How Much Can You Make on Affiliate Marketing? (Truth Revealed)

If you are interested in making money online, you have likely heard about affiliate marketing.

But it is important to know the true potential before you start investing money and time into it.

So how much can you make on affiliate marketing?

This is what this article will look into. We will both look at the statistics but also take a reality check so you know exactly what it takes to succeed and start earning.

I will also give some advice for the best approach to get started, as I myself have started from scratch and I am now making a full-time income on affiliate marketing.

I, therefore, know a lot of the traps to avoid to succeed and will share them with you.

What do the stats say about affiliate marketing?

You have probably heard a lot of stories about people making a lot of money on affiliate marketing and I can say from both personal experiences and from people I know that it definitely is possible to make good money.

But that is easy to say, right?

So let’s start by looking at some stats about affiliate marketing so you can see the potential and why it is possible to make money this way.

According to Statista, the money advertisers spend on affiliate marketing has increased a lot every year since 2010 and it is projected to keep increasing.

It is important to notice that these are stats only for spending in the USA. Here it is projected to increase to 8.2 billion US dollars in 2022.

Again this is ONLY in the US and affiliate marketing is used by companies all over the world.

A study from Rakuten shows that the budget UK marketers allocate to affiliate marketing has doubled over the last few years and now 40% of UK marketers’ advertising budget is used for affiliate marketing.

The same study shows that 49% of global consumers use influencer marketing to learn about new brands and products.

This shows that there is A LOT of money used on affiliate marketing and all these are paid out to people like you and me working with affiliate marketing.

So just by looking at the stats, it is clear to see that when companies spend a lot of money on affiliate marketing it means it is possible to make money that way and get a part of that spending.

And it is definitely possible to make really good money with affiliate marketing.

But before getting too excited about all that money, it is also important to go into it with realistic expectations which we will look at next.

Reality check

When it comes to making money online and with affiliate marketing there are many stories out there and unfortunately also many scams.

No doubt you can make good money with affiliate marketing but also be aware that there will be people and programs out there trying to scam you.

They will sell you the idea that it is super easy and you can just click a few buttons and start making thousands of dollars within hours if you just invest in their program.

This is NOT the reality of affiliate marketing.

There just is no magical system that can do all the work for you. It is like any other kind of business – it takes time and effort to make it work.

So whenever someone makes it sound super easy and tell you they have a system that can do all the work for you, just run away.

It might be a fast way for them to make money because they earn from you, but magical systems do NOT exist when it comes to affiliate marketing and you will just end up losing money if you follow any program that promises this.

What does it take to earn with affiliate marketing?

As mentioned above, you will not just automatically become rich because you start working with affiliate marketing.

In fact, the majority of people that start with affiliate marketing will fail – sorry, but that is just the honest truth. BUT it does not have to be that way.

There are many reasons people fail with affiliate marketing, and luckily these traps can be avoided if you do it with the right approach and then it definitely is possible to earn with affiliate marketing.

One of the main reasons people fail is because they think it is easy and that they can find a system that will do all the work for them and end up spending money on several scams without getting any money in return.

They will then give up and conclude affiliate marketing does not work.

But affiliate marketing does work, but the sooner you realize it will NOT happen automatically but requires effort and some time, the bigger a chance of success you have.

In fact, if you approach ts as a business and realize you are actually starting a real business, you will understand it takes effort.

If you continue with that approach, it definitely is possible to succeed. It all comes down to how much time and effort you put into it.

But if you are looking for fast and automatic money, then affiliate marketing is not for you.

In fact, if that is what you are looking for you should just completely give up on making money online because people that look for fast and automatic money never succeed online and only end up losing money.

How much can a beginner make with affiliate marketing?

If you are an experienced online marketer and already have an audience, it is quite clear that by just implementing affiliate marketing and by finding the right products/services to promote, you will be able to start earning.

But what if you are a complete beginner? How much money can you then make and how long will it take?

These are questions I get more or less every day.

Let me just start by saying that anybody can learn to make money with affiliate marketing.

However, it all comes back to the approach I have mentioned before.

When I see someone starting with affiliate marketing and say they will give it one month and then give up if they are not making a full-time income, I know they will most likely fail.

You NEED to treat it as a business. You would not expect to open any other kind of business and then make a good full-time income after a month would you?

If you are a complete beginner, you first have to learn the basic skills and then you will start seeing real results. The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can earn while you learn.

But of course, it will take some time to earn a really good full-time income per month if you are completely new.

Exactly how long it will take is more or less impossible to say as it depends on so many things like how much time are you willing to put in, how quickly do you learn, do you have the budget to invest in tools and help that can make you more efficient, etc.

Some people start earning after a few months (some even earn in their first month), by realistically from what I have seen, if you are completely new, it will likely take 3-6 months before you start seeing some results.

Personally, it took me around 1 year to reach $1,000 per month but I also had a lot of other things going on and was not putting in that much effort. Some people reach this a lot faster and for some, it takes longer.

But what is sure is that it definitely is possible to learn as a beginner.

If you are willing to put in the effort and learn new skills it does not matter what background you have and the potential is huge and it can truly give you financial freedom.

I have seen people that had no technical skills at all and had no experience working online becoming very successful affiliate marketers because they were determined and made a consistent effort.

So do NOT let your background stop you from starting with affiliate marketing.

Best way to get started?

If you want to start earning with affiliate marketing there are a few things, based on my own experience, I would suggest you to do to get the fastest possible results.

When I first started, I had worked with online communication for several years but never with affiliate marketing and never made any money online.

But I thought I could figure it all out myself – I ended up failing and wasted around 6 months like that.

There were simply too many important steps I did not know about and missed and therefore did not succeed.

That changed after I found the learning platform Wealthy Affiliate where I got step-by-step training and support and that filled out the missing pieces.

So I would clearly suggest you to get some proper affiliate marketing training – and stay away from any program that promises you fast money without effort.

So to invest a bit in proper training and support can make sure you will get the best possible chances of making good money with affiliate marketing. And luckily it can be done very cheaply.

Personally, I know it is possible to start with a very small budget. I think my total spending for my first full year of starting with affiliate marketing was less than $500. For an entire year.

Now it does not take long to make that kind of money so it has been an amazing investment.

So definitely a good idea to invest in some training and support and maybe even in a few tools. But it is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars just to get started.

You can start with a small budget and then start reinvesting more when you start earning – that is what I did anyway.

But I will also be completely honest with you – if you are not willing to invest anything at all, you will have a very hard time succeeding as you as a minimum need certain tools even if you do not want any training.

I see people starting with affiliate marketing and they are not even willing to spend $15 for a website address.

I understand that many have tight budgets (I also did when I started) but I also want to be completely honest – Without any investment at all, what you can make online will be very limited and will NOT turn into a full-time income.

But, as mentioned, you can luckily do it very cheaply. You can click the button below and see my top recommended platform to learn proper affiliate marketing where you, in my experience, get the best possible value for money.

No matter what, I hope this article has given you a clear idea of how much you can earn with affiliate marketing and that it has a huge potential.

I think it is one of the best ways to make money online and the potential is projected to keep increasing. So it is a good business to get into, in my opinion.

 

If you have any comments or questions, I would love to hear from you in a comment below.