Do you want to make a million? Can you even make $100?

I know the lure of the huge cash is what everyone is after but it really bothers me what some peoples expectations of this industry are.

Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick thing, and the truth is most of you probably won't make millions from it. Is that because you can't? Nope..it's because of what you think it takes to make that kind of money.

People I talk to in my forum, or who I read about in forums like this are usually very surprised how much time and money it can take to start getting some profitable campaigns.

You shouldn't expect to be making a profit without a good amount of adspend. What's a good amount? From what I've seen...people can start seeing success in the $100-$5,000 range. Those are 2 kind of extreme ends of the spectrum.

$5,000 might sound like a lot to sink into campaigns but put it in perspective; you would spend a ton more on a college education, or starting virtually any other kind of business. $5k is nothing to start a business that could make you a lot of money. Note -- this is NOT spending $5k on courses, forums, tools, etc...this is $5k on ACTUAL ADSPEND.

I know sometimes it feels like everyone is having success spending just a few hundred dollars while you are grinding away with no results to show. Let me tell you what happens to a lot of affiliates who see early success; they get frustrated and quit more often than not. Why? Well, when you have success after spending say $50, you probably got pretty lucky (not saying there wasn't skill involved but..). What that sets up is a situation where you expect everyting to be that easy and it never is. It sets up a totally unrealistic expectation for how affiliate marketing usually works - a lot of 'failure' (I like to call it testing) to find a few winners that more than make up for that.

So, what's the point of all this rambling? Recheck your expectations and see if you are on track. Here are some really simple rules to being successful;

• Stop jumping around
• Pick one niche and work with that exclusively
• Pick one traffic source
• Remember this - The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Don't just build 100 campaigns the same way if you aren't seeing results. Constantly re-evaluate and see what you can try differently.