Why You Are NOT (Yet) Earning $1000

Brace yourself for some eye-opening numbers behind affiliate marketing...

Which is the reality for most beginners, and the reason you're not (yet) earning $1000.

Let's calculate what it takes to make $1000 with your very first blog. Since it's your very first website, we'll be ULTRA conservative.

To earn money with affiliate marketing, you essentially need only two things:

• Traffic to your blog,
• Clicks on your affiliate links.

LET'S START WITH THE PROBLEM

Let's take a standard price for a Clickbank product, which is around: $47. With a common commission of 75%, that is $35.25 into your pocket.

How many people buy the product on the sales page? Let's take an extremely low conversion rate: 1%. That means when 100 people click your affiliate link, 1 buys the product.

How many people click your affiliate link inside your blog post? Let's say something really low again: 3%. That means when 100 people read your blog, 3 click on your affiliate link.

With these numbers in mind...

How many people have to click our affiliate link to make ONE sale? With a 1% conversion rate, we need 100 people to click our affiliate link.

How many people have to read our blog post, until we get 100 clicks on our affiliate link? With a 3% click rate, we need 34 readers per click. So to get 100 clicks, we need 3'400 readers.

And here's the whole funnel, in exact numbers:

• 3'400 people read your blog.
• Out of these 3'400 people, 3% click your affiliate link.
• That means 102 people see the product page.
• Out of those 102 people, 1 will buy the product.
• For 1 sale, you earn $35.25.

Knowing these numbers, you now know that 1'000 readers are worth $10.36 (rounded down).

That means you would need close to 100'000 visitors to your blog until you make $1000.

100'000...

So you might say: But if I have 100k monthly visitors, then I should be earning a full-time income! And the answer is that yes, you most definitely should.

But making $1000, means:

• Your product can NOT convert at only 1%,
• Your blog needs MORE than only 3% CTRs on your affiliate links,
• Maybe even consider selling more expensive products (but this should be the very last option, as you're about to see).

Here's the reality for MOST beginners and new affiliate sites: Your product WILL convert at 1%. And only 3% of your readers WILL click on your affiliate links.

I'm not trying to scare you... But if you're not (yet) making $1000, such low conversion numbers and CTRs are probably the reason.

LET'S LOOK AT THE SOLUTION

Please make sure you understood the calculation above. If you're unsure, feel free to ask in the comments below!

100'000 visitors only to make $1000... That is an eye-opening, shocking, dream-destroying number...

But the numbers don't lie.

The calculation is here in front of us.

And if you look at your conversion rates & CTRs, you'll know it's not that far off. (For most first-time affiliate sites anyways.)

But here's the thing...

If you only increased the conversion rate from 1% to 2%, that would already break down your traffic in HALF! Magic? No, simple math!

• 3'400 read your blog,
• 3% of your readers click the affiliate link: 102 clicks.
• 2% buy the product: 2 sales!

Same traffic. Double income.
Half traffic. Same income.

So you have to solve 3 problems:

• Traffic,
• CTR (Click-Through-Rate),
• and Conversion Rate.

TRAFFIC:

This is simply the reality of things: If your blog isn't getting a few thousand visitors per month, you have a TRAFFIC PROBLEM.

No need to worry about anything else: Focus on mastering traffic NOW.

Your time and resources are limited. Figure out how to get traffic to your new site FIRST.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate)

If your CTR is low, then you have a TRUST PROBLEM.

Your readers are suspicious, they don't know if they should click any random link on your site. EVEN if you tell them how amazing it is!

Most likely, you are showing your affiliate links too early....

Asking your audience to take action too early...

Build trust first by letting them read more on your blog. Or by connecting with them on social media. Or showing yourself on video. Or even communicating with them via email. Or better even a combination of all these things!

When your best friend sends you a link, ANY random link, do you click it even if you don't know what it's about? For the vast majority of times, of course!

Become that best friend and your CTR goes through the roof.

CONVERSION RATE:

If your conversion rate sucks, then you have a RELEVANCY PROBLEM.

The product or service that you're recommending is NOT relevant to your audience. It's not what they are looking for.

Don't chase the most expensive product...

Offer exactly what your audience WANTS and NEEDS.

This might be a hard pill to swallow...

There might be that ONE product that YOU love and you want your audience to buy... You just don't want to let go.

Well, that's how you get bad conversion rates: The product is NOT relevant enough.

Fixing this problem is easy, all you have to do is DROP YOUR EGO:

• Try out different products (no matter the price).
• Think about what your audience wants, not what you want.
• Pay close attention to their answers: they answer you through clicks & sales.

If a product is not selling, SWITCH IT OUT.

Even if your commission is lower... Who cares if you sell 3x more?

Bottom line is: You're earning money with MUCH less traffic. The value per visitor goes up, and you can finally earn $1000.

How to make $1000 then?

1. Build more trust, and learn how to write better CTAs (Call-To-Actions) on your blog to increase the CTR.
   
2. Find more relevant products that convert at more than 1%.
3. Increase traffic to your blog.

Best of all...

Do all of the 3 things together!

If you have read until the end, please leave a comment below! Thanks :)