Affiliate sales is this blog’s biggest moneymaker, accounting for $4,344.82 of last month’s $12,406.76 blog income. Many readers have emailed me asking which affiliate program was making me the most money.
I deal with affiliate programs the same way I deal with blog advertising – use as many as you can while still providing a good user experience. Currently, I am using eight different affiliate programs to drive income for this blog. Of the eight, the most profitable is Text Link Ads.
The Text Link Ads Affiliate Program
The TLA affiliate program pays you $25 when you refer a new publisher or advertiser to them. The best thing about the program from the publisher side is you get $25 when the publisher is approved. This is far better than the Google AdSense affiliate program that pays you $5 only after the referred publisher makes $5.
In July, I signed up 81 publishers to Google AdSense but got only eight conversions for a total Google affiliate income of $40. By comparison, I signed up 87 new TLA publishers and made $2,175. Yes, I made more money with the TLA affiliate program than I did with the TLA text links. With the TLA affiliate program, you don’t have to wait for the new publisher to make money before you make money. You make $25 once Text Link Ads approves the publisher.
The reason Text Link Ads can afford to do this is they only accept high quality sites that meet the PageRank, Alexa and other ranking requirements. Google will pretty much accept anybody.
Here’s a little tip. If you sign up for Text Link Ads and they don’t approve you for selling text links, they will still let you into the affiliate program. Considering the affiliate programs makes more for me than the text links, I would take advantage of it while working to improve my site rankings. Of course, it’s best to have both but one out of two is better none.
Worst Affiliate Program – AuctionAds
AuctionAds gives you 2% of whatever the site you referred makes. I love these types of deals because it offers passive income potential. However, it seems that most publishers have problems making money with AuctionAds.
I have signed up 311 sites to AuctionAds and my 2% cut has made me a grand total of $61.67. That means entire network of 311 referrals earned a grand total of $3,083.50 or $9.91 per site. This isn’t per month either. This is since AuctionAds started. Hopefully, things will improve now that Media Whiz brought the company.
One To Watch – AzoogleAds
I started using AzoogleAds this month and the results has been very promising. The offers are very high paying and there are tons of them. I’m still trying to find some good ones to use on this blog. So far, the only offer I’ve posted has been the free 250 business card deal which has made $91.10 so far. Not bad for one post and one offer. I can see using AzoogleAds with PPC advertising and custom landing pages. I also like their net 15 day payout.
The key to making money with affiliate marketing is targeting the offer to your readership. I do well with Text Link Ads because most of my readers are bloggers trying to make money online and TLA is a great option for them. I wouldn’t make anywhere near as much if I try to promote a dating service. Then again, you never know. Lots of lonely bloggers out there. 