Review: Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course

This post may contain affiliate links.

If you’re looking to up your affiliate marketing game or are exploring ways to monetize your blog for the first time, you may have considered taking the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.

Taught by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents, this online course walks you through the exact strategies Michelle uses to make over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing. (Yes, a month.)

There is a lot of information out there regarding affiliate marketing, and it can be quite overwhelming and difficult to know where to begin.

When I decided I wanted to pursue monetizing my blog and to look into affiliate marketing specifically, I realized I had two choices. I could research and compile information myself from a variety of sources (hoping the strategies I identified would work), or I could go to one source that has proof their methods work. I chose the latter and signed up for Michelle’s course. Here is my review.

The Course at a Glance

Name: Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
Instructor: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents
Goal: To teach you how to successfully grow and increase your blog or online business’ income through affiliate marketing
Good For: Bloggers and online influencers interested in increasing their income
Cost: $197

Meet the Instructor

If you’re not familiar with Michelle, she has a very inspiring story of paying off her student loans through the income she earned from her personal finance blog. Her blog grew to the point where she was able to quit her job and blog full-time.

She now travels the country full-time while blogging, due largely in part to the income she earns through affiliate marketing. She details all sources of her income in her monthly income reports. This course is a result of her trial and error with affiliate marketing that led her to become a six-figure blogger.

What the Course Covers

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing includes six modules, 30 lessons, worksheets, as well as some valuable bonus material.

What you will get out of the course:

• A clear understanding of what affiliate marketing is and how it works
• How to earn income through affiliate marketing without compromising your brand
• Strategies you can implement immediately to begin or increase your earnings
• Tools and technical know-how needed to maximize the strategies taught
• The process of finding the right affiliate products and programs for your brand
• Rules and disclosures necessary to be an effective and upfront affiliate marketer

Bonuses included with the course:

• Access to the private Facebook Mastermind Group
• Weekly group coaching sessions through the private group
• Pinterest Strategy – How To Receive Hundreds of Thousands Of Visitors From Pinterest a Month ($34 value, from Rosemarie Groner of The Busy Budgeter)
• Additional worksheets and strategies

Who Should Take This Course

At the risk of sounding cliche, this course is for every blogger – whether you’ve been blogging for a few months or several years. Your experience will dictate how you approach the course, the pace at which you complete it, and what you get out of it.

I recommend this course for anyone who:

• Is seeking to monetize their blog for the first time
• Is looking for an additional income stream for their blog or online business
• Has tried affiliate marketing in the past, but were dissatisfied with the results
• Is looking to up their affiliate income game

Cost

• $197 (or two payments of $99 each)
• A full refund is offered within 30 days, if dissatisfied after completing the course and implementing the methods taught

Pros

• The strategies taught have been developed over time and are proven, not theoretical
• Information is presented in a clear and actionable manner
• Everything can be applied to a blog of any genre or niche
• If you’re new to affiliate marketing you will be equipped with everything you need to know to begin
• If you’ve tried affiliate marketing in the past, you will quickly see why your strategies may not have been successful
• The course includes valuable bonuses including Pinterest strategies
• Michelle offers support and is very accessible through the Facebook Mastermind Group
• Daily posts and check-ins help keep you accountable
• The Facebook Mastermind Group is a wealth of knowledge and support, often way beyond the subject of affiliate marketing.

Cons

• While the information is clear and understandable, I found some of it to be overwhelming due to my “greenness” regarding affiliate marketing. To counter this, I had to double-back and repeat some lessons to make sure I understood and completed the action of that section before moving forward.
• The cost could be prohibitive for some. The value is there for sure, and compared to the prices of some other courses, it’s reasonable, but $197 might seem like a bit of an investment, especially if you’re not currently generating any income at all from your blog. It is just that — an investment.

How to Maximize This Course

• Operate at a pace that works for you. Whether that’s fast or slow, be sure you have processed and completed each lesson before moving on to the next.
• Taking the above into consideration, challenge yourself to complete the course and to begin implementing the strategies within a specific time frame.
• Consider making a booklet out of the worksheets (as in photo). It was helpful to me to have the worksheets in one spot, have a designated place to jot down affiliate-related ideas, and to have something I could go back to after completing the course.
• Be an active participant in the Facebook Mastermind Group. You will be able to share your goals, bounce ideas off other fellow group members, and glean from the other members.

Summary

I am very pleased with my experience in taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing and highly recommend it to anyone looking to increase their blogging income. As I continue to implement the strategies from the course, I look forward to updating this review with my results!

Even if you’re a new blogger like myself, this course is for you. You can never invest in yourself or your brand too early, and you will benefit from starting off with this knowledge and these strategies before going too far into your journey and having to backtrack to implement them.

A recurring thread throughout the course was that affiliate marketing should be approached with integrity, and with the trust and needs of your readers as a priority. That is important to me, and I was happy that Michelle stressed that throughout the course.

She was also very upfront that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but with some effort and hard work up-front, it can be an excellent “almost-passive” stream of income.

Click here for more information on Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing or to sign up.

Are you looking to grow or increase your blogging income? What’s your experience with affiliate marketing?