Realistic expectations?

So my WA extended family, I have a question & comment and would like your honest feedback.

Since rejoining WA in Jan / Feb of this year I have been trying to learn the affiliate marketing strategy for making money online. No joy so far ☹

I have been focusing on generating content on my websites to the point where I am 'no longer in the top 200'... But tbh while I genuinely appreciate the chattiness I am primarily here to generate an income.. ;)

I have 2 websites up and running (successfulachiever.com and schooltriumph.com) plus a siteruberix.com which, according to a set of recent answers is not a ‘real’ site but just one that I can practice website building on. TBH I am not sure if I have got the right information on this.

I became an Amazon Associate but have just been told as I didn’t achieve any sales in 90 days they are going to remove my association if this remains so in the next 90 days…

This world of ‘Meta tags, plugins, SEO compliance and long tailed key words’ is really quite a challenge for me to comprehend … However I have been trying some tweaking using Site Kit and adjusting ‘site names, meta descriptions’ in accord with my (very limited) comprehension.

I think I liken associate marketing to planting an orchard so the expectancy to gain ‘fruit’ quickly is probably unrealistic – although I do see ‘traffic’ and ‘clicks’ occurring. I have gotten to use the Hubs and generate AI posts …. But I see it’s a balance between ‘improving site health’ with frequent ‘AI vanilla’ posts and my own slowly generated but ‘rich’ content.

So what IS a realistic expectation for me to grab hold of? I am loathe to spend more money on websites when I haven’t generated a single sale to date… because I am not too sure of what I am doing? Am I expecting too much too soon ? (I suspect now I should have waited before getting a Amazon Associate capacity!)

I welcome all advice - however ‘direct’ - and any mentorship that’s freely available !