Can you make big money in this biz just from being an affiliate?

I've played with running my own paysite but I dont want the hassles. Id rather just send signups and let someone else deal with the members and send me checks.

But it looks to me that the people who make the big money all run their own sites (excluding the hosts, content providers, designers etc, im not interested in doing that stuff)

So am I shooting myself in the foot if I'm not promoting my own sites?

My ideas of big money is, say, MID 5-figures a month.

Most of us in this biz love to talk about money, so let me know your opinions.

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Originally posted by Marc
Most of us in this biz love to talk about money, so let me know your opinions.

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The first rule of the business that you will find is that the people who often tell everyone else how much they earn on forums and the likes.. rarely make anything at all ;)

Talk, as they say, is cheap.

Regards,

Lee

i know a couple guys who do... but you really have to know what you're doing, and have to have money to invest in traffic. otherwise you could get there but it would take quite a while.

i know hundreds of folks who make between $100 and $10,000 a month as affiliates, but only a very few who make over $10,000 a month as affiliates.

However, to answer your main question, yes it is possible to make money by just sending traffic to affiliate programs BUT its a lot of work.

You need to diversify at first and try your hand at pretty much anything and everything from TGPing to building free sites, building AEN sites to working the search engines and again, its going to be tough.

However, the benefits of this trial and error phase far outweight the bad as you will find something that you excell at and, once you have found it, you should become a master in that field and grow your business further.

Regards,

Lee

Yes, I think it's possible. And as others have pointed out, it's a lot of work. I worked hard on my family of sites for the past one and a half years to get where I am now. And actually, I just cracked the nut yesterday of something I've been trying to figure out about search engines for that whole time. I just got a confirmed answer yesterday.

This business is wildly unpredicatable. Everything was going along nicely, then boom! the bottom fell out of the AVS model, we moved, changed, recovered, and started moving along nicely, then, boom! two planes hit the WTC. The U.S. Patriot Act has killed off a lot of sites and companies that couldn't comply with that legislation. We continued on our merry way, and then, iBill chokes.

My point is this: don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you run a paysite, continue to run that paysite, but break into affiliate marketing, too. Where would you have been two months ago if all of the affiliate sites you had been sending traffic to used iBill? Some people are finally starting to get iBill cheques now, but could you have afforded to go without no revenue for the past two months?

So don't consolidate into one area, diversify as much as you can. In fact, you might want to look at running your paysite, putting up a hub that pushes affiliates, and start something else that's non-adult. That would be ideal because then your poised to handle and recover any other bumps that may be coming our way during this next four-year skip down the Bush, anti-porn highway.

Cheers
Dzinerbear

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Originally posted by Marc
I've played with running my own paysite but I dont want the hassles. Id rather just send signups and let someone else deal with the members and send me checks.

So am I shooting myself in the foot if I'm not promoting my own sites?

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Marc: Don't look at it like that. The point of living isn't to make big money, it is to be happy. What do you want to do with your internet business? For me, I only work with topics that I find personally interesting. If something is selling, but I'm not interested in it - it's not my perview.

Everyone has mentioned lots of good points. I think what I would like to say is that no matter what you do, it's never easy. It took me years to take my self business ideas and get them to "click into" grooves that work. (very very skinny years indeed!)

It is always a learning process, and it is important to keep an open mind. There are many different roads to get to the same place.

All the money I make through my adult sites are through affiliate marketing.
Same with most of my non adult sites. I'm doing pretty well financially.... I'm not buying a big house or anything, but I'm paying for trips to conferences, paying all the bills and I astonishingly have money left, saving money - doing stuff I haven't done in years. I am living like an adult again.

And my friends now frankly are shocked at the change.

In all cases, my business model includes: #1) I do not handle money. and #2) I do not keep inventory.

Beyond that I'm potentially up for anything.

Steve

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Originally posted by desslock
If something is selling, but I'm not interested in it - it's not my perview.

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Words to live by. I run a site for which all of the revenue is generated through affiliates alone. It's a free site, I shoot no content, I purchase no content, I pay no models, I pay no employees... the only overhead involved is hosting and my own time and energy (which, granted is applied in substantial amounts to this site).

And it makes itself a fair amount of money every month. It could probably make a lot more were I to promote sites that are part of higher-payout programs. But... why? Only things and sites I like make it in to this websites sponsor portfolio. Things that I watch and look at and say "That's hot!". Not only is that essential to having the site keep the flavor its surfers seem to really enjoy and present what it presents in a genuine fashion, but it's also what keeps it fun. That's what keeps me enjoying working on it even when I'm up until 5am fiddling about with it or it begins to seem I can never take a break from it. If I saw this site as work? Goodness knows how much I'd resent it.

The site's been around for just over a year. It gets mass search engine traffic. Those that are sponsors on it can testify to its success in referring signups. And it makes bank. It's not a TGP. It's not a linklist. It's not a directory. It's what it is. (Everyone and their dog has a TGP out there and then wonders why they can't launch one and have it immediately make em rich. Start up something original and unique. The materialization of your own vision and idea rather than a subscription to other people's notions of what the only way to do things is.)

But more importantly... it's fun!!! And having a site with no significant financial overhead helps relieve a lot of pressure. Theoretically, the site's traffic could crawl to a trickle and it could refer a sale a week and still come out in the black. So that's a huge relief.

Whereas paysites I run, it's a nonstop race against overhead early on. The bar you gotta get over is that much higher. But I feel the paysites I run also have the potential, most definitely, to make way more than the free site. Way way way more. And so long as I have the will and resources to build them up, invest in them, and get them positioned to start earning money - even if it means a couple months of being in the red - then so be it. That's what business is about.

adding my 2cents - yes, I host quite a few people "making it" by just being an affiliate. These days, if you have quality traffic you are the king!

cheers,
Luke

I know a couple people who do well with affiliate programs but they do other stuff as well. It's hard for me to say what's actually making them the BIG bucks. Don't I want to be the fly on the wall.:kitten:

I have seen people make tons of money being an affiliate. I told a friend of mine exactly what to do and he is just making a couple hundred a month so far. What I can say is you need to work your ass off and it can be done. You need to learn what to do and do it well and learn from your mistakes.

Mark