The Affiliate Marketing Nightmare: Minimum Payouts
All this talk about focusing on multiple niches reminded me of something that I dread as a struggling affiliate: the minimum payout.
For those who don’t know, many (I suppose all) affiliate programs have a minimum amount of money you must accrue before they write you your cheque. This can be a low amount, $10 for ClickBank, or it can be a high amount, generally $100 for many affiliate programs. They will withhold your money until you hit that minimum amount.
Without checking I know I have over $140 spread out among various affiliate programs. That first cheque I received last month for $25.78 USD? About half of that money was earned in February. You know, when the US dollar was worth a hell of a lot more than it is now. Just my luck. Yeah, it’s not much when we’re talking double digit earnings, but still… 
The fact of the matter is, in some cases I’ll never hit those minimum payouts (maybe I can ask AdBrite to send me that $3 I earned). This is why I prefer major services like ClickBank, where there’s a whole marketplace of different products, and all earnings go into one account. Another solution? Drive more traffic and improve my click-through rate so I can hit those minimum payouts every month for every affiliate program. In other words, be less of a sucky internet marketer. 
So you might be thinking, “If the goal is to earn $10 this month, what’s the point if I can’t hold that $10 in my hand?” The point is that you learn how to earn $10 online. Once you do, you can repeat it and keep repeating it until you hit that minimum payout. Or maybe you’ll sell your own product and won’t have to worry about how many sales to make until you can hold your money. Ed Dale mentioned that the 30 Day Challenge isn’t “just an affiliate program deal.”
Worst case scenario? I don’t hit my minimum payouts this month, but keep earning into next month and the next until I do.
Actually, that’s not even close to being the worst case scenario. 
Technorati Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Nightmares, Shaving, Affiliate Programs, ClickBank, USD, Bank Account, Pitiful
