How much time do you spend on affiliate marketing?

[GPWA Gary]

Last week, we unveiled the new issue of the GPWA Times Magazine. One of the more popular features of the magazine is the affiliate interviews, and one of the questions we sometimes ask is whether or not the person being interviewed is a full-time or part-time affiliate.

There is typically a wide range of answers to this question, so we thought it would make for an interesting poll to find out what percentage of our members are full time, and if they aren't working 40 or more hours a week, how much time they actually spend on affiliate marketing on a weekly basis.

Of course, in addition to voting in the poll, please add comments about how your situation may be unique. If you are part time, let us know what else you do to generate income and if the amount of time you spend on affiliate marketing may change in the coming months or years.

[vtyunby65]

I spend anywhere between 10 and 20 hours per week working on my websites. I check my links and banners regularly just to make sure that they’re all up and running smoothly. I also remove any marketing materials that don’t generate conversions or income anymore. Also, making sure there are no broken links, images or anything of that sort.

[Strider1973]

I'm a full-time affiliate marketer for 9 years now.
And as long as I haven't reached financial independence, I'll continue to work hard (more hours than in a corporate job, as I work also on weekends and during "holidays" - but I love my job and it doesn't feel like hard work, it's rather like a full-time hobby).

[allfreechips]

This is the hardest easy to do from home relaxing Job I have ever had..... wish it was just 40...

[JCA]

As it was mentioned before, such flexible work can require more time, than most of the "usual" ones. It happens because there is no definite limit, when everything is done. Another point is that you get outcome as the result of your work, not the time spent. This aspect makes you work harder.

As for me, affiliate marketing is just a hobby, but I belive it could become a sufficient source of income in future.

[MrProno]

40 hours per week is half time for me. you should add

60+ hours per weeky
80+ hours per weeky
100+ hours per weeky

When I see the potencial in 2006, I immediatly stop my former business to dedicate full time to my websites. The first 5 years I have work 100-105 hours per week, and I was able to live on it after 5 months. Now I work less, as my business is fully organized and optimized.

If you want to grow a business, it is not by working 40 hours or less than you will become on millionaire...

[Strider1973]

If you want to grow a business, it is not by working 40 hours or less than you will become on millionaire...

Yes, also my opinion.

The 4 Hour Workweek is a good read, but let's be clear: it's the result (of hard work) and not the process.

[Sherlock]

What "work" is should be defined, or rather it stopped making sense. If it is just the process - something like placing banners, looking at Google analytics or writing emails or chat, then I barely work 20 hours/1200 minutes a week netto (it used to be much more before). Maybe it is no more than 10 hours if I have to count seconds (72000).

But if it is also thinking about work and being online in standby mode, then it is 168 hours a week and forever it will be (even on my 2 months "vacation" now).

[MrProno]

work means real work... doing something that will improve our business or your income in the future like writing contains, optimizing your webs, accounting... not chating with your friend, losing time on facebook or reading your newspapers.

[Sherlock]

I chat with my employees, i do not have facebook.
Usually I wait minutes or hours for their response for example, and meanwhile I post to this forum or read news. Typical work looks like that. All online working people work like that. Giant multitasking. Incredible amount of idle time combined with action for seconds (for example saying yes/no, after thinking about it in a bath and so on [that is why i have ip68 phone]).

I also have dreams about my job and servers are connected to phone alerts. Is that job?

[MrProno]

You can always use your idle time to write contains, or do a lot of things that will benefit your webs in the future. A website is a neverending work, there is always stuff to do to improve it or increase the number of visitors.

But not everybody should work 100 h per week, some people work 5 hours per week, make 300 euros and are happy with that, other want to work cool 40 hours and make 3000 a month, but if you want to make 10 k, 20k, 30k or more at one time you will have to work very very hard and that is at least 80 hours of real work.

Also consider that it was more easy 10 years ago, now the market have become much more competitive, so working 100 hours per week will no guarantee you quick profit or 5 figures monthly income.

[Sherlock]

I can do other things, but I do not do it. That is my decision. I want and need time to make business decisions. So one minute I write email, the next minute I fuk my gf who is working next to me. In the end it is more productive than doing some seo 60mins/hour that I can outsource after I am done with her (but the process of outsourcing means that I have to chat with someone irregulary and also check the work and so on, which can take 15 mins of my life, but over several days). Therefore I am asking if my idle time is counted or not. That is all. Because the idle time is not free time but also not a classic work.

By the time I will make only 30K/month, I will no longer work for long time, because my free time has much higher value.

In other words, asking and answering such topics has no sense at all. People who work online are not labour workers in 19th century. If they work like that, they usually do something wrong.

[MrProno]

again, I dont want to decide how many hours other people should work, I just say that if you want to make 5 figure monthly income, you will have to work very very much, like 80 hours or more of real work per week ... at least for a few years.

You prefer work less and have fun with your girl, that is fine to me, you are probably not earning 5 figure income which is also fine to me. Not everybody need 5 figure income or be a millionaire... I do, so that why I work so much at the first 5 years.

[Proffa]

I work around 6 hours a day. Affiliate marketing is my "full-time" job. We do have bunch of staff working on our site, so I guess the hours add up in that sense.
When we started we used to work much more, but now most of the mechanical day-to-day tasks are handled by our staff, which means that we can focus more on the bigger picture.

[Sherlock]

again, I dont want to decide how many hours other people should work, I just say that if you want to make 5 figure monthly income, you will have to work very very much, like 80 hours or more of real work per week ... at least for a few years.

You prefer work less and have fun with your girl, that is fine to me, you are probably not earning 5 figure income which is also fine to me. Not everybody need 5 figure income or be a millionaire... I do, so that why I work so much at the first 5 years.

The topic is how much you work, I tried to point out that what work is is not clear. Work is not what it used to be.

No, I am not making 5 figures, I am not making even 4 figures. In fact I am not making even 3 figures, can you believe that? Even 2 figures I am not making... even 1 or zero.

[Malikbhai]

Owners of established affiliate sites (ones that rank in google top 10 for 1000 plus keywords) don't need to work, other than overseeing staff here and there. It's more about keeping the network up and secure.

The definition of work does change once a critical juncture is crossed. For the most successful; the "idea" of working is more important than working for "real."

[ocreditor]

Full time. I can do other stuff of course but I believe in focus on specific field, for me focus is everything

[danny_OCR]

I started working on my first affiliate site last year. At first, I thought it would be an easy job. A couple of articles, banners here and there, toplist, some bonuses, and that's it. It took me a couple of months to realise that affiliate marketing is not as easy as it first seemed to be and if you want to achieve success, you need to work really hard. My site has not even been launched yet and I already spend all evenings, weekends, and holidays working on it. If I'm lucky, I will become a full-timer one day; for now it's just a full-time hobby