How to create an affiliate store:

Since January 2017, I have been creating and developing my own websites for earning on partner systems. For the first year and a half, I completely developed such sites from scratch, filled them, and gradually developed them. This is a good option if the starting budget is small – this is exactly the situation I had. But over time, I accumulated a little money and realized: it is much more profitable to buy ready-made sites with traffic and income, so you can scale your business and grow much faster. I think I will have to take a brief digression into the essence of my business in order for the reader to understand what is at stake.

What are these sites for making money on affiliate systems?

Affiliate marketing is far from a new concept; it arose about 20 years ago in the USA. This type of business implies a scheme in which there are 3 parties – in fact, the seller; partner, and buyer. The partner’s task is to bring the buyer to the seller and convince him to complete the purchase. In this case, the seller shares with the partner a part of his income – the affiliate commission. In the conditions of the Internet, “bringing” a customer by the hand to the store is not necessary – just bring him to the seller’s website.

In the public domain, there is an interesting study from the IAB and PWC , which shows the approximate size of the affiliate marketing market. So, in 2017, advertisers spent (and partners, respectively, earned) 554 million pounds. Affiliate marketing revenue for advertisers totaled £ 8.9 billion over the same year. The segment is growing at about 15% per year.

My company acts as a partner in this scheme – I deliver traffic to advertisers’ sites, which is then converted into sales of goods or services. I deliver 95% of the traffic from my own sites – now you should understand why I suddenly needed to buy one of these sites for $ 20 thousand.

What affiliate systems are there:

It so happened that I work only with the western segment of Affiliate-marketing and, mainly, with product affiliate programs. That is, I help sell physical goods, which the courier then brings to the buyer’s home. Why exactly the western segment? There are several reasons for this:

People in the west (Europe, America) are much more prone to online shopping than Russians. For comparison, the Russian E-commerce market is forecasted to reach 1.5 trillion in 2019. rubles. In the U.S. for 2018, they traded more than $ 500 billion online. Western sellers are willing to share a large percentage of the value of the goods. On average, I get 5-7% commission on sales at large venues (Amazon, Etsy) and up to 20% commission on sales for small, highly specialized affiliate networks. In RuNet, according to information from my colleagues, I could count on half as much commission.

The stability of the market and currency is perhaps the main factor. I’m tired of the constant swing of the ruble and want to be able to predict my income for years to come. In Russia today, this is perhaps impossible.
Today, my main sales volume is through Amazon, Ebay and Etsy affiliate programs. These are large players who have a huge assortment and are perfectly able to convert traffic to sales. Recently, I see a trend of a shift in the share of sales towards Amazon – and, perhaps, this is not surprising. Today, Amazon has approximately 40% of the total US e-commerce market.

It’s very interesting to look at the statistics of traffic to the site of the Amazon affiliate program according to Similarweb. India, Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, Turkey – these guys are actively earning now on Amazon. Russia is not even in the TOP 30.

Why Amazon:

Amazon.com currently has huge traffic. According to Similarweb, in December 2018, on the eve of the New Year holidays, almost 3 billion visits were recorded on the site. This is a huge audience, some of which came through affiliate links.
Amazon has a well-developed logistics system. In addition, about 100 million Americans have an Amazon Prime subscription, which, among other things, allows them to ship the very next day at the lowest price, or even free.
Today, Amazon is so strongly associated with ordinary Americans with online shopping that when they want to buy something – they no longer go to Google, they go immediately to Amazon.

That is why the same traffic converts on Amazon much better than on other sites. What does this mean for me? By attracting the same number of visitors, all other things being equal, I can earn more money. Of course, not everything is so simple – Amazon has its drawbacks:

Complicated, voluminous, and regularly changing affiliate program rules. At the last moment, when I studied them, they occupied about 15 A4 sheets. They are regularly updated, which no one reports. For violation of the affiliate program rules, Amazon often bans advertisers, earned and undrawn money, as a rule, are not returned.
Low commissions in many niches. For example, for the sale of computers and their accessories, Amazon is ready to unfasten you 2.5% of the purchase amount. I worked with an affiliate program, which was ready to pay 2 times the commission for the same goods.

All eggs in one basket.

Working with Amazon is relaxing – all the statistics you have are in one interface, all payments are centralized, the range is constantly updated. It takes 3-6 months – and now you already understand that you are unconsciously trying to bring traffic to Amazon. This is dangerous – in case of any problems, for example, an account ban, your income level may drop sharply.
Long payouts. Usually, money from Amazon comes on the 21-22th day of the month

following the month in which the sale was. Conditionally, if you brought traffic that bought the goods on May 5, then you will receive a commission from this purchase only on June 21, you need to wait about 45 days.
I must say that you can work with all these problems. Any experienced CPA-shchik (c-pe-eyschik, that’s what people who work with affiliate marketing are usually called) knows how to protect themselves from them and minimize risks. But if you are just starting to work with the western segment, then Amazon is an ideal platform for entering the market , despite all its disadvantages.

What kind of economy?

There is a good saying – “money love silence.” In the world of CPA marketing, it’s not customary in public to talk about your earnings. Typically, specific amounts of “scorching” somewhere on the sidelines of specialized conferences and in private parties for a hookah and a bottle of good whiskey. However, certain numbers can be found in the public domain. $ 1000 of revenue per day from 14 sites. Of course, this is only revenue, which does not take into account the costs of filling and promoting sites.
A site under Amazon sells for $ 1.5 million dollars, revenue – $ 48 thousand per month.

A site with an income of $ 16 thousand per month was sold, the amount of the transaction was not reported.
Of course, all these figures cannot be verified. However, millions of webmasters do not just develop and promote their projects under Amazon. There is definitely money here, but you need to be able to collect it. Based on the experience of our business, I can identify the following guidelines for income from one project:

Up to $ 500 per month – a start-up project for a period of up to one year. Such sites are not much quoted when selling.
From $ 500 to $ 3,000 per month is a fairly successful project. You can monetize and develop yourself, you can sell for about 30-35 months of payback.
$ 3000 + per month is an extremely successful project. In order to reach such a level of income, several factors must coincide at once: a profitable niche, low competition, constant demand.

Suggestions:

Now let’s see the level of investment needed. The numbers will be approximate, but they can be used as a guideline. This is necessary in order to finally discuss the main topic of the article with a full background of the necessary knowledge.