This post is based solely on my own experience but I should imagine that hundreds of people are going through the same problem – cash flow.

Being the age I am (21 currently) I don’t have a massive array of credit cards to help out with my affiliate marketing career. This can put a great deal of stress onto the one I’m using, I didn’t have any money saved up because, again my age got in the way and I’m a reformed alcoholic (joke ). However since I became 21 back in January I have taken a different approach to life and tried to be more sensible in the fact that spending £200/week (~$400) on a few nights out is stupid when I could be investing it elsewhere and making not only my bank healthier – but my body too.

Anyways, back to the topic. You all know that affiliate marketing networks will pay you every month in the beginning and then move you onto bi-monthly or weekly when you have proven you deserve it. I’ve currently just been switched to bi-monthly with AzoogleAds so I get paid on the 5th of each month (previous month’s revenue made between the 1stand 15th) and on the 30th of the same month (previous month’s revenue made between the 15thand 30th).

The main problem is that my credit card bill comes through and needs to be paid on the 13th of each month so as you can see when I was on net -15 there was a problem. I could either go on a mad saving spree and pay the bill off with my own cash or take a hit for a bank charge and pay it a couple of days later. As I was beginning to spend more each month it was getting harder to get the full amount paid off in time.

I’m not entirely sure how being on bi-monthly will affect my cash flow immediately, I presume it’s more to the point that I can clear the funds so I don’t reach my limit and get further charges which is great. I guess it’s a matter of time before I can make enough profit to support a large proportion of the next months PPC costs making it easier to manage.

I’m not sure how the big boys do this, well I’m sure the big affiliates have enough $ to simply pay it off instantly without affecting their bank accounts that much. Are we supposed to have a number of different cards so that we can spread the costs out etc? I’ve never really looked into this side of things before because I was only spending small amounts that I could easily pay off, I’m guessing my situation will be different to a lot of affiliates due to me living in the UK and not having the same credit cards available.

So, what’s the point of this post? I have no idea really. I was just thinking out loud and would find it useful to find out how other people support their affiliate marketing campaigns – regardless if you’re making a loss or a profit, we all have to pay the PPC costs somehow.

Another reason I’m posting on cash flow because say if I have a credit card limit of $5,000 and my current campaign will spend $4,000 each month and make a profit (amount is irrelevant), that only leaves me with $1,000 a month to play around with creating new campaigns which isn’t a lot if you think about it. It would only allow me to explore 1 niche each month, if I happen to stumble on a niche that works, I can still only spend $1,000 each month or I will get charged for hitting my limit.

Get new posts sent directly via email by subscribing to my RSS feed.

View Richard's Profile      Subscribe via RSS