Affiliate Marketing Mastery is a course created by Stefan James that teaches you how to make money using affiliate marketing. The premise of the course is to build a core audience that follows content you create, that you can also market affiliate links to.
Think of any YouTuber you follow: they always are sponsored or will advertise an item in their videos. Their referral links generate income for them. The larger the audience, the more money you make. This idea isn’t anything new.
Who is Stefan James?
Stefan James is an online entrepreneur business guru. His brand “Product Life Mastery” has 1.16 million subscribers on YouTube at the time of writing.
Stefan makes money through selling a variety of courses, such as “Morning Ritual Mastery”, a $37 course on how to create a morning routine, or “Life Mastery Accelerator”, a $297 course on how to be happy.
Stefan James brands himself as a life and business coach, making hundreds of videos as a way to sell his courses. A lot of his videos are designed as sales funnels, for his subscribers to register for a free training, where he then sells his courses.
How Much Is Affiliate Marketing Mastery?
Affiliate Marketing Mastery costs $997. For those who cannot afford this, James offers a payment plan which totals $1,191 across 3 payments.
When justifying the price to those who cannot afford it, James told a story about how when he was broke, he made $800 washing cars and spent it all on a seminar. He ended the story with “THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY IF YOU ARE COMMITTED ENOUGH”. The course aside, James’ sales tactics are a bit aggressive, so make sure you take a step back and decide if this course is for you.
The course comes with some bonuses, such as:
- “My Ultimate List of Affiliate Programs” – A list of affiliate links
- “Fast-Track To Profits”- A sales formula
- “Done-For-You Website”- A premade website
- “Done-For-You Affiliate Marketing Funnel- A premade sales funnel
Stefan James places a $4,488 valuation on these bonuses. It also comes with access to his private Facebook group.
James does offer a 30-Day money back guarantee, covering all aspects of the course, including his bonuses.
Affiliate Marketing Mastery Curriculum
The course itself consists of 7 different modules, with each module covering a different topic.
Module 1: Introduction, Strategy, and Mindset
This module is a general overview for the course, as well James going through the overall strategy of affiliate marketing. During the mindset section, James talks about how affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme, and it will take time and dedication. He talks about setting your goals, and developing a brand.
James talks about how affiliate marketing is his favorite way to make money because it requires no products or services. And it’s true. If done properly, affiliate marketing can generate income by just simply advertising a url.
While I believe it’s good to address this, it doesn’t really help James’ case as he markets this course as a get rich quick scheme. On his sales page, he constantly boasts how much money has been made and how many people have found success with it. What he shows does not align with what he says.
Module 2: Market Research and Keywords
This module focuses solely on researching your niche. James teaches you how to evaluate different affiliate links,products, they’re payouts, and how many are available. He also touches a little bit on keyword research.
What he’s really trying to show you is how to find niches and markets that have a sizable audience while not being saturated. This can be useful for any affiliate marketer looking to advertise products and services that your audience will likely be interested in.
Once you do all your research, James teaches you how to make a decision and choose a market.
Module 3: How to Build Your Online Brand and Presence
Once you have your market, James teaches you how to build your brand. While advertised as building your “brand”, it’s really just signing up for social media platforms.
All this module does is show you how to create accounts. He uses the word “optimize”, but really, he just goes over things like:
- Putting a background picture
- Linking your social media
- Putting a profile picture
- Putting a description
Things like that. A lot of this module is technical tutorials about the various platforms used.
Module 4: How To Get Followers And Subscribers With Compelling Content
In this module, James teaches you how to get followers and subscribers by producing content that people want to see. He teaches you things like his content creation strategy for YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This module is designed to help you create content that people want to see.
He summarizes this into his “7 Laws of Creation”. All of the strategies are quite common in a lot of YouTube videos. Here’s the bottom line: the advice he gives you in this module isn’t bad, but it isn’t amazing either. It gives you general advice like “make content people would find interesting” and “follow other people in the industry”.
Module 5: How to Get Visitors & Followers FAST
Two words: clickbait and PPC.
For Youtube, he talks about creating “compelling headlines”, which is a nicer way of saying clickbait. Now, while morally ambiguous, he’s not wrong. Clickbait is an easy way to get views fast. If done right, you can convert them to subscribers. Credit where it’s due, he hits the nail on this.
However, he then goes on about SEO, collaboration, and paying for ads. He essentially teaches you to utilize your page, like filling out the description, keywords, etc. He doesn’t show you any tips or tricks, rather, he just goes over how to fill them out.
James optimistically overestimates the work needed to build an online brand. He tells you very things, like collaborating and “optimizing” your page. Anyone that’s tried to start a blog, YouTube channel, Instagram page, or anything can tell you: it’s a slow, tedious process that may lead to nothing. Don’t develop an expectation of quick results from this module.
Module 6: How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
This module is very straightforward: You put an affiliate link in your Youtube channel or Instagram bio and promote it. That’s it. He goes over how to put your affiliate link in your channel, and how to advertise it.
He tries to be a bit methodical, teaching you the “dos” and “don’ts”, but it’s all quite obvious advice. Essentially, advertise an affiliate link your subscribers would likely click on, and then make money. If you don’t know what an affiliate link is, you may actually want to take this course.
Module 7: Performance & Optimization Strategies
This module does provide some useful information. James teaches you how to set up analytic tracking, how to read the data, and how to use the data to optimize your content. This data is useful for long-term success. He even goes over split-testing your content to optimize it for greater success.
In my opinion, this module provides the most value of the course. A lot of courses glance over the analytical aspect of optimization. He even delves into a bit of split testing, an incredibly useful content for anyone with an audience.
Affiliate Marketing Mastery Course Quality
From being a Youtuber, Stefan James presents the information with a very high course quality. The camera and audio are very clear, showing a professional grade of quality. Most videos will be Stefan talking in front of the camera, adding a nice personal touch. Sometimes he will use a notepad to demonstrate his concepts. The times where he does use a computer, he uses a facecam along with a screen recording to keep that personal connection.
Overall, Stefan presents incredibly professional production quality throughout the course.
Does Affiliate Marketing Mastery Deliver?
Stefan James promises to show you how to turn a hobby into a profitable career with affiliate marketing. A lot of his sales copy follows this idea: teaching you how to make passive, “x amount” of money from affiliate marketing.
Does he do this? Yes.
Stefan shows you every part you need to make money as an affiliate marketer. The strategies and concepts he taught do provide the ability to generate passive revenue. However, this only works if you have a sizable audience already.
Will you see these results? Unless you already have a sizable audience, probably not.
The audience required to generate the income needed to quit your job is incredibly large. If you only use the strategies James presented you, you will never see a good amount of money unless you consistently upload videos. Even then, the process to building your audience could take years. His strategy works if you are an affiliate marketer second, and a brand owner first.
In this sense, Stefan James does deliver on his promise. However, the expectations created through his sales channels will lead to guaranteed disappointment.
Who Is Affiliate Marketing Mastery Best For?
This course is best for anyone who has never heard of affiliate marketing. If you have a large audience you accidently built, like a Youtube channel or blog that took off, this website shows you how to monetize your audience. If you do not have an audience already, the marketing parts of this course will not help you see immediate results.
This course is not for anyone who already knows what affiliate marketing is, but wants to get an advanced understanding of it. The analytical part of this course, which I consider advanced, can be learned through other sources.
Is Stefan James’ Affiliate Marketing Mastery Course Worth The Money?
Affiliate Marketing Mastery is not a bad course. However, it’s not a great course. Or even good.
He charges an extreme premium for this course: $997. For that amount of money the course has to be great to justify it’s pricing point. And… it doesn’t. James’ course provides nothing of unique value.
The strategies and knowledge you get from this course can easily be found in other courses, but for significantly cheaper. James’ sales page hypes this course up to be an affiliate marketing course that teaches you the true secrets of the industry. But it’s not. It’s just like any other affiliate marketing course out there.
Affiliate Marketing Mastery Alternatives
As stated, affiliate marketing as a very talked-about industry. As such, there are many different alternatives out there for you to learn from. Here are a few I recommend:
- Affiliate Lab (Matt Diggity)– If you’re dead set on spending $997 on a course, spend it on this one. Matt expands on concepts where James didn’t. His on-page and off-page SEO modules provide immense values for those thinking of doing blog-based affiliate marketing.
- Youtube Masterclass (Shawn Malkou)- Hosted on Udemy, Malkou charges you almost one-tenth of what James is charging you. If you are interested in building your Youtube audience, consider this course instead. Malkou teaches you everything you need to know about success on Youtube. With 7.5 hours of content, you get your money’s worth.
Our Final Verdict: Is Affiliate Marketing Mastery Worth It?
Stefan James is a gifted salesman, as he presents this course to be worth more than it actually is. Affiliate Marketing Mastery lacks an unique value to justify the price that it does. While the course itself isn’t terrible, it’s just not worth the money. Stefan commands a large and successful brand, but you won’t get to his level with this course. Not even close. This course gives you general information at a premium rate.
While it may not be the right choice for some, though, others may still want to see what this course has to offer. If you’re still interested in giving Affiliate Marketing Mastery a try, you can try out their free exclusive masterclass training here to get a better feel for what the course may offer.
Affiliate Marketing Mastery Pros
- Decent analytical coverage
- Excellent production quality
Affiliate Marketing Mastery Cons
- Does not present unique value
- Information can be found elsewhere
- Expensive
