Making Sense of Affiliate Marking Review – My Complete Review

Are you looking to earn an income from an online business without spending all the time needed to create your own products or services?

Then affiliate marketing may just be the thing.  Recently I just completed Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner.  If you’re not familiar with work you may have come across her blog on Making Sense of Cents.

Resource:  Not quite sure what affiliate marketing is, then check out this article.

Michelle has built an impressive affiliate marketing business earning over $50,000 a month.  So I would say she knows a thing or two about affiliate marketing.

In this review I’m going to cover everything you need to know about this course from the things I liked, the things I didn’t like, to who would make the best fit to buy this course, and a whole lot more.

With that said let’s get started…

Making Sense With Affiliate Marketing – An Overview

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing contains 6 modules, with over 30 lessons, a course workbook,  and a private mastermind group.  To help you get a better understanding of this I’ll break things down by module.

Module 1: What is Affiliate Marketing

In this module, they cover the basics from giving you the course workbook, to joining the Facebook Mastermind Group.  On top of that, you’ll also learn what affiliate marketing is.

You’ll also get the basics and how affiliate links work.

Side Note:  This stuff is very basic unless you are brand new but I still recommend you go through it for good measure.

Module 2: How to Find and Apply to Affiliate Programs

In this section, you’ll learn how much traffic you really need to do affiliate marketing which is much less than you really think.

They also show you how to figure out what your readers will want and how to find the right affiliate programs.

Best of all they also show you 80+ affiliate programs to help you get started.

Module 3: Follow the Rules

In module 3 it’s all about the rules you need to follow in order to display affiliate products on your website.

On top of that, they also show you what to do if you live in a Nexus state where certain affiliate programs aren’t offered and how to get around it.

Module 4: How to Get Your Reader to Convert

Now that you’ve covered the basics in module 4 you’re going to learn how to get your reader to convert by building trust.

On top of that, you’ll learn about the most important tool you’ll need, why you need to check your click-through rate, deep linking, and how to improve your top 10 articles so they will earn you more.

Side Note:  I actually read this section twice because the information in this section is so valuable.

Module 5: Strategies and Ways to Promote Affiliate Links

This section is probably my most favorite.  In this section, you’ll learn several different strategies to grow your affiliate income.

Here is what you will learn….

• How to create affiliate reviews
• How to write quality tutorials
• Developing a Resource Page
• Starting an Email List
• Affiliate Marketing and Social Media

Module 6: Rinse and Repeat

In the last module, you’ll learn the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with your affiliate manager, the things you don’t want to do, how to make your affiliate strategy long lasting, and tips to improve your affiliate strategy around the holidays.

Bonuses

Finally, in the bonus section, you’ll get 6 powerful bonuses from how to get approved with affiliate programs, 9 things to do when things go viral, how to increase page views, and most of all a Pinterest Strategy that’ll drive thousands of people to your site.

As you can see this course is full valuable tips and information to help you grow your affiliate business.  However, there are some things that I liked and even some things I didn’t like.

I’ll cover all that and more, so keep reading…

What I Liked About Making Sense with Affiliate Marketing

Now that I’ve covered what this course is, I want to share some of the things I personally liked about this course.

#1 The Strategies

Let me start by just saying the strategies Michelle lays out in this course are worth their weight in gold, and I really mean that.  I’ve been doing affiliate marketing off and on for 9 years now and I learned so much from this course that it has revived my spirit to take affiliate marking much more seriously.

Here are a couple of strategies that I like and plan on implementing.

The Top 10 Strategy.  In this lesson, they talk about how you can go back through your top post and tweak them to ramp up your earnings.  This strategy works well for those that have a lot of content on their blog.

The Bonus Strategy.  This strategy gets me the most excited.  In this lesson, you learn about why you should add a bonus to every affiliate product you sell and how to do it.

The Tutorial Strategy.  In this lesson, you learn how to create powerful tutorials to sell affiliate products that relate to your niche.  This was Michelle’s top-earning strategy and one I’m currently working on as well.

That’s just a taste of the strategies used in this course.  She also has another strategy that drives here over a 100,000 visitors every single month to her blog as well. To learn more about that you’ll just have to check out the course.

#2 The Work Sheets

Next, the worksheets provided in this course were way above average.  With most courses I come across they might just throw something together in a Word Doc but Michelle went the extra mile and really made them look great and professional.

This to me shows that she didn’t just slap stuff together but rather that she put a lot of effort into making it the best course she could.  Here are just a few of the checklist I really found helpful in this course.

How to Pick the Right Affiliate Product to Promote For Your Brand.  This checklist covers the questions that you must ask yourself to determine if a certain affiliate program is right for you and your brand.  I’ve personally questioned certain programs before I would sign up with them but this checklist will make things a little more black & white as to what you should join.

Bonus Ideas Worksheet.  This sheet helps me track the bonus ideas I am going to create for certain affiliate products. I plan to create an added bonus for the affiliates I’m working with to help sweeten the deal.  Doing this will help me stand out from others promoting the same products.

Strategies to Promote Affiliate Products Worksheet.  This worksheet will help me keep track of the strategies I’m planning to do and also so I don’t forget something.  I find this worksheet works nicely for laying out my initial strategy and keep track of the ones I have in place.

Regular Maintenance Checklist.  Finally, the Maintenance Checklist is a nice reminder checklist to go back and review things.  This is something I am planning to review each quarter to see what I can improve and double check my current strategies.

#3 The Bonuses

The bonuses that came with this course were phenomenal.  In the bonus section, she included several great bonuses from How to Always Get Approved to an Affiliate Program, 9 Things to Do When Something Goes Viral, How to Increase Page Views, and even The Perfect Affiliate Link Checklist.

However, there was one bonus that stood out from them all and that was the Pinterest Strategery – How to Recieve Hundreds of Thousands of Visitors From Pinterest a Month written by Rosemarie Groner from The Busy Budgeter.  This strategy lays everything out from the basics to the advanced things you should do to drive visitors to your blog from Pinterest.

I plan to add this strategy to my list but as you can tell with all the different strategies this course offers it’s best to pick just a few strategies to start with and expand from there.

#4 The Mastermind Group

Finally, the last thing I found so much value in and probably the most value in is the mastermind group.  This is an active Facebook Group that you have access to.

As a part of the group, your not only able to ask questions but also share your top content, grow your social media profile, and even get feedback on the things you’re doing.

If you can’t tell this is an active community and Michelle does a lot to keep this community vibrant and growing.  To be honest, this is the best part about the whole thing, getting feedback and advice that can grow your affiliate business.  There are times when you’re going to get stuck and this awesome community is full of people willing to help.

What I Didn’t Like About This Course

No course would be complete without covering the things I didn’t like about this course.  Afterall nothing is perfect.  Below are a few things I didn’t like about this course.

#1 No Videos

First off,  when I bought this course I was under the impression that this course was a video course.  Over the years I’ve taken a lot of courses and I guess I’ve just become numb to the idea that they all just had videos in them.

This is the first course I’ve ever come across that has no video in it and was completely text-based.  However, after I got into the course and realized how much value Michelle packed into this course I soon forgot about the video issue and moved on.

Hopefully, at some point, they will add videos into this course.  I feel it would be a nice added touch with all the written content to help break things up a bit.

#2 Not Step-by-Step

I was also expecting more of a step by step course.  She definitely hits all the basics when it comes to affiliate marketing but if you’re looking for a course on the basics of setting up your site, driving traffic, to monetizing your site this is not that course.

Rather in this course, she takes a different approach.  She shares the basics around how affiliate marketing works and in the last remaining modules, she goes into the various strategies she uses to grow her business.

In one way this is refreshing that it’s not like all the other courses out there and gives a unique perspective to growing an affiliate site that generates a lot of money.

#3 No Examples

Finally, the course did not include a lot of examples of her implementing a lot of these strategies.  I felt as if the course would have gone more in-depth with these things it would have been a lot better.  In fact, at one point it kind of felt like a collection of blog post rather than a course.

Now don’t get wrong this is still a good course but if things would go more in-depth and give examples using video and maybe even a checklist on how to execute some of these strategies it would take a good course and make it a great course.

Who Should and Should Not Buy This Course?

#1 If you want to make $10,000 or more a month with affiliate marketing then the strategies in this course are what you need.  If Michelle can earn $50,000 with these strategies then they could work for you as well.

Side Note:  I don’t guarantee any income claims as results will vary for everyone.

#2 If you’re looking for a Step-by-Step Course Don’t Buy This Course.  Yes, you heard me right if you’re looking for course that will teach you step by step how to build your affiliate site from scratch then this isn’t the course for you.  However, if you have a site and you’re looking to add affiliate income to your site this will be a good fit for you.

#3 If you’ve been struggling to earn more with affiliate marketing then this is a great course for you learn the strategies needed to succeed.  As I mentioned in the beginning of this course the strategies in this course are worth their weight in gold.

#4 If you’re looking to understand the basics of affiliate marketing and what’s all involved this course is for you.  If you’re new and you are still trying to grasp the basics then this course covers everything you need to know about exactly what affiliate marketing is, how it works, and how to stay compliant.

If you fit any of these types of people trying to learn affiliate marketing then this course is for you.

How Much Does It Cost?

Before I wrap up this review you might be wondering how much does this course cost?  Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, it comes with 2 pricing options.

Option #1: A One Time Payment of $197.  This will get you access to all 6 modules, the bonuses, the private Facebook Group, and the course workbook.

Option #2: A Two Payment Option of $105 per Month.  With this option, you will pay for  2 months costing you an extra $13 more.

To learn more about the course and payment options click here.

My Final Thoughts…

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a great course.  However, as someone who has been doing affiliate marketing for 9 years now, I know a good course when I see one and this is it.  If you’re someone who’s willing to put in the hard work for a couple of years and see success to the end then this is the program for you.

So if you’re ready to get started building your affiliate business then sign up now and your future self will thank you.

Click Here to Sign Up For Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Now