How To Make Extra Money: The Unconventional Guide

Learning how to make extra money on the internet is easy. Figuring out what to do to make extra money on the internet is not as easy.

There are hundreds of categories that can be split into thousands, if not tens of thousands of ideas. This guide on how to make extra money on the internet, with a special focus on affiliate marketing. There are many other ways to make money online, but we will include a lot of affiliate marketing programs because:

• Some pay very well.
• You can automate them much easier.
• Very low start-up cost.

 

How To Make Extra Money With
Affiliate Marketing

Think of affiliate marketing as commissioned-based sales.

The 3 basic steps in affiliate marketing

1. You recommend a product or service to people (your followers or people you know).
2. Some of those people purchase the product or service based on your recommendation.
3. You get paid a commission for those purchases.

That’s it. Simple, right?
~Amy Lynn Andrews

 

A company creates a product and commissions people to sell it for them in exchange for a percentage of the sale. Amazon, Best Buy and other major retail outlets have affiliate programs. That's right, you can set up an account with say, Best Buy, start selling flat screen TVs, and earn about a 4% commission. It is the affiliate marketer's job to send people to an offer to Best Buy, and if that prospect buys, they earn a commission.

Now, that is affiliate marketing at its very basic function. Here's the thing about affiliate marketing.

[bctt tweet=”Affiliate marketing is a science, AS WELL AS an art.  #affiliate #marketing”]

After I left eBay as a seller to go after the bigger financial fish (as well as score a more stable income) I learned the hard way just how tough affiliate marketing can be for beginners. I persevered, and earned thousands of dollars per MONTH, but it still wasn't enough.

That is because you need a lot of traffic to be able to sell affiliate products.

Think of a funnel

• 1000 people come to your website.
• 100 optin.
• 1 buys.

The average sales conversion is about 1% – 10% (from leads or targeted traffic)

For Example:
If you sell a $1000 flat screen TV for a 4% commission, you earn $40. If you sell one per day, every day, in a 30-day month, then you earn $1,200 per month.

Not bad!

So to sell 1 flat screen TV per day (you need to figure out traffic and conversion)

 

Marketing Funnel

*click image to see Buckley Barlow

 

If your conversion was 1% You would need 100 visitors per day to get 1 sale per day

Increase your visitors or increase your sales % to get more sales per day.

So the next question is, how do you get 100 people to your site every DAY?

Remember, in order to earn that $1200 a month, you must have about 1000 people coming every day to your website. Consistently.

The answer is, it is a lot of work, planning and sometimes, cutting your losses. It is about finding what marketing technique works for you.

If you stick with it, you will learn a lot, and can potentially earn money.

You can also earn a little bit, say $500 a month and start over with another site. Imagine building 10 sites, all bringing in $500 or more per month. It's possible.

— Click Here To See My Preferred 
Money Maker Online —-

 

Without further ado, let's look at how to make extra money both with and without affiliate marketing (affiliate marketing is my favorite).

 

Real Example: Do The Numbers Always Stack Up?

Here is an example of an affiliate offer I've been promoting on the side (Leadpages Review) as of 8/15/16. If you want to be an affiliate I have some handy things you will want to get started with it (my process and upsell funnel). This affiliate program unfortunately is restricted to customers so you would have to be a customer with me first then I can work with you on your affiliate funnel. Head on over to Leadpages now (to be my Leadpages customer)

Facts:

1. I have not used paid traffic to this offer (plans to formulate a way to drive it to bigger audiences using paid traffic)
2. This affiliate has a continuity feature that allows for a customer to pay you affiliate commissions over time (most don't so it increases my personal earnings per customer a lot)
3. It's sticky, I've had customers rebilling (I get the commission since 2013)

 

Here is an image of my personal dashboard with Leadpages

Now I'm not showing you this to prove it can make you money but to show you an example of how you can be generating income from multiple affiliate programs and they all kinda work the same. Drive traffic, engage, bring in customers, earn a commission.

Now above I was talking about a simple funnel

• 1000 people come to your website.
• 100 optin.
• 1 buys.

Well in this affiliate I kinda lost some data when I was doing some email automation and I lost track of how many leads I've generated for this affiliate program. Since I'm generating the leads BEFORE I am sending them to Leadpages (*hint, that's the way you gotta do it)

But in terms of some important metrics to be looking at from a program

Total Earnings: $25,425.62
Conversions: 980 (includes rebilled purchases)
Clicks: 13,844 (people clicking onto my affiliate link)

1. EPC – Earnings Per Click (little skewed since I have rebilling customers)
   $25,425.62/13,844 = $1.84Why is this significant?If and when I plan to go into a paid traffic process I'm going to be essentially be buying “clicks” to my funnels and I need to know what it's gonna cost me to send people into this funnel. If I'm generating $1.84 per click as long as I spend LESS than that I'm in profit.
2. Earnings per Customer – If I know what an average customer makes me (I can figure out how much I'm willing to buy traffic to convert a new one). It's skewed since a rebilled customer will be multiple transactions. So in this exercise it's more Earnings per Transaction.
   $25,425.62/980 = $25.94/transaction

The idea of the above is to show you, I do this stuff for a living. Most of these offers I've either run them myself or have consulting with a client who has.

Is there room for improvement… Of course. The idea is to get your mind wrapped about Affiliate Marketing and figuring out if earning money outside of trading your $/hr is for you.

As silly as that might sound, some people would rather take “fake stable jobs” over the potential to take your income in your own hands and earn 24/7.

 

*the listed programs below I have had personal experience in (made money with or lost money with) or with clients I've mentored. Results are not typical and the average earnings are typically found within each program. The opinions are solely alone and each program has high end earners and it's just my preference to how I'm going to build my business. Learning how to make extra money isn't rocket science but it is a career path that you can take on part-time as long as you focus on the important pieces of business.

 

How To Make Extra Money –
17 Different Ways

 

1. Clickbank

Clickbank is an online marketplace for affiliate marketers and companies looking to promote their products. Clickbank provides information such as the cost of the product, the percentage affiliates receive when they sell, how popular the product is, recurring commissions and other details.

You can choose one product or several, and as an example:

1. Build a blog or website.
2. Create a free ebook or offer for visitors.
3. Create a capture page (for email).
4. Create a sales page for the product.
5. Create a series of email that offer info about the niche.
6. Promote the product to your email list.
7. Make sales.

Affiliate – someone who promotes the products listed in Clickbank

Product Creator – where you have affiliates and yourself selling your products on Clickbank

I've been on both sides of the fence and have only made a couple thousand and isn't an important source of my income. I list it here because it's a pretty popular source but not something I would recommend for the new person, or even the full time marketer making less than $3ok/month as there are easier ways to increase your income and stabilize it.

[bctt tweet=”Not to say there isn't money to be made at #Clickbank. Of course there is but here is my experience. “]

It's just not my cup of tea.

Here are my Pros and Cons Clickbank.

Pros

1. popular place to make money by selling someone's stuff or making your own and getting affiliates to sell it
2. tracking, setup, payouts all there
3. tons of niches but you will see the more profitable ones are going to be the “make money” or “dating” niches. Check the Gravity (google Clickbank Gravity) and see what they recommend as “HOT” products/services to retail.

Cons

1. many of the offers there are here today and gone tomorrow
2. when you get the “slimy feel”… it's what I think of Clickbank products…. over hyped, under delivered (yes, i had my own product on clickbank but it was NOT focused on money, it was a website building tutorial and noticed the ones that sold the best was with the better funnels, upsells and not necessarily on it's usefulness or quality)
3.  some people buy the product, and return it. or buy it and chargeback to get the product for free (most of the products are digital so they can be consumed within 90 days). this isn't the fault of the program so much the quality of the buyers market. Not to say this is a bit issue, but I've seen it happen more so on this platform and could be because it's one of the most established online.

 

*not a fan of that policy and found this out the  HARD way after they were leaching out my earnings from my personal ClickBank account after I stopped promoting their products for a couple months. One way to get around this is to lower the payout amount to the minimum on day 1… I had it at a higher amount like a dummy… and Clickbank was essentially taking my money for what they consider a dormant account.

 

Do I Recommend Clickbank?
– Only for the experienced in building products or have massive traffic to send to offers (in niches)

– if for affiliates, it's not sustainable in my opinion as you never know when the clickbank product will packup and leave so your always hunting down other offers every single month to stabilize  your income and your offer funnels (blogs, videos, social media…) constantly needs to be changed and updated for new offers. It's cool for a launch for a good product/service but when your doing this part time and full time I wouldn't recommend the rollercoaster ride of having to juggle offers and continue selling new “things”.

High end traffic marketers don't care about the rollercoaster offer so much as they get “in and out” quickly so clickbank works for them but in my opinion isn't a high “turn and burn” type method. Once you drive traffic into a ClickBank type funnel, get ready for that traffic, lead, buyer to be slammed with offers from that new offer (in the future).

If you are protective of your lists and like to have somewhat of a sustainable List that can feed you and your family by providing solutions to them… sending them month in and month out to ClickBank  isn't so much the issue with Clickbank but more about the offers and it's operators who WILL market the “HECK” out of your traffic, leads, buyers to monetize them to the fullest extent.

I know people who do extremely well in Clickbank… and they ALL command high end traffic with ease.. .Everyone else.. it's gonna hurt in the long run if you can't continue building your list as your current list will be heavily marketed to and distracting them from your own training and offers.

 

2. Amazon Associates

If you've wanted to know how to make extra money with Amazon, try Amazon Associates. This is an affiliate program with Amazon. While Clickbank is generally associated with digital products, like ebooks, video tutorials, etc, Amazon allows you to make commissions on physical products.

People generally buy more than one product, which you make commission on, and anything else they buy within 24 hours even if they click out of your affiliate link.

This pays off particularly well during Christmas, Black Friday, Back to School, Valentine's Day (think diamonds), and other holidays.

 

Here is one of my test with Amazon (it's not a lot but shows what I want to emphasize… low commissions payouts)

*the image above is my OWN test and numbers… results are not typical and only shown as a reference to what I've done using Amazon.

So with what I've done.. $4,751.06 in commissions and Gross sales of $98,873.35
that turns out to be a 4.8% commission payout.

Now if your business is focused on hard products or you have a large following that purchase products in your niche what are physical in nature.. Amazon is a good starting point to monetize in.

But for me… After doing my first million online part time.. I didn't see it happening with Amazon.. that's just me.
Tons of people do 6 figures a year in Amazon.. I didn't want to do it this way after my test shown above.

 

Do I Recommend Amazon Associates?

1. It's free to start
2. no inventory (unless you want to sell  your own or do some drop shipping)
3. no monthly to maintain
4. established brand so people should buy at a higher rate

 

But the nail in the coffin for me is the payout commission %. It's just hard for me to swallow that I drove say $100,000 in gross sales an make about $5,000.

[bctt tweet=”$100,000 in Gross Sales to Make $5,000. Good or Bad? #businessdecisions”]

Sorry.. Not going to spend my full focus and time in promoting that (sure as a side affiliate) but not as my main opportunity.

Good place to get your hands wet and easy to understand and get ready for a full time career in affiliate marketing.

It's the easiest to understand as it's a brand name, and easy for buyers to have confidence in what they are buying. If someone were to ask you what you do for a living… Selling on Amazon is an easier pill to swallow.

*update – Amazon slaps my account because I didn't check one box?

*And because I didn't check one box (they said they told me…. yeah right I have multiple people saying they also got the slap….) that Amazon dropped my account and all of the links that I've built with them. So guess who got all of those links now? Amazon… dirty. yep. Slimy. yep.

So their response was it was by law and that since I didn't check ONE box it's now unrecoverable. All my links tied to my Amazon Associates account.
That was the nail in the coffin. I can no longer focus on building Amazon Affiliate links based on their policies and not directly contacting their affiliates on mandatory updates that could possibly shut down their account.

Sad Panda.

 

3. Upwork (Elance and oDesk merged)

If you want to know how to make extra money in a more conventional way, give oDesk and Elance a shot. These are online outsourcing websites. You can be a freelancer, an employee, or join a team of freelancers. You can also start your own team of people to help you with your work. If you can do it, you can find a gig for it.

Some of the skills you can hire yourself out for are:

• Graphic Design
• Software Development
• Web Programming
• Information Technology
• Advertising and Marketing
• Administrative Support
• Accounting
• Legal
• Finance
• etc…

as of June 21, 2014 Elance had this many on going Job Hirings
Yeah… that's 23,628 DIFFERENT job offers right now… Want to have a job or freelance a little??? Get started with your own skills.

I have an 90 min Training I did about what I personally recommend my clients in hiring ASAP… and there are a TON of them available but you can be “better” and offer a top tier service people want NOW.

Check out my training below. It's part of an audio series centered on training home business owners how to build a BIGGER business that I contributed to (from multiple high end earners). My topic below focused on Outsourcing and you could be the one people hire 😉

 

Outsourcing – Be The Freelancer And Be Hired

 

Elance and oDesk has merged but I primarily run my job hirings through Elance and recommend it as a place to be hired or to hire.

Now both of these companies Elance + oDesk are now Upwork

 

4. Fiverr

You can jump on this website and offer plenty bang for someone's buck. You make $5 minus the fee, which is a buck. You also have the option of adding other prices for extra work, at $5 intervals.

 

Why would you work that cheap? What is the benefit?

• You can rack up more work, especially if you create a system to get it done faster.
• You can pick up better-paying gigs.
• You can put together a package, and then send a download link when someone orders (photos, articles, videos, etc.). It will take you a minute to do the work.
• You can gradually raise your prices.
• You can build an army of inexpensive labor to help you get your work done faster.

[bctt tweet=” What can you get for $5 online? Apparently a lot these days #5bucks #outsource”]

To Join Fiverr For Free (to be hired or hire)
Click HERE

Brent Jones had some pretty cool Fiverr tips to maximizing what you make at Fiverr in his article 7 Tips to Make More Money on Fiverr

One tip: “Offer an Incentive for Repeat Orders”

 

Kind of like an upsell that happens after someone has bought and been delivered the goods. This is one way to increase repeat buyers as we all know

• Generating a sale is way more expensive than re-selling to an existing “happy customer”

Roy H. Williams talks about this being the “lagniappe” in his book – The Wizard of Ads

A Cajun word, Lagniappe means “a little bit extra.”

In business if you can build that LITTLE EXTRA… the sales come easier.

 

5. Etsy

This popular website is well-known for attracting artisans from all over. If you want to know how to make extra money using your creative ability, then check out Etsy. Incidentally, if you love Pinterest as well, then Pinterest is the perfect place to market your Etsy store.

 

You can sell the following on Etsy (partial list):

• Art
• Sculpture
• Jewelry
• Clothing
• Toys
• Furniture
• Home Decor
• Housewares

 

6. Craigslist

This is a free classified where you can sell pretty much anything. A great place to make fast cash, this is one of the fastest ways that I know how to make extra money. You can sell physical products or services. Here are some ways to make money with Craigslist:

• Find garage sales, buy items to resell on Craigslist for a profit.
• Buy individual items on Craigslist and resell on eBay or Amazon.
• Buy items on eBay in bulk, and resell one by one for a profit.
• Buy items on eBay or Amazon and resell on Craigslist.
• Sell services on Craigslist.

Even used items or broken items can be resold. Merchandise like broken iPhones or gaming systems can be resold on Craigslist. Local businesses or individuals will buy them, fix them up and resell them. You can even buy things you need, use them until you are done, and resell them. Strollers, playpens and baby clothes are an example of this.

The most important thing to do is RESEARCH. If you don't do your research, you can lose big time.

To look outside of the scope of what you have already

1. Look to sell your friends and families goods
2. Look to drop ship (buying something on Amazon and selling it on craigslist, timing is tight… works a little easier on ebay)
3. Buy something on the cheap (clearance) and sell on craigslist. The goal is to have a return window so you can return inventory you couldn't move.

 

7.  Commission Junction (now CJ Affiliate by Conversant)  

Commission Junction, just like Clickbank, is an affiliate marketing marketplace. Commission Junction offers a lot of physical products. It also offers events and services. Clickbank offers more digital downloads, while Commission Junction offers a lot of other items.

 

Here are some of the ways how to make extra money on Commission Junction:

• Business Marketing
• Books / Media
• Financial Services
• Telecommunications
• Home and Garden
• Sports and Fitness

 

The cool thing about Commission Junction is it has some large brands on it

Basically.. any large store or brand that deals in hard products probably has a listing in Cj.com

There are a couple issues…

–You have to be manually approved to a lot of the vendors. DirecTV to this day still has not accepted my application to be vendor. Other vendors straight out denied me.

Here is a small list of rejected affiliate applications (yes.. there are more I got rejected from)

 

Pretty crazy right? They straight up denied me in letting me promote for them…. screw that.

 

8. Linkshare

Linkshare is an affiliate marketing program. You can market a lot of physical products, and they also have big box retailers like Macy's, Starbucks and Office Depot. You must go through a screening process. Linkshare will check out your website and if you pass, you can start marketing.

From Linkshare's website:

“Once you are accepted into the Rakuten LinkShare Publisher Network, you must “apply” to an Advertiser’s affiliate program. The Advertiser will review your Website and you will then be sent an email with your application status. We have hundreds of Advertisers in multiple categories, so you are guaranteed to find some that complement your site content and appeal to your visitors.”

 

9. eBay

We all know about eBay. There are so many ways to make money on eBay. You just have to pick out what's trending or popular, buy low, sell high. If you want to know how to make extra money and have fun, try eBay. Here are ways you can sell:

• Buy things on clearance, at the end of the season, sell them for a nice profit.
• Garage sales are gold mines for eBay.
• Craigslist is an awesome place to buy for eBay or sell things you bought from eBay.
• Some broken electronics, old electronics, sell well.
• Niche products, like t-shirts for biker chicks.

Note: You make your money when you BUY not when you sell. Buy as low as possible.
Most important note: DO YOUR RESEARCH! Don't do your homework? Don't expect to even break even unless you know what you are doing.

 

Check out my personal Ebay account… booom 333 and 100% positive 😉

 

Back in 2002-2006 I was tinkering with ebay.. I was a powerselling for a couple years and I was focused on selling video games and housegoods. For a couple months I was doing a profit of about $2,000-$3,000 per month but dang.. was super time consuming and not something I would do again.

It was a good learning experience but after finding systems that actually sell, and getting paid well… ebay selling was a good way to grow into what I wanted to do… build traffic, build list, help clients, win.

 

10. ShareaSale 

ShareASale is an online marketplace, like Commission Junction & Clickbank, that brings together businesses that can benefit one another. It is unique in that it only promotes retail companies.

 

There are over 3500 companies to choose from and it is free to sign up.

One of them I'm testing in ShareaSale and what I'll be teaching some of my students is how to sell this product on shareasale (here)

Most affiliate programs don't pay too well but this one on ONLY shareasale pays a minimum of $150 even on a $30 sale…. pretty crazy and one of the funnels I'm building out.

You can sign up for free and the offer I'm building with no cost to join and super easy to get accepted (I know the affiliate manager there and can help you if you get stuck or rejected) is this one

 

11. Google Helpouts 

This is a very cool service, where you can offer advice on your area of expertise via live video.

Let's say you are an interior decorator. You can charge by the minute or half hour, and actually give a person advice in real time. They can even show you their home, if they wish, and ask for your advice.

 

12. Google Adsense 

This is basically a snippet of code that you put on your site. It will show ads, track how many people viewed and clicked on the ads on your site. You will get paid based on the going rate for clicks in that niche.

Making money on Google Adsense can take time, but plenty of people have made some money. Check out this comprehensive article giving you the lowdown on how to make extra money with Google Adsense.

 

13. YouTube videos

If you love to make videos, is a great option. Here are some steps on how to make extra money with YouTube:

• Get a consistent following and a lot of viewers.
• Monetize your account by activating the monetization option.
• Set up your Adsense account.

Once you get 15,000 cumulative watch hours over 90 days, you can become a YouTube partner. You get more perks like access to better editing tools, prizes, exclusive community support and tips.

 

14. WarriorForum

WarriorForum is a wonderful place to sell products. It is an old-school forum where internet marketers gather to ask questions about internet marketing techniques, products and anything related.

WarriorForum allows you to set up sales copy (a written sales letter) and links to your product. You can also sell affiliate products. One thing to know about WarriorForum is that a lot of people will sell to you. It is easy to be distracted, but don't. You will end up losing a lot of money. Stay focused.

 

15. Print on Demand (Prefer TeeSpring)

What do TeeSpring, Zazzle and CafePress have in common? They are all print on demand. In other words, you can create art or graphics, put them on products and these products are not manufactured until someone orders them. No upfront cost needed. The company takes their cut when the customer pays.

Some of the physical products you can sell are:

• Clothing
• Pet gear
• Mobile accessories
• Office products
• Business cards
• Home Decor
• Accessories
• Wedding
• Graduation
• Holiday

 

I have direct experience with Teespring and the best I've done with 1 tshirt campaign came from Facebook paid ads and a facebook page I ran.

and that shirt campaign paid out

With my personal experience, it has a couple of Pros and Cons (I won't go into full detail as that is a whole training on itself)

Pros

1. can start with $0 investment
2. you don't hold inventory
3. tons of niches to work in
4. pretty new, compared to the other types of extra money
5. $0 to maintain (sort of)
6. no customer support needed as they handle refunds, shipping and questions

 

Cons

1. can be super competitive in niches
2. if your design gets out your niche/shirt can be flooded with competition
3. trademark still enforced so niches like NFL, NBA, MLB… will be tricky to sell in
4. to scale up, you need to do paid ads to get it really going
5. if you aren't good in tshirt designs, you need to hire one. Can be as cheap as free (I have a hookup) or $50 per tshirt design. The design + niche is super important.
6. it's not about 1 good shirt.. it's about having 20+ going on at one time and cutting your losses quickly with poorly converting designs + niches

 

16. iTunes Affiliate Program

I love iTunes, and this is a way to promote apps, music, books and podcasts and earn a commission.

Available internationally, this program includes links you can use, as well tutorials and  support. Click the link to be taken to the iTunes Affiliate Program.

 

17. High “Stick” Health Offer

I've been working on and off in the health industry because I understand the never ending demand to be “better”.

So one of the offers I recommend (my primary recommendation for long term recurring revenue must start with customers) is this:

—Click Here—

It's based around not having a hard deadline like (losing weight…. because if you lose the weight then what? You quit.

It's based around improving yourself which is never ending – hence you have a customer for life.

But doesn't convert customers?

 

So our first full month in the business this was our sales.
It had very little to do with how much paid traffic there was (I spent $0 on paid ads), and more about getting message to the marketplace (the marketplace is hot).

It's a highly searched keyword term and it's got huge upside.

So our group is focused on customers and the main reason is … customers will stay longer vs a business builder (as it's easier to get a customer result vs a business result).

So our focus is the higher customer : business ratio.

This shows our customers vs our business partners ratio. It's highly dominated by customers.

To see what the offer is:

—Click Here—

In Summary

As you can see I get a different income stream from multiple affiliate marketing streams. Some are bizz opp and some are purely B2C (business to customer).

I recommend people to start small but realize it's all about you growing as a service based organization that is helping the reader, prospect, lead.

 

I hope you enjoyed my breakdown of affiliate offers and what I have personal experience in.

In the Future I can update and tweak my results as I dive into them or hire an affiliate marketing assistant. Learning how to make extra money isn't hard online. Get to work and build it with other individuals. Going at it alone is rough.

Money is out there.. go get it and help more people… that's the secret.

[bctt tweet=”The more you help people the MORE you get paid. Be a valuable business. #businessapproach “]

The MORE people you help the more you get paid… it's an interesting dynamic but you will see what I mean when you make your first $100k online 😉

 

Thanks for reading, now it's your turn.

Comment below and tell me what cool things are you learning and building to better HELP people online?