Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review: Not For a Complete Beginner

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing was created by a blogger and is regarded as an excellent learning resource among blogger students. Monetizing your blog can seem impossible if you don't learn the right techniques from a decent affiliate marketing course that produces results. Have you been looking for a Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review to see if this is worth investing your money in it? As far as I could tell, the course has been around since 2016 so it must be legitimate. However, Internet marketing trends and search engine algorithms are constantly changing. Has the course been updated to reflect these changes? There are some positive things I've discovered about this course, as well as some negative aspects. Let's explore them.

What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (MSOAM) is a text guide to monetizing a blog site by promoting affiliate products. It also teaches other essential marketing methods that any financially successful blogger would take, such as email and social media marketing. 

The course consists of 6 modules / 30 lessons, plus a bonus module to take your niche marketing business to the next level. It also comes with various useful worksheets and checklists. You’ll be invited to the closed “Mastermind” Facebook group where you can ask any question.

MSOAM is available for a one-off fee of $197 or two payments of $105 per month.

The Course Creator

The MSOAM course was created by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who’s been running a blog site “Making Sense of Cents” since 2011. Her blog is about making money, mostly online, career advice, early retirement, etc. As a millionaire blogger, her achievements have been recognized by a variety of media including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Investopedia, Huffington Post, etc. Michelle also regularly contributes guest blog articles to authority sites.

In line with its name, this guide is based on the affiliate marketing part of her "Cents" website. So you know that you’ll be learning the method to monetize a blog site that’s already proven by Michelle.

Who Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing For?

MSOAM is for those who already have blogging experience but want to gain knowledge of affiliate marketing and wish to earn passive income from their blog site. The guide is text-based and there are not many video tutorials, but this makes perfect sense because the method itself is about communication through written content. You'll be making money by writing, so you'll be expected to understand the text guide. 

However, as you may already know, video marketing has become far more popular among affiliate marketers in the past few years. If you're looking to learn the most up-to-date techniques, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is NOT for you if;

• You don't have blogging skills.
• You want to receive the most up-to-date affiliate marketing training.

Course Contents

After the “introduction module”, the course is split into 6 modules. Here is the overview;

• Module 1: What Is Affiliate Marketing? - In case you have no idea what this business model is about, this very basic guide might help you. How it works and why Michelle recommends you start it. However, you probably wouldn't have found this course if you didn't know what it meant. 
• Module 2: How To Find and Apply To Affiliate Programs - The very basic planning stage that any newbie is required to go through. The ideal amount of traffic that you want, what kind of niches to choose from, how to join affiliate programs, and how to save your affiliate links in spreadsheets.
• Module 3: Follow The Rules - Affiliate marketing is a business that you’re going to run, so you need to know the basic legal requirements. You will learn how to display disclosures on your site, how to treat your taxable income. Other knowledge that every blogger should have is about the types of links (nofollow, sponsored, etc.)
• Module 4: How To Get Your Readers To Convert - From this module, you’ll start learning some actual marketing techniques. Such as how to build trust, use bonus materials to make more sales, how to build trust with the audience, pick the right products to promote, deep linking, learning your CTR.
• Module 5: Strategies and Ways To Promote Affiliate Links - Writing reviews is one of the best ways to make affiliate sales, so is creating tutorials. You will learn other strategies including the use of email marketing, interviewing people to drive sales, social media marketing especially focused on Pinterest.
• Module 6: Rinse and Repeat - How to maintain your quality affiliate marketing strategy and how to track your earning progress. Things that you should not do.
• Bonus Module - This section elaborates on some of the most important parts of the main modules. Writing strategies, how to increase more visitors, more about Pinterest, Paid ads (Facebook), and how to legally protect your website. 

The majority of the guide is text-based. Throughout the modules, useful worksheets are provided, such as;

• What affiliate products are suitable for your brand
• Tips for enhancing your top ten
• Checklist for affiliate links
• Affiliate reviews that work
• Checklist for routine maintenance
• Keep track of your affiliate earnings

Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Help You Make Money?

Firstly, this is a guide to affiliate marketing, not a training program.

The creator Michelle says she “earns over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing”. But you may want to note that she never says this guide will give you the same success as she has. No tutor should guarantee success, anyway. 

And the MSOAM’s Earnings Disclaimer page clearly says, “Building a business takes a lot of time, hard work, and continuous learning. There is no guarantee that you will see the exact same results as I have seen over the years.” 

The results probably also depend on how well you execute the content. Writers/copywriters who are exceptionally good sell better than those who are average, and you can only get better by trying your best.

Secondly, this guide is designed for those who have fairly successful blogging experience but have no knowledge of affiliate marketing. It does not teach SEO techniques, which are essential for driving organic traffic. But it does teach a very basic understanding of affiliate marketing. 

While Michelle shares her invaluable tips and advice, if you are a complete beginner, you’ll also have to receive training elsewhere.

Help and Support

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing has a Facebook group where you can receive help and support. It’s a closed group exclusive to MSOAM members. Once you’ve paid the course fee, you need to request to join the group which will be approved shortly. The MSOAM site itself has no support forum, so you do need to join the group where you can ask any questions. Once you’re in the group, you are free to post your thoughts at any time. Michelle and other active members answer your questions and solve any problem that you may have.

The Pricing - Are There Any Hidden Extras?

MSOAM guide is sold for $197 and the price includes lifetime access plus future updates (if any.) But if you are unsure of making a full payment, alternatively you can pay $105 to join, and $105 the following month to obtain lifetime access.

This is just a general guide to affiliate marketing, therefore there is no hidden extra. But like any other online marketing, you'll need to spend money on some tools and relevant services. If you haven't started anything, a web hosting fee to start with. An email marketing service is another one as recommended by Michelle. If you want to keep your budget low, you can look for a free service elsewhere instead. For email marketing, AWeber can be used for free up to 500 subscribers, for example. 

Refund Policy

Your purchase of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. You must prove to Michelle that you've followed all the steps in the guide before you can receive a full refund. 

It seems fair to tutors to make their refund policy conditional in this way nowadays, as a growing number of students are abusing guarantee policies. At the same time, because this is an information product sold for a one-time fee without a free trial, I think that purchasers should be entitled to a refund if they're not satisfied for whatever reason.