Success: An Affiliate Marketing Reality Check

I just got notice that HostGator sent me a PayPal payment.  That means someone clicked on one of my HostGator affiliate banners and ended up buying a year contract.  If you can afford to do it that way, it really is the way to go because it saves money.  Still, it was a very nice surprise so whoever did it, Thank You Very Much.

Seriously, I was wondering whether to keep putting my time into affiliate marketing or something else.  In spite of all the wonderful testimonies that flood my inbox, I haven’t been doing that great.  The only problem is that I really enjoy the creativity that this field draws out of you but I don’t want to hire myself out to where I have to do it on command.  What to do?

I decided to take the ThirtyDayChallenge again.  I’m sure I missed a lot of the finer points the first time around so I hope to glean more info.  Also, I like listening to the podcasts while I clean house (my parttime day job).  I know there are other things I can do.  Joining Wealthy Associates would probably be a good move as would joining Thirty Day Plus but both of those have monthly fees and I’m not making enough to cover them just yet.

The tipping point came when I was at a family celebration and my oldest daughter made the remark that to break even your first year in business is actually very good. ZING!  That put things into perspective.  Ok, maybe I haven’t made thousands of dollars but I have broken even.  My hosting and domain registration bills are paid and I have learned a lot.  I can’t say the same for the first year of college at Fredonia State and make no mistake, this is college level material.

For those of you who are still struggling to break through, don’t give up.  Creating websites, posting fresh content, promoting them, sifting through all the fluff and figuring out the next thing to do is like juggling.  You get better as you go.  I think some of the big guys have forgotten just how tough it is for us new people.

In the near future, I am going to post a financial breakdown of what I did since August 1, 2008.  Meanwhile, to rephrase what  my daughter said, if you broke even over the last year, pat yourself on the back.  You did it!  You built a platform that you can launch off of and this year you can apply what you learned over the last 12 months.  Even with a poor economy, there are still things people need.  They still want help and are looking for cheaper alternatives.  Internet shopping is not dead and there’s room for you.