Affiliate Fluctuations
By: John Elder posted in Affiliate Marketing
Hey everyone,
I wanted to write a quick note on affiliate income and the massive and terrifying fluctuations that go along with it.
Most of you probably know that I make most of my income from adsense, but I also make a nice (and growing) amount of money on amazon affiliate earnings every month. Basically I put a widget on my site that offers a link to buy whatever product the site is about over at amazon.
So if the website is about 10-piece stainless steel cookware, there’s a little picture of a 10-piece stainless steel cookware set at the bottom of the page that, if you click on it, shoots you over to amazon.com where you can buy it..earning me between 7% and 10% commissions.
What I want to talk about is fluctuations…this business is all about fluctuations. As your websites bop around in Google, you might get 100 visitors one day, and 1 the next…..900 one day, and 3 per day for the next 2 weeks straight. That’s just the name of the game…
But there’s also conversion fluctuations too…. 100 people might click your amazon links one day, and 10 of them might buy something….the next day none of them might buy anything.
Again..fluctuations.
The thing about this business is this; you build websites…then there’s nothing for you to do but sit and wait…and hope money comes in. Then you start reading your stats…pouring over your stats…obsessing over your stats…and ultimately driving yourself CRAZY with stats..
Where am I going with this?
Good question…let me illustrate with an example.
August was great for me as far as Amazon earnings. I made like $800 bucks. Then September hit…and earnings nosedived.
Here’s a breakdown of the number of items people bought through my amazon links for the last few days:
August 28: 15 items ($24.71 in commissions)
August 29: 3 items ($3.64 in commissions)
August 30: 7 items ($16.21 in commissions)
August 31: 1 item ($3.89 in commissions)
September 1: 5 items ($20.40 in commissions)
September 2: 5 items ($5.96 in commissions)
September 3: 4 items ($11.67 in commissions)
September 4: 17 items ($100.05 in commissions)
September 5: 10 items ($35.06 in commissions)
See the roller coaster? I tend to get between 10-20 items ordered per day…so when it drops to 3, then 7, then 1, then 5, then 5, then 4…well I start to freak out a little…and you will too.
But don’t freak out!
And that’s the whole point of this article. Don’t freak out, or as the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy says: DON’T PANIC…because things bounce back. Just look at my September 4th…sold 17 items and made $100 in commissions! That’s a HUGE day for me…
You’ll see lot’s of these types of fluctuations and spikes (both up and down) in your affiliate earnings…and in your adsense earnings too for that matter…don’t let them get to you…keep your head up…have faith in yourself and keep building more websites.
Now if things get bad for a few MONTHS in a row…well that’s something else entirely! But these daily or even weekly fluctuations are normal..they’re nothing to worry about.
But it helps to know that everyone goes through them…which is why I wrote this article.
Keep on building!
-John
The Marketing Fool!
