DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I recommend products I’ve personally used or think you’d be missing out on if I didn’t share them with you. Clicking my link costs you NOTHING extra – It might only give YOU a DISCOUNT and I might earn a commission. Read my disclosure for more details.
Are you sitting on the fence about buying the popular Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course? Please click here to learn more about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Is the course really that good? Or is it all hyped-up? Then I hope my honest Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review will help you decide if this is the right investment for you (or not). Because not long ago I was in your shoes. So, if you’re wondering if Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s course is worth it and if you should get it, but you need help to decide then this post will help you. Because I’ll share with you the best way how you can make that decision for yourself (and it might not be what you think). It all comes down to asking yourself that one question, which I’ll share in this review. If you want to find out what it is then let’s get started.
You’ve probably heard that, in her course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, Michelle shares how she went from $0 in affiliate income to over $50,000 per month.
I don’t know about you, but for me, making this kind of money would change EVERYTHING!
What about you?
I would be able to fly home and see my family and for them to meet my baby girl for the first time. Both of my parents just retired on a very small pension. I am currently on a single mom pension myself. Flights from Australia to Germany cost A LOT post-pandemic. And I know that I have to find ways to make money online in order to spend time with loved ones. That’s why I personally invested in this course. Because for me to be able to spend more time with my family and my daughter is my WHY.
But did it live up to my expectations? Find out in this review.
- My results: My first sale
- My results: 5 sales in 3 days
- 1. What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 2. What is affiliate marketing?
- 3. Who is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing for? Is it right for me?
- 4. Who’s Michelle Schroeder-Gardner?
- 5. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me actually make money from affiliate marketing?
- 6. What kind of results can I expect from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 7. Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing the best course to learn affiliate marketing?
- 8. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me start affiliate marketing as a beginner?
- 9. What topics are covered in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- Bonus content
- 10. Does Michelle look at my blog and help me make more sales?
- 11. I’m a mom, so I don’t have much time. How long will it take me to go through the course?
- 12. Are there more things I need to buy inside Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 13. What about all the negative reviews I read about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing? Are they true?
- 14. What about the price of the course? How much does Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing cost?
- 15. How do you enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- Passive income
- Will the course work for me?
- Closing thoughts on the review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
Before we dive in I want you to think about what’s your WHY? WHY do you want to take the course?
Knowing your WHY is the most important thing! Why do you want to learn affiliate marketing and why do you want to learn from Michelle? You’ve probably read some of the negative reviews and now you’re confused about whether this course is worth your money, right?
I was the same. But all I can say is don’t listen to negative reviews if SHE’s a person YOU want to learn from.
Personally, I fell in love with Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing for a number of reasons. One of the things I love about the course is that it’s text-only! I don’t know about you but this worked out so much better for me and having a baby under one. Instead of untangling my headphones to listen to videos with one ear so that with the other ear I still hear what’s going on (anyone?), I was able to read the lessons, quietly, without interrupting my baby.
And, because it was all text-based (except for a few bonus videos) I was able to go through the course faster even while being a full-time stay-at-home mom.
The other thing I loved about this course was the subtleness of things. Michelle is not shouty and there are no gimmicks or crazy strategies. Instead, she gets to the essence of what affiliate marketing is all about.
But that is part of the problem for a lot of people.
Yes, you’ll find negative reviews about her course and the things people commonly criticize are:
- The course doesn’t contain videos
- Shallow advice that can be found for free online
- No advanced strategies
- No examples
However, I don’t find that to be true.
For you to succeed with affiliate marketing you don’t need complicated strategies. It’s really simple actually as it boils down to trust. How well does your audience trust you and how good of a relationship have you built with them?
In comparison, I read Pat Flynn’s free 120+ pages long Epic Guide to Affiliate Marketing. He’s making around $300,000/mo from affiliate marketing, however, as nice and successful Pat is, I didn’t click with his style. It just wasn’t for me.
Maybe that would be different for you and you would enjoy learning from Pat. It all really depends on who you feel like you can learn from the best, do you see what I mean?
My point is, don’t let people put you off anyone you feel drawn to. If you feel drawn to Michelle, get her course and if you feel drawn to Pat, then get his, just as an example, despite the reviews.
People also criticize that there are no examples and that isn‘t true, there are a lot in almost every lesson. AND one example she shares really made things CLICK for me! After reading about her strategy I ended up improving my links for 2 hours.
And CHA-CHING I made my first EVER sale!!!
My results: My first sale
What’s interesting about making my first sale so soon after implementing Michelle’s strategy is that I had over 987 clicks already and nobody bought. That showed me that updating my links, using her advice, was working.
But my sales didn’t stop there…
My results: 5 sales in 3 days
Soon after I took Michelle’s course I signed up for the Amazon affiliate program in the USA and within less than 10 days, I made my first Amazon affiliate sale.
Making my first Amazon sale from just 3 clicks was huge for me!
And the next morning I checked there were more sales!
I was utterly stoked and couldn’t believe my eyes!
With just 1 click I got 4 orders which is a conversion of 400%!
Although they are small earnings it was still monumental for me, because it shows that the strategies from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing work.
But it might be different for you, you might take something different away that clicks for you. However, if you do end up buying the course through my affiliate link, then send me an email at kris (at) anymommycanmakemoney (dot) com and I’ll share with you what clicked for me and we can chat about it.
Overall, the course massively improved my confidence in affiliate marketing, because now I can see a clear path to how I can earn money online.
And, one HUGE benefit is that I have access to Michelle and can reach out to her if I have questions. The best thing is that as a member of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing you get access to her private Facebook group in which she’s very active. My favorite posts are the ones where you can ask her anything and I am planning to utilize them more to get her help and the help of the community to improve my blog. She takes so much time responding and answering questions and really takes the time to look at your links or your blog.
If you’re like me, a beginner blogger who wants to make money online, then the combination of the course material + having access to Michelle can really make a difference in how to set up your affiliate marketing strategy right from the start.
So, if you’re interested, in today’s post, I’ll share more of my honest Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review. If you are thinking about buying the course, then here are some questions you might have.
- 1. What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 2. What is affiliate marketing?
- 3. Who is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing for? Is it right for me?
- 4. Who is Michelle Schroeder-Gardner?
- 5. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me actually make money from affiliate marketing?
- 6. What kind of results can I expect from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 7. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me start affiliate marketing as a beginner?
- 8. What topics are covered in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 9. Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing the best course to learn affiliate marketing?
- 10. Does Michelle look at my blog and help me make more sales?
- 11. I’m a mom, so I don’t have much time. How long will it take me to go through the course?
- 12. Are there more things I need to buy inside Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
- 13. What about all the negative reviews I read about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing? Are they true?
- 14. What about the price of the course. How much does Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing cost?
- 15. How do you enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Pretty good questions! So let’s go over them one by one to help you get the answers you’re looking for.
1. What is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is an online course where you are going to learn how to master affiliate marketing, without selling your soul. You’ll learn how Michelle Schroeder-Gardner went from $0 in affiliate income to over $50,000 per month.
I had been eyeing this course for ages because I was curious to learn how someone can make $50K/ mo from affiliate marketing and I definitely wanted to learn the secrets. Because this sort of amount of income would totally change my life.
And I know it would probably be the same for you.
2. What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when you place an affiliate link of a company’s product or service on your website, blog, or social media profile and have people purchase through your link. As an affiliate, you’re recommending products you already use and love to your audience. For every person clicking through your link and buying you’ll earn a commission.
For example, one of my favorite books about money, My Money. My Way by Kumiko Love helps you create a budget that works for you, instead of against you. After reading the book I took charge of my finances, created a budget, and started a retirement fund and an emergency fund. I can’t recommend this book enough to you if you’re struggling with debt or have money left at the end of the month.
Many brands, companies and other bloggers like the model of affiliate marketing as this means they only pay a commission for a qualified sale instead of wasting money on ads. If you do it right, this can be a win-win for everyone!
Michelle’s course teaches you the nuances and strategies of successful affiliate marketing. If you’re a new blogger keen to learn how you can get into affiliate marketing then this is the best way to start your journey.
3. Who is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing for? Is it right for me?
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is great for bloggers and online influencers who want to have a profitable blog.
- It’s for you if you’re a new blogger or you’ve been blogging for years and want to earn income while you sleep.
- It’s perfect for affiliate marketing for beginners if you want to learn how to start affiliate marketing as a beginner.
- Even if you are a brand new blogger, this course can help you start off blogging the correct way.
- It’s right for you if you want to set yourself up to earn passive income from your blog further down the line.
- And it’s also right for you if you have tried affiliate marketing but failed so far.
In the course, you’ll learn strategies that help you succeed with affiliate marketing even if your previous efforts didn’t work.
I consider myself an absolute blogger beginner with lots to learn.
Honestly, I am wondering why I even waited SO long to invest in the course.
4. Who’s Michelle Schroeder-Gardner?
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner is an award-winning personal finance blogger of Making Sense of Cents and course creator of her online course Marking Sense of Affiliate Marketing. In her course, she shares how she went from $0 to $50,000/mo with affiliate sales making money blogging.
Her writing and advice have been featured on sites such as Huffington Post, Forbes, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Zillow, US News, Nasdaq, MSN, and more.
I found out about Michelle online when I was reading income reports about how people make money from their blogs. And I was very impressed by her income report. Because of that, I wanted to purchase her blogging course (over somebody else’s course), because I wanted to specifically learn from her.
The thing I like about Michelle is that she’s been around since 2011. She has dedicated herself to her blog and I trust her. Her success comes down to creating a lot of good content that helps her audience. And it’s inspiring to see what an empire she’s built for herself.
5. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me actually make money from affiliate marketing?
YES. Because you’ll learn the affiliate marketing strategies that helped Michelle go from $0 to well over $50,000+/mo. She also shares her steps on how she was earning $300,000 from one single blog post.
I’ve been thinking a lot of time about how life-changing making that kind of money every month would be for me. And that’s why the best way for me was to buy her course and learn from her. Before you invest in the course, you need to know what you want out of your blog. How much money do you want to make? Maybe you want to support your family or your parents? The good thing is that your online business can totally take care of it and make extra money. But it all starts with your WHY because that will be the motivation you need to succeed.
6. What kind of results can I expect from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Here are my favorite testimonials from 2 of her students. First up, is Saira Perl, Blogger at MomResource.
“Since taking Michelle’s course 5 months ago, my monthly page view average has been 36,715 but my affiliate marketing income has grown from an average of $272.94 per month to $4,400.19 per month. That’s more than 1,500% growth! Within just 5 quick months, I’ve made more than $21,000 directly from the affiliate marketing tips in this course…. I made more than $10,000 in just March 2017 alone! Low page views are not an excuse for low affiliate marketing income. You don’t have to struggle to earn a few dollars a month. Invest in yourself & get educated to start building your business right away. Let Michelle show you how an expert does it!” – Saira Perl, Blogger, MomResource
And Rosemarie Groner, Budget Guru from The Busy Budgeter.
“Michelle is unbelievable. I had a decent amount of traffic but struggled with using affiliates wisely. I used to get really overwhelmed with affiliates and would be disappointed when I didn’t see results from the enormous amount of effort I was putting into it. Michelle was able to quickly identify what needed to be changed and within one month, my income rose 40% and has since quadrupled only 4 months after working with her! My income was $6,469.50 before I talked to Michelle, immediately jumped to $9,362.64 the next month, and is now $24,680.25 (four months later) and climbing! Michelle is my go-to person for step by step affiliate income strategy.” – Rosemarie Groner, Budget Guru, The Busy Budgeter
Pretty impressive!
7. Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing the best course to learn affiliate marketing?
This is an important question because you want to invest your money wisely.
But to help you answer this, you should ask yourself the following question instead: Who is the person you want to learn from? Because this is what will make this the best course for you. The thing is, if you don’t like Michelle or enjoy reading her blog, then this might not be the right course for you. But if you already enjoy her work, then this might well be the best course for you.
It’s really important that you click with the people to choose to learn from.
What you see is what you get. If you like how Michelle writes on her blog you’ll enjoy how the course is written.
8. Can Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing help me start affiliate marketing as a beginner?
Yes, in fact, Michelle even says that if you’re a beginner and you’re taking the course, then it can help you set it up right from the start and make fewer mistakes. That’s exactly why I invested in the course early on when my blog was just 2 months old. Because I wanted to set it up the right way, while I focus on building an audience.
9. What topics are covered in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
The course covers topics such as what affiliate marketing is, how to find the best affiliate programs, how to increase conversions, required disclosures, different strategies, and more. This is a course on anything and everything on affiliate marketing strategies.
These are the different modules included in this course:
- Module 1: What Is Affiliate Marketing?
- Module 2: How To Find and Apply To Affiliate Programs
- Module 3: Follow The Rules
- Module 4: How To Get Your Readers To Convert
- Module 5: Strategies and Ways To Promote Affiliate Links
- Module 6: Rinse and Repeat
Like I mentioned earlier, ONE strategy that she shares made me improve my existing links for 2 hours and landed me 5 sales in 3 days.
Michelle’s instructions were such an eye-opener for me and I could honestly not understand how I didn’t do that before? So just in that one module, I’ve learned something so profoundly important and yet simple, that has changed how I will go about my affiliate links in the future.
And learning about this one strategy of how to promote my affiliate links I am confident that I will earn money in the future.
Now I am EXCITED about my affiliate links and can’t wait to share them with my audience.
Before I took the course, it felt more like a job “slapping” affiliate links all over my blog posts. But thanks to Michelle I now know the “secret” of how to make affiliate links actually convert.
Bonus content
There is a bonus section at the end of the course, including 10 bonus lessons. For example “How To Always Get Approved To An Affiliate Program” or “How To Increase Your Page Views”. You can read the full list of her incredible bonuses here on her sales page.
10. Does Michelle look at my blog and help me make more sales?
Yes, Michelle offers to take a look at your affiliate review and point out how you can improve it. Honestly, I don’t know many people who offer this and give you access to them as she does.
11. I’m a mom, so I don’t have much time. How long will it take me to go through the course?
So, I am a single mom currently to a one-year-old. But after finally investing in the course I couldn’t wait to get started.
The first night I went ⅓ through the course and I was feeling EXCITED. Because I could see a way how I could improve my affiliate efforts immediately. The next night I continued the course and took the action steps and ended up actively working on improving my links for 2 hours. More on that later.
All in all, I believe it took me 2 weeks to work through the entire course while being a full-time mom. If I can do it, so you can you!
12. Are there more things I need to buy inside Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
There are no additional costs that you’re forced to get. So, if you only want to invest in the course, you can. You don’t need anything else in order to take the course. But inside the course, Michelle goes over the legal stuff and as part of that, offers you to purchase a package (though one of her affiliate links, of course). If that’s something you need help with, you might consider clicking on the link which will be an extra cost, but if not, you don’t need to do anything.
The other cost to consider is to get your blog or website up and running.
You’re probably going to post your affiliate links on your blog.
For that, you need hosting, but it’s super easy to get, I promise.
If you already have a blog and hosting you can skip this step. But if you don’t have a blog yet, you need to sign up for blog hosting first.
In this FREE tutorial, I walk you through the entire process of how I set my blog up from start to finish.
I personally love and have always used Bluehost and what I love about them is hands-down their customer service. Within a few clicks, you can connect to an agent from tech support who will help you however they can. This is a huge lifesaver as you’ll always feel supported, no matter what goes wrong on your site (and there will be stuff going wrong from time to time), whatever time of the day or week it is, because they are there 24/7. The second you reach out, there is someone there – and the best part is that you never have to wait long.
13. What about all the negative reviews I read about Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing? Are they true?
Yes, there are negative reviews out there and some of them go really hard on her. But I am seriously wondering if these people even take the course? Especially the ones saying that there are not many examples in the course, because there’s an example in almost every lesson.
Some of those reviews are SO negative that it had me worried to invest in the course, to be honest. And I nearly didn’t, because I didn’t want to fall for it in case the course was a scam as some people said. Some bloggers accuse her of making money from the course and using those results to sell the course.
But as soon as I started diving into the course it was clear that Michelle makes her affiliate income from other sources. Michelle has finetuned her skills as an affiliate marketer and they are razor sharp. The strategies she teaches are what work for her.
One of the critics says that the course is lacking examples. But in my opinion, the course is full of them. Michelle always gives plenty of examples linking back to her own blog posts to demonstrate what she did.
Others are criticizing that there is no video format but honestly, that worked much better for me. Because I could take the course while my little one was sleeping next to me. If there were videos I would have needed headphones which would have taken my attention away from my baby girl. So this text-based course worked out perfectly for me.
If you’re a reader of her blog Making Sense of Cents you know that she’s not a video person. Her course is an extension of her style and therefore you won’t find videos in the course either, or at least, I wasn’t expecting videos.
I found her clear, sharp, and concise writing just as easy to consume.
14. What about the price of the course? How much does Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing cost?
The cost of the course is $197 or 2x $105 installments on a payment plan. That means if you’re strapped for cash you can get started today for just $105.
Some critics say that if you can’t afford the whole sum you can’t afford the course. But is that really true? You can cover the first installment with one paycheck and the second installment with your second paycheck. Just make sure your budget allows for this expense.
15. How do you enroll in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing?
Lucky for you, her course is open all year round which means you can enroll in the course whenever you wish by clicking on this link here (which is my affiliate link, and by buying through my link, I may earn a small commission. Thank you!). This will take you to her sales page where you can enroll in the course.
After finally investing in the course I couldn’t wait to get started.
Passive income
What I like about affiliate marketing is that you can earn passively from your blog. This is especially appealing to me since I am in Australia but my audience is exclusively in the USA. There’s a time difference of 9 hours so knowing that my readers can still click and buy even when I am not up is exciting.
Will the course work for me?
You might be wondering if the course is right for you and I guess the best question to answer is would you like to learn how to make money from someone who’s making $50,000/ month?
The main reason why I invested in the course, is because I really like Michelle and was interested in how she achieved such massive affiliate marketing success.
I can’t say if this is the “best affiliate marketing course” for you because I haven’t taken all courses out there. And to me, this would miss the point. The biggest deciding factor you should base your decision on whether you buy the course or not is who you want to learn from. For me, that blogger is Michelle and because I already enjoy her content I also enjoyed her entire course.
So if you want to enroll in this course and get started learning her $50,000/mo affiliate marketing then click here.
Do you still need a bit of help deciding? I get it, sitting on the fence is the worst feeling. So, let me help you. Send me an email at kris (at) anymommycanmakemoney (dot) com or leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer the questions you might have before buying. Maybe I can get Michelle to answer them for you directly.
Closing thoughts on the review of Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
For me, buying the course has been one of the best decisions and if you’re sitting on the fence I strongly encourage you to not listen to negative reviews but instead, figure out who you want to learn from.
Instead of looking to find the “perfect” course about affiliate marketing, look for the person you want to learn from. Because the truth is that everybody has a different affiliate marketing strategy.
Therefore, there is no point to compare courses in my opinion. Because the one “perfect” course that works for a million people might still not work for you. My bottom line is this: if you like Michelle and are enjoying reading her blog, then you’re probably going to also love the course as she’s the one teaching it. I love Michelle’s work and therefore I loved Michelle’s course. I loved how she spoke, how well-chosen her advice was, and how she explains the big concepts.
The next 3 steps now that I took Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing are:
- Focus on building my audience and getting the right kind of traffic to my blog
- Creating relevant content to help my audience with amazing affiliate products and
- Building my email list.
I won’t be focusing on social media other than pinning new pins to my Pinterest account and publishing my new post on my Facebook page.
New things I’ll try this month to increase my blog income are to focus on the strategies I’ve learned in Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (and I’ll keep you updated on my blog).
Good luck, mommy!
Have you been sitting on the fence about buying Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing? And has this review helped you in any way? Let me know if you have any questions about the course and I’ll be happy to answer them.
I’m Kristin Brause, a new mom and now a blogger. But please call me Kris! My blog AnyMommyCanMakeMoney was born out of my desire to stay at home with my baby and work from home instead of being away from her for work. My mission now is to help mommies who also want to stay at home with their kids make money online because I believe that any mommy can work from home and make money, even between nap times and nappy changes, with the right strategies. Check out my resources to help you make money.
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What a great review . I love affiliate marketing. Thanks alot
Thanks! I’m glad you like it. That definitely makes two.
nice!
Thanks very much 🙂
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I really like the fact that you wrote a honest review including the negative comments people complain about in her course. I’m like you as well, I don’t have a toddler but I love reading instead of watching videos all the time. Continue on your success journey, it’s amazing that you are making more money from affiliate marketing from enrolling in her course.
Thanks so much for sharing, Christy! Reading content is so much easier than watching videos for me too. But it goes to show that different people have different preferences when it comes to consuming content. And I think knowing how you prefer to learn is key in choosing the course that’s right for you.
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