Last year, I was feeling good about blogging, but I wanted to take it to the next level. I felt stuck as a blogger. I didn’t know how to take it to do what I wanted: to go pro and earn a profit from blogging. So, after doing a lot of research, and creating a spreadsheet with the pro’s and con’s of each course, I purchased several blogging courses.
Note: This post includes affiliate links
Today I’ll be focusing on reviewing the one that brought me the perfect mix of new, valuable information that led to an immediate impact: Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, what I argue is the best affiliate marketing course for bloggers. Today I’m sharing my honest Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review. You can learn more about this course on its official page, but you won’t to miss my review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing here, in which you’ll learn that in the year since I started Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, I’ve seen my affiliate income triple, and I attribute that to taking the course. In this Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course review, I’ll tell you why I think it’s the best affiliate marketing course for beginner bloggers.
Welcome to the epic review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing!
This review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing has ten sections:
- What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- What is affiliate marketing?
- Is affiliate income a good way to monetize a blog?
- What topics are covered in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- Who needs Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- What kind of results can you expect from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- How long is the course? Do I have to make a big time commitment?
- How does Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing stack up to other blogging classes?
- What are the down sides of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- How do you enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
And now onto the review!
What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Who Is Michele Schroder-Gardner?
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is an online course taught by Michele Schroeder-Gardner, the blogger behind Making Sense of Cents, a wildly popular personal finance blog.
Michele has successfully monetized her blog. Michele boasts that she went from $0 to $50,000 by applying the affiliate income principles that she teaches in her professional affiliate marketing learning course.
What Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, which I consider to be the best course to learn affiliate marketing quick and easy, has channeled her wisdom and experience to teach bloggers how they can earn affiliate income, too. The course is focused on getting newbie and intermediate bloggers up to speed on making affiliate income from blogging, promising results if you put the work into the course and harness its knowledge. This affiliate marketing program for bloggers is a must have if you want to take your blog—and your blog income—to the next level and run a profitable affiliate marketing blog.
This course covers everything you need to know about how to make money blogging with affiliate marketing, including the basics like how to write an affiliate blog post.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is profiting off of products or services you recommend through an affiliate partnership. For example, a blogger might join Amazon Affiliates. With any affiliate program, affiliates have custom codes and links to the products they endorse. So when the blogger recommends a product on Amazon, a reader of the blog might click on the affiliate link. Then, if the reader chooses to buy the product, or, in the case of Amazon Associates, any product within a certain window of time, the blogger will get a cut of the sale.
Straightforward, right? It’s a pretty sweet deal. Imagine: you can earn money while you sleep. That’s the beauty and promise of affiliate marketing and passive income you learn how to do through taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
And if you’re wondering how to start affiliate marketing or are a total newbie looking for the best affiliate marketing for beginners program, you’ve come to the right place.
Is affiliate marketing a good way to monetize a blog?
Absolutely! Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog if you’re wondering how to make money blogging for beginners. In fact, my blog’s primary income comes from affiliate marketing. If you’re just getting started with blogging, affiliate marketing is a practically risk-free way to start monetizing your blog.
If you’re wondering how to monetize a blog with affiliate marketing, you’re probably wondering how to monetize a blog without ads. And in this course, you learn everything you need to monetize a blog with affiliate posts, which are a crucial source of leveraging your blog’s voice and authority with the products you endorse. It’s a non-icky way to advertise without slapping ads on your blog and, since it’s not officially an ad, these posts don’t get blanked out by ad removal plugins.
What topics are covered in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
One of the best blogging courses in 2021, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a professional blogging course divided into six modules (after the intro to the course) that all get you learning more about affiliate marketing. With the exception of the two videos in the bonus section, the course is entirely text based. You learn everything from how to start affiliate marketing, starting with an affiliate marketing definition. Michele includes plenty of affiliate marketing examples, including Amazon affiliate marketing.
Here are the topics covered in the six modules:
Module 1: What is affiliate marketing?
Module 2: How to find and apply to affiliate programs?
Module 3: Follow the Rules
Module 4: How to get your readers to convert
Module 5: Strategies and ways to promote affiliate links
Module 6: Rinse and repeat
Plus a bonus section with even more information on topics like: “How to always get approved to an affiliate program?”
—”How to increase your page views”
—”How to drive thousands of visitors to your blog with Pinterest” (video)
—”How to legally protect your blog” (video)
Who Needs Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
The best part of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is how there’s good information for everyone, no matter if you’re an affiliate marketing beginner or old pro looking for more ways to boost your income. I recommend this course especially for beginners entering the world of monetizing your blog through the best blogging resources, which I’ve conveniently gathered in a page on this blog: Resources for Bloggers. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is definitely a top blogging course for beginners in 2021.
Another great thing about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is how adaptable it is for any blog. You could take the course as a book blogger, like me, or it could easily be adaptable for lifestyle bloggers, food bloggers, travel bloggers, frugal living bloggers, and so many more. The information you get from the course will without a doubt help you level up your affiliate income no matter what your niche might be. In this Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review, I can attest to it being one of the best affiliate marketing programs for learning how to make money blogging fast and easy.
An additional feature of enrolling in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is you get access to an exclusive private Facebook group just for course members. Michele shares tips and prompts to build community. You can ask any questions you have or reach out to other bloggers through this venue. If you’re a blogger at any level who gets tired of being a lone wolf, joining the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Facebook group can help you network and make blogging less a solitary activity.
What Kind of Results Can You Expect from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing one of the best blogging courses? And are blogging courses even worth it? Let’s examine my own results after taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
And now onto the good stuff, what I bet you’re wondering if you’re reading this Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review and curious if this is the best affiliate marketing course for bloggers.
I suspect that many bloggers who visit this site, Broke by Books, might already use affiliate income through Amazon. I used to think that Amazon Affiliates was the sole affiliate network worth spending time on. But taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing opened my eyes to the different ways I could leverage affiliate partnerships with my existing business relationships with other services and companies I use. I was leaving money on the ground, unaware how I could step it up and break through to the next level.
See, while you can have a ton of Amazon affiliate links, you tap out your commission around 4-4.5%. Think of how many books you have to sell to even make $40.00 that way. That’s why it’s worth going after bigger fish: affiliate programs from brands that pay you more per referral than Amazon.
Through following that advice in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, I’ve brought in new affiliate income, building a steady rise in my commissions from non-Amazon affiliate programs. Taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing helped me brainstorm new, more profitable affiliate products to promote, and, as a result, I now have multiple affiliate revenue streams, a key to earning a diversified passive income setup.
Bottom line? My affiliate income has tripled in the year since I started Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, a major reason I turned pro.
(And by pro I mean turn a profit beyond covering necessary costs. )
For example, I’ve since created the following non-Amazon affiliate posts following the tips and how-to’s in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing:
My review of the subscription box product Bookoo:
My tutorial on starting a WordPress blog with Bluehost
It’s through the knowledge I received in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing that I was even able to brainstorm new places to partner up with for affiliate marketing and see my income triple.
How Long is the Course? Do I have to Make a Big Time Commitment?
One of the best things about the course is it’s medium-sized. It’s focused on getting you up to speed with affiliate income right away. There are just six units to read through and master, which includes several worksheets for you to download and use to follow along.
Rather than some blog courses, which can be daunting, you can easily complete Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing in a matter of weeks. You will be back blogging, inspired and motivated, so you can practice what you learn right away. This is the kind of course that gets you out there practicing what you learn, not bogged down in 20+ hours of video content to get through.
Lessons take you through the basics of affiliate marketing, including how to find new affiliate partnerships, how to disclose your affiliate relationship with a product, writing an affiliate post with a Call to Action so you close the sale, and so much more.
Instead of padding the course with lots of off-topic information that’s solely there to bolster the content, the extras that Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing include are immediately relevant for all bloggers.
How does Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing stack up to other blogging classes?
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is not the only blog course in town. If you read my Resources for Bloggers page, I also talk about other blogging courses I recommend from Create and Go. You can read my review of these courses in that post and you can find out more information about Create and Go here.
There are some other courses that also focus on affiliate marketing:
—Pajama Affiliates, which focuses on teaching affiliate marketing to bloggers of all stripes, best for beginner to intermediate bloggers. (Cost = $79)
—Project 24, which is an intensive course that helps bloggers monetize their niche blog to a full-time income within two years. (Cost = $499 for the first year, $199 annual renewal price thereafter)
—Wealthy Affiliate, an all-in-one knowledge base for bloggers to get expert help at mastering affiliate marketing. (Cost = There are three monthly payment options, with content and resources scaled to how much you pay… Starter Beginner Package at $0/month; Premium Intermediate Package at $49/month; Premium Plus Advanced Package at $99/month).
What are the down sides of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
No class is perfect, and I’m not going to try to claim that the course is flawless. There are some downsides, which I’ll talk about now in my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review.
First, with the exception of the two bonus videos, the course is entirely text-based. Michele does include images and illustrations, but the class is primarily taught through text. If you’re a visually oriented person who learns best through videos or audio content, you won’t find that here. For me, this isn’t an issue since I prefer text courses to all-video courses. But you might have a different preference for video learning, and, if so, this might not be the best course for you.
Second, while I’d consider this class to be perfect for beginner to intermediate bloggers, more advanced bloggers might not best be served as the overwhelming majority of the advice is geared towards people just starting to monetize their blog. If you’re already a pro blogger pulling in a major income each month, you can probably skip this one.
Third, it’s true that a lot of information about affiliate marketing for bloggers that you can find for free online. As I mentioned earlier, in my blog monetization series, I’ll be focusing on affiliate earnings next, which will be totally free content.
Fourth, I wish Michele had spent more time on Amazon Affiliate strategies. As I’ve learned from being an Amazon Affiliate member for five years, I know there’s more to it than just slapping a link on a post. I do in-depth, thorough research ahead of every post I write, and having an Amazon Affiliate-specific plan goes into it. A master class on Amazon Affiliates would be really helpful, especially since it’s often the first affiliate program that bloggers join.
One benefit of the course is there’s a 30-day return policy if you’re not entirely happy with it. So feel free to join the course and try it out to see if it’s for you.
How do you enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
It’s easy to enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing any time you want and get instant access to the course. Some other blogging courses are only open for a short window of time during the year, putting pressure on potential students to commit to spending a lot of money fast, money they might regret spending earlier if they had a reasonable amount of time to subscribe.
To make this class more affordable, Michele has two payment options:
- One-time payment of $197
- Two payments of $105 a month
I took advantage of the payment plan in order to afford this course, which has paid for itself more than four times over so far with how much affiliate income I’ve brought in since starting the course.
Ready to enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing? Click here.
