www.affiliateconfession.com

I’ve had a couple people ask me to post my earnings for the entire year over 2008 so I though I’d add everything up and see how it came out. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the total came in at just over $41,000.

There are a lot of affiliate marketers out there that make way more than this amount, and they do it every month, and then there are also a lot of wannabe affiliate marketers that never earn their first $100 and end up doing something else, like mlm or surveys (Does anybody really make money doing that?). I guess I’m somewhere in the middle of the big bucks and the nothing, but the most important thing $41,777.32 for a years worth of affiliate earnings brings me is freedom, and I’d rather have that than just about anything.

The monthly totals are listed below and you can click on the name of the month for a breakdown of the earnings for that specific month.

January Net Earnings - $3,211.68
February Net Earnings - $2,439.62
March Net Income - $2,746.44
April Net Income - $2,352.31
May Net Income - $3,029.99
June Net Income - $3,479.61
July Net Income - $4,312.31
August Net Income - $3,818.06
September Net Income - $4,740.63
October Net Income - $5,315.48
November Net Income - $3,324.31
December Net Income - $3,006.88

Total Net Income for 2008 - $41,777.32

My consistent money makers over this past year have been Adsense and the eBay Partner Network by using Build A Niche Store although my BANS store earnings have dropped off quite a bit since the middle of the year. However, I’m not giving up on my most profitable BANS stores and have a plan to bring them back to life with added content and article marketing.

Don’t fret if you’re not making the big cash of the top affiliate marketers because you have to start somewhere and there is plenty of room in the affiliate marketing space for lots of people to make $41k a year. This is just a stepping stone though and hopefully this year will push that total even higher.

Well, 2008 certainly didn’t end as planned at $10,000 as the goal for December, but income did come in slightly over the $3,000 mark, so my wife and I can still put food on the table and maybe get a coffee at Barnes & Noble, lol!

I wasn’t anywhere near the goal mainly because many of the PPC campaigns I tried during December just didn’t work out and in fact much of what I tried lost me a good chunk of change. One campaign that I though for sure would produce well was losing me about $90 a day for almost a week until I finally shut it down. No amount of tweaking was able to get it ultimately in the black. I had one day where I made some profit and spent the rest of the week foolishly losing money. Sometimes you just have to wait and see where things are going, but I probably waited too long on that one.

Then there was the complete shutdown of the content network that Google hit me with about 6 days before Christmas. I don’t know whether Google decided to review my Adwords account and slapped me like an unwanted stepchild while they were having a looksy or they just like messing with people around Christmas because they are evil. Starting about 10 days before Christmas impressions on Google’s content network slowly dwindled down to nothing except for 1 campaign. And 6 days before Christmas I was getting zero traffic from the content network. Yes, I mean nothing, not a single impression for 15 out of 16 campaigns.

As with Google’s great customer service and full disclosure policies, there was no notice emailed, no disapproved ads or alert in my Adwords account, simple zero traffic and impressions for 2 weeks. The search network was down a little, but I was still receiving some traffic. During the busiest time of the year online and while I was peaking with a food related offer paying around $15 a lead and producing 10 to 12 leads a day, Google arbitrarily decides to cut off my content network traffic. And they’re motto is, “Do no evil”, really? As if by magic, most of my campaigns on the content network at present are nearly back to normal levels, again, with no explanation.

Anyway, I still wasn’t even close to the goal I set but was able to produce a decent income for me. And for that, I’m a happy camper. Total revenue produced was $5,225.09, and with expenses at $2,218.21 actual income was just above $3,000. Everything for December 2008 breaks down as follows: 

Google Adsense - $1,148.32
Commission Junction - $271.68
EPN - eBay - $295.60
Meal Planner Ebook - $102.00
TripAdvisor - $168.66
Clickbank - $202.16
Private Advertising - $155.00
AzoogleAds - $1,333.95
Pepperjam - $15.50
Neverblue - $1,457.90
Other Affiliate Programs - $74.32
 
Total Revenue - $5,225.09
 
Total expenses - $2,218.21
 
Total Income - $3,006.88

I’m glad that 2009 is here, the holidays are over and it’s time to get back to work. I think 2009 is going to be an exciting time with everything that happening in the economy and the plans I have for the upcoming year. I’ve set goals and adjusted priorities to focus on the things that have been producing income for the long haul and have decided to put lesser income producing projects on the back burner.

What about you? Are you going to rock in 2009 or sit by and watch things happen?

I’ve been with Neverblue for a few months now, but I’ve only been running active campaigns with any effort for about 10 weeks through them. Back just a few days ago I passed the $10,000 mark in total revenue with them in that 10 week period. Do realize though, this is not profit, it is total revenue produced from all the offers I’ve been running through them. Without doing to much research, I can tell you that about half of that revenue produced is profit though, so that’s about $500 a week in earnings I’ve been generating through Neverblue.

Most of the revenue generated in the last 10 weeks through Neverblue has been from what I learned through PPC Coach.

Let me tell you, working with Neverblue rocks. My affiliate manager, Mike, was great to work with and anytime I needed anything I could call him up and he’d get back with me always the same day either by phone or email. I talked with Mike once or twice a week and through close communication he knew what I wanted to promote in my business and kept me informed of new offers and gave me an income bump on a few offers that I was doing well with to give me even more profit. Mike has since moved on to go back to school and I’ve been switched over to super affiliate manager Michelle who I’ve only had the chance to talk to once and she is equally as nice and helpful.

Beyond the helpful affiliate managers I like the way the control panel looks and functions inside your account. When you first log in you can see your revenue produced for the month, for the day and the total amount since being with the company. You can also see links to your current campaigns running, other campaigns recommended for you, the newest campaigns just coming out, your affiliate manager contact info and pic and a bunch of other info.

Once you click over to the available campaigns I love the way this screen is organized. All offers are classified by category and include the number of offers available. When you click to see the offers you can then see the total network earnings, EPC and the payout for producing a lead. If you then click to an offer the creatives are organized under tabs and on the left of the screen you will see the kind of promotions allowed, the EPC and total earnings and the payout and what constitutes a lead somewhere in the middle. It’s great to have all this info right at your fingertips so you can see if this is an offer you want to run.

I try to choose offers with high network earnings and a high EPC, the payout isn’t really that important. That may sound strange to not be concerned about the payout, but what I look for in an offer is if it’s making money for the network at has that good EPC. If those two things are high, I feel like I have a better chance to make money with it regardless of what it pays. If you see an offer with high network earnings, high EPC and a high payout, those are obviously the best.

Organization, great offers, lots of info to help you choose profitable offers and affiliate manager friendly and willing to get to know you and your business is what makes Neverblue rock.

Sign up with Neverblue, earn some affiliate cash and experience their personal service.

The figures are in for the monthly affiliate income report and it’s a new record and one that’s another significant milestone for any affiliate marketer. After expenses, actual profit was over the $5,000 mark finally realizing the goal set for September when I missed it by only $260. It’s also significant because earnings have doubled since starting this blog 1 year ago. Combined earnings for both September and October came in slightly over $10,000, meaning the average was over $5,000 for each month.

Leading the increased earnings were Google Adsense which was almost $500 more than last month and the eBay Partner Network by utilizing Build A Niche Store came roaring back and was over $1,000 again. However, I did spend a little over $300 for some search traffic to a couple of my BANS stores making my profit just a little under $300 more than last month. I’m not sure what happened with EPN in September as it was down to half of what I usually make.

Total revenue for October was a record as well bringing in $8,515.41. As you might assume, expenses were also at a record high of $3,199.93 of which $2,700 was from pay-per-click traffic, but that gave me a healthy profit of $5,315.48 which is obviously also a record. Everything breaks down as follows:

Google Adsense - $1,525.75
Commission Junction - $82.43
EPN - eBay - $1,013.80
Meal Planner Ebook - $119.00
TripAdvisor - $176.28
Clickbank - $88.72
Private Advertising - $140.00
AzoogleAds - $637.55
Pepperjam - $51.89
Market Leverage - $23.00
Neverblue - $4,342.85
Other Affiliate Programs - $314.14

Total Revenue - $8,515.41

Total expenses - $3,199.93

Total Income - $5,315.48

I’m hoping this trend continues, but next this month will be quite a challenge as my earnings through PPC seem to be trending down towards the end of October and the beginning of this month. Traffic from my most profitable campaigns is down significantly and I can’t seem to get anything working in the last couple of weeks. Of the 20 to 25 PPC campaigns started in the last 2 weeks, nothing is producing much volume. Sometimes you just never know when Google will be nice to you, you just have to keep working at it till something breaks through.

Since we are heading into the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season there’s lots of opportunity for affiliate marketers to do well during this time of year and with the election wrapping up in the next couple of days, there’s a great opportunity to earn there as well. Really, you almost never have to worry about finding ways to earn money online and rather than go into a long winded discussion about that, check out Zac Johnson’s 5 Ways to Cash In Big Before The New Year for some ideas.

I’m setting a goal right now to earn $10,000 in December and I told my wife we’d have a huge celebration when we hit that mark. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to earn some great income coming up in the next couple of months, but also in your quest to earn big bucks in affiliate marketing, don’t forget about what this season is really about.

When it comes to checking stats too much, (Adsense, Adwords spend, eBay, Neverblue, etc.) I’m probably the worst offender. I usually check them early in the morning for the previous day, some stats after lunch and then do the rounds again before I go to bed.

That’s what I plan to do, but it rarely is limited to only those 3 times per day. You might know what I mean. You go to check email and while you’re waiting for it to download, you’ll just run over to your Google account and see how Adsense is doing or how much you’ve spent so far today with Adwords. I do that a lot and then I see something and decide to delve a little deeper and find that one of my sites isn’t giving me the usual Adsense revenue I’m accustomed to, or I see lots of clicks on one of my Adwords campaigns, better check the CPA company to see if I’m earning more than I’m spending.

Pretty soon I’ve spent the last hour over-analyzing everything, stressing out about some little anomaly I’ve run across and I’ve forgotten I just wanted to check email. Funny thing is, my stats will be the same at the end of the day whether or not I check them every time I download email, wait for a Photoshop file to save, wait for a browser reload after leaving a comment on someone’s blog or anyone of a hundred other things where I think I can just “check this one stat here.”

It’s kind of like waiting for concrete to dry. We had our slab poured early this morning for the extension on our home and it was kind of cool to watch the whole process take place. The concrete came out of the pump looking kind of thin but I was assured that it would set properly, it’s just a little thinner than normal so it can be pumped through a hose from the front yard to the back yard.

Even though we have thinner than normal concrete setting right now, no matter how many times I walk out of the home office and go watch it dry, it’s still going to cure at the same pace and at the end of the day we’ll be able to walk on it. There might even be some weird kind of mental-wave-mind-meld sort of thing going on that actually causes it to cure slower when watched. You know that creepy feeling when someone is watching you.

Maybe this will be a good reminder not to log into my Adsense account 10 times a day.