One of the most beautiful things about affiliate marketing is the fact that you don’t have to work forty hours a week to earn a living.
Some weeks (especially in the beginning) you may work more than 40 hours but as time goes on and you figure out how to become successful, your hours will diminish while your income grows.
There is loads of potential for creating passive income from affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing done right results in things going viral so that they keep making money – long after you’ve put in the work.
Affiliate Marketing – Passive Income Potential
• You create a website with content about the product you’re selling. Once that site is up and running, the traffic that comes in buys your product. The work is done so the sales can happen on their own. Some maintenance of your site will be required but once it is built, the sales can keep happening, often without your intervention… otherwise known as passive income.
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You make a YouTube video that draws people back to your website where they are taken through a sales process that leads them to buy a product with your affiliate link built in. That YouTube video gets popular and people bookmark it. It goes viral and continually brings new traffic to your website where you earn an affiliate commission for each sale. You haven’t touched the video in months but it’s bringing in sales every week.
• You create a blog about a particular product niche. The blog is filled with contextual advertising. The great blog post you wrote in 2007 is still drawing in traffic and clicks that equate to a monthly cheque from Google Adsense.
• You made a landing page that redirected to an affiliate sales page and wrote some ads and placed a bid for some highly searched keyword phrases. You pay a few cents per click from Google Adwords (or some other pay per click program) but your return on investment is several dollars for each of those clicks.
Choosing where to spend your time and effort can have a direct impact on how profitable and how passive your income streams can be. Some affiliate marketers work really hard for every single commission cheque they receive, especially in the beginning. For those that figure out how to go from working hard to hardly working (by learning to get things viral and by doing niche research) they can grow their income and grow their supply of free time.
There are very few (if any) really successful affiliate marketers who didn’t get that way by working hard, but for the top earners, they have found the secrets of creating passive income from affiliate marketing so that they can enjoy the fruits of their labour without working 9-5.
Learn the ropes and learn to work smarter instead of harder and you, too, could still be earning affiliate commissions next year from a few moments spent on something you do today.
Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketer
Learn Affiliate Marketing with Year Of The Affiliate © 2012
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
At the moment I fall into the first category from “working hard to hardly working”
I know that if you put in the hard yards initially and take the right steps, something you work on now could still bring in an income for you for many years. As you say Sean, its about working out those little secrets that can have such a dramatic impact on success.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Following a Entrepreneurs Mindset =-.
You will get there Cemil, you are putting in the effort and that will pay off sooner or later
Hi Sean
I am putting in the time now and looking forward to when I start earning affiliate commissions by creating passive income from affiliate marketing, and I know it will happen, I just have to be patient and keep moving forward.
I am really enjoying the journey
.-= Rita Pepper´s last blog ..Internet Marketing Strategy =-.
Great to hear you are enjoying it all Rita. If you can be passionate about what you are doing, sooner or later you will achieve loads of success, keep up the good work
Sean,
You’ve created such enthusiasm in my being for IM. Thankyou. I just need more efficient action or to act more efficiently – I’m learning about that each day.
.-= Harry Lynn´s last blog ..MY EIGHTH STEP TO PROSPERITY =-.
You are passionate about what you are doing and taking action Harry, efficiency will increase as you continue. Keep up the great work mate
Hi Sean,
I can’t wait until I’m creating passive income from affiliate marketing. I’m working hard to learn how to work smarter so that I can make this happen.
I still find it a little unreal that you can do a ton of work upfront and then with a little regular effort, make more money in one week than I can in a whole week at work. Yes, I still have some work to do on my mindset.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn – It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint =-.
That’s what I love about affiliate marketing – creating passive income.
I put in the hard yards and once it is set up I can go and travel while maintaining the site. Once I am back some more hard yards for the next site …. some more travelling ….I just love it!
And thanks to your great tips this goal is coming closer and closer!!!
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
Hi Renee,
I agree and one of the great things is that we can take our laptops with us wherever we go. We can travel anywhere that we can get an internet connection and keep our business moving if we need to.
I love that we don’t have a bricks and mortar business. We can simply pack it up and take it with us.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
Hi Jazz,
absolutely right. I still have the bricks and mortar at the moment, and that is definitely not a passive income. While I was traveling I constantly had to be available and check emails/online data daily to help organise daily operations.
With a well set up site I can go away for a week and it will still do it’s job – without me checking and finetuning it every day.
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
This is what I am working towards. Passive income is the goal, it is still enjoyable working towards my dream, lots to learn and put into practice. Thanks for all your ideas and support Sean.
.-= Melanie Braggs´s last blog ..Building Chicken Coops =-.
Hi Sean,
Great article, thank-you. I know if I follow the advice here that I will be successful at Affiliate Marketing. I am putting in quite a few hours a week while learning the ropes.
I am very aware I need to learn how to work smarter rather than harder. I like the challenge and believe I will soon achieve a Passive Income from Affiliate Marketing. I can see it happening!
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
This was one of my concerns, as my husband and I are trying to create passive income and I wasn’t sure whether you are able to create passive income with affiliate marketing as I thought you had to constantly update your blogs to keep their ranks high and keep working with the social networking sites to keep yourself out there. You have given me some hope.
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Types of Child Anxiety Disorder =-.
Hi Sean,
The idea of creating a passive income from affiliate marketing is a dream of mine that I hope to one day accomplish. I see so many people claiming to make 6 figure incomes in their sleep & I just want it to be me!
So far I have made a few bucks but the prospect of earning enough to replace my income seems so far away… I will continue to learn until my dream hopefully becomes a reality : )
.-= jeremy´s last blog ..jlagatule- RT @gurubob- True influence is not forcing people to say yesit is systematically destroying their reasons to say no – GuruBob =-.
Never lose sight of your dreams Jeremy, having passion for what you do and applying constant action will get you there