Affiliate Marketing might be a bit harder than I thought.

Yes conversions aren't that high when you consider affiliate marketing but if you have targeted traffic the % of conversions is higher for sure. Depends on the quality of traffic not quantity

I get about 60% - 75%.

You're looking at Amazon, I think?

Yes, that starts at 4%, but it goes up to 9% or something, when you make more monthly sales. The conversion-rates, for well targeted subscriber traffic, can be really high at Amazon, though. Everyone's heard of Amazon and that's a big plus.

True. To start with. But you can get that up to 8% and try to sell a lot? (I barely even know what an Ipod is, let alone how to sell one ).

Hmmmm, well, there are people making a living from Amazon. (I do Amazon as well, though I make more from ClickBank). It's not just about attracting a ton of traffic, though. It's all about retaining your traffic, and quality and relevance (targeting) and list-building. In my opinion you probably won't make a living from it without list-building. (There are one or two people here who claim to, it's true ... I think maybe two ... but I'll leave you to look through all their posts and decide for yourself whether you think they stand up to examination).

No ... if you had 300 sales per month, your commission rate would be more like 8.0%, I think. And $80 per day is $2,400 per month (ok, it's not making a living, but it's "getting warmer").

And you'd also earn that on anything else they happened to buy while they were at Amazon, whether you'd promoted it or not.

And anything else they might buy there within 24 hours, too.

And many people who buy a $100 product through your link and like it will soon buy a $200 through your link (as long as they're on your list - otherwise you can't do that and lose most of the potential money!).

So it's not all quite as badly paid as it looks.

Did they? Yes ... well, I do it myself, so I can't argue with them, really. But I did ClickBank for about 3.5 years first, and I do prefer that. And the commissions are far higher there, it's true. The conversion-rates, on the other hand, aren't as high.

But it's also true that affiliate marketing might be a bit harder than you thought, if you weren't clear that it's a list-building business, and that what makes the sales is the trust that your subscribers have in your recommendations. If you'd imagined it as "putting up a website with affiliate links and attracting search engine traffic to it" then yes, I'm afraid it's definitely harder than you thought (or at least very different from what you expected!), because that just isn't how it works at all.

Alexa I did think of it as putting up a site with Affiliate links and trying to drive traffic to it.

I've heard about "list building" but I have no idea what people are talking about when they say list building. What exactly do you mean?

You can find expensive products to promote at Clickbank and other affiliate networks and this way make a lot more from commissions.

Don't over think it all. Your math is understandable, yet some people have the knack to make Amazon profitable for you. Lol... i personally wouldn't settle for 4%-9% affiliate commission rates... i'd promote a 75%, $100 forex product before i do that lol.

Trenton,

Please look at 'list building' like 'relationship building' - I believe you will sell more in the long run, especially if your lists are smaller.

And I say lists because they should absolutely be separated and 'promoted' to in different manners, all of which you should be testing in some way, shape, or form.

You can certainly spam people and earn commissions, but your unsub rates will be sky high.

As for promoting Amazon products, don't think you can simply promote sticker packages via your links and people will end up buying $2k laptops all day. Yes it will happen on occasion, but my experience making thousands in Amazon commissions tells me that is the exception and not the rule.

Alas, as Alexa mentions, you benefit from the massive amount of trust Amazon has built with the internet buying public and thus the sales come easier when trust is an issue.

People will often buy more than one thing on Amazon and you will get credit for it - that's another "bonus" using Amazon - so you may sell more than just an ipod in one transaction. Stick an Amazon giftcard link on your site, you will be surprised how many people will buy multiple giftcards in one go. But it's true, commissions are low on Amazon. Clickbank has higher commissions but the marketing and selling is probably harder as the product is virtual.

I've always found that it's easier to generate a lead than a sale. Perhaps a CPA network is better alternative for you.