A few years back, I was in a bit of a sticky situation.
I’d just lost my job. And I didn’t really have any money left.
It was just after the global economic crisis. A few of my buddies actually lost their homes in that biz. At least I still had a roof over my head. For now.
Truth is I probably had about a month’s rent left. Yes—I was still renting.
Food? Ha! If $1 cans of noodles count, yes I was still eating.
The thing is, I’d be bragging to everyone who’d listen about how I was gonna quit my job soon and start making money on the internet. I’d made a bit of cash, but I basically had no idea. This was way before I’d started making REAL money with my own Local Lead Generation gig. I’m gonna tell you more about how good THAT is in a bit.
But back to my “situation”.
Now I actually needed money—fast. I’d sold my bike on eBay to pay my latest gas bill. I didn’t really have anything left.
So my bro Kenny was like, “Hey, I thought you were gonna be an online millionaire by now anyway.”
Truth is—I didn’t know the first thing about making money online.
The money I had made—I’d just been lucky.
I’d managed to refer a few pals to a couple of online services I’d been using. You know those “refer-a-friend” checks? Yeah, pretty basic—I know.
But I needed to see this job loss as a GOOD thing. I DID hate my job. I was just a mindless cubicle-warrior. I wanted out, but now I’d been pushed before I was ready.
It was time to sink or swim. I had to see if I could REALLY make it alone.
So over the next few days I was like a sponge for information. I read everything I could, watched videos, took notes, joined forums. You name it. I did it.
I started finding out about affiliate marketing.
In those couple of days, I also started finding out about a lot of different internet marketing “products”.
As I realized much later, if there’s one way to make money online—it’s by making money from other people looking to make money online. That’s what a lot of guys in the “internet marketing” niche are really doing. It took me a while to figure that out.
Now I liked the look of some of these programs and courses. The problem was, most of them were expensive. Really expensive. Definitely not eating 5-day old noodles sort of money. That was my life back then.
One in particular caught my eye. It was called Affilorama.
The great news was that they offered a free area for guys just like me. There was more stuff under the hood if you actually wanted to pay—but I wasn’t gonna do that.
And hey, you know how I actually made money referring some friends to stuff beforehand? I soon learned that this was pretty much exactly how affiliate marketing worked, too. I just had to refer more people to other products. People I didn’t even know. And I’d get a cut from each of them.
It sounded easy, but it wasn’t.
To cut a long story short: I failed.
The thing about affiliate marketing is that it’s actually a lot harder than people think.
Loads of people are attracted to this game because they see it as a get-rich-quick kinda deal. It’s actually much harder than that. Most of these guys quit and move onto to the next dream. Only the guys who really put the work in make it a success.
Me? I guess I wasn’t willing to put the work in.
Affilorama helped me with the basics, but I couldn’t afford the more expensive parts of the course or products they offered.
In the end, I had to get a real job. Sucks, I know. But at least I paid my next month’s rent.
A few years later I actually had the opportunity to get back into internet marketing. This time I was doing it in the evenings alongside my existing job. So I didn’t have that make-or-break stress factor.
Things went a lot better, but I also remember being grateful that I had at least SOME background knowledge in this stuff. And a lot of that was thanks to Affilorama.
Now I know a lot more about IM, I keep seeing products like this all the time. People ask me my opinion about Affilorama. The truth is, my memory is like a goldfish sometimes—I struggled to remember how good Affilorama really was.
That’s why I decided to sign up again and give it another whirl. Now I knew a bit more about marketing, I’d be able to give it a proper review that’s backed by my own expertise.
So if you’re looking for an Affilorama review, you’re in the right place. This might not sound very humble, but I reckon it’s actually one of the best Affilorama reviews around.
Affilorama Review
What is Affilorama? It’s basically a membership program that has a selection of tools aimed to help you make money with affiliate marketing.
I signed up, and things had changed a fair bit. The site looks great.
There’s one important point to remember here: the basic stuff is free. But not everything on Affilorama is free.
Basic membership gets you access to an Affiliate Marketing Quick-Start Guide, a Downloadable Roadmap to Success and 120 Video Lessons.
I’m gonna review all of that in this Affilorama review. But I’m also gonna review the stuff you’ve gotta PAY for. That’s the stuff I couldn’t afford access to way back when.
So there are three things you can buy separately. Path2Passive, AffiloTools and AffiloJetpack. These are what they’re calling “Advanced” training and tools. I think that’s code for, “stuff you gotta pay for.” But one of them is actually free—for now. Were they worth it? Keep reading this review to find out.
So what’s the free stuff like?
First thing’s first, let’s drill down on the freebies. Everyone loves a freebie, right?
And it’s actually pretty cool to get some of this stuff for nothing.
Let’s start with the Affiliate Marketing Quick-Start Guide.
Now this is pretty basic. It’s kinda like a free report. You see these all over the place in internet marketing.
They’re one of the tricks of the trade. Shall I tell you how they work?
Basically, marketers write a report or eBook—and they give it away for free. Some of them might tout it as something you should be paying money for, to make getting it free seem even more appealing.
(The truth is, nobody ever really pays for these sorts of free reports)
For the record, Affilorama aren’t really doing this. There’s no hard sell. I’m just telling you about the process.
A lot of people in internet marketing live by the phrase “the money’s in the list”. They’re all trying to build a list of email addresses or subscribers. So when someone downloads your free report, they sign-up to your list. It’s then that you send them your REAL offers and try and get them to buy something else.
That’s how a BIG section of the internet marketing industry works. I’ve got sidetracked here, but I just can’t help dropping value like this. Oh yeah, value’s important with these reports, too. They might be free—but it’s a good idea to give a few useful bits of info so people are more likely to open your future emails and more likely to buy from you.
Some people think email lists like this are the ONLY way to make money online. These people are mistaken.
Anyway, the free report from Affilorama is cool. It’s got some good basic info, but not much of this is unique. You can get it elsewhere. But it’s free, and they aren’t spamming me since I signed up—so you might as well get involved. Especially if you’re a newbie to this stuff.
Next up is the Downloadable Roadmap to Success
This is an infographic. It looks cool, but I’m not sure why it’s being given such a prominent position here. It’s not that useful. I guess it could help someone, but a lot of this is covered with the other two resources.
The best chunk of value in the “free” area is the 120 video lessons. That’s a lot. And there are plenty of courses out there charging a hefty wedge for this sort of info.
Ok, not all of the videos are that long. But still, you can’t complain—it’s free! And there’s definitely some value here.
Okay, I said you can’t complain—one tiny issue I have is that these videos aren’t transcribed. Sometimes I like to skim through a text version, it’s easier to pick stuff out. So you’ve gotta watch them all instead. But it’s a minor issue.
So what do I think about the Affilorama free stuff? I think it’s good. You might know some of it already, and you CAN find this info elsewhere. But it’s free, and you can’t argue with that. It’s useful to have it all in one place, too.
But the real stuff you gotta pay for. And you need to know if it’s worth it, right?
Let’s have a look.
What about the advanced tools and training?
The first one’s called Pathway2Passive.
A lot of people dream about making passive income in affiliate marketing. That’s why most of them got into this business in the first place. It’s the ultimate goal.
I’ve had a few years experience in this industry now and let me tell you—it ain’t easy.
All those people who got into IM because they wanted to be passively self-sufficient within 3 months? They failed. They dropped out of the industry as quickly as they came into it.
It’s only the guys who’ve got real work-ethic who stick around. Because your first few internet marketing ventures will probably fail too.
It’s only when you learn from your mistakes and stick around that things tend to start to improve.
And then after a few years of hard work you can start to see your passive income grow. If it was THAT easy to get passive income straight away—everyone would be doing it, right?
Pathway2Passive was built by a team of guys who’ve been in IM for years. They’ve failed, and they’ve learned what works.
They’ve built Pathway2Passive to help guys like you and me. People who are much newer to the industry. But you’ve STILL gotta put the work in.
A lot of this stuff was pretty useful. Especially the detail they go into about picking the right products to sell. There’s also some cool stuff on targeting the right audience, and improving your offer.
At this point, I’d recommend you ignore the name of the course. This stuff isn’t passive. It takes hard work. But once you’ve set up an efficient sales funnel with the right products and the right traffic, the workload CAN decrease a bit.
And the really cool thing about Pathway2Passive? It’s only $37. I know of some sites trying to charge ten times that for this sort of info.
It’s a useful little course at a reasonable price. You won’t find anything too revolutionary in there, but it is well written and informative. It’s worth a shot. Especially if you’re getting stuck with some of the basics.
The other main paid tool is AffiloJetpack. This stuff is at the other end of the market. It costs a whopping $997. It’s basically an out-the-box affiliate autopilot machine. It tries to take care of almost everything in the affiliate marketing game, so that you can get your own sites up and running really easily.
Now I’ve got a few issues with this.
Firstly, they compare the cost of getting something done with AffiloJetpack to if you had to do it yourself. Like, they’ve got hosting included but argue you’d be paying $96 for that if you did it yourself. I don’t know many hosting plans that are that expensive, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have too much traffic.
Also, their WordPress theme is valued at $97. You can get loads of themes for FREE, and while the free ones are normally pretty basic—even a good paid one will be way less than this.
You do get a newsletter sequence of 90 emails. That’s pretty cool. There are also “free reports” for you to offer. Remember when I told you how that works earlier?
But basically, they say this stuff is worth a total of over $3,000—and you’re getting it for under $1k.
I’ve got issues with their math, here.
However, it’s easy to see exactly what you’re getting. It COULD be worth it if you like everything done for you. For example, you COULD write those emails yourself, or even the free reports. You’d need to know what you’re talking about, but you’ll also be able to create something that’s much more unique to your offer. It depends where your priorities lay. The stuff was pretty good quality, but you can do better if you do things yourself. As long as you know what you’re doing.
The other advanced tool is in beta right now, so it’s actually FREE. For the time being. Jump in while you can. It’s called AffiloTools and is basically an analytical package. It’s good, but there are loads of better ones out there. There’s nothing wrong with giving it a try since it’s free, though.
Woo. There we go. That was my Affilorama review. Worth it or not? That’s for you to choose. So if you’re still thinking of banging “Affilorama scam” into Google—don’t. It’s not a scam. It’s actually pretty affordable for most of the stuff, and there’s some good info in there.
But if you want to make REAL money online, you might want to think a bit more about something called Local Lead Generation. It’s what I’ve been doing for a while, and it’s pretty dope. I know I said passive income was hard in this game, but I’m finally getting there with Local Lead Generation.
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