Have you been looking for ways on how to make money online free with no scams and all you seem to come across is products that are clearly scams or lack any real value or quality that you start to feel like there is nothing genuine out there for you to make any money…?
I hear you. There are plenty of crappy products like this out there and it can definitely make the water very murky to the point that you start to question everything. Is it really possible to make money online…?
First off, it is nice to see that you are doing some research. It is the best way to avoid any of those scams, and we are always looking out for programs (both good and bad) that we can review and help others avoid the pain we went through when we fell for a scam a few years ago…
In this post I am going to list 3 top ideas that could help you earn money online, list a few tips to help you avoid scams going forward and share with you how I actually ended up doing what I love after encountering a scam.
Finding the right affiliate programs is essential to pushing your affiliate marketing business forward, but it is not actually that quick or easy to find the right affiliate program for your business.
Before we get into any detail about how to find the right affiliate programs, let’s just clarify your understanding of what exactly is affiliate marketing.
There are plenty of platforms out there stating they are teaching you affiliate marketing and yet, when we check them out, they are actually a MLM program or Multi-Layer- Marketing.
MLM is where your only focus is on recruiting people up the ladder, so you earn more money. They are typically associated with scams and are not normally offering any value. This leads you to believing affiliate marketing doesn’t work when in reality, it was nothing like real affiliate marketing.
Let’s briefly explain what affiliate marketing so we can then explain what affiliate programs are and how to find them like a pro!
Affiliate Marketing can seem quite daunting at first, when people start talking about building a website or writing content and signing up for affiliate programs. Many people start to question their own ability and come away saying they can’t do affiliate marketing and walk away from an amazing opportunity.
Can you do Affiliate Marketing? – Absolutely. Anyone can achieve Affiliate Marketing success.
How Can I Do Affiliate Marketing? – You Start with the right training program that ensures you know everything you need to know and by the end of completing our recommended training you will have built your own website (regardless of your current technical skill level), you will be writing content like a professional and you will know everything you need to know about Affiliate Programs and how to promote stuff the right way.
How does the Wealthy Affiliate really work? We absolutely love what Wealthy Affiliate has to offer its members. From the beginner friendly training to the awesome website engagement tools you will find amazing support every step of the way.
Affiliate Marketing is a great way to earn money from home and many people are exploring that option, but they often come across poor imitations of affiliate marketing training when really, they can do no better than what is on offer at Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate offers the best training that any beginner could want, and the reason you will typically only find positive words said about it is because of the successes that their members achieve.
We have been with Wealthy Affiliate for a couple of years now and are seeing our own successes with our online businesses, and we want to help others who want to get started online too.
If you really want to know what is inside Wealthy Affiliate, what is offers you and ultimately does it really work then read on.
Amazon is the largest marketplace in the world, so it is only natural that people start asking how to become an affiliate marketer for Amazon. We have racked our brains and have come up with 5 easy steps to getting started and want to share those with you… We will also through in 5 tips to making sure you are successful including some great training and tools that we have used to build up our affiliate marketing business and you can learn how to get started too.
Affiliate Marketing is so appealing these days, especially as more and more people are searching online for ways to make money from home and naturally land on a page all about affiliate marketing, but why is affiliate marketing so appealing?
The simple fact is that Affiliate Marketing is Awesome, but there are many questions around it and a few reasons why people fail…
Let’s start by clarifying exactly what affiliate marketing is…
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Before I go into detail about what true affiliate marketing is, you need to know there are plenty of training platforms that are actually scams pretending to be affiliate marketing. We have reviewed a number of them, and some have actually been closed down by the FTC because they couldn’t live up to all of their promises. If you ever find something that states you can earn money on auto-pilot or with little effort, then that is exactly what I am on about. That is why we wanted to clarify your understanding on what is affiliate marketing.
It is very likely you have already experienced affiliate marketing is some way, especially if you have every purchased a product off of Amazon.
Affiliate Marketing is a beneficial way of marketing products for both affiliates and companies themselves, as the act saves them a fortune on their marketing campaigns. It is as simple as promoting products and receiving a commission if someone chooses to buy said product through your affiliate link.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
An Affiliate Marketer signs up with an affiliate program, for the example I will discuss Amazon Associates. This gains you access to all of their products to promote via blog or on social media.
You create a blog or website on any subject you want to cover and promote products or services on it. If someone lands on your website and decides to follow your recommendation and goes to the Amazon website via your affiliate link, if they buy the product you receive a percentage of the sale price as a reward for introducing a buyer.
There are thousands of affiliate programs, and affiliate networks that house thousands of affiliate programs meaning that you can create a blog in any subject you can think of.
That kind of adds to the appeal.
Why Affiliate Marketing is so Appealing?
Affiliate Marketing is so appealing for a number of ways, let’s go through a few:
Start an Affiliate Marketing Website About Anything
The best thing about Affiliate Marketing is the fact that you can start an online business in any interest or passion you have.
Interested in golf, then you can use that. Interested in getting fit and helping others to get fit, then you can use that.
Literally, you can start a business today in anything you are really interested in and you could find an affiliate program that will fit perfectly with it.
Gem runs and maintains a wedding stationary business, and affiliate marketing runs well with that.
Why start a business about something you don’t enjoy or know anything about when you could get started with a business you know loads about and enjoy immersing yourself within that subject.
It’s a Work from Anywhere Job
Another appealing feature of Affiliate Marketing is the fact you can do it from anywhere, the only restriction is internet coverage.
Affiliate Marketing tends to go really well with travel blogging because that is one of the main benefits of an online business using affiliate marketing, you can blog about your travels and help others get started on their own travelling plans.
This is because it is classed as a passive income stream, meaning you do not need to monitor the sales. Create great content and move on, you do not need to there for someone to decide to buy something you are promoting.
You Do Not Need Your Own Products or Services
Another great thing about affiliate marketing is the fact you do not need your own products or services, because you are promoting other people’s products.
No expensive warehouse, no need for a Point of Sale system. This is often the reason why people do not think they can start their own business, because they have nothing to offer.
But, with affiliate marketing you have something that you can offer which isn’t a physical thing. You can offer help and advice about a subject you know about, that is what you need to get started with affiliate marketing.
There are three great reasons as to why Affiliate Marketing is so appealing, but what stops Affiliate Marketers from succeeding?
What Stops Affiliate Marketers Succeeding?
There are a number of reasons why affiliate marketers do not succeed, we have picked out the top three that we feel is why they do not succeed:
Think it is a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
We mentioned earlier in the post that there are loads of programs claiming to be affiliate marketing and they all have something in common. They make you believe that success can be achieve overnight.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is anything but a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, there is no such program that can make you loads of money overnight. It is was a thing, plenty of people would be reaping the benefits.
Affiliate Marketing is a great business to get started in, it can be any subject you love but if you think that in a month’s time you can sit back and watch the money come in that is not going to be a reality.
It is going to take a lot of hard work to realise your goals. I will be honest with you, I didn’t earn anything for 6 months when I first started with affiliate marketing and it will be a long road to actually achieving a way of replacing my full-time job.
The more hours you put in, the more effort you put in the better, as realising your dreams will take hard work.
An honest affiliate marketer will tell you that you still need to put the hours in, even after you have established yourself in your chosen niche.
There are examples of where someone has got to the point where they are earning good money, they have even been able to leave their day job. So, they decide my website is making good money now, I will go on a month-long holiday. They do nothing with their website for a month, and then realise that their traffic levels drop a little because they haven’t worked on their website.
Hard work will pay off, but many do not give this any thought and the best way to describe it is they “play at it”. They do not invest the time and effort to realise it and then they decide to give up…
They Give Up Too Soon
People give up before their hard work pays off. This is normally because people think of it like an hourly-paid job. I have done an hour of work, so I therefore deserve an hour’s worth of pay.
An online business does not work out like that. Affiliate Marketing is a truly passive income, but it will not earn you money straightaway. The harder you work in the early stages, the more likely you are going to enjoy the benefits down the road.
You could write an awesome quality post and it doesn’t make you money for 6 months, but then it starts earning you recurring income on a regular basis and could do so for years to come.
But many affiliate marketers give up after a couple of months and say affiliate marketing doesn’t work. That is why the search engines does not really trust a new website until it is about 6 months old, because a website owner still engaged in their website after 6 months is the real deal and will keep on working and understands the long-term plan of an affiliate marketing business model.
A normal bricks and mortar business will typically not plan to turn a profit in year one, and yet online we seem to think we can be turning profit immediately.
Whilst the costs are nowhere near a typical business, the main investment you need to put in with an online business is your time and effort.
If you can commit to putting at least an hour a day into learning and acting within your business, you have what it takes but you need to keep at it until all your hard work pays off!
Lack of Quality Training & Support
You will find loads of contradicting strategies online, or you are being drawn in by affiliate marketing training that is outdated or clearly not affiliate marketing.
But there are training programs out there that do help their members, and will give a easy to follow step-by-step plan to success.
The support is the key, I think anyone who cares enough will follow a structured guide, but it is the help aspect that people lack, and they feel like they are doing this all alone and that can be one of the hardest things to get over.
I am part of a community of affiliate marketers and we all engage together to help each other. If we did not have that, I would have felt like I was swimming upstream. In other words, it would have been extremely hard to keep going until the money started coming in.
We can help you get the help and support, with some awesome training to. But I think it is one of the factors as to why many affiliate marketers are struggling, and that is wrong or outdated training with a real lack of support.
What Do You Need to Succeed?
Let’s just summarise so far, Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way of building an online business in a subject you really love and enjoy. You can literally work from anywhere and enjoy the freedom that a work from home job can bring.
You also do not need any of your own products or services as you can promote other peoples and not have all the hassle that would normally bring.
But it does take long hours and hard work to become successful and people tend to give up too easily because they think it isn’t going to work – this is often because they do not get shown a proven method to follow and have a lack of support.
What I want to share with you is the fact I know how you might be feeling at this point; Do I take the plunge??
If you are just trying to piece together bits of information from Google and keep looking for those (fake) proven methods, you will look back in six months time and realise you haven’t achieved anything and you are no closer to having financial freedom.
Or you could read on, learn about how I now make money online and get all the help you need to succeed.
I was there at that point and thought there were no genuine ways of making money online until I read a review about a training platform called Wealthy Affiliate.
Things That You Need to Succeed?
I have broken down what you need to get started on the right track, and they are all things that Wealthy Affiliate will offer you in abundance.
Step-by-Step Training
Up-to-date training that all users can understand and follow. I have found and reviewed many pieces of training around affiliate marketing, and typically they are outdated and that is why they are being offered for free.
The search engines are constantly changing, the way people navigate searches is changing and you need to keep up.
That is why we highly recommend the step-by-step training available at Wealthy Affiliate. Kyle and Carson (the WA Co-Owners) do not try and confuse you or get you to do strategies until you are ready.
By the end of the first ten lessons, you will fully understand what Affiliate Marketing is, help to choose the right niche, how you are going to monetise your website and actually have your own free website up and running ready for your all-important content.
Learn from their experience and gain personal access to them to help you along your affiliate business.
Websites & Website Tools
The second thing you need for your affiliate marketing business is a website. You will find many free ones online, but when you actually start to scale your online business you find the prices start to rise rapidly. With Wealthy Affiliate, a free starter membership gains you 2 free websites with no limit on the number of users.
A premium membership adds a different level with up to 50 domains available to you, with no limit and free SSL certificates.
You will also experience some fantastic website engagement tools including a keyword research tool.
I have already expressed the importance of the right support network. You will find no better support that from the community at Wealthy Affiliate.
If you ever feel like you are stuck, or just need a comforting word to keep you on the right track you will find it in abundance within Wealthy Affiliate. You will find experience affiliate marketers and newbies alike all engaging in the training, asking and answering questions and encouraging everyone to achieve their goals.
Are You Ready to Get Started?
Affiliate Marketing is so appealing because of the fact it can be about anything in the world. Whether you are interested in starting a business in a hobby you love, want to help people in a subject you consider yourself an expert in, or want to document your fitness plan to help other people learn from you it all leads to the same thing.
A profitable online business that you actually enjoy working on. Gem and I chose helping people and I have a background in learning and development. We love helping people, and we also understand what good training is and that is why we recommend Wealthy Affiliate.
If you think you are ready to work hard and build a business that will allow you to enjoy it and work when you want and not be dictated to by a work schedule then I highly suggest you click the button below and start a free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate.
It is totally free, with no credit card required. You will have access to the first ten lessons of their Online Entrepreneur Certification Course and 2 free websites that are yours to keep. There will be no pressure to upgrade until you are ready. But trust me, even those ten lessons will transform what you know about affiliate marketing and you will truly understand the potential behind it.
If you still have any questions about Affiliate Marketing or Wealthy Affiliate, I would be happy to answer all your questions. Just write your questions in the comments below and we will respond.
Looking for a genuine way to earn money online? Then, Affiliate Marketing is a great choice. But understanding how to make money with affiliate marketing for beginners can really show you the unlimited potential behind affiliate marketing.
We totally understand that there are so many conflicting messages out there and we wanted to make sure you really understand affiliate marketing, how affiliate marketing works and, more importantly how you can get started with affiliate marketing with our help and support.
What is Affiliate Marketing? And How Does it Work?
Affiliate Marketing is more widespread than you might realize, with large companies such as Amazon using it.
There are 3 parties involved in affiliate marketing. There is you (the affiliate), the product/service owner and the (potential) buyer.
The affiliate signs up with an affiliate program, this allows the affiliate to start promoting their products or services. If someone decides to buy the product or service you are promoting, the affiliate gets a commission. This commission is typically a percentage of the sale price and is a “thank you” for introducing a buyer.
The reason affiliate marketing benefits both the affiliate and the product owner are the fact that it is a much more cost-effective way of marketing products because they only pay out if someone buys something.
It can save a company like Amazon millions from their marketing budget, and you get the benefit of earning money for promoting products or services.
The way the company knows that you were the one that introduced the buyer is through affiliate cookies.
Affiliate Cookies
When you sign up with an affiliate program, you get to use a special link when you promote the products or services, this special link uses cookies to basically tell the company it was you who led the buyer to their marketplace.
Cookies will typically have a set amount of time, so if a buyer follows your link and buys it straight away you get the sale. But the advantage of having a longer-term cookie is that some people will not buy straightaway.
They might save it in their basket for a while but depending on the length of time might mean you still get the sale if they come back to buy it.
Can you Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?
The short answer is a huge Yes.
Often people will assume affiliate marketing is difficult because they think you need to be an expert in website design, or they don’t think they would be able to write content.
But in all honesty, most people who are currently make money from affiliate marketing were all thinking along those lines when they first started out.
I didn’t have a clue about building websites, affiliate marketing or how to write content and yet I am now helping people find the right training and getting started with affiliate marketing now.
But there are a few things that you will need to consider before deciding whether Affiliate Marketing is for you.
For starters, you don’t need to be a technical expert – we can help you get everything you need to get started.
But there are some important factors you need to be able to commit to make this work. Affiliate Marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it will take time to get to a point where you are earning money from it.
You will also need to be able to commit to putting a lot of time and effort into making this work.
Many people give up from Affiliate Marketing within a couple of months, because they believe it isn’t working. But it is simply down to the fact they have given up too soon.
We did not make any money from affiliate marketing for the first 6 months, if we had given up on month 5, we might have walked away saying affiliate marketing doesn’t work.
It does, but the timescales are not in relation to a normal job.
In a normal job you get paid for the hours you complete. But you are limited to the number of hours you can work, limiting how much you can earn.
Affiliate Marketing is truly a passive income stream, meaning that when you do start earning money from it – you do not need to be present to make the money.
But you will complete a lot of work in the initial stages that will not earn you an income.
Then, it happens.
One of your articles starts getting ranked well in the search engines, people start reading your article. They like what they read and follow your recommendation and buy the product or service you are promoting.
Then you soon realize that one article can earn you a recurring income month after month.
How Much Can You Make with Affiliate Marketing?
The honest answer is the figure is unlimited, it is only bound by how much hard work you are willing to put in at the early stages to ensure you can unlock the potential of earning money from affiliate marketing.
Many affiliate marketers are earning a full-time income from promoting products or services in a niche that they really love.
Imagine that, an online business based on something you love… You love travelling, sport, health & fitness, helping people… it really can be in any subject you want and as long as you follow the right strategy you can soon be making money with Affiliate Marketing.
How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing in 2019
We wanted to make sure we broke down the steps needed to get started with affiliate marketing. The first step you need to think about is the niche you want to get started in for your affiliate marketing business.
Choose a Niche
This is an important step and often one that many get wrong.
The main reason people get this wrong is down to them starting with a subject that is too broad. A niche is a tiny segment of a product range, if you start very narrow you will have a better chance of breaking into the target market and getting your blog ranked in the search engines and ultimately get traffic (the vital ingredient to making money).
If you have a subject in mind, think to yourself is it too broad and can you narrow it down?
I like to use Amazon’s category list to do this. You will notice that you can narrow down your search via Amazon to many sub-categories, you need to do the same with your niche selection.
As you grow your authority in that niche, you will naturally expand out into the broader category. But starting very niche is important. If you start too broad, you will find you will have a lot of competition which will be hard to compete with as a new brand.
If you ever need help to narrow down your niche, we are here to help – write your questions in the comments below and we will help you as much as you can to get to your niche.
Create a Website
Anyone who tells you “you don’t need a website” for affiliate marketing is typically wrong.
I know that is a strong statement but relying on one source of social media is not a great strategy.
I have found social media networks are not typically a great when it comes to promoting affiliate links. Some links will get blocked, and people are typically turning a blink eye to certain posts.
You have to put your links in front of the right person on social media to make it work. Building your own website, creating the right content will attract the right audience to your website and that is a much better strategy to earning affiliate commissions than hoping people see your stuff on social media.
I am not saying, don’t use social media.
What I am saying is, by building a website you can use all the channels available to you.
You don’t want to stick to Instagram and find that no one ends up clicking your links.
If you have chosen your niche and feel ready to build your own affiliate marketing business, you can build a free website using the tool below. See if your domain name is free in the box below:
Sign up with an Affiliate Program
We have already mentioned Amazon; they have their own affiliate program called Amazon Associates.
You will also find that there are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there. Using your search engine, you will find by typing “product + affiliate program” or “niche + affiliate program” you will find tons of them you can use on your new website.
Be wary if an affiliate program is charging you. Most will not charge you, as they are benefiting from your promotions. A couple do charge a little fee to join up, but this is simply to prove you are a real person. If they are charging a percentage or a monthly fee, I would look elsewhere.
You will find a lot of brands are using affiliate marketing nowadays, scroll down to the bottom of their website and you will normally see an affiliate program there. If they are not displaying that, don’t worry they might be using one of the affiliate networks. This host a huge selection of products for you to promote. We have listed the most popular affiliate programs or networks below:
If you can nail this step, you are definitely going to be able to earn money from affiliate marketing… People do not want to be sold to, they want help with their purchase decisions.
Before buying stuff online people want to research before, they actually buy. If you can help them with these decisions, that is where you can really benefit people.
This also means people start to trust you and your brand, do that and you will be earning money online from affiliate marketing.
You need to write high-quality content that means the search engines display your content at the top of the search results. That is where you start to get traffic. But the search engines are constantly improving their systems to ensure they are displaying high-quality content that helps people.
Don’t follow any training that states you should write content to impress the search engines for rankings, write it for normal people who are looking for help and that is all that matters.
There is an element of keyword research, which you can read more about that here. But the important stuff is around the quality of the content and its ability to help people.
You Need Traffic
This step is where your patience comes in. If you can do effective keyword research, write high-quality content and help people you are definitely on your way to a profitable affiliate marketing business.
But an audience will not come straightaway.
Depending on your niche and how much time and effort you put in, you might make your first dollar after 3 months, maybe 6 months, maybe longer.
The key is to keep creating content regularly. Search engines are used to affiliate marketers starting out and then giving up after 3 months. So, they don’t entirely trust new websites until you can prove you are someone in it for the long run. If you can break through that 3-month mark and keep going with high-quality content, you will soon see that the search engines start trusting your website and rewarding you with higher rankings.
Your ultimate goal is to get to page one of Google. Google has 2/3 of the overall online search volume. SO that is a very important spot to make yours!!
Keep Learning & Improving
You need to keep learning – I am still learning new things every day. You also need to keep improving yourself, your blog and going back and improving stuff that might need improving.
Nothing stays the same for very long, if you start to get complacent you will find that your rankings will dip.
I have seen affiliate marketers start to see sales come in and they are able to give up their job. They then decide to go on holiday for a bit and do not touch their blog. They then come back and soon realize their rankings have dropped and they soon realize that they are losing money.
You need to keep your rankings to keep your traffic.
Work Hard, Learn Something Every day and constantly improve yourself and your blog and you are onto a great strategy!
Do You Need More Help? Check Out our Best Step-by-Step Affiliate Marketing Training for Beginners…
Whilst the idea behind affiliate marketing is as simple as the process below, there are many aspects to it that require training.
If you are serious about wanting to get started and build your own affiliate marketing business, we would like to help you get started with some excellent training.
Follow their step-by-step training like we did, and you will definitely be on your way to your own profitable affiliate marketing business.
Unlike many other training programs out there, Wealthy Affiliate comes with a solid training framework to follow with support on hand at any point along the way. You will also benefit from the owners helping you with your online business, we will also help you too. Get taught how to:
Picking the Right Niche for You
Build Your Own Website
Everything to do with Search Engines – Making sure you website is search engine friendly and can get ranked
Creating Content that Helps (& Converts)
Signing up for Affiliate Programs
Monetizing your website
There are literally hundreds of training videos available on the Wealthy Affiliate Platform, you will also gain access to their fantastic keyword research tool, website hosting and website engagement tools.
Don’t take our word for it alone! Unlike many other training platforms, Wealthy Affiliate offers a free starter membership that does not require a credit card.
You can see what they have to offer and see the training for yourself.
If you would like to read a little more about Wealthy Affiliate, here is our full Wealthy Affiliate review.
Our Top 3 Affiliate Marketing Tips
We have thought really hard about 3 tips we could offer to help you get to the point where you can make money with affiliate marketing for beginners
Set Yourself Goals
I am not just talking about setting yourself financial goals, as that is an obvious one. But set yourself non-financial goals – why do you want to be able to work from home? Mine was to spend more time with my family, but whatever your goal is – set it. This will help you stay motivated until you are earning money from affiliate marketing
Another thing with setting goals, is the tasks needed within your business. It could be you set yourself goals like, “I am going to write 3 articles this week” and make sure you keep to them. The smarter you work, the more likely this will work for you.
Ask for Help
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, we love the live chat and questions function within Wealthy Affiliate where you can get immediate responses to any questions you may have.
You will have a lot to learn, but that doesn’t mean you have to struggle to learn them. Whenever you need help, you need to ask for it. When I first started out I was regularly asking questions and Wealthy Affiliate is a safe environment to do it. We are also here to help you, if you are ever stuck and need some help.
Don’t Give Up
This is the big one, you can’t give up. Do not work hard for 3 months and then think it’s not working, as you were probably at that point where the traffic would have kicked in.
There have been time when people have got in touch to say, “this isn’t working! I need to give up”
You then start to talk to them about why, and get into the detail and it is simply down to the fact their expectations are a bit unrealistic. I ask them how long they have been going and they turn around and say a month or two.
I then turn around and say, I didn’t earn anything for 6 months… they then start to understand they need to keep going.
After the 6-month mark, they often turn around and say “You were right John!”
That is a great feeling for Gem and I and we want to emphasis to you, it is possible to earn money with affiliate marketing. But you have to work hard and never give up! This is a difficult road if you choose to do it alone, that is why we offer our help and the guys at Wealthy Affiliate are experts that help people and with the right training and understanding about timescale, you will soon realize it is a matter of WHEN it happens and not IF it happens.
Final Words – You Can Make Money with Affiliate Marketing
You do not need to an expert in web design or anything to do with search engines, etc. All you need is the determination to build a better life for yourself.
Motivation is a key part of getting this right and keep determined and in a year’s time you could easily be earning money from affiliate marketing with a business around something you love.
But that is the key, you need to work hard and be willing to put time and effort into it. No one will hand this to you on a plate, and any platform that tells you that is lying to you.
We have a reviewed a lot of products that claim you can earn money on auto-pilot or with little effort and they are all scams or low-quality products leading you to a sales funnel.
We recommend Wealthy Affiliate because it works, it has worked for us and it has worked for thousands of other members too. The reason it works is that the owners care, share their knowledge openly and we all work together to support each other.
The thing that we all have in common is that we work hard. We work hard at learning and putting everything into action.
Are you ready to come and join us and get started on your own affiliate marketing journey???
If you have any questions around affiliate marketing or anything we can help you with, please write them in the comments below and we will respond to you as soon as we can
With so many different training programs and scams out there, what is the best affiliate marketing training for beginners? Well, after benefitting from what we believe to be the best, we want to share our recommended training platform with you and help you get started with your very own affiliate marketing business online.
Affiliate Marketing allows us to build an online business within something we really love and want to do, but without the right training and tools this can be quite a difficult path of trial and error. Why waste time learning from unreliable sources, when you can have a clear training path that if followed exactly will lead you to a profitable online affiliate marketing business.
Let’s answer the question, is commission cartel a scam? Michael Cheney claims you can learn from his secret technique to earning $1,442 a day and even start earning $500 in your first month.
Those are some bold claims from this training and yet, I will go through exactly why it isn’t even worth the $9.95 and you will walk away with more questions than you had before you started.
Michael Cheney brings us Commission Cartel, training on creating a list and promoting affiliate links via social media, etc. The price might entice some but in reality, the training lacks any real depth and will leave many beginners with more questions than they had before going through the training. Definitely not a great product.
Recommended: No
What Exactly is Commission Cartel & How Does it Work?
Introduced in 2016, Michael Cheney’s Commission Cartel claims to be an amalgamation of his ten years of Internet Marketing experience into one product. He also claims that by following his techniques and “secrets” you can make some serious money with it – Up to $1,442 in a day. He also claims a complete newbie could easily be making $500 or more in your first month, just by following his techniques…?
It all sounds rather elaborate and cloak-and-dagger but in reality, the training is all around building an email list and pushing them down the right sales funnels.
At this point, I would like to say email marketing can be very effective, and sales funnels are essential for an online business and affiliate marketing is a genuine way of earning money online – but does the Commission Cartel include everything that you need to be successful at these strategies??
That is the problem, Michael Cheney is very experienced, and has launched a number of IM products such as Commission Machine.
But the problem with this product is you get what you pay for. It is only $16.95 and that shows when you start looking at the information provided. Many complaints about this product have been the fact the information is vague or conflicting.
For example, he mentions that you do not require a website, but he expects you to create an email list. How??
I would not be able to get people to my email list without my website, so how does he expect you to get a list to be able to promote products too… He expects you to pay to buy access to someone else’s list. But he specifically talks about targeting social media.
Now, in my experience social media is an ok medium to promote your brand, but it is not a great place to collect email addresses. You need a website to really be successful!
Michael states that it is as easy as posting a review on YouTube and linking it straight to your affiliate link, but how can you compete with all of the major competition on YouTube to get your video noticed?
Without an audience, you are going to be struggling to get your affiliate offers out there, and that is how you are going to make money. Michael Cheney’s training will not help you out at all in the slightest.
The only person who would benefit from you buying this product is Michael himself, it just lacks any real depth to help you and is just another low-quality product from Michael Cheney.
How Much Does Commission Cartel Cost?
Whilst the price is not through the roof, I would not want to spend money on a product to only find it was low-quality or made me go away with more questions. That is my gripe with this product, you will walk away going that was not worth $10.
But there are 2 upsells to consider with the Commission Cartel too. Let’s go through all of the packages here:
Basic Commission Cartel Package – $9.95
This is the basic package and will cost a one-off fee of $9.95. This gets you the Commission Cartel dossier, video, audio and blueprints and his “apparent” insider training.
The Godfather Package – $27
A one-off fee of $27 gives you access to “never before released” done-for-you commission creating campaigns. Includes promotional materials, discount coupons and some special VIP access.
The “Secret Weapons” Package – $47
A one-off fee of $47 gets you the secret weapons package, which includes money-making templates that are ready to use with additional bonuses such as “How to turn emails into money”
From the look of each, the offer looks good. But unfortunately, the content is lacking any real quality.
What is Good About Commission Cartel (PROS)
Here is what we liked about it:
Some Basics for a Low Price
Michael does know his stuff, and you will learn a few basics from the product, and it is a low price.
What Could Commission Cartel Improve on? (CONS)
Here is what we didn’t like:
Information is Vague or is Conflicting
I touched on this earlier, but the information provided by Michael hits two sensitive subjects. Vagueness and Conflicting.
It is very vague into how you are going to earn money and lacks any real depth in the techniques. As though he were talking to people who already had an idea on how to make money through email marketing or promoting via YouTube. I feel it is lazy writing. He has the knowledge but doesn’t share this enough in his product.
The way it is conflicting is the fact he claims you do not need a website. You can just promote via Social Media and YouTube. But unless you already have a YouTube channel with a ton of traffic, you will get lost. People need to see your videos to find your affiliate links – that is how you make money.
If no one sees your videos or posts, then you make no money. The same with building an email list, the best way to build it is by having capture forms on your website. But he is telling you not to have a website??
It’s like he doesn’t want you to have the best start, as long as he gets his money. I fully believe the best start for a newbie is to have their own website as a solid foundation, where you can explore every avenue of earning money online.
In Michael’s brief, you are told you can contact him whenever you have a question or need any support. But when looking through the complaints of members, you start to see Michael does not really respond at all, let alone getting a quick response to resolve a problem. This make sense, as he misses out loads of key information, that people will be bombarding him with complaints and he probably doesn’t look anymore.
No Refund Offered
This goes with the poor support; you are not offered a refund and there is no free trial.
Start learning from a genuine affiliate marketing training platform, that offers a free starter membership and will take you step-by-step through every step needed to make money online! Wealthy Affiliate has helped thousands achieve their goals of working from home with their own affiliate marketing business.
My Honest Opinion of Commission Cartel? Is Commission Cartel a Scam?
I will state at this point, I do not believe the Commission Cartel is a scam. Michael Cheney does know his stuff and my problem is not with him, it is with the sheer lack of quality in any of his products. I recently reviewed his Commission Machine product, and that again came away with a similar conclusion.
You will learn some basics; you will learn some concepts. But as a beginner, you will still feel really lost and not know where to go from there.
On that basis, I cannot recommend the Commission Cartel to anyone, regardless of the price.
Earning commission from promoting quality products is a great way of earning money, but you need the right training and support. Not something that is bodged together and sold as though it will earn you that kind of money in your first month.
Affiliate Marketing takes a lot of time and effort and earnings will not happen overnight. Regardless of what Michael and others try and tell you.
Any product that tells you to expect to earn straightaway is typically a scam, or a low-quality product.
Verdict: Not Recommended – You Will Walk Away with More Questions Than You Started With!
I truly believe these types of products only want your money and do not offer anything with any value for you to feel like it was a worthwhile investment.
Are You Sick of Low-Quality Products or Scams?
The internet is full of low-quality products or scams, all promising you that you can earn thousands overnight whilst sitting at home or by the pool! Unfortunately, the common theme is that people get sucked into them, otherwise they would not exist.
If you really want to earn money online and find a genuine way of doing it, the first thing you will need to know is that you cannot earn money online overnight!!!
Sorry, I know that is not what you want to hear but that is the only way I can make sure you do not fall for any scams online.
I have been through a scam experience, where it cost me money and I learned so much from that experience and I want to share that experience with you as it led to me finding a genuine way of earning money.
I had never heard of affiliate marketing before, but I had just been through a scam with binary options. Looking for a way of earning money online, I thought that I could crack it.
It did not work out, but I am not sorry as it led me to Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate was different to anything else I had seen online, and do you know what that difference was…? They were completely honest. Completely honest about:
The time needed to earn money online!
The effort required to earn money online!
The earning potential from Affiliate Marketing, but how to be realistic in the timescales too!
They will openly say; Wealthy Affiliate is not for everyone. You need to work hard and follow the training to the letter, to benefit from Affiliate Marketing and if you are looking for quick ways to earn money online then Wealthy Affiliate is not for you.
But if you really are sick of scams, then you might want to give them a go. By the end of lesson 10, you will have your very own affiliate marketing website already to earn money online.
With a free starter membership, you have nothing to lose except some time to check it all out. But I guarantee you will learn more in those 10 lessons than you ever would from the Commission Cartel training.
If you would like to read more about Wealthy Affiliate, here is my full WA review. But if you feel ready to start your own affiliate marketing journey with excellent training and real support, click the button below and start a free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate:
If you have any questions or comments about Commission Cartel or anything else around Affiliate Marketing, please write them in the comments below. I promise to get back to you as soon as I can!
One of the most common questions we get asked is: What’s affiliate marketing and how does it work? Well, we are always ready to help people understand exactly that, and we are always ready to help people get started with affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing can help you realise your goals and dreams of working from home and earning money.
Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way of starting an online business with the opportunity to earn money from literally any interest or passion you may have, and we will go through all the different elements of affiliate marketing to ensure you go away with the necessary information you need to go and get started.
What is Affiliate Marketing – The Basics of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing involves 3 parties. There is you, the affiliate. There is the affiliate program, which is the company or product owner and then there is the customer (the buyer).
As an affiliate, you sign up and join an affiliate program. This is what gives you the ability to promote a product or service via a blog or website, or on social media.
When you join an affiliate program, they give you a special link which is unique to you. This link is what you would use when promoting a product or service, it also allows the affiliate program owner to track it when a buyer uses it to come and buy something.
If a buyer does follow that special link and goes and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. This is typically a flat rate or a percentage of the product price.
Here is a handy flow chart, to make it easier to digest:
Amazon has one of the easiest affiliate programs to join, when starting out. Amazon is the world’s largest marketplace; they also have used affiliate marketing since it started out as a bookstore. There are many benefits to both the affiliate and the company to use affiliate marketing.
They offer over 500 million products, just think about it for a second. That is a lot of products, it also shows the opportunity available to affiliate marketers. There is a niche for anyone to explore within Amazon alone.
Whatever your hobby, interest or subject that you can help other people with – Amazon will have a product to offer within that niche for you to promote.
If you can drive someone from your website, social media account or an email sent out to your mailing list with affiliate links included within them and they go and make a purchase, let’s say a laptop – You will earn around 6% commission on that one purchase. So, if a laptop costs $500, you just earned $30.
That might not sound like a lot of money but think about how many people are buying laptops every day on Amazon.
If you were able to sell 10 laptops a day through your blog, that is $300.
That is with just one product, what if you were promoting 10 different laptops and you were able to sell 10 of each?
$500 x 100 = $5,000 a day
This honestly shows the reality of affiliate marketing, with only one example. Now you know the basics of the Affiliate Marketing process, let’s talk a little about what that means for you, the Affiliate.
In general, it is normally free to join an affiliate program. There are a couple of examples where they may charge a small fee. But this is usually to check you are a real person, and it is very rare.
It is also a sign for you to look out for when checking an affiliate program, to protect yourself from a scam.
Affiliate Programs should be free, companies benefit massively from affiliate programs as they only need to pay out if someone makes a purchase. They benefit because you are introducing to them a customer.
If you find an affiliate program is charging what seems like a high fee, it is either a scam or a low-quality affiliate program. I would keep away from these types of affiliate program.
Affiliate Programs are great, they are usually free to join as an affiliate, you get to promote every brand, product or service that is available online and you get to earn commission from doing it too.
Amazon alone, give you the opportunity to promote over 500 million products and services.
But do not think Amazon is your only option, there are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there. With the right research, you will find tons available in whatever niche you can think of.
How Do Affiliate Programs Work?
An affiliate program is some software that allows affiliates to promote merchants and earn a commission. This software tracks all clicks, transactions and works out the commission all automatically.
It allows you to manage payment details, etc and gives you a personal dashboard that gives you some really important data to improve your conversion rates.
Affiliate Program stats are automated and always accurate. Companies work hard on making sure their affiliate program information is up to date for both themselves and you (the affiliate).
They also provide you some awesome information around what links are working better than others, giving you the opportunity to work on the ones that are not working well, to improve your money-making opportunity.
Affiliate Programs also offer you promotional stuff too – banners, widgets and even plugins to help you leverage your offers on your websites and social media.
The better the affiliate program, the better the promotional gear.
What is an Affiliate Network?
There are tons of independent affiliate programs, but it is sometimes easier to just sign up with an affiliate network.
Awin, for example is the largest affiliate network in the world and by having one account you will gain access to over 6,000 different companies and their product lists to promote.
There are plenty of affiliate networks, all with 100,000’s of companies and brands within them. Joining a couple of affiliate networks, could save you a lot of time and effort that could be better utilised elsewhere.
Managing a couple of accounts is much easier than managing 100’s of accounts, right?
That is the great thing about Affiliate Marketing, they do not make it hard for you to get paid. They want everything to work seamlessly for both the benefit of you and them.
There are a few things to consider with payments though, they all have different payment systems and often have different pay schedules.
But for the most part, expect them to pay you in US Dollars regardless of where you live in the world.
There are a few where you could get paid in your own currency, but for the most part it will be US dollars.
You will also have the options of payment gateways, like PayPal that will convert it into your local currency.
Payment could be received via the following options, depending on the affiliate program:
Cheque Payment
PayPal
Bank Transfer
Payoneer
Cryptocurrency
If we go back to our example of Amazon, Amazon Associates offers the option of Amazon giftcards or bank transfer. Or Wealthy Affiliate, with which I am a member, pays primarily through PayPal. But they still offer the option of Cheque payments. But if you are earning enough, you can also get bank transfer.
If Affiliate Programs made it difficult for people to get paid, affiliate marketers would not use them. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did that!
Would you promote a brand if you were struggling to get paid from them?
What is the Opportunity for an Affiliate?
The opportunities for an affiliate marketer are endless… The number of people buying online is growing at a fantastic rate.
But when people are buying stuff online, it is so different to when they go to a store to make a purchase.
If you go into a store today looking at a product, you can see the product first-hand, you can feel it and check it out and even ask someone from the store questions around that product.
Online, people are resorting to checking out product reviews.
What did other buyers who bought it think? Is there an in-depth review of the product online? That is the opportunity regardless of the niche you choose.
By helping people with all of their questions about products or services within your niche, you will find the affiliate opportunity goes hand in hand with helping people.
If you know a lot about digital cameras, you could share your knowledge, experience and how to get the best out of digital cameras. Including some great product reviews of certain cameras for people just starting out.
That is your opportunity to earn commissions, not from selling to people. But by helping them.
Think about what you need from a blog owner to help you make a purchase decision?
Do you need someone who sells to you the best product, or do you need someone who helps you come to an all-rounded decision? If you knew you were going to buy it, then you would not necessarily go into researching the product too much. You are searching online, because you are unsure on whether that is the best option and what to consider with that.
What you need is someone who can help answer all of your questions about it, and then you can come to your own decision around going and buying it.
People need trust in you as an authority in that niche, then they will buy from you. No need to sell, help them and that is where the true affiliate marketer will earn good money.
If you just fill up your website with a load of affiliate links without the helpful guides and product reviews, etc. You will find that your readers will switch off very easily. No readers, no commissions.
Where Can You Go to Start an Affiliate Business?
You might have decided that you want to get started in Affiliate Marketing, but you have no idea where to go to get started… This can make it hard, as there are literally tons of programs and learning tools all claiming to be the best.
The biggest problems come in the form that not all of them are related to affiliate marketing or are complete scams (and utter garbage).
Where Can You Get Started with Your Research?
I want to offer my help with speeding up your research into getting started with affiliate marketing. There is a training platform that is by far the best option for someone just starting out and it stands out massively against the rest.
I have been learning and using this platform for the last couple of years and would not be where I am today with their fantastic training and tools. That platform is called Wealthy Affiliate.
Expert Affiliate Marketers hang out within Wealthy Affiliate, managing their respective business and helping out people, just like you who are wanting to start their very own Affiliate Marketing business.
It is the only platform you need, to learn everything there is to know about Affiliate Marketing.
It also provides a safe environment where you can get all the tools, websites, web hosting, training and coaching to create and grow your business within affiliate marketing.
There are two membership options, the completely free starter membership and an advanced premium membership (as low as $29 a month). But I personally recommend you try the starter membership. This will allow you to fully check out the platform before making any purchasing decisions.
Within the first few lessons, you will have your own Affiliate coach (Me), you will have chosen your niche and have a clear direction for your business. You will have your own affiliate website complete with web hosting and access to training that will start your journey to becoming an expert within the affiliate marketing world.
I am here at any time to answer your questions, whether it be about Affiliate Marketing or Wealthy Affiliate. All you need to do is ask! I am here to help anyone start their journey and will happily share my knowledge and experience to help you at any time.
Write any questions below and I will reply to you as soon as I can
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