If you can only work in small bites of time on your affiliate business, will it be worth it at all?
Or would you be better off finding another side hustle or flipping burgers somewhere? Nobody can say for sure how much money you can make with affiliate marketing. But we can surely get an idea about it.
That way you can decide if you think you should invest the time in this or not.
So let us start with facts. According to Glassdoor (https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/affiliate-marketing-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm) the average affiliate income for a beginner is $50,987 per year. That is more than $4,200 per month. The number is based on salaries collected from their users.
If this amount sounds unrealistic to you, you may be right.
Influencer Marketing Hub (https://influencermarketinghub.com/affiliate-marketing-report/) shares another amount. Beginners make between $0 and $1,000 per month, they say, depending on existing audience.
That low amount is good news for bite-sized affiliate marketers.
How can such low numbers be good news?
Imagine you worked hard on your new affiliate business. Really hard. The first day, you hardly get any sleep.
The next day, you stay awake, working, for 13 hours before you crash.
On your third day, you sleep in because you do not have the energy to get out of bed. And on day four, you decide that affiliate marketing is not for you. Too much work, too little to show for it.
Since you were not struck by sheer luck, you made $0.
If instead, you saw yourself smiling, sitting in front of your computer. You know that this is a long-term game. You know that you must be patient and that the first year can be tough.
It is fine.
Because you will not do this full-time. Only bites of time here and there when you have 15 minutes. Overall, you know you can promise yourself to work for at least an hour a day in your new business.
Your investment is lower.
And you get to keep all your energy intact. In fact, you feel more energized now that you are doing something actively to improve your situation.
Day in, day out, you put in four times 15 minutes. And after two months, you make $800. After three months, you make $950. And up and up it goes, like a snowball, growing for every turn of the month.
If you go all in and work many hours per day in your affiliate business, it comes with risks.
If you only work one hour per day, though, your expectations and needs will be different.
You stand a much bigger chance at winning now, thanks to bite-sized affiliate marketing.
Here is a tip you may not like.
But it is very effective. If you follow it, you will thank me later, because it can make you money much faster.
When you start with bite-sized affiliate marketing, do it as low-cost as you need. You can figure out a lot by watching videos and reading blog posts. Like all things free, though, it means you pay in another way.
Here you pay with your time and income potential.
As soon as you begin to make money, reinvest 50 percent of what you make in yourself and your skills. Start with books about affiliate marketing. When you make more, then go on to buy good courses and learn more about affiliate marketing.
At first, you can do without any tools.
But as soon as you can, there is one tool you should get. You can in most cases even get it for free until you make an income. Or are close to making an income.
That tool is an autoresponder.
You need an autoresponder, so you can communicate with people in your audience. The people you can help with the solutions you have found. If you just send them to see the solution, they will most likely skip it the first time.
If you can contact them again about it, they may begin to understand how the solution can help you.
There are many autoresponders to choose from. Some do not appreciate affiliate marketing at all and will ban a customer who does it. Others are fine with it as long as you follow their rules and are honest.
I use this one myself (your affiliate link).
Once you have signed up, you can create a list and an opt-in form so you can invite your audience to your list.
Surveys have shown that the yearly average value of a subscriber is around $42. This means that for every subscriber you get on your list, you should be able to make $42.
Now you can begin to make a realistic calculation of your affiliate income for the first year.
If we assume that you can bring two new subscribers on board every day, then after one month, your yearly income is $2,520. ($42 x 2 x 30).
Every month, you will make $2,520 more per year assuming you keep getting two new subscribers per day on average. By the end of the first year, you could be making $30,240 per year. Which corresponds to $2,520 per month.
This is a huge difference from the average of $0 to $1,000 per month according to Influencer Marketing Hub and not that far from what Glassdoor found.
Reinvesting and adding an autoresponder made the whole difference.
And by doing so, you also found an estimate over how much you can expect to make on affiliate marketing your first year.
Of course, there are many moving parts. Your topic, the products you pick, the books and courses you choose, how well you write emails.
But by learning all you can and by trying things out, you will improve. And soon you will make a lot more than these first estimates.