Affiliate Marketing 2009 Income Report – A Year In Review!

It has taken a few weeks to get this post put together. I wanted to be able to reflect on my year affiliate marketing in 2009 to make sure I didn’t forget anything I wanted to post about. 2009 was my first real year affiliate marketing and there was a pile of ups and downs I went through.

I saw trends I loved to see and ones that I didn’t – mostly different times of the year types of things. There were advertisers dropping out on me on a regular basis and ones who were stable that I was able to build my business around. There was also some very heavy Celebrity lawsuits I had to over come that hit most of my advertisers as well as some very heavy FTC regulations that hit December 1/09 that caused a bit of a up turn right at the end of the year.

So here is a break down of my earnings by network over 2009!

1. Neverblue Ads – $43,912.00
2. Media Trust – $30,926.00
3. Pepperjam Network – $6539.00
4. Azoogle Ads – $2720.00
5. Hydra Network – $2378.00
6. Copeac – $1863.00
7. Opes Media – $1500.00
8. CX Digital – $1014.00
9. Max Bounty – $845.00
10. Wotogepa – $773.00
11. Market Leverage – $728.00
12. Karaktr Track – $84.00
13. Recurring Commissions – $2000.00

Total Affiliate Commissions for 2009 – $ 95,282.00

I know there is a bit more I have made, like from the reviews on this blog and a few other smaller things I was doing – but as far as my time goes – it’s not worth it to try and remember everything right now. I wanted to see roughly (within a few thousand dollars) what my earnings were for my first full year affiliate marketing. I am happy to report that earnings for January are double what they were for last month all ready too.

As far as expenses go – I wont know that in detail until tax time. There are a ton of perks owning your own business and working from home that you can claim as expenses so it would not be fair of me to post all that on here. But as you can see from any of my other income reports – my day to day costs for running my affiliate marketing business are very low compared to others. Over 90% of my earnings are profit, so to speak!

What I didn’t like in 2009;

There were a few things I didn’t like that happened in 2009. First I guess would be that I didn’t like not having years under my belt of experience. When I was making good money last spring – naturally I loved it but when things started to slow down in the summer I got worried – I had no idea what was next. (keep in mind I am a full time single father of a 9 year old boy, and I am all he has – it’s scary not knowing where or how much money your going to have from month to month) I was always unsure if I could recover  from the slow times, heck I didn’t even know if they were even slow times.

Most of my drops in income were due to re brandings my advertisers were going through – which was another thing I hated seeing. It honestly felt like when I was finally getting somewhere – I would have to re due a bunch of my previous work because of re branding. I was not able to keep growing at the pace I wanted to keep growing at.

I will say that some of my affiliate managers and networks I deal with really need to take a look at how they treat affiliates, the good affiliates. Networks have the ability to help affiliates beyond belief by giving them campaigns and setting them up to make some good money – but when an affiliate comes along that needs that help to grow – they sit of there hands and say we can’t tell you anything because we have to protect our affiliates.

Networks can tell who a good affiliate is, one who will be around for a long time and who wants to build a solid affiliate marketing income. Help them!!!!!! You have all the data in your network to work with these affiliates so when one needs a budget to get going and after you are able to tell what kind of affiliate they are – give them a money maker. It does not always need to be the super affiliates getting these types of deals. The up and coming guys need them more in my opinion. Luckily for me, I recently found an affiliate network who is willing to do just that with me. Look out for some way better income reports in 2010.

What I liked about 2009;

Well the first and most obvious would have to be the fact I have been working from home this whole past year, which carries the added bonus of being my own boss – in most ways. There is still a ton out of my control but I am working on that.

Even though I have had my ups and downs I have always been able to bounce right back, and in a shorter time frame then when I first started. I am able now to ask the right questions about certain offers so I know which ones to avoid and which ones I need to focus on. I can even pick out the good or higher converting landing pages when looking at offers.

I have also learned a completely new aspect of affiliate marketing called Media Buying, which I had no clue even existed a year ago. I would be rolling in that right now if it was not for the up and downs I have gone through with my SEO sites.

I have defiantly built some great work relationships with a few very key people in the industry – which is starting to pay off this month. I have also had my Google account banned. I look at that as a plus because now I don’t have to waste my money bidding on keywords that are way over priced – lmao. See Ya Big G! The ban is only on my ad-words account to btw.

What my favorite tool I used to make money with is;

This by far has to be the Unique Article Wizard tool. In December, I took the entire month off from submitting articles for a few reasons ( mostly because I didn’t know the full impact of the recent FTC regulations that hit Dec 1/09) but I also wanted to see exactly how much money the tool actual generates through articles. I dropped down to just over 3k last month total earnings not using the tool, this month I fired it back up and am double what I made last month in the same time period. The tools simply works well for my niche!!!!

If you want to join Unique Article Wizard, use the peel page add at the top right of this blog to sign up – or, if you guys want a detailed post on how I use it, just leave a comment saying so after this post and I will get to it as fast as possible.

My Goals for 2010;

These are simple goals actually. First is build an email list. I have over 30k unique visitors a month all targeted to health offers. I want a list based on that traffic source. I also want to branch away from one niche and build many profitable campaigns across a wide range of niches. Less eggs in one basket type of thing. And last but not least is hit 30k per month steady income.

2009 Conclusion;

Looking back at everything, I am darn proud of what I was able to do and build off of a very small monthly commitment. My over head is super low and my income is very high for what I am putting out. I have a system in place that is completely repeatable, even with all the crap that has gone on. I have a ton of freedoms I never had before in my life and the possibilities to go almost anywhere with what I am doing professionally.

All in all, 2009 was a great year for affiliate marketing and I look forward to seeing what 2010 brings!

Happy New Year everyone and good luck!

Up Coming Post – A follow up on the Profit Kings Media Review. Profit Kings Media claims they will work with any affiliate (new and old) to build profitable campaigns and I am putting that to the test. One of the owners of Profit Kings and I spent some time on the phone last week going over campaign idea’s and what I needed to do to get it profitable as fast as possible. I am going to report on what we did, how we did it and what my earnings are from it. Lets see if this network is going to do more then just promise us  higher payouts and dumb contests. Will they actually do what they claim they can do??? Stay Tuned!