This is my affiliate marketing journey.
In hindsight, I would have done many things differently, but I am grateful for this bittersweet experience (in the making for over a decade).
This is the story of how I built a passive income empire with affiliate marketing—through trial, error, and a fair share of obsession.
The Beginning: A Leap of Faith
It was the second half of 2012, and I was 30 years old. After living abroad for a while, I was back in Johannesburg (city of Gold). Job hunting wasn’t going well, and I was pretty close to packing up and leaving again.
Just when I was about ready to give up, I landed a job as a website manager for an e-commerce company that sold alternative health products. The office was cozy, and the atmosphere was relaxed—a nice mix of health-conscious people working together.
I hurled myself into the role and quickly learned what it takes to run an online store with the Magento CMS. I handled everything from setting up the server, to integrating the payment gateway, and to keeping the website catalogue up to date. It was all-hands-on-deck, and I can definitely say picked up a lot of know-how about e-commerce.
The salary? For South Africa standards at the time, it was fantastic—around $4,285 (roughly ZAR37,500) per month before tax. But even with that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted something more.
My First Passive Income Venture: Google AdSense
Earning good money was great, but I often caught myself wondering:
- Is this amount of money all I’ll ever be worth?
- Is there a way to make money without trading my time?
That’s when I stumbled across the idea of passive income. I didn’t want to grind forever, so I started looking for ways to make money in the background, even while I slept. Enter Google AdSense.
AdSense lets you earn by showing ads on your website, blog, or YouTube channel. After a bit of research, I learned about the highest paid keywords in industries like insurance, loans, and law. That’s when the lightbulb turned on—I’d create websites targeting these niches.
Building My First Websites
By the end of 2012, I’d built a few simple 20–30 page websites focused on loans and insurance. I used SilverStripe CMS to set them up, worked with some affordable freelance writers for content, and had them deployed to a cheap web hosting provider.
Once the sites were live, I applied for a Google AdSense account, pasted their code into my web pages, and waited for approval. Within a few days, ads were running on my sites, and I was officially in business.
I remember obsessively checking the dashboard to see how much I’d earned. It wasn’t much at first—just $175 in December 2012—but it was sufficient to convince me that this idea had a leg to stand on.
Expanding My Horizons: Scaling Internationally
In 2013, I decided to go big. I replicated my process for other countries, setting up websites for New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. These markets had higher cost-per-click (CPC) rates for loans and insurance adverts, which meant a higher earning potential.
Over the year, I kept working after hours and on weekends. Wherever I could slot in an extra hour or two if work. By the end of 2013, my network of five (or so) websites was bringing in between $800 and $1,650 per month. It wasn’t life-changing money yet, but I was building momentum.
I officially registered the business with the CIPC.
The Turning Point: From Hobby to Real Business
Between 2014 and 2015, I doubled down on these sites:
- I grew each site to around 300–400 pages of content.
- I focused heavily on improving technical SEO, user experience, and the overall look and feel.
- I started capturing visitor email addresses using simple form-to-email setups, which quickly grew my database to over 50,000 active leads.
In August 2015, I started using email marketing to drive traffic back to my sites. This was a game-changer. More traffic meant more ad clicks, and more clicks meant more revenue. By the end of the year, I was earning between $1,100 and $1,800 per month consistently.
September 2015 was a milestone—the month my AdSense revenue matched my full-time salary. By that December, I hit $4,500 in a single month. Now, we’re in business!
Quitting My Job: The Side Hustle Takes Over
By March 2016, I was making over $6,500 per month. It was clear I could afford to leave my job and focus on this gig full-time. That was quite surreal—what started as a side hustle had turned into my primary source of income.
Toward the end of the year (2016), I was pulling in over $12,500 monthly.
Taking It to the Next Level
From 2017 to 2019, I hired a small team to scale operations. I brought in content writers, developers, and admins to churn out more websites and optimize existing ones. Each site was carefully designed to find loans online, with a focus on quality and user experience.
By December 2017, I hit an all-time high of $21,500 in a single month. My dream of earning passive income was fully realized.
Surviving the Pandemic: A Lesson in Resilience
Then came 2020. Like many businesses, mine took a massive hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenue plummeted, and I had to suspend operations. For a few months, I thought it was the end.
But by late 2020, things started to slowly recover. Email marketing resumed, and revenue climbed back to over $6,000 per month by mid-2021. By early 2022, back on track, I was earning $16,000–$18,000 monthly… again.
Looking Back: Was It Worth It?
By late 2022, the Google AdSense revenue started to decline. Google had slapped me with a penalty. I had read many, many articles from affiliate marketers that lost their business codels overnight. If you’re not in the page 1 results, you’re not really anywhere. Diversification efforts weren’t enough to offset the drop, and by 2023, I had to disassemble my whole team.
In June 2024, my revenue hit an all-time low of $1,500 per month—just enough to cover hosting and essential tools like Cloudflare and SemRush. It’s been a tough pill to swallow, but I remain optimistic that this is just a penalty.
The Takeaway: Start Your Journey Today
Despite the challenges, I don’t regret a thing. The journey taught me resilience, consistency, and how to create something from scratch. Affiliate marketing isn’t always easy, but it works—if you’re willing to put in the effort upfront.
So if you’ve been toying with the idea of building a passive income stream, my advice is simple: Start today. Who knows? Your side hustle could be the next million-dollar success story.
