Considering the fact that this is a website on how to make money with affiliate marketing, I never thought I’d be writing a blog post on affiliate marketing alternatives, especially ones that can make you more money online, yet here I am.
You see in recent years, I’ve been expanding into making new affiliate sites, new projects, new realms and what I found out was that there are going to be times where affiliate marketing will not be the best money making option for you. However, this has been a blessing because it taught me to explore and experiment with new methods that opened a lot of new doors.
While I still love affiliate marketing and it is my primary earner, if you find yourself in the same situation I did, the following 5 alternatives will help your online business thrive:
Here are the 5 affiliate marketing alternatives I have discovered earn the most:
- Running display ads.
- Creating your own products and courses.
- Sponsorships.
- Online coaching in a specific niche.
- Local marketing.
Each of these methods holds a lot of money making potential but they also require a lot of context and what I want to discuss is specifics on how each method works.
I’ll be giving you examples, circumstances why they are better but keep in mind that they can be mixed together with affiliate marketing too.
1) Running display ads:
Description:
Display ads are basically third party programs that place ads on your site and pay you either for each click the ad gets and/or how many visitors it gets. There are 4 main networks which are popular:
Adsense, Ezoic, Mediavine and Adthrive (in ascending order). The way you get paid is through a model known as CPM which stands for cost per thousand, meaning how much you earn for every 1,000 visits your site gets.
Beginner friendly method?
If you know how to get organic traffic to your site, then yes.
How much can you earn?
A CPM of say $20 per 1,000 visits isn’t too bad and if your site gets 100,000 visitors a month, that adds up to $2,000 in earnings. Is that good or bad? Well if you weren’t earning much with affiliate marketing on the site, then $2,000 in extra earnings a month sure counts for a lot.
Why is this model better than affiliate marketing?
It’s technically not, but there may be a circumstance in which it is and the best example I can offer is my nature blog which is reaching about 50,000 visitors a month now. Most of the content I create on the site and rank for is about places to see and what to do there.
Such content is difficult to monetize through affiliate marketing because the visitors intent is not to buy outdoor gear, but just learn about the place they are interested in visiting. Even if I do place affiliate links and product recommendations on these posts, the conversion rate might be 1 in 1,000 and considering I mainly promote Amazon products on there, the money earned is pennies.
The better way (in this case) to monetize such a site is through display ads which can earn a few $1,000 every month. At the same time, I can also make affiliate related posts (best hiking gear, product reviews, ect…) and monetize those separately.
2) Creating your own products and courses:
Description:
This method involves you making your own eBooks, courses and products that share specific info on a topic you know a lot about.
For example, Ivan Mana an affiliate marketer (ironically) that I respect makes a lot of his money off promoting his own online courses on affiliate marketing, pay per click marketing and similar things. His courses are high ticket in costs and he earns pretty well from it.
Beginner friendly method?
Not really. You have to know how to create the product or course, then have a site or way of marketing it through places like YouTube or even paid ads.
A big key to this working is finding a niche market that is in need of a solution so hungry niches or evergreen niches should be targeted. At the same time, you actually have to offer something of true value, and also be able to market it to people so they see that too.
How much can you earn?
It’s limitless (technically). Say you sell a course on how to do pay per click affiliate marketing for $700 and suppose you drive 10,000 visitors to this offer and 20 people buy it. You’d be making $14,000 in the process, but that’s considering you have no ad costs (are driving free traffic to the site). Most online courses require you to use pay per click ads to drive the visitors there and it’s not out of the ordinary if 50% of your revenue would go into paying for the ad (a $7,000 profit).
Why is this model better than affiliate marketing?
A lot of affiliate promotions don’t pay a lot in commissions, and/or perhaps you have a lot of knowledge to offer people. If you feel that is the case (the latter), then making a course sharing this on a topic where people gladly spend money on can net you a lot of earnings that are higher if you were promoting some affiliate product.
3) Sponsorships:
Description:
You have a site that is popular and attracts potential businesses that wish to promote their products on the site. They’ll pay you an X sum to do that, whether it be an advertisement or post you make promoting them which they will prepay for.
Beginner friendly method?
The real key to making this work is being able to create a popular website that attracts a lot of audiences from Google or perhaps social media. This will inevitably attract the businesses too who see that they can get a lot of potential customers from your site.
How much can you earn?
That depends on the deal and company you work with. $100s or $1,000s being made of a single sponsorship is not out of the question.
Why is this model better than affiliate marketing?
Again, suppose you run a nature site like mine or a different one where it’s just too difficult to make affiliate sales. You’d take anything else to make the site earn money and this is one of those ways.
4) Online coaching in a specific niche:
Description:
This is similar to making online courses, but instead the product is you and your guidance is being purchased.
A great example of this is Affiliate Coach, a service I personally subscribe to every single month and pay about $550 for (I may be successful, but there’s people who know and earn more in this field which is why I hired him).
I get 4 sessions a month with my affiliate coach Jay who helps me with my online business goals. Jay has A LOT of knowledge on affiliate marketing and much more and by hiring him to help me, I’m able to cut through my own learning curve and save time/money from experimentation with him helping me figure out what works quicker to grow my business.
Beginner friendly method?
Technically no. You need to possess a lot of knowledge in a specific, hungry niche market field. We’re talking things like dating, making money online, affiliate marketing and/or perhaps personal training. These typically are popular niches for coaching.
How much can you earn?
Well if we take Jay’s example and people like myself pay him $550 a month and he has 50 clients do that, then we have him making $27,500 every month.
Why is this model better than affiliate marketing?
Again, it’s all about the value YOU have to offer. If you’re someone like Jay who has extensive experience and can offer 1 on 1 coaching to clients to help their business grow, you’d best believe he’ll get clients to hire him because of that.
5) Local Marketing:
Description:
This final method is one that’s been practiced almost as long as affiliate marketing itself. Local marketing is all about you offering your help to physical businesses locally or anywhere to improve their online presence.
A lot of businesses gladly hire professional SEO people, ad specialists and internet marketers in general to help their physical business attract more leads from the online world including Google, Facebook, Google Ads, Google Maps and much more.
Beginner friendly method?
I would say no, because it does require knowledge of local marketing and relaying that to clients. It’s not easy to find clients, especially when it comes to charging them and then you also have to deal with potential hassles of getting calls all the time if they are unhappy. There are decent programs out there which help you with this including:
- Growth Cave.
- Birthday Marketing Formula.
- Wealthy Affiliate’s Local marketing training which happen to be taught by the same Jay who is my affiliate coach.
How much can you earn?
A single client can honestly earn you some big ticket commissions, whether one time or even a recurring income. We’re talking $100s and even $1,000s depending on the services. The bigger (or more) services offered, the more you can earn and if there are several clients, this earning potential exponentially increases.
Why is this model better than affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is just not for everyone. Perhaps you are someone who likes working with businesses 1 on 1 that need help in this specific field and can offer it. Then you can earn big ticket paydays without promoting low ticket or high ticket affiliate items and worrying about that.
Which of these affiliate marketing alternatives do you prefer?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this options and if you have anymore to present. Keep in mind that affiliate marketing should NOT be discounted if you choose one or more of these methods. They can also be part of your greater online business in general. It’s just that depending on what kind of online business that is, as well as your tastes, that determines which model/s are better for you.
Hey Vitaliy,
I have been slowly building out one of my sites that will eventually incorporate a number of sponsorship display slots I will offer to other businesses so they can promote their Ad/Content on a site that is tuned into their ideal audience. This post has affirmed that this approach is a good model for me and the niche that website is in.
Thanks for sharing this, and best of luck as you continue to explore and grow.
No problem Danny!
Hi Vitaliy,
I had been familiar with all of these alternatives. However, you provided guidance to help one decide if any of these are right for you.
The one that most appeals to me are to run display ads. Why? For the same reasons you provided. I am working on a new niche website that is intended to be entertaining and informational. Some visitors may be interested in product promotions but most may not. When I build up traffic, I can see display ads being a great source of revenue.
Another of your options I liked is creating my own product and courses. I have two options here. One is based on my career experience. The other is related to the field of effective communication. As District Governor I was able to lead my region of 2000 members to become Internationally recognized. However, the amount of additional effort both these options would require places these behind running Display Ads.
I totally agree that any of these additional revenue options should be conducted in parallel with our affiliate marketing activities.
Cheers.
Edwin
Thanks Edwin!
Hi Vitaliy
Yes I totally agree that Adsense can be useful on some sites vs others. I personally use Adsense for informational pages or sites. So yes good call on that revenue stream.
I am also in the process of making my own products and services available online for hypnotherapy. The current state of things of course is getting in the way of seeing my clients in person. However working online through zoom has proven to be simply amazing!
I also think it is important to vary your income streams. Yes I love affiliate marketing too. But it also great to diversify and have to variety with different affiliate networks, ad networks and as of late, your own products! Awesome read!
Shelley
Thanks Shelley!