I love making my living affiliate marketing but it hasn’t always been an easy row to hoe. Even though I began to earn money almost immediately I wasn’t profitable as a business for almost a year. Those people who show you the ClickBank earnings a day in the hundreds of dollars, I could have done that but the truth is I could also shown AdWords expenses that cancelled those dollars right out. Unfortunately, that was absolutely true and yet now I am making money 24/7 and a lot of it. How this turnaround happened was amazing and it happened quickly once I realized the most important thing. Affiliate Marketing is a business, not a magical product or affiliate program with which you automatically EARN MONEY. I was playing in the affiliate marketing arena without a grounded affiliate business plan. I lost thousands of dollars believing Google and Yahoo’s pay per click advertising programs would make me wealthy. The whole point of operating a business is an understanding of how to make money with your business. I wasn’t and I was ready to GIVE UP. I had no idea how to earn money Internet Marketing, actually correct that, how to be profitable at it.  

I resigned from my mangerial position when I did not agree with the directional shift the owners decided to make. I had absolutely no intention of doing that at the time that it happened. Next thing I know I was SCARED to DEATH of what to do next and how to make money in order to support myself.

I had been thinking about affiliate marketing, trying it for fun on a part time basis, dreaming about being able to quit my job. Suddenly, I had full time availability with no job at all and no prospects of one because I had not been seeking other employment. I thought to myself why not try to earn money with an affiliate program? Sad to say that was pretty much my entire business plan of how to make money at affiliate marketing. No matter, I was ready to start Living The Dream! Except THAT FIRST YEAR WAS MORE LIKE A NIGHTMARE. Here’s Why:

Affiliate Program | Pay Per Click

I was really excited to get going in my new career. I started reading all the emails saying stuff like “Google Cash Cow – Pay Per Click Advertising” or “Start Making Money Online Now, It’s Easy!” and “New Affiliate Program – Start Making Money in 15 Minutes!”. Here’s how those (paid for) programs worked – at least for me:

• Here is how to make money at affiliate marketing
• Sign up to be an affiliate, generally with ClickBank, some mentioned Commission Junction and LinkShare as well.
• Pick an affiliate program from one of the above so you can market their product and earn money
• Make a blog about the product or hey creating a website for it is even better
• Register with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing and other pay per click places (MSN Adcenter, Adbrite, Miva)
• Write a pay per click ad directing buyers to your website (preferably) or blog
• Now you know how to make money online affiliate marketing
• Get ready to start making money like you never imagined
• Thanks for buying our affiliate program to show you how to earn money on the Internet

I almost lost the shirt off my back, mainly with pay per click advertising. I started getting PANICED and DESPARATE. I tried everything, article marketing, monetizing my sites, forums, Facebook, free ads, Amazon and new product after new product. I bought all kinds of marketing tools, keyword tools, SEO tools, I bought links to my websites. Nothing Worked. I got depressed, my work habits started to go South, I began watching TV to avoid feeling like a TOTAL FAILURE.   Finally I got so mad at myself for becoming so hopeless I took some DRASTIC action. I STARTED TO THINK! I was a very effective manager for several companies in fact I made them all a ton of MONEY. How? Effective management practices for their business. Why wasn’t I doing this for myself and how to do the same in affiliate marketing? Commercial policies and practices is one definition of business.  I hadn’t taken a business type of approach to what I was doing. I never made a business plan. I never implemented any steps to be able to succeed at what I was doing. Since the beginning I was being completely emotional (excited) about the prospect of becoming wealthy overnight. I was an opportunity seeker not a logical businessman. This field is way to saturated and competitive not to take a cerebral approach towards it.   

I decided to make an effort one more time. I knew I needed help and direction, that Internet Marketing was not the vertical where my expertise was. Finally after researching my brains out I found a program that made sense to my way of thinking. Commission Blueprint provided a step-by-step plan on exactly what to do and how to do it, in order to earn money with an affiliate program. Spending my time, money, and effort frantically trying to succeed with advice that simply was not accurate, true, or helpful is a huge regret for me. Today and for over the last six months I have been making money at affiliate marketing, because I understand the principals involved in how to make money at it. So can you. I hadn’t really heard of Commission Blueprint (CB for short after this) before and because of my previous experiences, naturally I was skeptical. What I found to be different though is that CB tells you what steps to take in order to succeed. Almost all of the competitions’ programs merely told you where to sign up, not actually how to put it together so that it works. 

I followed the blueprint given and I actually began making money. It didn’t happen overnight, I did not make $8000 the first week, and certainly not in 15 minutes. First of all CB gives you a formula to determine if a product is a money maker or not. Not every product is and while some products are almost foolproof, not every marketer is. CB also shows you how to analyze what the tracking data means in spreadsheet form to determine if you are profitable. That is the goal for a business after all no one else ever did that. CB tells you how to tie all the marketing components together and how to manage all the aspects in order to make a profit. That I really appreciated and once I understood the relationship my business took off. Business is business, as a manager I understand about product, sales, advertising, cost control, details, and monitoring results.  Other programs give you a snapshot of the ClickBank signup page, and the AdWords signup page as if they were giving you the trade secrets to infinite wealth and wisdom. Commission Blueprint (in great video tutorials) tells you I not going to waste my time or yours explaining how to sign up as an affiliate. Me, I like the inference that if you can’t get simple things like that on you own you aren’t bright enough to make it anyway. I found CB’s approach and information to be vastly superior than anyone else’s about what you need to do to become successful at Internet Marketing. Everyone is different. If you want to hear believe and it will happen kind of stuff then Commission Blueprint may not be your cup of tea. However if you want be given the process of this is what you need to do and this is how to do it plan, I’d go with Commission Blueprint.  I hope you find this info useful, if I had this blueprint back at the start of 2007 I would have started making money then. On the other hand it wasn’t available until late in 2008. Ironically, I earn money with pay per click advertising and not by bothering people with constant annoying email.  Oh, by the way, that company I resigned from in, they went out of business by the start of 2008 just about a year to the date after I left.