If you read my recent post you may recall me sharing that I decided to move in a new direction. Hence starting this new site. And one of the main reasons behind this move is because I decided to quit promoting high ticket affiliate offers.

Now before I get into the reasons why, I want to back track a little and explain what affiliate marketing is.

What is affiliate marketing?

Basically affiliate marketing is a way to earn an income by sharing other people’s products. You get your own personalised link and when somebody purchases a product through your link, you earn a commission.

Not to be confused with network marketing or multi-level marketing.

How does affiliate marketing work?

You can either buy into a program and gain the rights to promote their products. Or you can join sites that have a range of different affiliate offers that you can join.

You generally need to apply for an affiliate program. Some are easier than others. But most of the time it comes down to whether or not you actually use the products or not.

Once you get your personalised link you can share them in a range of different ways. Through social media, blog posts, youtube, email marketing and any other marketing methods.

When people click on your affiliate link and make a purchase you get a % of the purchase. This could range anywhere from 5% to 40% and is the difference between high ticket and low ticket affiliate offers.

High ticket vs low ticket offers

Low ticket offers are available on sites like Amazon, Clickbank, fashion sites, book sites, training sites, digital products, and anything else you can think of.

Some of the low ticket affiliate offers I promote are products like membership sites, email marketing platforms, sales funnel platforms, stock photos etc. You would’ve seen me speak about these products in other blog posts. You can see an example of what I mean here: Tools for establishing a strong personal brand.

The products are usually low price points ranging from $50 to a few hundred dollars and the commissions range from 5% – 20%.

The appeal of these products is that you can easily sell them through blog posts, email marketing, social media etc. without too much follow up or work. People who follow you will happily purchase from your links because they trust your advice. However, you would need to have a very large following for these types of products to generate a sustainable income.

Which is why most people tend to turn to promoting high ticket affiliate offers. These products can range anywhere from $1000 to $50,000 and are usually things like marketing education, coaching, or retreats. And usually due to the low overheads of producing these kinds of products the companies can afford to pay out higher commissions. So they usually pay up to 40% on one sale.

Meaning you’re in a position to earn huge commissions.

My experience promoting high ticket affiliate offers

In my time online I have worked with 3 different affiliate programs.

The first one I joined was after I saw a friend quit her job and move to Mexico. The products were based around teaching people how to blog and earn an income online. They ranged from a small monthly fee to a $5000 product. So this was more mid level but for a beginner it seemed to be a huge investment. I bought into some of the products but played it safe and stayed at one of the lower levels.

As I still wasn’t completely convinced I could make it work and didn’t really understand it so didn’t want to risk too much of an investment. I made a few sales here and there but never enough to replace my income. And then I discovered a lot of my mentors were moving to another program so I decided to follow them there. Eventually this first program shut down anyway so it was the right decision.

THE SECOND COMPANY I JOINED WAS VERY HIGH TICKET.

Our initial product was $2,000 and went up to the highest price point of $50,000. I quit my job before replacing my income. Because I could see that I had potential to earn a lot more than I was earning in my 6 figure corporate job. I did end up doing very well with this company and reached a point where I was earning $20,000 per month. However, the company ended up being shut down and a lot of us lost our income overnight.

The third and final company I’ve promoted is a digital education company some of my mentors created once our previous company shut down. Our products range from $500 – $3000 so it’s more mid ticket than high ticket. After spending months trying to recoup the income I lost in the previous affiliate business I realised if I’m going to put that much time and effort into it, I’m better off building something of my own where I’m in full control and don’t have to split my earnings.

The truth about promoting high ticket affiliate offers

But here’s the truth about promoting high ticket affiliate offers.

Firstly, you have to choose your company wisely. They come and go. As you can tell from my experience having been through 3 companies in 2 years.

Many of the super high ticket programs bring in successful marketers who already have a large following and income and they bring them in to grow the program quickly. Then they rely on hype and pressure tactics to get other people to buy into the program. Which tends to be one of the reasons they end up getting shut down. This is what was happening in the first two programs I joined.

But at the time none of us really saw it because we were so successful. And we knew we were being supportive and helping our members. We gave them the best possible chance of success by providing them extra training and mentorship.

That’s why, once those companies shut down, my mentors took it upon themselves to change this space online which is why they created their own company.

And while I started off quite successfully something changed over the last few months.

Why I quit promoting high ticket affiliate offers

When I first started online I wanted to be a blogger and that was what was bringing me enjoyment during the stressful times at work. I would work on my blog in the morning and go to work in a great mood.

I’ve always loved reading and writing. And writing on my blog was like a kind of therapy for me and it got me through some of the darkest times in my job. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t making me income at that point, it was an outlet where I could be myself.

Then I discovered the second affiliate marketing program and became blindsided by the idea of making money quickly and being able to quit my job. I stopped blogging because I was spending so much time building my business. I focused on getting more leads and sales and coaching my members. And I forgot about all the things I actually cared about.

And then… just like that, the money was gone! After months of uncertainty my mentors came through with their program. And I jumped at the opportunity, convincing myself it was still what I wanted to do.

But I’d lost my passion for it.

All the signs

I started working online because I wanted to quit my job and have freedom to travel and spend time with my family and friends. But in the last year I hardly travelled, I moved away from my family and friends and I spent every waking hour sitting at home on my laptop.

Because when you’re building something for the wrong reasons it doesn’t work. And by this point, I was building this business simply for the money. The truth is, after being burnt by the first two companies I’d lost my passion. I tried hard to stay enthusiastic but after my income was drastically reduced my heart was never truly in it.

Not to mention the guilt I felt about leading so many people into a business where they ended up losing money. I never really recovered from that and didn’t feel right leading them into another one, even if I knew the training was much better.

And then the signs started showing up.

First my Instagram automation strategy stopped working and I lost my main source of lead generation. Then I tried Facebook ads and had two ad accounts shut down. Eventually I decided to take a break and realised I didn’t miss working on my affiliate business at all. So that’s when I decided it was time to move on.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on working online. It’s just time for me to do my own thing. Which for now, is building my brand through my blog. And creating my own courses to sell so I can impact more people and have full control over the products they’re investing in when they choose to work with me.

That doesn’t mean I won’t ever promote affiliate products again, but when I do it will be as a supplementary thing and not my primary business.

The idea of recruiting and building teams just to make money no longer sits well with me after my experiences. And so the only products I want to sell are ones that actually teach people skills to build something of their own, not just how to be recruiters.

My verdict

Whilst it may seem that high ticket affiliate marketing is the better way to go. From my experience you stand to lose a lot more. Not only is it a much bigger investment which means you risk losing a lot more. But it also takes a lot more work.

People will lead you to believe that by selling more expensive products it’s less work because you can make more from less sales. And when you’re selling $10k-$50k products they’re right.

But when you’re in that mid-level range between $1k – $3k, the people that buy those products will expect a lot more support and hand holding. Plus it takes a lot more effort to make the sale. So unless you’re prepared to spend all your time coaching, mentoring and building other people’s businesses it’s not necessarily worth it.

Essentially you’re just walking into another employee model where you have to follow other people’s rules.

This is why I decided to quit putting all my effort into building up other people’s businesses and focus on my own. By creating my own courses where I can have more impact.

I still love coaching people and I love teaching people but working on a 1-1 model isn’t sustainable or enjoyable. So through creating my own courses I have the ability to reach more people and focus in on what I love doing, creating valuable content that educates and inspires.

I know I’m building something for the long term. And to me, that is the most important thing.