Success - My First Ever ClickBank Sale!

I just made my first ever ClickBank affiliate sale this week!

It was only a few days ago that I included a link on this blog to the ebook I was very impressed with, Honest Riches, by Holly Mann...and just like that I earned an affiliate commission from it the same week. That's pretty cool, since I really haven't even started to promote this blog much at all yet. I have a free TrafficSwarm ad running, and it brings just a few glancing visitors each day. But looking at my StatCounter data, I found out that the sale actually came as a result of a comment I posted on another blog. (At that time it was the ONLY blog comment I had posted, too!) Hmmm...seems like I should be doing more comment posting, huh?!

So far, I still have yet to spend even a penny on advertising this blog, but I've actually made a sale. It's not much, but it's a start. If nothing else it assures me that this affiliate marketing really does work. I guess until I actually received word of a sale, I always had that little doubt deep inside that made we wonder if you ever really get credited for sales that you referred, so this proves it.

The funny thing is, I never really intended to make any money directly from this blog anyway. This is more or less just to document my progress as I begin this business, so anything I earn from this is just a bonus. (The AdSense ads earnings are currently up to about $4.00 now too, with practically no promotion.) I just figured I would record my progress here until I get my main website set up, and then only occasionally add to it after that. But I'm getting so many ideas that I'm anxious to get started with now, I'm going to have to choose a few things to start out promoting and see what happens.

At the top of my list right now is an offer I stumbled on the other day called Survey Scout. The sales page is so convincing, I find myself wondering why I'm even going through all this trouble of affiliate marketing. Maybe I'd rather just quit all this and be one of the ones getting paid to fill out online surveys for companies. (At home in my pajamas, as their ad says!) This company gives their members all the details on how to get started doing just that, and they claim up to $150 per hour is realistically possible to earn. Not quit-your-job-and-buy-a-new-mansion kind of money, but definitely something worth looking into for most people.

Since this ties in well with my "Making Money With Your Computer & The Internet" theme, it seems like a great offer to feature in my upcoming website. Until that happens, I figure I'll throw an ad or two on TrafficSwarm and some other free ad sites, and maybe even buy a few inexpensive banner ads, etc., and see how it works out. They're claiming to have some affiliates seeing 15% to 30% sales conversions, so it must be a pretty hot deal right now. It's still new, too...I think it's only been around for 3 or 4 months. Hopefully it'll STAY hot for awhile and give ME a chance to get in on the fun! I certainly wouldn't mind getting in on something early for a change!

John