AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS REVIEW 2020

How was your affiliate journey in 2020? My journey thus far has had its fair share of ups and downs but in this post, I wanted to simply share my affiliate commission earnings for 2020. I was inspired to do this as I have been watching a few videos and reading different articles of people sharing their own passive income which gave me a little boost to share mine as well. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this and at first, I was a bit hesitant and reluctant to share my affiliate commission earnings for the year but thought it would be a good way for me to track and hopefully grow this further in 2021. It’s probably something I should focus more of my time, however since I also work on my primary business Advertise Me (a digital solutions company) which earns more money than the affiliate commissions, I do think that if I spend more time on it I can grow this amount even further and maybe even more than my primary business. I’m contemplating whether it’s a good idea, since affiliate commissions and affiliate marketing is a passive income i.e. I don’t have to put too much effort into making these commissions and sales.

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Now, I decided to breakdown my commissions based on the different affiliate networks I am part of. Each affiliate network has it’s own pros and cons and I do promote different product and services across the different affiliate networks. I didn’t include the name of each network in this post but if you’re interested to know more about which network I promote join the newsletter.

Here’s a breakdown of the affiliate commissions I earned in 2020:

My average conversion is roughly 10%, meaning for each product or sale I promote to a visitor, roughly make 10% as a commission. I believe this is roughly the standard conversion ratio and it all depends on the type of products or services you promote. For example, a popular affiliate network such as eBay or Amazon will have a lower conversion due to many other affiliate marketers promoting the same products.

For the 2020 year, I earned roughly $10.5k but this amount includes both AU and US currencies. This is a slight increase from the previous years.

I haven’t used any paid marketing services to promote affiliate products or services. I have just used basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques to rank higher on Google. I’m not an SEO Expert but over the years I have learnt the basics of SEO and have applied these techniques to some of the websites I manage. You can read this post: Update to our Advertise Me Website, SEO Tools

Note, there are some affiliate marketers or online courses who actually show their affiliate sales rather than their commissions earned so be wary of this when you are looking at their stats. They don’t also state how much actual profit they make and don’t detail their expenditure such as advertising on different platforms (Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads etc). In my particular case, my expenses are only Domain, Website and Email hosting which equates to about $1200.

AFFILIATE MARKETING TIPS

• Find product or services you’re interested in promoting as it will make it easier for writing unique content on your websites to drive traffic to those pages
• Don’t put your all your eggs in one basket. Basically, don’t rely on just one website to help you earn affiliate commissions. Diversify and create multiple websites across different industries will help you gain a better edge and understanding of the market industry.
• Trying to constantly optimise the website for Google ranking is challenging and if Google does penalise the website you’ll end up with no traffic
• Don’t rely on just one affiliate network. You never know if the affiliate advertiser chooses not to work with you anymore. It has happened to me in the past and it can be frustrating that you’ve spent time promoting the affiliate advertiser and then they suddenly cut you off.
• Use tools or products to help you automate some of your tasks. I have used and even built some custom tools to help me perform some of my tedious tasks. One WordPress tool I created is called Notification Box which is a Social Proof WordPress plugin.
• Reinvest the affiliate commission profits back into the business by growing your affiliate portfolio by creating more websites and content or by learning new skills from online courses.
• Build relationships with other affiliate marketers, advertisers or businesses. If you’re just starting out, look for Facebook community groups in the affiliate marketing industry.
• Share your learning by writing blog articles such as this one. By sharing the knowledge you have gained will not only help others who need help but it will also help establish yourself as an authority in the affiliate marketing space.

I hope this article helps and even inspired you to also start your affiliate journey if you haven’t done so already.

If this article helped you in any way and you want to show your appreciation, I am more than happy to receive donations through PayPal. This will help me maintain and improve this website so I can help more people out there. Thank you for your help.

Marco Tran

I am an entrepreneur based in Sydney Australia. I was born in Vietnam, grew up in Italy and currently residing in Australia. I started my first business venture Advertise Me from a random idea and have never looked back since. My passion is in the digital space, affiliate marketing, fitness and I launched several digital products. You will find these on the portfolio page.

I’ve decided to change from a Vegetarian to a Vegan diet and started a website called Veggie Meals.

I started this blog so I could leave a digital footprint of my random thoughts, ideas and life in general.

If any of the articles helped you in any way, please donate. Thank you for your help.

Affiliate Compensated: there are some articles with links to products or services that I may receive a commission.