The Truth About Affiliate Links
Our Journey and Lessons Learned.
Introduction:
Welcome, to a blog post that aims to shed light on the world of affiliate links our journey. Can we make an income from them. Today, we’re going to dive into the good, the bad, and the reality of this often misunderstood realm. As a couple who embarked on this journey ourselves, documenting our unique lifestyle of living on a sailboat in the Caribbean and an RV, we want to share our experiences and lessons learned along the way.
Starting Out with affiliate links
When we first delved into affiliate linking and marketing, we began by resurrecting’s our Pinterest account and an Amazon account. Our Pinterest Account was used extensively prior to retirement. It was used as a show case of our weddings, and photography, We had about 2000 followers and 5K views. We also had a large following on Instagram for our dog.
https://www.instagram.com/jackthesailingdog/ We are pretty active in Instagram and Facebook.
These platforms provided us with the opportunity to showcase products and services that aligned with our lifestyle. We also decided to create a blog, not necessarily because it was a requirement, but because we genuinely enjoyed informing people about our unique way of life.
The Good:
Affiliate links and marketing, when done right, can be a fantastic way to generate income. It allows you to share products and services you genuinely believe in, while earning a commission for each sale made through your affiliate links. It’s a win-win situation, as you provide value to your audience while earning a passive income.
Additionally, affiliate marketing offers flexibility and freedom. You have the ability to work from anywhere, at any time, as long as you have an internet connection. This was particularly appealing to us, as we were already familiar with running an online business during our pre-retirement days as destination wedding photographers and planners.
We like talking about ourselves We introduce ourselves and lifestyle
The Bad:
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room – the reality of affiliate links or marketing. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. It certainly doesn’t guarantee instant success. In fact, we’re currently in our fourth week without any sales. This can be disheartening, especially when you’ve put in the time and effort to create valuable content and promote products.
One of the challenges we faced was realizing that our content may not have been resonating with our target audience. It’s crucial to continuously evaluate and refine your content strategy to ensure it aligns with the needs and interests of your readers. This requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to adapt and learn from your mistakes.
We would start working on blogs, Pinterest pins and research for key words, topics for blogs and educational marketing sites. Starting at 8:00 AM ending close to 6 PM. Every day!
Lessons Learned when using affiliate links:
Through our journey in affiliate linking and marketing, we’ve learned some valuable lessons that we want to share with you:
1. Content is key: Ensure that your content is informative, engaging, and adds value to your audience’s lives. Focus on building trust and credibility with your readers. Finding trending topics, key words to resonate with the public takes an enormous amount of time.
2. Target the right audience: Understand who your target audience is and tailor your content to their needs and interests. This will increase the likelihood of conversions and sales.
3. Diversify your income streams: Relying solely on affiliate marketing may not be enough. Explore other avenues, such as sponsored content, digital products, or even creating your own products or services. We have always had more than one stream of income besides our Social Security. Gary as a retired professional photographer had success with his online Gallery. Garyfelton.com . Our third stream of income was discontinued due to a boating accident in December. Typically we would work a seasonal position in Yellowstone National Park.
Patience is a virtue?
4. Be patient and persistent: Success in affiliate linking and marketing takes time. Don’t get discouraged by slow progress or initial setbacks. Keep learning, experimenting, and refining your strategies. Marketing takes a lot of work and often a longer timeline often from our research between 3 to 6 months to be able to recover expenses and make a small profit.
5. Yes you will encounter some expenses with affiliate linking and marketing. From our previous businesses we learned you need to spend money to make money. I can hear now a lot of Affiliate link gurus expounding the virtue of starting with out spending any money. Maybe at one time that was true or they had a Hugh social media following to begin with. However we didn’t go down that rabbit hole. There are website hosting costs, purchase URL, related soft ware plugins for email collections, subscriber pop-up, upgraded templates for ads just to name a few. Not to forget Computers or some sort of devise to work on and create ads. Don’t forget you need a reliable internet service that allows more than the usual Gigabits for images transfers.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, affiliate links and marketing can be a rewarding endeavor, but it requires dedication, perseverance, and a willingness to adapt.
Our journey has taught us that success doesn’t come overnight, and it’s essential to continuously evaluate and improve our content and strategies.
How long we continue on this journey? Don’t know. We do find it rewarding at times. Feed back has been good but not enough of it.
We plan on documenting our time spent.
What we did in marketing experiments were they successful or waste or a waste of time.
We plan on being truthful and transparent.
We welcome any questions or concerns and of course any suggestions. Either in the comments below or via email.
Remember, affiliate links and marketing is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s important to diversify your income streams and explore other opportunities that align with your passions and expertise. With the right mindset and a commitment to providing value, will that be enough to navigate the world of affiliate marketing and find success?
Follow us to find out!