Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review (Is it worth it??)
This is my personal review of Michelle Schroeder’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Here I am going to help you figure out if this course can help you improve your affiliate marketing and increase your income.
There is no formal education when it comes to blogging (although there’s probably a school somewhere coming up a degree) and nearly everything you learn as a blogger is through experience, self-taught or learned through courses.
The fastest way to learn about anything is through a great course.
The problem is that there are hundreds of courses out there! It’s hard to know which ones are worth it and which ones are a total waste of time and money.
I have taken lots of courses and I will admit I am a bit of a blogging course junkie. Most I find useful, some I purchased only to realize I already knew everything that was in the course, and others were a very big waste of money.
My mission is to help bloggers succeed in creating an income with their blog, and I feel that investing money into your blogging business is essential to seeing growth and creating a profitable blog.
Taking courses that help you lay a strong foundation is crucial to avoid wasting your time and burning out on blogging before you turn a profit.
This post may contain affiliate links, this means if you make a purchase, I may receive a commission off of products I love and recommend at no extra cost to you. You can read my full disclosure here.
Table of Contents
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review
The big question is:
Is Michelle’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing worth the money?
My short answer:
For some yes, for others no.
My long answer:
Making sense of affiliate marketing is definitely a solid course. It’s taught by a Michelle Schroeder who is killing it with her blog and passive affiliate income. She makes over $50,000 a month from affiliate income alone.
Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. It took her a few years to get there. But the point is she learned what worked and what didn’t with her affiliate marketing strategy and decided to lay it all out in a course. It is the most popular affiliate marketing courses out there, and for a good reason.
Now whether or not you should purchase this course all depends on where you are at in the blogging game. I’ll talk more about that below.
Who is this course good for?
This course benefits the newish to intermediate bloggers most. What I mean by that is, if you are brand spanking new to blogging and don’t have a site up and running with at least a few articles, you should wait before diving into a course like this.
Beginner Bloggers:
This was one of the first courses I purchased and I had barely started blogging. As I went through it I felt like everything was way over my head. I had to prioritize my time and put it on a back burner, and pick it back up a few weeks later.
Once I had written a solid ten posts, I was able to dive back in and follow the course. I add my suggested plugins and start turning my posts into money makers with affiliate links. This was helpful because I was clueless on all the affiliate marketing basics like the follow vs no-follow rules and laws behind affiliate links.
I was able to build a good foundation from the beginning and so thankful not to have to go back and fix dozens of posts after the fact.
For Intermediate Bloggers:
If you have your blog up and running, with several great posts and a decent amount of traffic but aren’t making money, then this course can help you monetize it better.
Michelle helps you figure out what type of affiliate links work best, where to put them and most importantly using a good strategy to make the most of your affiliate marketing.
My favorite part is when she dives into her 7 different strategies on making money with affiliate links. There’s so much more to it than creating a blog post and placing affiliate links in it. Plus she gives you real examples of what has worked for her to bring her in $1000s from individual posts.
What the course teaches you
- All the basics of affiliate marketing: follow vs no-follow links, requirements and disclosures, what to do if you live in a Nexus state
- 7 Useful strategies to make money with affiliate links: The different types of posts that work and other ways to promote your link to get click-throughs
- Figuring out the right affiliate program for your readers
- Building relationships with your affiliate marketing managers
- + a bunch more
What the course doesn’t teach you
This course doesn’t teach you about SEO or how to write good copy. Both of which are a big part of building a truly passive income with affiliate marketing.
Of course, a single course can’t teach everything and they are very different subjects. To include all the necessary information that would go along with these subjects she would have to charge hundreds more.
I just want to point out that a great affiliate marketing strategy (which you will learn in the course) isn’t successful without getting traffic.
Did I like Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
I can say the course was very useful and laid out in an easy to follow manner. I can also say helped me turn a profit within two months of implementing the strategies.
For example, I had a pin go viral on Pinterest. It was getting 1,000s of views by itself a day. Once I realized what was happening I started looking at what people were clicking on.
NO ONE was clicking on the affiliate links I had placed. I had to figure out why before my viral streak ended. I took an hour and went back into that post and implemented a few tweaks as recommended by Michelle.
Suddenly my links were getting clicks! I made $300 in Amazon affiliate purchases in those next two days simply from adjusting my post with a few minor (but profitable) changes. (I earned back every penny I spent in a couple days just because of these tweaks)
*This is not to say I earn $300 every couple of days now from Amazon. After that viral traffic surge, my traffic dropped back down, and now I make a few hundred with Amazon a month.
Using a few of her recommendations though, I have created specific posts with higher affiliate pays outs that earn me a few hundred each, each month simply due to high conversions.
Now, as far as enjoyment goes. Mehh. It’s not the most fascinating read. But I’m willing to suffer through it if it helps my business grow. 😆
Another BIG thing I’d like to point out:
Michelle is awesome. I say this because even though she is making over six figures per month, she is still very involved with her students. She has a facebook group for students that she actively participates in.
She is always answering questions, asking questions and helping bloggers connect with others who can help them further their success. I know this from personally interacting with her on a regular basis in her bonus facebook group.
Do I Think You Should Take It?
- If you feel pretty efficient with your affiliate marketing strategies and are making good money with them: No
- If you are struggling to pay bills and think this will be a way to help you make quick money that you need here and now: No (This takes time to see results)
- If you are at a place where you feel comfortable investing in your blog and want to take it seriously as a business: Yes
- You want to build a solid affiliate marketing strategy: Yes
Other Things to Take into Consideration
Making sense of affiliate marketing has a ton of bonuses. Many of these help you get more traffic with Pinterest and how to make sure to always get accepted into affiliate marketing programs. (Yes, I’ve been rejected before. But I didn’t know all the little things she points out in these bonuses, now i know exactly what to say to get accepted every time.)
If you want to see all the bonuses click here and scroll towards the bottom. It’s under the “Bonuses” section.
Best of all, she has a 30 day, risk-free, happiness guarantee. If you aren’t satisfied after purchasing the course, you can ask for a refund. I’ll admit that I have boughten tons of courses to improve my online marketing.
When choosing a course, I usually make sure there’s a refund policy, because sometimes you’ll take a course and realize you sank a bunch of money into something that isn’t going to do much for you.
Bottom line, if you feel like you need to improve your affiliate marketing strategy, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing will help you, plus it’s risk free. You can try it for a month and if you don’t find it useful you can ask for a refund. (Although, I don’t think you’ll want one.)
Other Posts You’ll Like
- Understanding Your Audience to Increase Your Affiliate Marketing Sales
- The Best Affiliate Programs for Mom Bloggers
- The Sticky Web of Good Affiliate Marketing
- 8 Reasons Your Failing at Affiliate Marketing
