Is Affiliate Marketing Profitable?
By: Ed Perkins
Tags: Online Business, Affiliate Profitable, Make Money Online, Affiliate Marketing, Passive Income

The pertinent question many ask is, “Is affiliate marketing profitable?” In this post, I’m going to answer this very question. The epidemic has saw online purchases go through the roof. As a result, the opportunity for online marketing has exploded.

Consider for a moment the low startup costs and monthly costs and the income achievable through this business. Affiliate marketing is essentially an online business, which means you can run it anywhere with internet access and at any time that fits your schedule. When you first start, do not expect to make much profit for a few months. However, if you project yourself out a year from now and then look back at the person you were a year ago, you will have no regrets at the lifestyle you have achieved in this business.

Good News!

The good news is that it does not require much time to run and make affiliate marketing profitable. And once up and running, it the income you make becomes more and more passive. And as you grow, you can expand your team. You have the ability to spend less time in the business and more time growing the business. This results in more free time to do what you want. You can run it on your own schedule.

The beauty of affiliate marketing is that getting started is really not that expensive. So why isn’t everyone doing it? It is a simple business, but not necessarily an easy business to run. It contains the following advantages: Low startup cost, no inventory concerns, ability to choose your own hours and work location, and passive income once systems are up and running. So, let’s take a deeper dive into that.

Start Up Costs To Make Affiliate Marketing Profitable

You can start affiliate marketing with a $0 cost, not counting the cost of laptop and internet access. I would not recommend going in without any knowledge though and would suggest reputable training as a good investment. I will go into this in a bit. Many who say it’s dead, either did not receive proper training or did not put the correct effort into the business.

If you are on a tight budget, you can begin doing affiliate marketing without spending a dime. The money you make initially needs to be reinvested back into the business so you can scale your business. Though it may be a longer path, you can grow your business “organically”. This means ranking high on search engines without having to pay for ads.

“Carefree” Marketing

You don’t have to keep an inventory of products, and there’s nothing to ship, since the affiliated merchant handles all of this. And this also means you don’t have to deal with returns or customer support. Your only job is to promote products and services to potential buyers and direct them to the merchant. This takes a great deal of time, effort and resources off of your plate. As long you’re ethical and you are providing value to your customer, it is a win, win, win; for you, the merchant and the customer.

The Freedom Of Choice And Diversity Of Products

Do you have something you’re passionate about? Then you can promote it. In fact, the more interesting you find a product or service, the more passionately you can promote it. And the more passionately you can promote something, the more value you add, which results in more profit. Also, you are not tied to any one product. Promote as many products as you can handle without being limited to any number of products. In the long run, it increases your abilities to make more money without feeling like you are working.

Freedom To Work When You Want

Unlike regular day jobs that have set limits for working, affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to work when you feel is your best time. That way, you can build your business on your own time, while still keeping your day job until the time when you can make enough money to quit your old job. The bonus of affiliate marketing is that it doesn’t require much outside time, just around to 1–3 hours per day, and the hours are flexible.

If you are a morning person, you can spend your mornings building out your business and enjoy the evenings with family, and friends. If you are a night owl, you can still enjoy your peak hours of productivity.

Ability To Make Passive Income

Once your online sites are up and running, the automation provided by the online marketing platforms that you use frees up your time, so the income becomes passive without you putting in as much work. You have the ability to continue to scale to a seven-figure business, or hold wherever you are comfortable and the sites you built will be paying you every month. People are always going online to look for services and products, and if you create good quality content that will answer their questions and solve their problems, and then target the right audience with optimization services, you can be making pretty amazing recurring commissions.

Online Business Is Growing

Merchants are increasingly investing in affiliate marketing because they know it’s effective, and they don’t need to spend as much on marketing. This is because they pay a commission only when there is a sale. 81% of marketers and 84% of publishers leverage the power of affiliate marketing according to 99firms.com.

Additionally, more customers are purchasing their products online than ever before. So with more customers and more merchants using affiliate marketing, it is a good time to dive into affiliate marketing. There are naysayers out there who say that affiliate marketing is dead, and I have a link here where I discuss this.

Bottom Line

Affiliate marketing can be a very profitable business. Considering the simplicity of affiliate marketing, many people are getting involved with it — that increases the competition. Competition, though, is actually a healthy thing that helps customers and merchants. It’s not a get rich quick scheme, and the business does need to snowball over time, but you can realistically replace your current income as long as you stay persistent through the initial period where there will not be much profit, and you stay disciplined to reinvest what profit there is back into the business.

If you would like to learn more about it, I recommend the course that got me and many others started who are making 6 to 7 figures a year now which is Entre Institute: just click on the link here for more information.

To learn what affiliate marketing is, click here for my article.

Until next time, to your success!