Want to make money from affiliate marketing?

8.10K Shares

Wondering what’s the quickest way to monetize your blog?

I’m always asked this and my answer is to offer a service or to use affiliate marketing.

Most of us get what it means to offer a service package. But what about affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is more than having links in your posts and hoping someone purchases through them. Well, I know that now, but affiliate marketing used to be a maze to me. And I used to believe several myths about it.

That’s when I came across Michelle from Making Sense of Cents. She started off earning $672 from her blog 4 years ago and now makes $102,911 mostly through affiliate marketing (her most recent income report).

I’ve been watching her from the sidelines since last year and had to jump in when she launched her course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

I managed to get her for an email interview to answer some of my questions…but first, let me tell you what I loved about the way this course was taught:

Michelle does not teach you a ‘formula’. She does not promise you will make X amount of money in Y amount of time. She understands that everyone’s blog and business is different.

She teaches the strategy behind affiliate marketing so that everyone can apply it to their own blogs and businesses. There’s a lot of content strategy that’s involved and that’s what I love about the course.

The course gets you into a frame of mind to start thinking about affiliate marketing and how to apply it to your blog. I haven’t started implementing everything in the course but just doing a couple of things have more than doubled my affiliate income.

And affiliate marketing isn’t just for food bloggers or mom bloggers. Almost any niche can add affiliate marketing to their revenue stream.

Michelle is very accessible in her Facebook group and via email. She genuinely wants each of her students to succeed and that care comes across so visibly.

There is a bonus Pinterest section within the course taught by Rosemarie Groner from The Busy Budgeter who gets tons of traffic from Pinterest and she teaches her strategies with detailed video tutorials.

I have always felt spammy and uncomfortable with using affiliate links in my posts but Michelle’s strategies and the way she teaches them will change your view of affiliate marketing.

I’ll leave you to enjoy my interview with Michelle below.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase any of these resources, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Check out my privacy & disclosure policy here

1. What made you decide to start Making Sense of Cents?

I started my personal finance blog a little over 5 years ago with the goal of teaching people how to save money after reading a magazine that featured a personal finance website. I became extremely interested in personal finance blogging due to that and my interest in blogging just grew from there. Before August of 2011, I didn’t even know that blogs existed. I didn’t know what they were, I didn’t know that they could make money or anything like that.

I did not create my blog with the intention of earning an income online. It was all just a hobby- yes, really! I then realized how much I loved blogging and realized that it was for me, and now I am a full-time blogger! I just passed three years of full-time blogging, which just seems crazy to me. Life goes by fast when you’re having a great time!

On my blog Making Sense of Cents, I talk a lot about many ways to make extra money, ways to save money, reaching your goals, traveling, and more. I love running Making Sense of Cents and I am very happy that this is now my full-time career, my business, and pretty much my life.

2. Why did you choose affiliate marketing to monetize your blog?

I chose affiliate marketing because it can feel quite passive and if I’m going to promote products anyways, then it’s a great way to earn a living. With affiliate marketing, you can create just one blog post or social media post and potentially earn money from it for well into the future, as long as you maintain it and keep generating traffic to it. With affiliate marketing, I can enjoy life more and know that I am still able to earn a great living promoting products that I use and enjoy.

3. What mistakes do you see bloggers making when it comes to affiliate marketing?

The biggest mistake I see bloggers make when it comes to affiliate marketing is that they wait too long to start with affiliate marketing. My best piece of advice for other bloggers is to start as soon as they can with affiliate marketing and learn about it now! I waited so long to try my hand at affiliate marketing, and I regret waiting so long. Even if you have a low amount of followers or if you are a new blogger, you can still be successful at affiliate marketing and earn a living online.

My best piece of advice is to start as soon as they can with affiliate marketing Click To Tweet

4. How long does it take before you can really start to make money from affiliate marketing?

That is a difficult question to answer, as everyone is different. With my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course:

One student in the course went from $87 a month in affiliate income before taking the course, to over $1,700 a month after!
One blogger received their first affiliate sale just two days after taking the course (and they were a brand new blogger too!).
Another blogger doubled their monthly affiliate income from $2,500 to $5,000.

And there are many, many, other success stories from other students who have taken Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing as well.

5. What myths do bloggers have about affiliate marketing?

Many bloggers believe that affiliate marketing is as easy as just placing affiliate links on your website. This is a myth that I despise!

You cannot just slap affiliate links on your blog with the hopes of earning affiliate income. You have to have some sort of strategy, which is what I teach in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. So many bloggers make this mistake and usually lose followers or waste their time because they don’t realize that there are a correct way and a wrong way to approach affiliate marketing!

'You cannot just slap affiliate links on your blog with the hopes of earning affiliate income'Click To Tweet

6. Who will benefit from this course?

The average blogger is not good with affiliate marketing, and my course can help anyone who is struggling with earning affiliate income.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a great learning tool, even if you are a new blogger who is still putting their website together. By taking this course, you will start off blogging the correct way. You can learn from my affiliate marketing mistakes and learn the best ways to start making an income by being an affiliate. Through taking this course you are sure to grow a profitable blog quicker than the average blogger, as you’ll learn exactly what you need to know about affiliate marketing. So, even if you only have one blog post, you are ready to get started with this course!

Even if you’ve been blogging for years, this course may be for you as well. Affiliate marketing is an area that even the most seasoned bloggers can improve upon. Plus, most bloggers aren’t making anywhere near the amount of affiliate income that they should be and are leaving money on the table. If you want to grow your affiliate income, there are numerous tips and strategies that I share in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

Most bloggers don't anywhere near the amount of affiliate income that they should MAKEClick To Tweet

7. What does the course cover?

My Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course covers many topics such as:

The basics of affiliate marketing and an introduction to what it is
Why all bloggers should be earning affiliate income
The exact steps I’ve taken to earn over $400,000 from a single blog post
How to pick the correct affiliate products to promote
How to increase your conversion rate
How to build trust and not lose followers
How to correctly disclose affiliate links
The many different strategies to use to promote products that you are an affiliate for

8. How different is this from other affiliate marketing courses?

There really aren’t any affiliate marketing courses out there that are similar to mine. My course comes with tons of valuable affiliate marketing expertise, lessons, and worksheets, as well as high-value bonuses such as a Pinterest strategy, a mastermind group, and more. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a course that will help you teach everything you need to know about improving your blogging income.

9. What is the cost of the course?

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing costs $197 for lifetime access, or you can go on a payment plan and pay $105 per month for two months. The course also comes with over $500 in FREE bonuses, so it’s a great valued course.

Get started with affiliate marketing on the right foot

This is a course I wish I had taken 6 months ago because it helps you get started with affiliate marketing on the right foot from the very beginning.

Many of you may not be ready to add an info product to your mix, or if you’re looking at adding an additional stream of income to your blog or not happy with your affiliate income, this is a course that you should consider adding to your blogger course kit.

The Facebook group is worth the price of the course. The people in the course are fabulous and you’re bound to pick up some amazing tips from the group. There are some established bloggers in the group as well which opens a world of networking opportunities.

So if you are wondering how to make money affiliate marketing, this is a fantastic place to start. You probably won’t need any other articles or courses after taking hers.

For bloggers who have been at this for some time, this course will help you optimize your affiliate marketing strategies. If you have any questions about the course, I’d love to answer them for you. What are your thoughts on affiliate marketing and do you think it’s for you or why not?