Affiliate marketing and online marketing are two of the most common ways for individuals to make a living from their homes. Depending on the way you strategize, affiliate marketing can be some of the most lucrative online business that you'll ever do. On the other hand, some sites pay literal pennies for hours upon hours of work.
I've taken a look at a few different affiliate marketing programs. Unfortunately, I've also gotten too deep into a couple of them before realizing that they're just scams to steal information. That's made me a little wary, so I approached 12 Minute Affiliate with a grain of salt.
I'll address the elephant in the room right away: I haven't found any evidence that the program is a scam or designed to steal your information. Of course, you should still practice internet privacy when you browse online.
12 Minute Affiliate is a DIY solution that's meant to take all the work out of marketing connections. Once you subscribe to the program, the 12 Minute Affiliate team sets up the affiliate network, and the commissions from your affiliate program begin to roll in.
It's meant to work for anyone, regardless of whether you have a background in internet marketing. The program is marketed as being a miracle solution to affiliate marketing that will bring you revenue with just twelve minutes of work every day.
Features
12 Minute Affiliate is a relatively unique program. The marketing surrounding it edges toward the sensationalist, with some of the taglines stating that it's possible to make hundreds of dollars in just twelve minutes. While it's true that that's possible, it's not likely to happen right away.
But if you know what you're doing, you can optimize the system to make a worthwhile amount of money.
Steps to Getting Involved with the 12 Minute Affiliate Program
The first step is that you need to purchase the product and create your account. When you log in for the first time, you'll be prompted to set up your system. This will include:
Once all of this is set up, it's time for the affiliate commissions to start rolling in.
Earning Automatic Commissions Through These Methods
With other affiliate programs, you have to do a lot of heavy lifting before you start making money. When you purchase 12 Minute Affiliate, what you're paying for is the ease with which you can create an affiliate network.
Upon joining the program, you'll be given three niches of interest to choose from. One is Home Business, which includes working from home and generating income online. One is Weight Loss, which is a huge sub-niche in healthcare. The last is Personal Development, which appeals to individuals seeking growth or self-help. When you decide, you'll be given landing pages in the niche.
The landing and funnel page will be connected to an email autoresponder program. To do this, you'll need to pay some extra money, so you should be aware of the cost. It's easy to set the responder up thanks to the instructions written in the member area. If you want even more convenience, though, the 12 Minute Affiliate team will set it up for you if you pay a small fee.
The 12 Minute Affiliate team will then send you pre-written email drafts that can be imported easily to the autoresponder. They contain pre-selected promotional products.
You can spend more money to buy traffic, which is automatically directed to the landing pages. Your money will only purchase people's clicks, though, so you won't know how many people have opted in to your mailing list for later.
This is one of the problems with paid traffic. Since the traffic isn't truly made up of interested consumers, there aren't any guarantees that anyone will engage. You might end up wasting your money because no one engages when you send out your emails.
If you don't buy traffic, there is a traffic source provided through 12 Minute Affiliate. Like with your own purchased traffic, though, there's no guarantee of profitable return on investment.
Should anyone buy the products being promoted in your emails, you'll earn affiliate commissions. This is why it's important to create the largest mailing list possible, since you want people to open and look at your emails.
Keeping a Realistic Mindset
The internet is full of get-rich-quick schemes. A lot of the marketing for 12 Minute Affiliate falls into this niche. That's a big part of the appeal - the idea that you can pay a small amount of money, have someone else do the work for you, and then generate an income without doing anything.
In reality, that's not how the program will function. But it does have significant earning potential. The thing to keep in mind is that you'll get back as much as you put in. The more work you do, the higher your chances of receiving commissions. The product is a super easy way to set up an affiliate network that you can grow and maintain yourself.
12 Minute Affiliate has a disclaimer pointing out this exact thing. You aren't guaranteed to earn money by using the program. The earning potential varies depending on how much effort you put into growing the online business.
Basic Versus Gold Membership
12 Minute Affiliate has two membership tiers called Basic and Gold. When you first purchase the product and get signed up, you'll have a basic membership. The Gold membership is significantly pricier, but it comes with more earning potential.
You're provided with three niches to choose from as a Basic member. Basic members only have one niche, but Gold members can have landing pages and send emails with products from all three. That gives you the potential for triple the business. Again, the earning potential depends largely on how much work you're willing to put in.
Since the affiliate marketing is done through ClickBank, you get access to ClickBank's policies and customer service. They provide a 60-day money-back guarantee if you aren't happy with your results.
Advantages over Setting Up Affiliate Networking Yourself
The biggest advantage of 12 Minute Affiliate, and the reason why it's so popular, is because it takes all the hassle out of creating an affiliate network. You don't need to know anything about how to create or maintain a subscriber list or website traffic. The website is fairly intuitive, and the process is simple enough to follow with no marketing background.
Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest-growing forms of internet business, and everyone seems to want in on it. There's a fierce amount of competition for traffic, conversions, and people's attention.
When you set up a network yourself, you have to create a website, generate traffic, and build a following. You have to purchase web hosting and a domain for your landing pages. You also have to create content for the products you're promoting to sell them.
Affiliate marketing from scratch requires you to have your finger on the pulse of social media trends, return-on-investment, increasing conversion rates, and emails that draw the eye.
That's just to get people to see your affiliate links. Once you've gotten that far, you have to have the writing and graphic design prowess to make them want to buy.
There's a reason that large affiliate marketing campaigns are often coordinated by teams of multiple individuals. It's a massive undertaking that requires impeccable knowledge of a dozen different fields.
With 12 Minute Affiliate, you don't have to create or pay for your own landing pages or web hosting. You also don't have to create your own content or determine which products people are likely to buy. All you have to do is build your email list and send out the links.
Pros
Cons
Final Verdict
If you've been interested in affiliate marketing but don't know how to start, 12 Minute Affiliate has you covered. It's a great choice for both newbies and individuals with substantial internet followings already. Just be aware that it's not a magic wand that will create a revenue stream without any work on your part.
