- I made over a quarter million dollars in four years,
selling one affiliate product.
So here are the numbers and this is the breakdown.
you can see on the screen the dashboard
for the TubeBuddy Affiliate Program.
This is the software and service that I recommended
over the last four years to other content creators.
And a lot of people honestly love it
because they can sign up for free
or they can upgrade to affordable plans.
And what happened is by signing thousands of people up
for this software over the years,
I was able to generate a quarter million dollars
through this one affiliate marketing relationship.
So many people in online business or in social media,
influencers, content, creators ignore affiliate marketing,
because they are afraid to sell to their audience
and they don't wanna be judged
and they don't wanna be called a sellout.
And so trying to make three or $5
because 1000 people gave you attention,
seems the easier or safer route
than being able to make literally thousands of dollars
because hundreds of people
decide to put their money where their mouth is
and support you with their wallets
instead of just their eyeballs.
And because you've built a relationship
where people trust you and respect you enough
to take that chance.
And I know that that sounds really harsh
and that sounds aggressive
and maybe it hurts your feelings a little bit
but I want you to really think about this.
Even if you were selling your own product
if you were selling your own t-shirts,
if you're selling your own t-shirts
and I have 1000 people, 10 people bought them,
others 10 people, you would make about 50 to $70.
And if you're waiting for YouTube or TikTok,
you're going to have to get 10 times as many people
to pay attention to you.
And that is the gap between earning ad revenue
as an influencer and making commissions as an affiliate.
With TubeBuddy, I have a great relationship with them
because I was paying for TubeBuddy
before I ever recommended it to anyone,
and I was using it myself.
And I've always recommended to people the things that I use
in order to help me get results.
Whether it's my camera gear, whether it's my lighting set up
whether it's the software that I use for my business
or whether it's just a productivity hack,
I want people like me, other creative people,
other nerds to succeed.
I want to see more people like me winning
and I wanna be able to talk to them
about what they're doing.
And so for me, being transparent with people,
showing people how I do and I operate things
is very easy to do
because I'm not competing with them,
I'm only competing with myself.
I have a goal that nobody else has for myself
and so there's really nobody in my lane.
I only want to know that there are other people
that are on a journey that's similar to mine
that have the ability to get there
because somebody cared enough to help them
and there have been people that cared enough to help me
along the way.
It's very hard to do any of this alone.
It is crippling and is soul crushing
to do anything in isolation by yourself.
If you've ever felt that,
if you've ever felt completely alone
and wish that you had other people to talk to
about the things you care about,
let me know in the comments section.
And also guys, if there's anyone like that,
try to reach out to them and try to offer them
a little bit of support.
And by support, I don't mean sub for sub
and I don't mean trying to give each other traffic.
I mean, actually talk to other people who are like you
about what they're going through.
Building relationships matters.
We have to build relationships with our audience
and we have to create value for them,
or there's no reason for them to trust us
enough with a transaction.
Whether that's buying a t-shirt or a hoodie,
buying an affiliate link program
or buying anything else from you, going to your concert,
buying your music, whatever it is
that you're doing as an entertainer or as an educator,
you have to build that trust and relationship
with your audience.
And the way I do that is I show you my processes,
I show you my tutorials, I answer your questions
and I make content for you, whether it gets me views or not
as frustrating as that is sometimes.
To be honest some of this content
I'm out here slinging gold in these streets,
and nobody's picking it up.
Now, how did I get this to work
over the course of four years?
How much content that I have to make?
Well, to be honest with you,
I don't plug content for my affiliate stuff
as often as people think.
The reality is I'd probably be making a lot more money
if I did.
On average, I probably do over four or $5,000 on a bad month
in terms of recurring affiliate revenue
from TubeBuddy alone.
And I have other affiliate programs out there.
And this is why I've been able over many, many years,
over four years in this relationship
to generate a quarter million dollars in affiliate revenue.
It's because I made maybe about 20 or 30 videos
over that period of time
that ultimately drive affiliate sales.
But I also use the find and replace tool in TubeBuddy
to add TubeBuddy affiliate links to all of the
1000 plus videos that are on this channel.
So there are more than enough roads to success for me
in terms of someone maybe clicking on that link
at some point, because I just have so much content
even if it doesn't directly relate to YouTube or TubeBuddy.
There are only about 300 videos on this channel
that are YouTube tips videos.
I've made 1500 videos
and maybe less than a quarter of my inventory
is about YouTube tips specifically.
However, I have other social media as well
and sometimes I'll promote affiliate links there.
Especially Twitter, where I have 40,000 followers.
But just remember I didn't get 40,000 followers overnight.
I've never even had a truly viral video, not once.
So this isn't luck and it's not easy, but it is worth it.
The reason that people don't succeed in a lot of things
comes down to not having the discipline
to do something difficult
even when it doesn't get immediate results.
They're not consistent, even if it gets results
and they're not patient about how long it takes
to get to their actual goal.
And if you can start to master these three things
you will be successful at life,
whether it's as an influencer, an artist, an athlete
or a person in business.
The affiliate structure for TubeBuddy
is a subscription model.
So since people pay for TubeBuddy every month,
TubeBuddy affiliates get a commission.
And so when you're starting out,
I believe you start out with a,
I think it's a 20% commission.
And then if you work your way up by making enough sales,
you work your way up to a 50% commission.
So I'm a super affiliate that has a 50% commission
every month across all the accounts
that continue to pay for TubeBuddy
that use my affiliate link
and all the free accounts that ultimately convert
into being, paying customers of the service.
And so if you're gonna get into affiliate marketing
for any product, I would tell you that
looking at recurring monthly affiliate commissions
is actually a strong long-term strategy
if you want it to make a living
or replace one of your incomes off of this, all right.
So if you want to make thousands of dollars
or you want to make six figures
or you want to be able to pay your rent
off of affiliate income,
knowing that it's reliable every single month
and that you're gonna get paid more than once
from your effort which is why I call passive income
is when you get paid more than ones for your effort.
I like calling it automated income
'cause I like tying it to a system
where I can take myself out of the equation.
And if you think about it,
the videos that I've made over the years, once I make them,
I keep making money off the ads
and I keep making money off of any affiliate commissions
and I keep making money off of any merchandise sales
or any product sales that come from that.
So when I make a YouTube video,
I'm setting myself up to be paid more than once from that
in a lot of different ways for a very long time
'cause I don't make content that's dead in a week.
And so if there's any real secret to any of my success,
it's that I do unsexy things
that scale really well longterm.
Tortoise versus hare.
It took me a long to be able to accomplish this.
A lot of people try to do like,
quarter million dollar product launches in 30 days
'cause that's a really sexy story to have.
But I just play the long game,
and I just do things that work out over a period of time
and that keeps stacking on top of each other.
And so I know that eventually
I'm gonna have something really solid and really stable
that works out for the long game
because I didn't take any shortcuts.
Long-term success never comes from short-term thinking.
And so there you go.
That is exactly how I made a quarter million dollars
from recommending one affiliate program, just one.
And the thing is,
this is something that you can do too.
My friend Andrew Kan, the face of TubeBuddy says,
"If I can, then you can too."
That is his catchphrase.
And the thing is, it applies here.
If I could do this
and I know that I might have skills
that some of you don't have,
but I wasn't born with those skills,
I wasn't born knowing how to tie my shoes
or drive a car either.
It's not easy, it's worth it.
And if I can do it, you can too.
Question of the day.
What is your current monthly income goal?
How much money do you wanna make every month
realistically before next year?
If you want more making money online videos,
click the playlists here in the info card
or the next video coming up.
As always you guys, thanks so much for watching
and don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.