One of the goals I’ve set for this month is to get started with affiliate marketing again and make some small profits (like 250EUR before the end of the month). If successful I’ll try to scale it up and develop it onto a new income stream that supplements my current income. My online business generates a relatively nice chunk of income but it’s not really diversified, the growth is stagnating and I’m kinda worried about the sustainability. Since the holiday season is over income collapsed by 30-40% and the freefall of the dollar isn’t doing me much good either.
To feel a bit more secure I’m going to try to make money with European affiliate networks so I don’t have to worry about the currency exchange. After some market research I’ve decided to start with Flemish affiliate campaigns and later I’m also going to try to target the Netherlands. My decision to focus on these target groups has some advantages but also some disadvantages:
+ Less competition. In the US you have competition from affiliate marketers from all around the world but that’s not the case in my country. That should make my job a bit easier and I think advertising costs will also be lower here because there aren’t as many advertisers.
+ No language barrier. It’s not always easy to advertise in another language if you aren’t a native speaker.
+ It pays out in euro. More diversification and less reason to worry about the dollar going south.
– Affiliate networks and programs aren’t as developed as in the US or UK. At first sight there don’t seem to be a lot of good programs.
– Smaller population: 6 million in Flanders and about 16 million in the Netherlands vs 300 million in the US.
My experiences with affiliate networks are pretty mixed. About 1.5-2 years ago I had a very successful affiliate campaign running that made shitloads of cash with free traffic but after a couple of months it peaked and after a while I had to pull the plug on it because the returns were getting too small for all the hours I had to put into it. All my other attempts to make cash with affiliate programs made use of AdWords but most of these campaigns didn’t give a positive ROI.
Hopefully I’ll do better this time. Right now I’m still in the “analysis, learning and reading” stage but my first new affiliate campaign should get off the ground soon.
2 responses to “Goal for this month: make money with affiliate marketing”
I’m looking forward to your posts about this. I’m in the same situation as you. I’m also from Belgium and I want to look into dutch (or European) affiliate programs, mainly because my current sites are stagnating and because of the falling dollar.
Im’e in the same position my income is down 40 % 🙁 and I’me also from belguim but I will not start with affiliate marketing I will buy other established site and start new ones to raise my income again.