Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

Affiliate marketing is one of few ways content creators and publishers make money.

It has also helped a lot of companies grow and establish their brand. In fact, some companies generate as much as 30% of their revenue from their own affiliate programs.

So, is affiliate marketing worth it for people like you and me?

Yes, Affiliate marketing is a great place to start making money online. It is a growing industry, has a very low entry barrier, and you have the possibility to make a lot of money. If you put the right effort and time into building an affiliate marketing business, it would surely be worth it.

Continue reading and see why this business model is one of the best on the internet.

8 Reasons Why Affiliate Marketing is Worth it

There are a lot of reasons why affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online and some of them are:-

1. Growing Industry

Affiliate marketing is a $7 billion industry in the United States alone. And it’s expected to reach more than $8 Billion by 2022.

As you can see from the graph, the number keeps on increasing.

This means that affiliate marketing is never going to die. As long as people sell products or any other thing online, affiliate marketing will be there.

2. Literally free to start

Affiliate marketing can be started for free. There’s isn’t any barrier for anyone.

Almost all affiliate programs are free to join. This makes you, as a marketer the freedom to market any products of your choice.

Promoting affiliate products can also be done for free. You can use platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Quora, and other platforms to begin your affiliate marketing journey.

Related Article – Is Email Marketing Worth It in 2021?

3. Unlimited Earning Potential

The amount of money that you can make with affiliate marketing is just insane, especially if you promote some recurring and high-ticket affiliate products.

Recurring-based affiliate programs give you monthly commission as long as your referring customer stays subscribed to their product/program. These types of affiliate programs are my favorite ones because you have the potential to earn a passive form of income.

High ticket affiliate programs are that which gives you a huge bounty for referring a customer ($200-$500). Such types of affiliate programs can be usually seen in Finance and marketing niche/industries.

4. No Product creation Required

The best part about affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to create a product yourself.

Creating a product on your own is time-consuming, takes effort, and will cost you a lot of money. There is also a risk of failing if the product doesn’t satisfy the users.

On the other hand, affiliate marketing only involves you to market the product and you do not have to deal with anything else. If a particular affiliate product isn’t making you any sales, You could always choose another product. It’s that simple!

5. Customer Service isn’t your problem

Since you do not promote your own product, you won’t need to worry about the customer service as well.

One of the worst things about selling your own product is to hear the complaints and issues from your customers. This is one of the reasons why a lot of people hate dropshipping and eCommerce.

6. Scalable

Most publishers start affiliate marketing using just one platform. It might be a blog, sales funnels, email marketing, social media, etc.

Once you start making some money, if you keep reinvesting the profits onto the business by using different ad platforms or even just diversifying to different platforms to promote, you could make more than you ever imagined.

You could also use the power of sales funnels, email marketing, affiliate link tracking to increase your sales.

7. Work From Anywhere

The main problem with a 9-5 job is the inability to travel and work from anywhere. But with affiliate marketing and other online business models, it has become possible for anyone to work from anywhere. You just need a laptop and an internet connection.

8. Thousands of Affiliate Programs are Available

There are a lot of affiliate programs on the internet. In whichever niche/industry you are currently in, you might find at least one or two affiliate programs.

If you are a beginner, it’s always better to start with one affiliate program. Then as you gain more experience, you could start promoting multiple affiliate programs.

3 Problems to Affiliate Marketing

1. Some Affiliate Programs require you to have some experience

Some affiliate programs do not allow you to be a part of them unless and until you satisfy some of their requirements.

Some of the requirements can be:-

The amount of followers/audience/subscribers that you have.
The number of people on your mailing list.
Or even the location of where you reside. i.e, You may not be eligible if you come from a 3rd world country.

This can be a problem especially if you are a complete beginner. And the best workaround for this is to increase your followers, audience, or subscribers and then applying for the affiliate programs.

2. Commission Cut and Affilaite Program Shutdown

Companies have the sole right to cut the commissions that you earn at any point in time. This is why you agree to their terms and conditions when you join a particular affiliate program.

Some companies may go to a larger extent and may even shut down their affiliate program. This can be a huge blow to people who heavily depend on Affiliate income or a particular affiliate program.

One such example is Amazon associates. They cut off their commissions by a huge margin in the year 2020. And this had a huge impact on people who heavily depended on Amazon’s affiliate income.

Since Amazon is the world’s largest eCommerce store and that they already have many repeat customers, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if one day they just shut down their affiliate program too.

3. Earnings may be inconsistent

Affiliate earnings can be highly inconsistent. It mainly depends on the way you promote it.

If you promote affiliate products using a Youtube channel or a blog, chances are that your earnings might vary depending on the views and traffic that you get.

How much Can You Really Make With Affiliate Marketing?

The amount of money may vary depending on the different ways you promote it, the traffic that you receive, and the product that you choose to promote.

According to a study, About 48.36% of affiliate marketers are earning $20k per year while only 3% are earning over $150k per year.

That’s not bad at all.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing can be started in different ways. Some of the best ways include:-

Blog
Youtube Channel
Sales funnels
Email Marketing

Out of the 4 listed above, Blogging is the one I do and prefer. It may take a while to get your first few dollars. But once you start blogging, it is surely worth it.

So, in my case, I write articles after a proper keyword research so that I can rank on Google. When I write that article, I try to link an affiliate product to it. Once the article is published, and if it ranks on Google, I get traffic to the blog and eventually get some sales.

If you are looking to start your own blog, Namecheap(EasyWP) can help you start a WordPress blog for just under $3/month(Yes, you are right. that is my affiliate link and you might help me make some money).

But if you don’t have any money to start an affiliate marketing business, feel free to check out this article.

Related Article – Is WordPress a Hosting Site? Or Is it Just a CMS?

So, Is Affiliate Marketing Worth it?

Yes, affiliate marketing is surely worth it. It’s never going to die as long as people sell things online (which is never going to stop).

It does have some disadvantages but because of the low entry barrier, huge earning potential, scalability and others, you just can’t find a better side hustle or even a full-time income from affiliate marketing.

I hope this article was useful to you. Hope you have a great day ahead.
Peace!