Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review
(Michelle Schroeder-Gardner Course)

Today, we’ll be going through Michelle’s course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. We’ll go through the contents and what it offers to determine whether or not it’s worth the $197 (except if you pay in halves, which makes it $210). I’ll give you my opinion at the end on what I would do.

This course sells as a steps guide teaching you how you can build an online blog and turn it into your full-time income, your current knowledge and level notwithstanding.

The main thesis behind this class is that affiliate marketing is the way you monetize blogs, and any other blogger not using this approach is giving up money.

The course targets bloggers and influencers on the internet, regardless of whether they’re beginners or have been blogging for a while. Besides, the course works as a guide for people who haven’t discovered the business model, don’t know how to implement it into their current sites, don’t understand how it works, or aren’t keen on getting into it for their own reasons.

Who’s the author?

Michelle is a blogger and online entrepreneur, and you might have heard of her finances website named Making Sense of Cents. Her blog is quite old, since 2011, and she started it without even thinking it would become her main business. She says she now makes $100,000 every month through it, and half of that income is from affiliate marketing.

She offers varied content, but she focuses mostly on making money and finances: investing and earning. She usually uploads posts about ways to make money from your home, saving money, online opportunities, and related topics.

The success behind her blog and general online entrepreneurship has gotten Michelle featured in many publications, including Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Yahoo. Several YouTube channels have also interviewed her.

Reviewing Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

The name of the course follows the same style as her blog, and her content also boasts a similar feel. It hosts on Teachables, which is always a good thing, and you both pay and access the course through it.

You have 6 different modules and 30 lessons overall. Naturally from a blogger, the entire course is text, so if you don’t like reading, it might be time to consider not getting it.

Intro

The course starts up welcoming you to the course and how it’s formatted as well as what you’ll learn with each section. You’re also instructed on how to join the private group on Facebook to talk and interact with other students in case you have any doubts or want to chime in the conversations.

Explaining the business

The first actual module is just an explanation of what’s affiliate marketing and how it works. You also learn why you should be pursuing the business and its benefits.

Getting into the business

Module 2 goes into how to set up your business. You learn about which traffic levels are optimal, and what requirements you must meet before you start making money from the model.

After that, you learn how you can figure out what your readers are looking for on the internet; that’s how you boost your conversions by actually making sales (and thus, commissions) through your posts.

Finally, you learn how Michelle brainstorms her ideas and find affiliate programs that stick to those ideas for you to apply. He mentions around 80 different programs you can join depending on your content and focus niche.

Rules

This module goes into the legal side of the business, making sure you build a business that’s sustainable for the long-term. You learn about the main disclosures and requirements relevant to the business model.

After that, you learn what “Nofollow” links are and why they’re an important part of referring your traffic to the different offers you can promote.

The module closes on what you should do if you’re based on a Nexus State. That’s a legal term that refers to the laws on countries regarding these operations.

Converting readers

Module 4 teaches you a tool you need if you want to succeed with the business model. She recommends PrettyLinks, which you can use to hide your affiliate links (so that your audience doesn’t know you’re promoting affiliate links) and improve trust with your readers.

You also have a lesson explaining how to find the right products to match your brand and why it’s important not to promote any product you can find instead of focusing on a niche. There’s also content on deep linking, and then you learn why the click-through rate is important, finding out how many readers actually go into your links.

You also learn the importance of bonuses for improving the purchases of your customers. You then get to see Michelle’s approach to this method and her ideas.

The module closes with some implementations you need for ensuring your success in the business, and she also teaches you how you can enhance your 10 best posts, which are your main income streams.

Promotion strategies

This is the largest section in the course, and it’s all about different strategies to promote your affiliate links.

You have lessons on how to write tutorial guides, general posts, interviews with the creator of your products, social media marketing, etc. It also goes into how you can write a good affiliate review and how it should look after your done.

One of Michelle’s favorite approaches is to use tutorials, and there’s a lesson on how she does this as well as how you can replicate her approach. Similarly, she also recommends having a useful page with resources that your visitors can access easily. After that, you learn how you can boost sales by using interviews.

Of course, she recommends building your mailing list for a long-term approach, and she then goes into how you can build loyalty by communicating with your readers often. While not the focus, you can also use the emails to promote your affiliate links.

She then covers how even average posts can help you achieve noticeable success and how they stack up with time. The module finishes with how you can boost your outreach with social media and which results you can expect; her favorite is Pinterest, and she says it’s been the most important platform for her.

Repeating

The last module is how you can build a rhythm out of all the previous approaches and turning it into a long-term income source from affiliate marketing.

You learn why you want to form relationships, including with other affiliate marketers, how to maintain your strategy, a checklist for running maintenance on your blog regularly, what you should avoid, and how to ensure your strategy last for a while.

You finally learn how you can take advantage of holidays to boost your income and how to track your income progress.

Bonuses

The bonuses offer additional resources to complement the main course. You have a bit more content with tips on getting approved by affiliate programs, driving traffic from Pinterest, what to do if one of your post goes viral, increasing your page visitors, and using Facebook Ads to increase your reach and relevancy.

You also have a cool bit on strategies to improve your posts’ editing and writing, and how you can protect your blog legally.

Final Verdict

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review and I wish you the best of luck.