Affiliate Marketing Success Stories You Should Know

Introduction

We know that there’s an overbearing doubt corrupting the thought of each and every one of you:

“How much money can I make with Affiliate Marketing?”

As Account Managers, we listen to those words almost every single day.

Everyone wants to earn money with affiliate marketing so they ask that question all the time.

Affiliates tend to ask that even before learning how to get into affiliate marketing.

In fact, we can say that all affiliates have that desire to know how much they can hope to make in this remarkable business.

They wanna know about real-life affiliate success!

No worries, though!

You can now rest assured, sit back and enjoy a brand-new Mobidea Academy article that’s gonna answer your question!

Here’s what we’d like to point from the get go:

Just like in every other business, the amount of earnings you’ll make depends on a bunch of different factors.

That’s right:

There’s no exact, fool-proof formula that’ll allow you to know how much you’ll be able to make with affiliate marketing.

Even so – given the fact that we’ve both got lots of experience – we’ll be able to write about the most common factors that can influence your potential to earn big.

Here’s what you can never forget:

The potential to make a whole lotta cash is outstandingly high!

It’s the internet, bro!

Let’s not waste any more precious seconds!

Time for a list of factors that can influence the amount of money you can make with affiliate marketing!

Initial Budget

How to do affiliate marketing?

You’ve gotta first take care of that initial media buying budget.

There’s no way around it.

Just like in any other business enterprise you’ll go for, you must have an initial investment.

We’re not saying that it needs to be something huge.

In fact, there’s no need to run to the bank, speak to a teller and get some borrowed cash coming your way.

Even so, it’s always advisable to start with a fine 500 bucks.

Initial Preparation

You need to be well prepared.

This may be a new experience, but there’s no reason to go at it without knowing full-well what you’re gonna do.

You’ve gotta give it your all!

Would you go around spending money investing in the financial market without having any clue about what you were doing?

Of course you could, but we bet it wouldn’t end very well.

You should use the same logical reasoning with affiliate marketing.

This really isn’t a game of luck or chance!

Don’t believe us?

Check the fourth heading, then!

Examples of Success in Affiliate Marketing

Time for our examples of successful players which have made their mark in affiliate marketing!

These guys were able to earn money with affiliate programs and so can you.

Each example will depict a different path taken:

The first one is a guy that started as a media buyer and continues rocking hard doing it.

The second one is a famous guy in the industry who now has a team, still does media buying, but also does a lot of other cool stuff to boot.

Last but never least, the third example is a fellow that started on Facebook and now has his own team and is making a whole lotta bucks.

So, let’s get to it!

Note:

Some of the examples may not showcase the guy’s name!

That’s because some people can be a bit shy and prefer to continue anonymously stacking some money like it ain’t funny!

Affiliate Marketing Success Story Number 1

From Turkey to the World

Can you make money with affiliate marketing?

Hell yeah!

The first example we’d like to give you really knows how to make money online as an affiliate!

When Raul started working with him, he was just beginning.

Indeed, he was starting to venture into affiliate marketing and, as expected, was quite the newbie, but was super focused and full of enthusiasm.

He didn’t know how to make money as an affiliate but would get there fast.

Raul started to help him earn money with affiliate marketing with a keen focus on the basics.

The affiliate was choosing offers, optimizing campaigns and he was quickly evolving.

Of course, he made some media buying mistakes.

At the beginning, everyone makes mistakes but that’s part of the media buying process.

He persisted and never gave up.

One of the things Raul believes to have contributed to the success of this affiliate is the fact that he’s got awesome analytical skills.

This guy was actually a math teacher, which means he could analyze data like a pro.

Don’t get us wrong:

You don’t need to have a formal mathematical background to do this.

Even so, it’s obvious that a sharp analytical perspective and a fine attention to detail are key.

Another advice, coming directly from the guy himself:

Think bigger!

At the beginning, when Raul started working with him, he was quite anxious and worried every time he lost 50 cents.

Raul was always telling him to trust the reasoning behind what he was doing.

That’s what he did.

One evening, the campaign was losing close to 50 bucks.

He was confident and patient and didn’t touch it.

Afterwards, with a few more adjustments, he saw that campaign improving and becoming very profitable.

That was a game changer!

He was able to start making money in affiliate marketing.

Careful, though.

This is not to say that you should just watch your campaigns sinking like the Titanic without doing anything about it.

But if you trust your media buying strategy and know what you’re doing, patience becomes your best quality!

Coming back to thinking bigger:

The main point is finding your first really profitable campaign!

From there, you shouldn’t be scared of trusting yourself and going for other awesome media buying campaigns.

You can even become ready to launch in more complex Tier 1 countries!

What did this guy do with the money from the first really positive campaign he had?

He reinvested all his earnings to launch more campaigns!

That’s how it’s done!

The first step for him was simple:

Finding potential gold mines within the traffic sources.

These goldmines can be as broad as a segment or as narrow as a placement.

Then, what?

He capitalized on them!

Related: Trail the Unexplored Path – Explore Gold Mines

Keep rotating offers and optimizing to be able to face your competition with a certain advantage to stay ahead of the curve.

That’s how to earn money from affiliate marketing.

Other important details that show the power of wicked analytical skills:

The guy was always testing batches of creatives and banner ads, for example!

The guy was always observing the performances of his banners on a daily basis, and watching out for slight campaign variations.

He was mindful of such indicators as CTRs, CRs, constantly keeping a record of each metric and always adapting so he could boost performances and hit that special sweet spot.

Along with creatives, he also used the same principles to optimize other parameters.

He was especially focused on placements and zones, and even crossed performances between creatives and specific zones, for instance.

Our affiliate expert advice?

Be like this successful affiliate marketer and always keep track of everything.

This is another important tip:

Keep a tight and organized record of your changes and tests, or else you’ll get lost and they’ll have been all for nothing!

This pro kept doing his thing, learning and scaling his campaigns.

He started with only one traffic source and then moved on to others.

Today, he’s working in at least 3 or 4 and making an average of 30.000€ per month in revenues.

If you consider that he’s getting amazing margins between 30-40%, you can easily see that he’s playing the game like a rich master and still making money as an affiliate.

He still owes Raul an expensive dinner, by the way!

Affiliate Marketing Success Story Number 2

Still Rocking After Two Decades!

We’ve just given you an example of a smart guy who managed to make money from affiliate marketing.

In fact, he became rich by having an awesomely intelligent media buying plan.

And guess what?

Running profitable campaigns is his main activity.

Nonetheless, there are also cases of people that started by doing media buying and who – once they became PRO – decided to expand their business and go for different activities they were passionate about.

We want you to become acquainted with a special case.

This fellow is named Matej and he’s better known as Matuloo, a top affiliate marketer.

He started doing affiliate marketing at the tender age of 19, as soon as his parents finally decided to get an internet connection.

Once, while doing some research for university, he somehow noticed a small link at the bottom of the site.

It was something like:

“Webmasters, click here to make money.”

He was pretty amazed about that.

Was it really possible to make money from affiliate marketing just by sending people to some affiliate sites?

That’s when he simply had to find out more about it.

He registered on the first internet forum, looking for ways to make money on the internet and what he discovered was…guess what:

Affiliate marketing!

Now he’s a grown man with a family and affiliate marketing is his life.

In fact, it has been his life for almost 20 years!

Throughout his career, he had to be like the technological chameleon and had to effectively change his approach several times.

Indeed, in this business, there’s a constant need to adapt to new things, especially when you’ve been playing with affiliate marketing for lots of years.

This restless need for diversity and change has forced him to educate himself all the time and learn new things.

That’s right:

You can’t stop learning in affiliate marketing, otherwise you freeze and become obsolete real quick!

Currently, Matuloo and his team – yes, he now has people helping him – buy traffic and ad spots on a large number of traffic networks or individual sites and promote offers.

Their main focus is on display traffic, targeting both desktop and mobile users, both in the mainstream and adult space.

However, Matej didn’t want to bore himself to death.

He didn’t wanna be the guy who lived solely for running campaigns, analyzing data graphs and making smart optimization decisions.

That’s why he decided to be a moderator on STM!

This is where he’s helping members with whatever problems they’re facing and that are stopping them from reaching their affiliate marketing goals.

In fact, affiliate marketers are sometimes stingy with their information and techniques, for fear of having their affiliate marketing niche stolen and their profits messed with.

Why shouldn’t you care about other people stealing your profits?

Simple!

Because you’re sure you’re the best at what you do!

In line with this philosophy, and getting close to reaching 20 years of experience as an affiliate marketer, Matuloo recently created his own blog.

That’s where he writes about ways to make money on the internet.

It was something he had really wanted to do for a long time and this was the right moment for him to dedicate himself to that old dream.

Since it’s a blog packed with lots of great free content, he’s already getting pretty good feedback from his readers, and this motivates him to keep on writing!

Matej has a family and he’s pretty clear:

Affiliate marketing is awesome for those of you who need flexible working hours.

Indeed, in this business, there are no fixed hours, there’s no boss.

You just do what you need to do when you feel like doing it!

Yes, it can be time consuming.

Hell, yes, it can be super stressful.

Even so, once you get the ball rolling, it’s easy to maintain a rather comfortable lifestyle and even generate some cool (and stable) income.

To sum up, Matuloo did virtually everything that you can do on the internet:

• He’s been running his own sites – he still owns some that are giving him a stable income
• He made a lot of money on SEO when it was easy and hot
• He managed advertising campaigns for big and small clients
• He bought and sold large quantities of traffic in multiple niches

As you can easily imagine, he went through a lot of things during that period.

He had awesome years, not-so-awesome years, and he had years that “sucked.”

However he survived it all and he’s still going strong.

Moreover, what Matuloo learned recently is that it’s better not to live the life of a lonely affiliate wolf.

He did it for a while and it didn’t do him any good.

In fact, at the beginning, he used to work in the privacy of his office, not going to any events.

In 2015, though, he started attending affiliate shows and networking with other affiliates.

It’s really important to go to industry events, talk with other affiliates, read and post on forums.

Why?

Because the right contacts can do wonders!

Affiliate Marketing Success Story Number 3

When a Social Network Makes You Rich

Since we’re talking about how to make money online with affiliate marketing, you’re probably wondering:

“Do affiliates make money?”

Yes, indeed!

The last affiliate success story we’ve got for you is the wondrous tale of a South American Mobidea affiliate.

Edwin started his affiliate adventure in July 2015.

He was 21, had no money whatsoever, and was eager to learn how to earn money through affiliate marketing.

What the heck did he have, then?

A vision and a clear determination to make it rain like it’s insane!

He wanted to create his own Affiliate Network, with lots of users.

Yes, this guy likes to think BIG!

What did he do first?

He started an extensive research of the CPA world.

Edwin wanted to find some affiliate programs to make money with.

As he told us, it was fundamental to understand exactly how it was possible to work and earn big with CPA offers before starting something on his own.

Related: How to Choose High Paying CPA Offers on Mobidea

Edwin spent quite a lot of time on the research process but it was surely worth it!

At the beginning, his main concern was to find a reliable company to work with.

That’s when he came to find out about Mobidea and that’s when he became a cool Mobidea Crew member!

He started to work with Facebook, promoting Mobidea CPA offers there.

Learn More: CPA on Facebook Ads: Definitive Guide for Beginners in 2017

Indeed, he found out that you can use social networks not only to check photos of your friends but also as an amazing affiliate marketing money making machine!

He didn’t start alone, though.

Working with a couple of friends was easier for him.

They played carefully and invested only 100$ the first time.

It went well:

Offers converted and Mobidea was paying them fast.

Learn More: Affiliate Payment Methods: The Definitive Master Guide

All this helped them to gain confidence within this whole new world and to really be able to earn money with affiliate marketing.

What he told us was that it was also very important for him to always follow his Account Manager’s advice.

He and his buddies continued testing and, after a short period of time, they became able to invest more and earn more!

They invested 500€, 1000€.

From that point, they kept going on.

They were always filled with the desire to earn from affiliate marketing!

In order to make his dream come true, Edwin had to create an affiliate platform from scratch.

But how to do it?

Even though he already knew how to make money being an affiliate, he didn’t have any expertise in the area of creating a website!

That’s why he decided to start from the beginning and became interested in programming.

He started an online course and it only took 3 months for him to become able to build his dream!

He also checked other platforms to understand what they had in common, how they looked, the sort of user experience they promoted, etc.

Edwin wanted to go for something similar because he knew that’s how you become part of a competitive market.

At the beginning, the platform he created had only some affiliates.

Even so, the guys were resilient so they knew this situation wouldn’t last long.

His friends helped him gather more clients fast.

Every affiliate who subscribed to their platform was taught by them.

They would teach affiliates how to earn money through Facebook Ads.

They also made videos to help newbies.

Indeed, most of the people making money in affiliate marketing are the ones offering tools to help newbie affiliate marketers get into the game.

What happened, then?

They galvanized affiliates to bring other people to the network.

More people into the game, more revenues and more affiliates from other CPA networks started to come because they knew Edwin’s platform was a remarkable way to earn money online.

The team is now made up of 10 young men, and it’s still growing.

Now that’s how to make money from affiliate programs!

How Much Money Can an Affiliate Marketer Earn?

Have you ever felt there’s more to life than just working and paying the bills?

If so, please remember that there’s an alternative out there.

Now, what?

Go online, do some research, and you’ll probably be able to understand that affiliate marketers can earn between thousands to millions of dollars every single year!

Yup. You’ve read it. Millions.

It seems like everyone can make money through affiliate marketing!

Indeed, there are guys making a few hundred dollars per day to well into the five-figure daily profits.

But that’s not common.

There are so many factors that determine how much an affiliate marketer can make.

The average full-time affiliate can make $5k – $20k a month.

A “Super Affiliate” is someone that can do over $1.5 million of profit every year.

You can make a lot of money.

You can make money while you sleep.

You can even hire employees and build systems to take over everything.

It’s simple to get started.

All you need is a computer, internet, some money to spend on traffic, and some wicked logical skills to boot!

There are no commitments. No contracts.

Don’t wanna promote the offer anymore?

Then stop.

It’s the best direct marketing training in the world!

Conclusion

Many people use affiliate marketing as a stepping stone towards new opportunities.

But it’s important to note:

No money comes for free in this super-competitive master game.

You’ll still have to devote time and effort to learn and set up your business, before you can reap the real benefits of your work and earn money with affiliate marketing.

It’s normal that you face obstacles when you wanna make money being an affiliate but you don’t have to be scared.

Just go ahead and remember to adapt to the changes that are part of this super-mutable market.

In fact, every campaign will die at some point.

Always think in advance, work on new campaigns, even though you know the current ones are working fine.

If you want to have success in affiliate marketing, it’s all up to you!

It depends on you and your efforts so go for it and earn money with affiliate marketing!

Now let’s see:

“Can you make money from affiliate marketing?”

You’ve read these CPA success stories, you’ve been able to collect the phenomenal insights, and now it’s time for you to go at it like a champ!