Long term challenge - £10,000 profit per month in a year

[TenThousandPounds]

Tweet

Hi All

Having trawled through this forum it seems to me that folks on here like seeing new affiliates challenge themselves to meet a target. So here's mine - to be making a regular £10,000 a month profit (or more!) from Affiliate Marketing by this time next year.

The story here is that I am not a one-man-band but a partner is a small web development company. We build websites for other companies and for some time have seen affiliate marketing as an opportunity for us to establish another stream of income which would allow us to be more picky about the client work we take on. We have therefore dabbled with Affiliate Marketing for 2 years now but have never given it the attention that is required to make it remotely successful.

So - we are not going from a standing start as we have some AM knowledge, a couple of poorly performing affiliate sites and the in-house skills to develop further sites. However we have lacked the focus required in this area so my hope is that this challenge will give us just that.

The inspiration for this challenge was going to the A4U Expo a couple of weeks ago. I got so much great information there that it has given us hundreds of ideas and, probably more importantly, the drive to put these ideas into action.

I know from reading hundreds of posts on this forum (plus from our own experience) that affiliate marketing is not always easy so I think longer term plan is a better approach than the hope of a 'get rich quick' plan.

So - here are the profit targets we have set for each of the next 12 months...

Nov 07 - £100
Dec 07 - £175
Jan 08 - £300
Feb 08 - £500
Mar 08 - £800
Apr 08 - £1200
May 08 - £1800
Jun 08 - £2800
Jul 08 - £3800
Aug 08 - £5400
Sep 08 - £7500
Oct 08 - £10000

We will use various different affiliate marketing approaches over the next year and see what works best for us.

Please wish us luck!

TenThousandPounds

PS - off to set up a blog - think that might be a good starting point

[cyates]

Hi TTP

nice challenge

will drop you a PM

[cyates]

ahh cant pm lol,
can you drop me a blank email chrisyates23 AT gmail .com and i'll fire you over an email

Chris

[HarveyC]

Keep us updated

It took me way more than a month to make my first £100, but after that it gets easier. Good luck...

[MortimerJazz]

This sounds like one to keep an eye on ... should hopefully help me learn a lot!

[cyates]

all down to finding the right programme to promote & also the best method of promoting it
a lot of people neglect offline advertising .. and for some sectors / types of sites it works wonders and a fraction of PPC costs

will be keeping an eye on this one myself

[KirstyM]

Interesting challenge. How are you going to drive your traffic?

In the words of Kris Jones of Pepperjam, you'll need a strategy you can replicate and scale up to achieve that kind of profit in a short space of time. Mind you, November's definately the right time of year to get £100 a day in profit from a standing start (never mind for the whole month)!

One thing I will say is that it is relatively easy to get to your first £100 and build up from there. Unfortunately, a feature of affiliate marketing is that you can wake up one morning and find that Google / one of your merchants has just set you back 50% of your income by changing the goalposts. It's happened to me at least 5 or 6 times. That can put you a few months behind your target!

Luck to you.

[purple]

Getting to 10,000 a month now seems "easy" it is the staying there, and then building yourself back up to that again. Like Kirsty I have taken a few hits over the years, and I am only now rebuilding myself virtually from zero again and am a long way of the good old days
I have learnt lots of lessons like not relying on one programme or one niche.
Good luck in your quest.

[TenThousandPounds]

Thanks for your positive feedback folks (and thanks for your email Chris)

It will be interesting to see how we get on - some say it takes months to earn the first £100 and others now finding it 'easy' to make decent money - it seems clear that it does get easier as time goes on, hence the long time frame we have set ourselves.

KirstyM, I saw Kris from Pepperjam at Expo and also thought his 'strategy, replicate it and scale it' approach was good advice. We plan to try this using a number of AM techniques including PPC direct to merchant, PPC to landing page, product-feed driven sites, user generated content and probably across a few sectors.

This feeds into your point Purple that we need to avoid having too many eggs in one basket - it is a balancing act though as we could end up spreading ourselves too thin and not becoming expert in any one area.

Anyway - I will keep this thread updated with progress - hopefully it will help others.

[purple]

I have also done the try 100 sites all earning an amount which in total is a big amount, and as you say I felt I was laying my self too thin.
Affiliate Marketing is a balancing act, and it is not a get rich quick scheme as I am sure are aware. Seems like your company are trying many different methods so I am sure you will do well.

[amarath]

Hi TTP,

I just wanted to drop in and offer our support with the ShopWindow platform. ShopWindow will give you a good base to start another site on, offering your target demographic some of the best merchant brands in the affiliate marketing arena to shop from.

To help you along, ive pointed this thread out to Adrian, a member of my team who will be more than happy to provide you with a bit more info and help you get started

His details are:

Adrian Botelho
adrian.botelho@digitalwindow.com
Tel: +44 20 8269 4010

Thats enough from me, I like the challenge and wish you all the best with reaching your targets.

Thanks

Amo

[altyfc]

I don't think it's so difficult to make the first £100. What I do think sounds ambitious is the leaps from May to October of next year. They are significant... I'm not going to say it can't be done (of course, it can) but I do think it'll be difficult. I suspect there's not many here that are earning £10K+ profit per month that achieved that level within 12 months of making their first £100.

Good luck with it, though... and keep us posted.

[Alfie]

Good luck TenThousandPounds - you're definitely in the right place for all the resources, inspiration and help you could want to help you achieve your target.

Like Purple and Kirsty, we have also taken some hits over the years- and invariably they do set you back months in terms of revenue, but what I have learned is to trya nd focus on between 2-4 biggish projects - anymore than that and you risk not doing a good job on any one thing.
All the best,

Alf

[Affi Liate]

Great post! Reminds me of March 2007 and my little post.

You seem to have some foundations so it's certainly possible. I wish you good speed.

My first observation is that if you are starting now "November" your December figure is all cocked....

Maybe you forgot but it is Christmas in December.

At Christmas people tend to spend more money (and time) buying things online.

If you are SURE that you are starting your endevours in "November" then ensure you spend at least 40 minutes over a coffee with your colleagues thinking through the fact that it is Chrtistmas next month.

Sit back and "think".

You obviously have seen the potential of AM. Think!

To use one of my income streams as an example:

Today I spent £1.01p on PPC (strange figure but true) I made £149.52.

As the song goes.... "iiiiiiiiiiit's Christmaaaaaaaaaaaas"...

Good luck, please keep us posted...

Affi.

I'll get my (red) jacket....

[KirstyM]

Care to share them search terms ? lol. Nice one