Inspiring Stories About Successful Affiliate Marketers

We hear a lot about how affiliate marketing is booming, and it has made many people find a place where they can be successful. But even if you think you don’t have what it takes to be in it, you are wrong; you don’t need to have connections in the field or the background to make this your dream job. It’s a job that takes time to see improvement, but everything is possible with a bit of persistence and hard work, even for successful affiliate marketers.

There are many examples of people who kept following that road to success, and we want you to meet them too to show you how they made it big in affiliate marketing. Sometimes we need other people’s stories to inspire us to take the next step to make it big. So here we present to you some of the people who decide to risk it all to make affiliate marketing their dream job. Check out these inspiring stories about successful affiliate marketers. 

Ian Fernando

Ian Fernando is a blogger with over 15 years of experience in affiliate marketing; he is also a public speaker for many international conferences sharing his experiences in the field. But before he found success in affiliate marketing, he had three jobs to pay for rent and food after dropping out of college in his 20s. It wasn’t until one day, after starting reselling on eBay, that he discovered the affiliate marketing platform AzoogleAds. 

In just one month after joining, he started earning more than he thought was possible with the other three jobs he was in at the time. So after deciding to go full-time on affiliate marketing, he was approached by Affiliate Summit to work on his public speaking abilities. Ian now works on Amazon FBA, brand arbitrage, and has his own blog ianfernando.com to inspire others to join. 

One of the things Ian finds that brought him success in this world is that sometimes you have to lose to win. But even when you lose, you gain experience and data to understand how to react to it. The income will not be stable, with some months earning him over seven figures, but then months where he only loses. The most important thing is to have the proper support, like a mentor, when things don’t go your way. It is also essential to choose offers and a niche of things that you feel passionate about to make the campaigns easier to manage and grow. 

But one thing he loves the most about affiliate marketing because he can go anywhere in the world and still work without feeling trapped in a 9 to 5 schedule. Having that flexibility that affiliate marketing offers is the best thing for those that like having time for themselves. It is better than spending over 40 hours a week in a dead-end office job. Keep reading for more successful affiliate marketers.

Michelle Schroeder- Gardner

What started as an affiliate blog in 2011 (Making Sense of Cents) has become her livelihood. Plus, it has brought her opportunities to travel the world with her family. Michelle started her journey into affiliate marketing as a way to pay off her $38,000 student loan debt, which she did in very little time. Just two years after starting, she made over $100,000 in commissions which made her quit her office job and go full time to her affiliate business. 

In 2015, her family decided to sell their house and travel across the U.S. in an RV. Today she makes around $1.5 million per year. How? It is mainly affiliate commissions, and upgraded from an RV to a sailboat to travel the world! She also has an affiliate course called Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. She teaches others how to make it in this world and shows her techniques and strategies that made her achieve all her goals. If you want to learn from one of the best, getting this course is the way to go. 

Darren Rowse

The creator of ProBlogger.net, Darren Rowse, has one of Australia’s most popular business blogs for anyone looking to start and grow their business. But before he got 2 million visitors per month on his site and became a big name in the affiliate marketing world, he was a youth worker and minister in a church. It wasn’t until he started a blog in 2002 to talk about his faith and noticed how many visitors he was getting every month that he decided to try his hands on advertising and affiliate marketing. 

After two years, Darren’s blog made him so much profit that he decided to quit his job. He went full-time on his blog, and expand his business by creating products and diversifying his revenue streams. His main inspiration for his blog was his experiences and interaction with his readers. That was very important because it helped keep the audience engaged and learn about their interests. 

One of the things he has learned that has brought him the success he has now is discipline. Darren recommends that being a blogger requires time and consistency; even if you think your growth is slow, do not give up; sometimes, it takes more time to see some results. Addressing your audience and doing things to help with interaction is also a great idea. Building a community, even creating a podcast to feel closer to your audience, is excellent, especially if you constantly let them know how grateful you are for their patronage. 

Monica Stott

This travel blogger started her career in 2009 while studying journalism. It was a way to expand her portfolio and document her backpacking adventures. After working as an editorial assistant for a travel website and digital marketing, she gains the experience to make it independently, with industry contacts to help her on her journey. And thus, TheTravelHack.com came to fruition. Today, it is one of the U.K’s most prominent travel blogs, earning her over $10,000 every month and 2 million page visits every year. She even launched her very own suitcase! 

Some of the things that have worked for Monica are email marketing with a subscribers list of over 4,500 people. The good about it is creating a newsletter that she sends out twice a month to help generate engagement, including having hundreds of replies in her inbox. It also helps that she has a degree in journalism. Why? Because she has excellent writing skills, which allows her to create many blog posts every day. It is vital to keep it informal and friendly to connect with her readers, especially when discussing her own travel experiences. 

Monica suggests that in order to have a successful blog and business is to develop a revenue stream one strategy at a time so that you have time to master it before moving into another. Finding topics that you have enough knowledge about and are passionate about will always gain more attention than talking about a topic that you don’t enjoy at all; readers will come back if you show the love of the subject in a friendly way. Even if you think it’s better to make this your solo project, sometimes it is better to find experts and people to help you grow your business. Don’t hesitate to hire people you know will bring positive things and ideas. Keep reading for more successful affiliate marketers.

Miles Beckler

While working at his college radio station in 2003, Miles’ program director introduced him to affiliate marketing. His director showed Miles Beckler how he could make some money while referring users on MySpace to an affiliate offer. But after a year of making some money on MySpace, it was sold to Fox News. Their terms of services to share affiliate links were banned, making him impossible to make any money on it. So after losing his primary income and finding himself having to move back to his parent’s house. He couldn’t afford anything, he found himself completely lost with a lot of stress and frustration. 

To deal with everything that he went through, he and his wife decided to start practicing meditation to calm their mind and focus on finding a solution. After a while, his daily meditation sessions were his biggest idea to make a meditation blog. It brought him a full-time income in the first year and revived his drive for affiliate marketing. Today his blog makes around $150,000 and $250,000 annually. Plus, he created milesbeckler.com to share his knowledge and tips to make it in the world of Affiliate marketing without having prior experience. Keep reading for more successful affiliate marketers.

Chris Guthrie

For Chris, everything started in high school with the hype of the Pokemon card craze; he decided to sell them on eBay for a bit of cash. After graduating, he started creating video games, which gave him the idea of creating a forum for gamers, especially for the Halo series. Still, it was mostly treated as a side job besides his IT sales job. However, after getting fired from his gig, he decided to invest his time as an online entrepreneur. Then, Chris Guthrie created his blog MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com and hosting the UpFuelPodcast.

While his gaming forum was popular and had ad banners on it, he wasn’t making much money from it. That’s when he decided to start his affiliate marketing business by joining Amazon’s program. Chris Guthrie began making laptop (back then known as notebooks) reviews which brought him over $100,000 in commission. Over the years, he finally learned an excellent strategy to make money in affiliate marketing. Thus, he started helping others make it as he did. 

One of his techniques is finding a niche where you feel comfortable and know it’s perfect for affiliate marketing. He learned that people would instead click content links than Amazon boxes without using any tricks like cloaks or redirects or misleading people into clicking amazon links. It is also vital to be sincere and to write genuine reviews; people tend to trust your opinion more, which will lead to more clicks. Chris also recommends taking advantage of the holiday sales. Plus, slowly expanding your niche by adding other products in the same market. Soon enough, you will start seeing your profits going up when you use the techniques that work best for you in the affiliate marketing world. 

Are you familiar with any of these successful affiliate marketers? Share what you think about their techniques.

Interested in becoming an affiliate marketer? Join Olavivo.