Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money from a blog because it doesn't require a high traffic volume like display ads. While most bloggers already know it, they do affiliate marketing the wrong way, unfortunately.
The fatal mistake that most bloggers make when it comes to affiliate marketing is that they overly rely on Google to get traffic.
Even worse because some of them think that Google traffic means passive income. This is the wrong mindset you need to fix immediately if you want to succeed long-term with your blog.
I have a personal experience you can reflect on.
I had two blogs with an average monthly traffic of around 80,000. The traffic was organic traffic from Google.
From the traffic, I managed to earn between $2,000 to $3,000 from affiliate marketing and sponsorship.
Then Google launched an algorithm update (known as Helpful Content Update) in 2023 which unfortunately impacted my blogs. Traffic dropped significantly since then. From 80,000 per month to only 6,000. So was the revenue, of course.
Fortunately, a percentage of my revenue was recurring revenue. So, despite not being able to make a new single affiliate sale for a long enough period, I kept earning the commission. Although the amount was not high enough, it was enough to pay my bills.
Up until today, I still get revenue from my recurring affiliate commissions.
How did I get the recurring revenue? Simple enough. I joined affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions.
From the 2023 Google algorithm update, I learned one big lesson. I should focus on promoting products from affiliate programs that offer recurring commission in the first place.
I don't want you to make the same mistake like me so I created this content.
What is MRR?
MRR stands for Monthly Recurring Revenue. The term is popular in the startup industry where it represents the predictable income a startup can expect to receive from the monthly subscriptions it charges for its product or service.
Apart from MRR, there is another term called ARR which stands for Annual Recurring Revenue.
Startups can easily predict their income because they have the list of paid customers on their database who pay either monthly fee or yearly fee for their product or service.
You, as a blogger, can also build MRR or ARR with affiliate marketing by joining affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions.
It's true that you will not have a fancy dashboard to monitor the actual monthly or annual revenue. The point here is that you will be able to easily predict your monthly income from the recurring affiliate commissions you managed to get.
Once you already have enough recurring affiliate commissions, the traffic drop caused by a Google algorithm update won't stop you from earning income. This is how you can work smartly as a blogger who makes money from affiliate marketing!
A Brief Introduction to LTV
LTV (Lifetime Value), sometimes called CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), is the estimated amount of money received from a customer over the entire length of their relationship with a business.
The money can be estimated because the customer pays the subscription fee on either a monthly basis or yearly basis. So, as long as the customer stays, business keeps getting the money from the customer.
The more customers a business has, and the longer they stay, the higher the LTV will be as well.
And to get more customers, a business definitely needs to actively promote their product to acquire new users.
You, as the blogger/affiliate marketer, can be part of the "marketing team" of a business to help to promote its product. In return, you will get a small portion of the money a business gets from a customer you managed to refer (aka affiliate commission).
As long as your referred customers keep using the product and pay the subscription fee, you will continuously get the affiliate commissions as well.
Here is a great resource if you want to learn more about LTV.
Picking the Best Affiliate Programs to Build MRR
There are a bunch of affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions. Be it lifetime or duration based (e.g. 12 months).
I have crafted the lift of affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions which you can access below.
If you truly want to build sustainable passive income, I strongly recommend you only join affiliate programs that offer lifetime recurring commissions.
Just be careful when joining an affiliate program because a business can update their affiliate policy at any time.
BuddyBoss, for instance.
It used to offer recurring affiliate commissions. But after it was acquired by Awesome Motive, the recurring affiliate commission was cancelled and it no longer offered recurring commissions for renewals.
Based on my experience, the following companies are the most trusted and reliable to build both MRR and ARR via affiliate marketing.
| Affiliate Provider | Product/Service | Recurring Affiliate Commission | Billing Cycle | Lifetime Recurring Commissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elegant Themes | Divi (WordPress theme+page builder) | 50% | Yearly | ✅ |
| Cloudways | Hosting | 7% | Monthly | ✅ |
| Kinsta | Hosting | 10% | Monthly | ✅ |
| MailerLite | Email marketing platform | 30% | Monthly and yearly | ✅ |
Cloudways is the best affiliate program among five affiliate programs on the above table. Not only that it offers lifetime recurring commissions, but it also provides a supportive affiliate manager.
Cloudways is even willing to pay you for writing a dedicated post (e.g., Cloudways review) that you publish on your blog!
Best of all, you will be provided a coupon code that you can offer to your audience to make it easy for you to make the sales.
If you are interested in joining the Cloudways affiliate program, I strongly recommend you to subscribe to its cheapest plan so that you can explore all of its features. This way, you will be able to write accurate articles about Cloudways.
🚨 You can use this coupon code to get a 10% discount on Cloudways for 3 months. Coupon code: WPBDEAL
use coupon code
Crafting the Affiliate Content
Why you need to create the content to promote affiliate products? Because most affiliate programs don't allow their affiliate partners to directly promote affiliate links on an advertising platform.
So, before you can promote your affiliate products using paid ads, you need to create the content and plug your affiliate links into it.
The best part of this method is that you can promote multiple affiliate products at once on your content.
A little story. In 2022, I published a long-form blog post on one of my blogs (not this one) covering how to create a blog with WordPress. In the post, I also covered how to make money with affiliate marketing.
I covered literally everything. From registering a domain, setting up WordPress to basic SEO. Literally from A to Z.
I plugged all my affiliate links into the post content. From Bluehost, Divi to MailerLite.
My hope was that when someone started his/her blog after reading my post, I would get affiliate commissions from at least three different programs (from Bluehost, Elegant Themes – the company behind Divi, and MailerLite).
The post consisted of 7,457 words, by the way. It took me days to get it done.
I waited for the outcome I hoped for.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.
And boom!
I got zero commission from the blog post!
BIG ZERO!
Can you guess why?
Because Google didn’t want to give me the traffic I hoped for.
This kind of issue is happening to most bloggers with a new project. This is normal because you can't control Google.
Traffic is the core issue for anyone with a new blog project. The challenge is even bigger in today's era with Google seems to change its direction with AI Mode.
Getting organic traffic from Google is getting harder and harder. That's why I strongly don't recommend you to solely rely on Google.
Shortly, you will learn how to drive traffic from Facebook using paid ads. But first, you need to prepare the content that you want to promote.
The Secret Sauce for Your Affiliate Content
As I said above, I published a super long blog post in 2022. I myself no longer maintain the blog where the blog post was published, but I took the content and re-crafted it here.
While the content has been modified and published in a new blog, the goal remains the same. I cover how to create a blog with WordPress and make money with affiliate marketing with goal of getting affiliate commissions from the products and services I recommend.
But this time, I no longer recommend Bluehost as the hosting service. Instead, I recommend Cloudways.
Can you guess why?
Yup. Because my main goal with the content is to build MRR and ARR. The Cloudways affiliate program offers lifetime recurring commissions. That's why I recommend it to my readers. After all, the hosting quality of Cloudways is indeed great. You can read my review here.
So, before you run paid ads on Facebook, the very first thing you need to do is to craft the content.
You don't have to create the content that covers how to create a blog with WordPress like mine. Instead, you can pick a different angle if you want.
For instance, you can cover how to create a membership website with WordPress, how to create an online store, how to create a marketplace, how to create a social media (yes, you can create a social media with WordPress), how to create an LMS and so on.
The point is that you cover how to create a website with WordPress regardless of the type because every WordPress-based website needs a hosting. This is the secret sauce.
You can make money from affiliate marketing by recommending a certain hosting service. But if you truly want to build MRR, I strongly you commend the following hosting services to your audience:
Picking the Right Content Format
Once your content is ready, the next step is to promote it. This is your real job as a blogger. Again, solely relying on Google is not a wise option to succeed long-term with your blog. Let alone for immediate results.
I will show you how to get instant traffic to your blog using Facebook Ads. But you need to understand that those who read your content will not necessarily start their WordPress. Which also means that you will not get the affiliate commissions from the hosting service you recommend.
In other words, there is a big chance that you will lose all your money on ads if you don't have plan B.
What is the plan B?
You can add an extra revenue source from your content (other than affiliate marketing). This way, you will not lose all your money if your readers don't start their website after reading your content.
There are two options you can choose to add an extra revenue source to your content:
- Hide your content behind a paywall
- Install display ads
Displaying Your Content Behind a Paywall
Displaying your content behind a paywall means that you give the content access only to those who pay. You can do so by adding a membership functionality on your WordPress site.
Or, you can also protect your content with a password and give the password only when someone pays.
For the first option (membership), you can use use the following plugins:
The above plugins have solid membership features to restrict content access on your WordPress website. Most importantly, they come with a built-in payment feature so that you don't need to install another plugin to accept the payments.
If you prefer to offer an instant access to your content (login-free access), you can use the second option (protecting your content with a password).
WordPress has a built-in feature to password-protect a content. For this content monetization method, you can use the following platforms:
You can use the above platforms to accept payments and send the password automatically to those who have made a payment.
Setting the Price
How much should you charge for the content?
Keep in mind. The main goal of monetizing your content here is not to get the profit. You will get the profit from the affiliate commissions you get from those who take action (starting a website) after reading your content.
Instead, the main goal is to collect money to fund your ads. So, don't charge too high. Keep your price under $10 to make it no-brainer.
Remember. Since you require your audience to make a payment to access your content, you have the obligation to serve them better.
One of ways to serve your audience better is by providing a better reading experience. You can do so by creating a dedicated custom template for your paid content.
That's why I strongly recommend you to use Divi as your theme because Divi comes with a built-in theme builder feature which you can use to create the custom template for all parts of your website.
Creating the Landing Page
You have specified the format of the content that you want to hide behind a paywall. The next step is to create a landing page to promote it.
If you use Divi, you can use its built-in page builder feature to create the landing page. I have also created two examples of landing pages for Divi, which you can download here.
If you are not into Divi or prefer using a free plugin to create the landing page, you can use one of the following plugins:
- Elementor
- Brizy
- Breakdance
Installing Display Ads
If you are not confident enough to charge your audience to access your content, installing display ads can be a solution.
I also adopt this method to fund my ads, but not because I am not confident with my content. Instead, I release my content for free because I have two personal goals:
- I want to show that everyone with an internet connection can start their own business by becoming a content creator (blogger more precisely) and make money out of their content.
- I want to contribute to WordPress with what I am capable of: educating.
If you want to adopt this method too, I strongly recommend you to register an account on an advertising platform after your blog has at least 30 posts.
Some advertising platforms you can consider to join to install display ads are:
- Google AdSense
- Mediavine
- BuySellAds
Running the Ads
Your content is ready. You have also determined how you will release it (as free content or paid content).
Now, it is the time to boost it with ads.
Remember again what I said in this post that using paid ads is the best way to get instant results from affiliate marketing because it is the type of traffic you can control.
You can control the traffic with your ad budget.
The best part of promoting affiliate products with recurring commissions (especially with a monthly billing cycle) is that no matter how much money you spend on ads, it will become profitable after the break event.
Unlike the product owners, you don't need to spend money on employees. You don't need to spend money on the services to run the product.
You only spend money on ads to promote the product and will get the commissions forever. Isn't it cool?
Calculating ROAS
Before you start, let's do some math to calculate the ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). In this example, I will use Cloudways.
Cloudways offers two commission schemes for its affiliate program:
- Slab. Offers a higher commission per sale. Up to $125, but you don't get commissions on renewals (non-recurring).
- Hybrid. Offers a lower commission per sale. Only $30 per sale, but you will get an extra 7% on renewals (recurring).
Since our goal is to build MRR, you can select the Hybrid commission scheme.
To make the calculation easier, I will use the Small hosting plan in which the price is $28 per month. For every Small hosting plan you manage to sell, you will get $31.96 with the following details:
- One-time commission: $30
- Recurring commission: $1.96
Let's say you plan to spend $200 per month on Facebook Ads. For the US audience, you will get about 152 to 439 clicks per day with that amount (I will take the low number).
If you run the ads for 30 days, then the total clicks you will get will be 4,560 clicks.
Assuming you will get 1% conversion, you will get 45.6 sales (rounded to 45) from your ad spend.
So, the affiliate commissions you will get for every $200 you spend on Facebook Ads is $1438.2 (45x31.96). Here are the details:
- One-time commissions: $1,350
- Recurring commissions: $88.2
Again. Since you will also get revenue from your paid content (or advertising platform if you prefer installing display ads), the money you get from affiliate commissions is pure profit.
Keep in mind that the above calculation is just a raw calculation. The reality may not match what's on paper. This is called business. Nothing is certain.
Arranging the Ad Strategy
I strongly recommend you use Facebook Ads because it's relatively affordable. Before you run an ad campaign on Facebook, you need to understand the ad structure on Facebook Ads.
Here is the ad structure on Facebook Ads.
Please note that I will not cover the mechanism to run an ad on Facebook Ads because the interface is constantly changing. Instead, I will focus on covering the strategy.
If you need a tutorial on how to run an ad on Facebook, you can watch this YouTube video.
Keep this in mind. Your main goal of running ads on Facebook is to get traffic so only need to focus on one key metric: CTR (Click-Through Rate). This is the main metric you need to monitor every single day.
A good CTR is something between 2% and 5%. If the CTR of your ad is below 2%, you can change the ad content such as headline, image, and description.
One crucial thing. Only change one element (headline, image or description) every time you are trying to improve the CTR. Only this way you can figure out which element on your ad content that hooks your audience (great hook = high CTR).
I personally suggest you to add 10 different ads per ad set. Once the campaign is running, you can keep only ad(s) that has or have a good CTR and stop the others. This can save you a lot of time.
Remember, every element on your ad content can be the hook. So, craft every element carefully.
To maximize the number of clicks, you can set the performance goal (on ad set level) to Performance goal.
That's it.
Once again. Thanks for willing to pay to access this content. Good luck with your project!