A lot of people have a misconception about affiliate marketing and often misassociate it with regular jobs. In this post, I’d like to help you understand what this business is (and isn’t) and help you make an informed decision on whether or not to get involved with it.
Since I do affiliate marketing and it is my main business which pays my bills and allows me the lifestyle I have, often times I get people asking me things like this:
1) Is affiliate marketing even a job to being with?
The answer is no because it’s a business in which you promote other people’s products and if you make a sale, then you make money and if you don’t, obviously no money is made.
But it is by no means a “traditional job” where pay is guaranteed based on hours work. So for anyone asking “how much can I expect to make with affiliate marketing”, the answer is it all depends.
It’s literally a commission based business and while you can think of that as a “job”, I’d be very careful in labeling it that way because the context that word carries is very different in this world compared to what most people think when they hear the word “job”.
And then there’s also this question:
2) How much salary does affiliate marketing pay?
The answer is that there is no salary in affiliate marketing because (once again), it’s a business. It’s a business in which you work for commission payments.
The more you promote means the more money you can make, but there is no salary involved in this business, because that context is based on a regular job understanding where people get paid hourly and work a set amount of hours.
Yes there are affiliate networks which pay their promoters, but these are fixed commissions and they will only pay you if you make them a sale (which again is not a job, but is commission based work).
In this business, there is no limit to how much you can make, but there is also no guaranteed fixed salary, or pay either.
Here is the only exceptions where affiliate marketing can be a “job” or pay a “salary”:
1) You are a hired freelancer who is paid to create blog content on a website.
There are a lot of affiliate marketers who run profitable blogs that get to a point where they need help sustaining it’s growth and profits and for the blog to continue making money, they need to continue writing blog posts, but the following things happen which affect that such as:
- They decide to put in their time to a new blog.
- They run out of ideas on what to grow their blog on.
- They just don’t have time because of other business ideas.
And so they hire freelance writers and pay them a fixed salary for every blog they create. The freelancer is then the person with the job and salary and can make anywhere from $20-$100 and up for every article they write for the owner of the blog who is the affiliate marketer.
In this context, again, there is no association with a job or salary. The affiliate marketer is still doing this for commission work, but gets third party help from the freelancer to increase their profits. The third party help is the person with the job and salary (not the affiliate marketer themselves).
2) You are a hired video creator who makes video content for the affiliate marketer:
This is the same thing as the blog but you create video content vs blog content, on places like YouTube. Again, while you may work for a fixed salary here or have a “job”, you are still not engaged in affiliate marketing directly, but are working for the person who does it.
3) Any type of third part work for an affiliate marketer:
I gave you 2 examples, but you can find plenty more which contextually apply to this. Things like:
- Getting paid to answer questions on the person/s blog.
- Getting paid to answer questions on the persons YouTube channel.
- Getting paid to answer emails for the affiliate marketer (support).
- Getting paid to put up social media posts for the affiliate marketer (boss).
4) You’re already making money in your affiliate business but classify your work as a “job”:
When people ask me what I do for a living, my typical response is “affiliate marketing” or “online marketing” and I rarely get into the details unless they really want to know, but in this context, I already run a business that makes me money and the “job” I have is literally growing my business, but it is by no means a classic job or salary based paying job.
What it is, is me being the boss of my online business and growing it in anyway I know how.
Be careful with predatory programs that make you think affiliate marketing is a job:
I’ve run into a couple of programs over the years that hid their true intentions which was selling you into things like pyramid scheme MLM programs or high ticket programs that end up being affiliate promotions but covered it up by saying it was a job for which you can get paid a lot of money for.
Once people were in the program, then they were pitched massive promotions for it to get them to pay. In other words, they were told they were applying for a job and could get paid a large salary, but then they had to buy into the program to participate in the opportunity to make money and it ended up being a scam affiliate promotion.
These programs still exist and if you are ever told that you are applying for a job and then it ends up being a pitch for a program, run away and report the program somewhere (like on Trustpilot.com, the BBB or elsewhere).
It’s a classic online scam.
A real affiliate marketing business can be profitable, but it’s never a guarantee (or a salary job):
Never fall prey to thinking this, because if you do, one or the countless scams out there will find you and trick you into buying their “opportunity”.
And while affiliate marketing is not a paid job with a fixed income, it is still an opportunity that carries more potential (in my experience) vs the traditional job market if you know how to start and grow a business in that field which I do provide training, coaching and help for on this website (you can start here on my about me page for details).