How passive is passive income when using affiliate marketing?

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By Sam Brake Guia September 13, 2018

Everyone dreams of having a source of passive income. The idea of earning money without having to spend a huge amount of time or energy on its production sounds ideal for many of us. This is perhaps why the world famous book “the 4 hour work week” has become so popular. However, it is a dream that sounds all too good to be true. If it required no effort at all, it probably wouldn’t be called passive income and could just be labeled “free money” and everyone would be doing it. The truth is this type of income does require effort, initially. Once the ball is rolling, there is plenty of potential for it to pick up speed if the right methods are utilized.

A recent article in Time Square Chronical titled “How Affiliate Marketing Remains an Excellent Source of Passive Income” explores the idea that affiliate marketing could be the key to achieving this elusive passive income. And there is a demand for this, as nearly 90 percent of advertisers say affiliate programs are a key driver to their marketing strategies. The article states the benefits of this approach, highlighting broadening the market which “simply put, the biggest advantage of affiliate marketing is you can broaden the market with your promotional efforts,” along with cost-effective marketing techniques, and that tracking the growth is easy.

“Affiliate marketing is becoming more popular because of its virtually zero risk business model. It has given an employment opportunity to thousands of people without even having to leave their day jobs. But those who have found the most success as an affiliate marketer no longer have to worry about their 9 to 5 since their online venture has given them the financial freedom they’ve always wanted,” according to the Time Square Chronical

Alexander Bachmann, CEO of Admitad

Alexander Bachmann, CEO of Admitad

But keeping up with this evolving industry can be tough. A previous interview in MARTECH Series with Alexander Bachmann, CEO of Admitad, a Cost per action (CPA) affiliate marketing network, discusses how he sees the industry changing with the introduction of AI/ML technologies stating “Machine learning is an evolving technological trend, a step towards artificial general intelligence. We are already witnessing artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) designed to perform some narrow tasks. As affiliate marketing is moving towards optimization of multiple simple processes, personification and digitalization, AI/ML can change this industry and change the whole industry of affiliate marketing and online advertising.”

Bachmann adds “We are currently witnessing online businesses automatizing all kinds of work using artificial narrow intelligence based bot technologies. If ANI increases its online security and decreases the number of technical issues, I won’t be surprised to see some tectonic changes in affiliate industry in this regard very soon.”

Evidently, the creation of passive income never is as passive as it may seem. However, if you are willing to put in the initial work and keep up with the news in that given industry, you might be able to earn a little bit of extra money which can evolve into something much bigger.

Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company