Now it’s time for me to talk about the advantages of affiliate marketing. Keep in mind I’m referring to affiliate marketing from a blogger’s perspective, comparing it to other way of monetizing a blog (adsense, etc). Two main advantages come to mind:
1. Profits: Generally speaking, affiliate marketing has much greater profit potential than other forms of monetization. The most my strength and fitness blog has ever made in one day with adsense is about 20 dollars. I can make more than that with one sale through affiliate marketing. Yes, there are plenty of people who click the ads and never buy anything. Yes, there are days that I don’t make a single sale. Regardless, it has been a much better use of advertising space for me.
2. Control: Affiliate marketing gives you (the blogger) control over what specific products you want to promote. This may not be an issue for your niche, but it was for mine. One major purpose of my fitness blog is exposing scams (bogus supplements, etc). I was getting tired of the “lose ten pounds in ten hours” ads showing up through adsense (I imagine most other ad networks would have given me the same dilemma).
These two advantages have produced a win-win situation: I refer my readers to high quality products and make more money doing it.