How Successful Is Affiliate Marketing? Check This Out
There are several ways anyone can make money online, but which one is the best way? In my opinion and that of many others, Affiliate Marketing offers the best return on investment. How successful is Affiliate Marketing? Let me show you the numbers.
$12 BILLION IN SALES GLOBALLY
Yes, I said billion with a B. Currently in 2019 the global affiliate marketing industry is making approximately 12 Billion Dollars in sales per year and this amount gets bigger every year. As more and more people do their shopping online, affiliate marketing is leading the way.
For example, marketing companies like Rakuten who track the trends and sales in affiliate marketing, have been forecasting that affiliate marketing will reach $6 Billion by 2020 in the U.S. alone. Currently in 2019 it is $4.5 Billion per year in sales in the U.S., see below image.
That is a one and a half billion dollar increase within ONE year. Kyle recently blogged about the advantages of us being affiliate marketers in an environment where sales staff in retail stores are not as helpful in catering to the questions and needs of the customer.
I also blogged a few months ago about the death of retail stores. It was projected that at least 6,616 stores were slated to close down in North America in 2019. As sad as it is for so many people to lose their jobs because of this, perhaps they should become affiliate marketers too.
BECOME AN AFFILIATE MARKETER
If you are reading this and you work in retail or know someone who does, show them this post. Help them to start up their own affiliate marketing website business. Unlike Multi-Level Network Marketing and Direct Sales, Affiliate Marketing is BOOMING at a faster pace.
As you can see in the above image, the USA leads the way with the most affiliate marketers at 57.44%. Canada comes in second at 9.71% and then the UK at 5.24%. It is safe to say that a majority of these affiliate marketers have gotten their start here at Wealthy Affiliate.
All you have to do is look at where many of our members are located. Just to showcase this statistic, in the comments below tell us which country you are operating from. In a week after I publish this I will add the top three countries with WA members to the end of this post.
Affiliate marketing is the least expensive way to start an online business. All affiliate programs are free to join and a membership here at WA is only $49.00 per month for everything except a domain name. You can purchase that here for $13.99 per year or purchase somewhere else.
SO MANY NICHES TO CHOOSE FROM
It is no secret that I have no problems coming up with niche ideas for many of the WA members who seem to draw a blank on which niche they should choose. There are literally dozens of niches everywhere you look and some like those shown above are the most popular.
Each of those broad niche markets contain dozens upon dozens of smaller focused down mini niches. If you are not sure how to go about finding these mini sub niches of a broader niche market, check out my training here. I provide 12 different niche markets and their sub niches.
How successful is affiliate marketing? The stats show that it is very successful, probably far better than those other types of marketing. Definitely easier and less expensive to operate. But success will only come after putting in a solid effort of learning and growing for at least a year.
When I say a solid effort I mean on your website and not here within the WA community. Don’t get so fixated on WA rank. It will not help you to make money from your affiliate websites. Socialize and help out here when you can, unless making money isn’t that important to you.
Remember to tell us in the comments below which country / continent you are from and how long you have been a WA member. For example: I am from New Jersey in the USA and I joined WA in August 2013. Also, leave any questions you may have below as well.
Recent Comments
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Thanks, Robert for the info and we as WA members, have a great head start towards that success you have mentioned along with all the training, blog posts such as yours and others can only propel us forward.
Mind you success starts with ourselves. If we want it then we will work for it to make it happen.
From Australia started in 2014
Andre
Hey Andre! You are welcome my friend. So nice to hear from you. How goes the start of the warmer weather down in the land down under?
Thank Robert good to hear from you too.
As for the warmer weather, it is getting warmer by the day unfortunately no much rain, many places are in a drought and many fires, we just lost about 350 Koalas due to a fire on the north coast this was a strong breeding ground for them.
Guess nature has its final say. The real heat starts in Jan when it gets about mid 40's Celcius.
We are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures here and are lacking in rain too, especially in California where the yearly wild fires are especially destructive this year burning close to 200,000 acres.
Yea California and Australia face many similar issues with weather and fire at the moment we have about 86 bushfires still burning across just the one state here on the East coast and about 40 of those still out of control.
We have lost around 2,273,369 acres in one area of Northern NSW where two fires joined together giving that result.
However, it is said we may be expecting some relieve soon with rain but these days it lasts about a day or so and because the grounds are so dry doesn't do much.
Still, some is better than none and hopefully will be in the areas of greater need to think we are still in Spring Summer hasn't started yet
Summer starts beginning December for us here.
This is probably the most relevant post I have read after those published by Kyle. Thank you! I first joined in 2014 but discontinued and now I have resumed my training! I live in Wisconsin, USA. And I am so proud we are leading the way! :)
You are welcome Paula and welcome back to WA. May your second time around be a blessing to you in your endeavors.
Hey Robert, this is awesome. Those numbers really speak volumes for the benefits of affiliate marketing...
Oh, and I am operating from South Carolina in the U.S.A. and have been a member since July 2018.
Bob
Hi Robert since you started have you seen real money from this and did you learn most or all of it from this website
Yes they do Bob and for those who learn how to create their own business in affiliate marketing the correct way, and ho are patient, can benefit from those numbers.
The question you should be asking is to yourself. It should be, how much effort am I going to put into my education and the building of my website business?
Asking someone else how they are doing will not help you as everyone succeeds at different times and at different levels. Wealthy Affiliate is an online training community.
I'm so glad I joined WA. I still have to learn about affiliate marketing but I'm looking forward to getting there some day. 😊
Affiliate marketing is getting bigger by the year and those who get in early will reap the most. But that doesn't mean that those who join later will not reap a lot of money either. There is far more potential here with so many niches available.
I am from Illinois in the US joined WA 2 years ago in November of 2017!
Those numbers don't surprise me when I think of how I shop nowadays. We live in the country, and I order anything I can get delivered to my door.
Thanks for showing us the potential of what our affiliate marketing business can do!
You are welcome Janelle. Like I said to Mac below, with everything that can be ordered online now, companies like Carvana allow consumers to bypass the car salesman and order their cars online.
Hi Robert,
I'm in Minneapolis, MN USA. I joined WA in 2017 for the second time.
Great blog post. I definitely agree that it's sad that many will be losing their job due to the downsizing in the retail industry. However I feel this sector will not be the only one affected by the proliferation of online shopping. So yes pointing individuals to Wa is a great way to help people to create a new source of income to provide for themselves and their families.
Thnx for your insight into this matter
Mac
You are welcome Mac and I agree that other sectors will be affected by online shopping.
More people are starting to buy their groceries online and with companies like Carvana, you can order a car online too.
Thank you for sharing this really encouraging post, much appreciated
Here's to making it happen
Jennifer
You are welcome. Yes those are some big numbers and it makes me feel quite comfortable in choosing this kind of internet marketing business.
See more comments
Hi Robert, I am from Los Angeles and been a member since the end of December 2018.
You are right about being unbalanced between activities on WA and that on our website.
Since my main niche is in the MMO world, specifically attracting members to WA, I see an advantage in having a high rank here that I am about to put to the test.
If I was in another niche like health and wellness, I wouldn't be as interested in a WA rank. Your point is well taken.
In retrospect I wish I had focused on another niche and used WA memberships as a side hustle. I may indeed to that after I prove to myself that I can sign up at least 10 premium members.
Thanks for this article, It is an eye opener.
Cheers,
Edwin
You are welcome Edwin. Having a high rank in WA could have a positive impact for those who promote WA. I do not see it as a negative. I see it as a personal choice.
But I also know that it is not necessary seeing how a majority of those who make money in this niche, including many of the super affiliates, are not even in the higher ranks.
So there is no hard right and wrong in this matter. The negative impact that I am talking about is spending time just to achieve a higher rank can take time away from website production.
For example... I have been trying to stay out of the top 25 and have been in and out and in and out for the past few months. This back and forth is due to interactions with my posts.
I do not create many WA blogs anymore. When I do I do so for two reasons. 1) To help the WA community like this blog is doing. And 2) To share this post on social media and link to it from within my website for referrals.
Just the interactions of this one post alone I have gone from a rank of 26 up (or down) to 20. I am sure that I will drop again and I have no problem with it because I prefer to spend my time with things that bring me quicker income.
However, if you are going to use your high rank to attract WA referrals I would recommend that you use your WA blogs to do that work for you, provided they are written in a way that would facilitate it.
Look at the majority of my WA blogs. I write them primarily for people OUTSIDE of WA. Even this blog, though informative and helpful to WA members, was originally written for people outside of WA.
I know that every WA blog gets indexed and ranked in Google where people outside of WA can read them when doing a keyword search. If someone joins WA from my blog, I may benefit.
In all of my WA blogs that I specifically write to target people outside of WA, I use keyword research for its title. Just like the title of this blog "How Successful is Affiliate Marketing"
It is my hope that in a few weeks this will rank high in Google for that low hanging fruit keyword. I know that about 30% of my referrals have come into WA through my WA blogs.
This is why I am telling you as I have many others in WA, to write quality content for your blogs. This will help you to gain referrals but if really well written it could convert those referrals to Premium members, which is the ultimate goal.