My Biggest Affiliate Earners
written by John Chow
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. 
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Great job!
you are really a strong blogger ^_^
I will second your recommendation for Text Link Ads. If your site is not approved initially for selling ads, that is okay. . . just work on your site for a month or two, build up the links, improve the pagerank and the Alexa rating and you’ll be accepted in no time. And you can submit as many of your sites as you wish for the same account.
Another greta post. I agree in putiting my money maker eggs in more than one basket. TLA is a very good one, so is Kontera. I didn’t see them mention in this particular post. Why not? You are clearly still using them.
I hope to be as evil as you one day
The multiple sites feature is great. I set up accounts for clients pretty regularly, and if they have a few sites in the same niche, they will often have the same advertiser on all of them. Once you prove that the links on one site convert well, advertisers will dig deeper to see what else you have offer. If not, you already have a point of contact to sell more adspace.
DevDad
Canon SD750 Giveaway on DevDad.Com
I wrote a blog entry about comments like this.
If John Chow has his man missile virtually gobbled any more, it will fall off! It’s on Digg, too!
DevDad
Lol that’s easily the best line I’ve read all week. I subscribed to the blog on that alone lol.
Yup John Chow is a Strong Blogger
It’s good to try different advertising to find what works for each site. All ads don’t work everywhere!! The key is still attracting readers to your site. And make them want to return!!!
wish i were you john! I’ve only managed to get $5 for the whole month from avideoaday.com
I have just downloaded your PDF, and I will learn learn learn ~~ kakakka ~
totally i got 600% from Google AD and I even have a very good traffic of my site.
I am really hardworking on blogging, but I think there would be somewhere to improve.
yep, the ebook should help
it’s just difficult to monetize a video blog
Interesting. I will try to incorporate TLA into the blog. Thats a bunch of money to refer someone!
Ya i also will write a post about TLA
Hope to make some money with TLA
But for affiliate programs to work, one needs a dedicated readership and huge traffic. In my last blog, I used TLA Affiliates but not a single conversion.
that’s true
I don’t think you need to have huge traffic. You just need to know your readers. If you are offering a good product, for a good price, and you have properly presold your readers, you will convert a much higher percentage than you may think.
DevDad
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serious.. I’m bout to sign up tomorrow
I’m already signed up and accepted but I didn’t realize that people signing up from my link would be such a huge plus.
i will try to get one too
I also didn’t realise that you could still join the TLA affiliate program even if you weren’t approved for selling text link ads.
That’s a great feature - both for TLA and the end user … could even be called evil!
Perhaps I should put some effort in promoting TLA but probably everyone will jump on that now you’ve posted that the TLA affiliate program does really well
Even if everyone jumps in, there will always be new bloggers looking for ways to make money with their site. I’d say a bit of effort would be well spent, IMHO.
OK, so you love Text Link Ads then? Any other one?
One Man. One Year. $100,000 online. How’s he doing it?
http://www.oneyeargoal.com
See, this is why I find signatures annoying. One line of comment, two lines of signature. Granted, you usually offer up quality comments and don’t just spam like some other commentators but still, doesn’t that just look like overkill?
Also, do you have it worked out that the signature is automatically included or do you type it out each time?
Automatically? How to do it?
Not possible……I think He type manually.
Yeah not possible to include automatically. But such people must be keeping such sigs in a notepad open so they can copy paste in each comment they post. Too Bad.
hmmm
Maybe
I have been having some payment problems with Auction Ads.
I did not realize about the TLA referal program!
I’ve heard that others have been as well, while the majority have no issues (most likely because they aren’t generating any income). Care to share specifics for those of us who are interested?
DevDad
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The problem is that they pay on the first of the month. The revenue numbers fluctuate for a few days before your true numbers come in. Because of this I was underpaid $10 last month.
I contacted their support team and was told it would be added on to this months check, it was not.
Oh well… You have always motivated me with your blog of how you managed to make so much and continue making…
don’t we all want to be john chow nowadays
I’m still waiting to be approved by Azoogle. Am keen to try them out though.
They just approved me
they will approve faster if you call them. worked for me
Ah, I will try that. Thanks for the tip.
And u need to send them the letter ASAP
I got approved but now they banned me…maybe because I forgot to reply to their survey mail.
Can I signup again or contact them to revive my account?
I would give them a call before signing up again. It’s always a good idea to be a voice on the phone, when possible, instead of just a row in a database.
DevDad
Top 5 Reasons Why Bloggers Have Become Whores
John, now THAT’s what I’m talkin about! A legitimately useful and helpful post about making money online. Keep up the good work and maybe you can UnJump the Shark.
Ah, Happy Days!
i forgot AuctionAds for a long time, thank you for mention the worst affiliate program.
AA is the worst affiliate program
But how about Auction Ads as a advertising tool? Does its normal program gives good earning?
And yet I’m sure Shoe made a nice bit of profit from selling the AA business.
Thanks for clearing that up and being so specific!
Very informative John. I’m looking at Azoogle Ads too, just have to grin and bear the sign up process.
well good tips.
John, I know you’ve often talked about not having all your eggs in one basket (especially Google’s basket) which I agree with whole-heartedly. Do you worry that you might have too many eggs in TLA’s basket as (if my math is correct) they account for more than a third of your blog’s income?
I mean, there’s not as much risk with them as there is with Google but I’m just wondering whether there’s a certain percentage you’d start to worry about and maybe try to diversify even more?
I try to keep an ad network at no more than 30% of total income. However, I consider Text Link Ads and TLA affiliate two different networks. They pay separately and from two different PayPal accounts.
Good point. With the recent MediaWhiz acquisition of AuctionAds, that’s actually another program that falls under the same company but I wouldn’t consider that as one source so I guess it makes sense to separate the Affiliate side from the Ads as well.
Thanks for the input, John!
I’m interested to know if your stratgey has evolved with regards to affiliate advertising and if so how you see it continuing to evolve in the future.
Is it something that you think will just get bigger and bigger?
Sorry I meant *strategy*