20 replies
Hi all, I am very new to internet marketing and have spent the last few months doing research trying to work out the best routes to take.

My big question is "do people really earn the money they say they do through affiliate marketing with free traffic?"

I know that it all takes time, and although many say i can make thousands in a week from nothing i find that to be a bit far fetched.

Any motivational help you can give would be great or any great niche finding tips would be fantastic!

Thanks and i look forward to being a part of Warrior.
#bust #myth #new affiliate
  • Profile picture of the author Bingo123
    I think it does happen, but that doesn't mean that everyone earns what they say they are. You will often find that the guys who are earning that kind of money never really mention what they earn. It's the guys who claim to be earning $80,000 etc etc per month, that are really just trying to sell you their product.
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    • Profile picture of the author Truckster
      Be cautiously skeptical. I find it odd that someone can be claiming to make $1000's and then be selling their secret system. I'd keep it to myself.

      Having said that, give it a little time, get to know the 'faces' in here and you will soon be picking up the real tips from guys and gals that really know their stuff.

      And good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
    I would imagine that some people do earn that much. You need a couple of things in order to get paid that much money.

    • Enough traffic.
    • A product with a good sales page
    • A low refund rate on the product
    • A product that enough of the traffic coming to your site is willing to pay for
    • An easy conversion process - Like "Click here to buy" and you can actually do that.
    • A vendor that will pay your commissions

    There are lots of programs like this, its just that these are some of the most important things that you need.

    Maybe someone else has a few other ideas for you might need to get that kind of money as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Palfrey
    What you have to realize is that this I.M. stuff is a business.

    Some businesses can earn huge sums a month, but they often employ staff. Not all, but the vast majority.

    You don't need to earn thousands yourself. Just find a business plan that earns you more than you can outsource the task for, then build your business.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    What you are missing in the phrase, "make thousands in a week from nothing" is the fact that most people value their time at "nothing"...

    People can make money through this approach, but so long as you count your time invested, you are not investing "nothing"...
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    • Profile picture of the author TCrosby
      The "trick" of free traffic: Gurus often say make $xxx,xxx with free traffic, only meaning that they are not using ppc traffic. They are using SEO, article marketing, video marketing, etc. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean they aren't paying outsources, and using costly software to spread articles, boost their rankings, etc.

      Here's my advice: You have probably taken in enough info to get started, and if you continued to try and work out the details you will probably get bogged down.

      Purchase some cheap hosting at bluehost or justhost, find a small niche, buy a domain, setup wordress, and if you want to build a list (which i recommend), setup an autoresponder (aweber, imnica, or listwire which is a free alternative).

      Piece together some free report from PLR or some knowledge you can find, convert it to a pdf, and have your whole site/blog be pushign towards that.

      Then just promote.
      Write articles
      Forum market
      video market

      Just sit down, and crank things out. You can write 5 articles a day easy. Many people can do it in an hour. Once you see some success, you can start investing in some tools or outsourcing
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    • Profile picture of the author alwaysready
      Hi ! at the beginning it looks so complicated and impossible specially when you hear or read about how people are making cash with it !

      I advice not to learn things in a day or two and start , try to start with what you already know , and at the same time ,read daily articles about it , subscribe to newsletter , you need to learn by yourself and practice , failure makes you learn !
      Try to hire people for some simple tasks (or even professional ; like dealing with the java language or ...) you will gain time
      good Luck
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    • Profile picture of the author alexcercel
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      What you are missing in the phrase, "make thousands in a week from nothing" is the fact that most people value their time at "nothing"...

      People can make money through this approach, but so long as you count your time invested, you are not investing "nothing"...
      You are soooooo right! I've seen so many people tending or claiming that SEO is free and article marketing and all that. Nothing is free! Is article writing free? NO! You have to do your research and write the actual article. How long would that take? Let's say 15 minutes. How about you think of it this way: you earn JUST 8 bucks an hour. You just spent 2 on that article. Same goes for SEO, website creation and not to say forum marketing (I just spent a buck here writing this ).

      So replace "free" traffic to "organic" traffic to be more correct

      Back to the original question: YES, many folks do that kind of numbers (1000s/day) with organic traffic but it's far from being the fastest (altho it might be one of the most reliable) ways of getting traffic.

      Can you say who does and who doesn't? Well, there're ways but most of the time you'll not being able UNLESS you can find some sort of reviews on the product itself.

      So your answer is yes, people do make that kind of money, but it's not really free. And you have to decide yourself who's for real and who's not
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      • Profile picture of the author Sean Bissell
        Yea, I totally agree with most of what is being said here.

        SEO is not free.

        And it's not easy.

        It's also really hard to get feedback on what you're doing right or wrong.

        It can take forever to actually get "ranked" and once you it can be unstable and difficult for purposes of testing, tweaking, tracking etc.

        You can easily burn out on SEO.

        Personally I thinks it's best used as a secondary strategy.
        -Sean
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by Steveday8 View Post

    My big question is "do people really earn the money they say they do through affiliate marketing with free traffic?"
    If you ask a co-worker how much money he makes, will he tell you the truth?

    Depends on the co-worker, right?

    Now add another wrinkle into the mix: the co-worker is selling you a book on how to make lots of money.

    Now do you think he's going to tell you the truth?

    Well, again, depends on the co-worker... but you know he's going to tell you he makes lots of money. He's not going to offer you a book on doing something and then claim he can't do it himself.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author butch04
    Some people make BIG bucks with affiliate marketing. Most of them that are making the big buck create the product and have others do all the selling for them.

    You can make an OK amount of money from SEO, and articles. It all depends how much work you put in to it. A few years back I would pump out about 5 articles per day and wasn't doing bad in CB, but I wasn't doing a crazy amount either.

    For SEO you can rank blogs and sites for product name and review and make sales that way, but you need to know how to SEO a site and usually this works best when the product first launches.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mukul Verma
    I past 200,000 visitors a month today ....majority is free (rest is penny click). Now I am worked very dam hard and that sites been running for almost 7 years and have employee's.

    So it is free YES or is it? Depends who you ask.

    Cheers,
    Mukul

    PS my Traffic Marketing Intensive says 80,000 since these traffic sites are my focus, not selling IM products (I suggest the same for anyone who wants to make money long term)
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  • Profile picture of the author AFI
    Welcome to the forum. It definitely takes some time and a LOT of knowledge and dedication but the answer is yes it can be done if you have patience.
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    • Profile picture of the author Devid Farah
      Welcome Steve!

      If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

      I would advise before buying any product that you ask the question on here/search the forum, and find someone who has already bought the “system” and whether it is working for them.

      Doing this will save you time and money and avoid being sold junk by flash sales copy.

      Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author JHC81
    When ever someone claims to make a lot of money and sells their system I always laugh lol. Because why would you want to sell your "secrets" I don't know about you guys but I wouldn't I will help someone answer questions and so on but will not tell you which niche works the best for me and so on.
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    • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Amy Garrison View Post

      When ever someone claims to make a lot of money and sells their system I always laugh lol. Because why would you want to sell your "secrets"
      For the same reason McDonald's sells its secrets?
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    • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
      Originally Posted by Amy Garrison View Post

      When ever someone claims to make a lot of money and sells their system I always laugh lol. Because why would you want to sell your "secrets" I don't know about you guys but I wouldn't I will help someone answer questions and so on but will not tell you which niche works the best for me and so on.
      That's YOU.

      I HAVE shared exactly what's worked for me with many people and they've made as much as me from doing it - I say fair play to them. I like helping people and don't care about them also making money in my niches - if anything it's extra partners to work with.

      Yes there are a LOT of people BSing and telling you what they're sharing has made them money when it blatantly has not - but not everyone is like that.

      I'll admit it's probably the majority and definitely if you don't know someone don't assume it's true.

      I was under the impression that make earnings promises (ie. - make $xxxx in X days) was illegal so I've never done it myself and it does surprise me how much blatant lying and making false promises does go on in this niche - but it's in response to people wanting to hear it, so there will always be con-men out there waiting to tell you what you want to hear in order to get your wallet open.

      Andy
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      nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Roland Hop
    For a person who is just starting out I'd recommend to back up a few steps and look the basics over in detail. I can already tell you're getting in over your head because your positive expectancy has fueled you to believe that you will soon be making thousands of dollars overnight. Trust me we've all been there One of the most important things to know about this business (especially when you're using "free" traffic) is that this business takes time when you play legitimately. But it's never too early to get started, if you haven't already you should setup a website with some content and an opt-in like most people said already. One of the funniest things I see in this market is people constantly craving over the latest internet marketing report and information and just in general learning so much about the business, but they don't even have an opt in page! A lot of us out there believe that we don't know enough when we actually know a lot more than we need to. I know this hasn't really answered your question and i sort've went off on a tangent but it'd make me happy if this benefited anyone on here.

    But to answer your question, yes people can make much more than a thousand dollars in a day.
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  • Profile picture of the author alcymart
    Originally Posted by Steveday8 View Post

    Hi all, I am very new to internet marketing and have spent the last few months doing research trying to work out the best routes to take.

    My big question is "do people really earn the money they say they do through affiliate marketing with free traffic?"

    I know that it all takes time, and although many say i can make thousands in a week from nothing i find that to be a bit far fetched.

    Any motivational help you can give would be great or any great niche finding tips would be fantastic!

    Thanks and i look forward to being a part of Warrior.
    The truth is that there is plenty of hype out there and lies, however you can easily circumvent this by simply passing things. It takes a great deal of experience to detect lies from honest ads.

    Sure, some out there do make a great deal of income, but they built their business bit by bit year after year after year like I did...

    There is no such thing as Luck! You will reap the rewards only from hard work and plenty of hours in front of your monitor screen. And most times you'll be learning more than earning money.

    In fact some here earn considerable income online. To answer your next question, Myself and a couple hundred active students of mine earn very good income from free traffic. This is not to say that free traffic alone will earn you 1 million dollars a year, but as you eventually incorporate SEO, you can eventually reach the million dollar mark combining both.

    Free Traffic from example Traffic Exchanges is just to start things up. I am one of the few top earners online that use free traffic exchanges, and my best month was back in March 2009 to the amount just under $110,000 before income tax. Not all months are equal and now some months I earn almost 10 x less due to the sour economy.

    But more important than income is your Love of what you do and goals achieved.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Binnie
    Some of the free traffic isn't really free as the big earns spend lots of working and trying new things. The super affiliates I would say are the ones who have been in the business the longest and paid there dues. Also they have a list.
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