Do you like the idea of making money promoting other people's products and not having to deal with customer service or fulfillment?
If so, then affiliate marketing could be the perfect fit for you. However, as easy as it may sound, there are pitfalls and obstacles that you'll need to understand before you can make money and do it consistently.
You could learn everything on your own by spending thousands of hours on Youtube watching free videos, and relying on trial and error.
Or you can learn from experienced and successful affiliate marketers to start your journey and cut the time in half to achieve success with this desirable business model...
There are many affiliate training programs out there, but how do you tell the difference between legit courses and scams?
I felt the same way when I started my affiliate marketing business five years ago and was fortunate enough to find a course with comprehensive training from people who taught exactly what they were doing in their own business.
(Not some regurgitated theoretical info out of a textbook from an entrepreneur professor at university.)
In this guide, I'm going to review five courses which I've personally gone through and provide you insight into the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Things we’ll go over include:
- What all courses should have
- How to earn money consistently
- How to distinguish legit courses from scams
- Beginner to mastery level strategies
This review alone won't be all you need to make a full-time online income since you'll need to learn and develop the skills continuously, but you should have a much better idea of what this business model entails and if it would be right for you.
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How To Earn Money As An Affiliate
Traffic and sales are essential for every business, but attracting and acquiring new customers can be very hard.
Affiliate marketers act as a liaison between a business and a customer.
You earn commissions from a company for the new customers you drive through their doors.
With a good program, you can start your own business that’s focused on marketing other companies' products.
How Much Can I Realistically Make?
How much money you can make is hard to gauge, but if you're willing to commit yourself, you could make far than you'd ever imagine.
Variables of your income potential include: The amount of traffic you can generate, the quality of that traffic, how much it costs you to generate that traffic, commission percentages of the products you're promoting, and so on.
It may seem complicated at first, but learning this skill comes with advantages that many other business models don't have such as:
- Being able to work where and when you want
- Ability to earn real financial freedom
- Live the laptop lifestyle that many desire
- High-profit margins and residual income benefits
- Low maintenance, hands-off business model
As long as you treat this as a real business and plan to invest commissions back into your projects to scale them, it's not unrealistic to say you could make six figures. Some of you may even make seven figures and beyond.
Can I Start Making Serious Money Fast?
Beware of any affiliate course that sells get-rich-quick dreams. This is a rewarding business, but it’s not one that will pay off right away.
Before you can start making money full-time, you need to build a solid understanding of all aspects, such as web or landing page design, copywriting, and various marketing strategies.
However, think about how long most of us went to school. Twelve years of primary school, plus at least four years of college, and how much money did you have guaranteed after graduating?
16 years of "education" and you didn't ever learn how to make money on your own. If it takes 1-4 years to earn six figures being an affiliate marketer, then in comparison to college, it's well worth the time and investment.
How quickly you make money depends on your current skillset, your work ethic, your self motivation and desire, and overall business strategy.
This is where a mentor or coach can accelerate the time it takes for you to succeed.
Choosing The Right Course
You need to make sure the course you choose is worthwhile. Some of the things you should look for from a course include:
✅ Real testimonials and earning reports from students
✅ In-depth step by step training
✅ A support system where you can get answers to questions
✅ Coaches who train you on best practices they use themselves
✅ Active online community
On the other hand, a worthless course will have:
❌ Very little or no success reports
❌ Outdated methods that no longer work
❌ No active and thriving community
❌ No step by step instructions
❌ No way to interact with the course creators
Top Affiliate Marketing Training Courses
If you don’t know much of anything about affiliate marketing, you need to choose a course that reflects your beginner status. Things you can learn through these programs include.
- Putting a website together
- Picking your niche
- Getting traffic reliably
- Selecting winning products to promote
- Troubleshooting issues
So now that you have a general understanding of how to be an affiliate marketer, it's time to cover the best affiliate marketing courses.
5.) Wealthy Affiliate
Value
The overall value provided in this course relative to competing courses.
Success Rate
The number of students who make money after going through this course.
Cost
Rating is based on the price to invest in this course relative to other courses.
More than one million people are part of Wealthy Affiliate. Created by friends Carson Lim and Kyle Loudon, there are many excellent qualities about this program.
Wealthy Affiliate teaches students about starting their websites and researching product trends, generating traffic, and more.
This is kind of like Facebook, but with an affiliate marketing focus.
While it’s been around for a decade-plus, Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t rely on old tricks.
They bring in new methods to keep things fresh and make their students primed to be a successful affiliate.
Note that this program isn't ideal for advanced to mastery level affiliates who want to scale past 7 and 8 figures.
Pros
Cons
4.) Income School
Value
The overall value provided in this course relative to competing courses.
Success Rate
The number of students who make money after going through this course.
Cost
Rating is based on the price to invest in this course relative to other courses.
Passive income can be made through affiliate marketing, and Income School shows you how.
It can help you to make a lot of money on the side. However, you need to put your mind to work for this to happen.
Student activity is quite high on Income School, even among alumni. You’ll see people talking about their achievements thanks to the training they’ve received.
You may be talking about your own success not long after you’ve been inspired by others.
Pros
Cons
3.) Super Affiliate System:
John Crestani
Value
The overall value provided in this course relative to competing courses.
Success Rate
The number of students who make money after going through this course.
Cost
Rating is based on the price to invest in this course relative to other courses.
John Crestani’s Super Affiliate System is a top-rated course made by a viral marketer. Crestani has a very captivating way of speaking, especially with his body language.
It might make you roll your eyes a little, especially with how he displays his multiple homes and vehicles.
Crestani is a showman, but he’s not a conman. The Super Affiliate System has a lot of excellent qualities for people trying to get their affiliating marketing businesses to the next level.
Coming with a 60-day money-back guarantee, Super Affiliate offers students strategies that are anything but obvious.
To help this information stick, you’ll have assignments and tests. By the time you look back, you'll likely be satisfied with how much you learned from this course.
Beginners beware: If this is all new to you, Super Affiliate isn’t the best program. There’s not a lot of information on the basics like website design and SEO.
This is an intermediate to advanced level course.
Pros
Cons
2.) Authority Hacker - The Authority System 2.0
Value
The overall value provided in this course relative to competing courses.
Success Rate
The number of students who make money after going through this course.
Cost
Rating is based on the price to invest in this course relative to other courses.
Mark Website and Gael Breton are the creators of The Authority Site System. They help affiliate marketers create passive income websites they can eventually sell. Many people have made websites worth millions through their help.
Creating your website empire with the Authority System happens with following its methodical design. These are their three programs:
Authority Site System: Getting your website going from the ground up happens with this program. Your site could be making you a few thousand dollars a month with their basic program.
Authority Hacker Pro: When you’ve reached a steady income with your website and want to scale, you should try Authority Hacker Pro. This program is for intermediate to advanced marketers who want an introduction to mastery level strategies.
Authority Hacker Pro Platinum: Like Authority Hacker Pro, this program helps you to get more out of your website with advanced strategies. Personal mentoring is the most significant advantage here, as you can get questions answered directly by experienced affiliates.
After a single payment, you’ll get all you need from Authority Hacker, including any upgrades. You can also join their Facebook group for inclusion in the community.
Pros
Cons
1.) Affiliate Lab: Matt Diggity
Value
The overall value provided in this course relative to competing courses.
Success Rate
The number of students who make money after going through this course.
Cost
Rating is based on the price to invest in this course relative to other courses.
I was able to become an affiliate marketer without the Affiliate Lab. However, if it had been around when I started, I would be all over it.
Matt Diggity, founder of the Affiliate Lab, gets right to the point and lays out the entire blueprint for you. You’ll find out everything you need about affiliate marketing, such as:
- Niche research
- Keyword research
- Backlink research
- Site creation
- Content creation
- And much more...
You learn how to create high-earning websites which you can then sell to others privately or through an online business broker. You might have more successful websites than you can count after you’re done with the Affiliate Lab.
There’s also an exciting Facebook community, multiple courses, lots of videos, and the sense that you’re using a program that will actually make a difference.
Pros
Cons
Final Thoughts
To succeed with affiliate marketing, you need to stay focused, engaged, and treat it as a real business. You can make realistically make passive income websites, but it's going to take some upfront investment and consistency.
You can do everything on your own from scratch by watching free videos and using trial and error. But to cut the learning curve in half, it's wise to find a course from affiliates with thousands of hours of experience already.
This list chronicles five of the absolute top affiliate marketing programs available. There are hundreds out there, many of which are made without any regard for student success. But these are some of the exceptions.
These courses will give you a massive advantage and headstart, but you're still going to need to dedicate yourself and push through difficulties that come up.
You’ll be running your own business, which is appealing for many reasons. However, calling the shots means you need to know how to hold things down and take full responsibility for your success.
You must also be engaged in changes in the community. Marketing in general changes just like anything else, so building foundational affiliate skills that will last into the future should be your objective.
Be sure to start with a course that is right for your experience level and to give it an honest try before deciding it's not for you. Choosing a program with a refund option can help you feel much more at ease.
Keep track of different points in your affiliate journey, such as when you recoup the cost of the course and when you're able to become a full-time affiliate. These achievements don't happen in an instance, but they can happen a lot sooner than you expect.
Keep track of different points in your earning journey, such as when you recoup the cost of the course and when you're able to move onto becoming a full-time affiliate. These achievements don't happen in an instance, but they can happen a lot sooner than you expect.
This type of affiliate business can quite literally be the vehicle to make your dream life come to a reality. You can attain time and financial freedom over time by sticking with it.
