Some people dream of becoming professional athletes or musicians.
Others fantasize about space travel (Yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. Bezos).
And some of us long for a life of passive income so we have tons of free time to do whatever we please.
Travel. Work from anywhere with a laptop and internet connection. Lie on the couch in our comfy boxer shorts all day watching Real Housewives of New York City – whatever tickles our fancy.
If that sounds like the life you’ve always dreamt of, you’ve probably been led down a long-windy road of online business opportunities.
Out of the hundreds of passive income ideas, two stand out as some of the most popular choices – Affiliate Marketing vs Digital Rental Method.
But before we go any further, let me introduce myself – Hello! My name is Elijah, and I’ve personally tried just about all the major business models out there.
When I was running my garage door company, I also..
… sold sketchy fat burners on Clickbank..
… bought damaged-box 4K TVs and flipped them on eBay
… built a Shopify store selling toilet bowl motion sensor lights
… wrote hundreds of review blog posts on dirt bikes for affiliate sales
And I’ve made money with all of them!
But let me tell you, they’re not all the same. Some business models are much better than others.
After all, 86.3% of small business owners make less than six figures..
So if you want any fighting chance of success, you wanna pick the best business model and stack the odds in your favor..
Because for every person who’s tried their hand at making money online in hopes of achieving passive income, few actually make it to the mountain top.
The rest?
They’re barely scraping by.
Until eventually, the wheels fall off, and they crawl back to their 9 to 5 job – back in the same position they started.
The purpose of this article is to compare affiliate marketing to the tried and true model of Digital Rental Method.
I’ll go over the pros and cons of each business model, the profits, and how quickly you can find success.
I’ll even dispel a few myths and rumors, so you won’t be bamboozled by the next lambo-riding guru you see on the internet.
By the end, you’ll have a clear direction as to which business model you should choose, so you can hit the ground running..
Alright, let’s dive in!
Brief Overview
Affiliate Marketing and Digital Rental Methods are two of the most popular ways to make money online.
Chances are you’ve been hit with ads about one or the other, promising how they can make you a fortune.
Or maybe you’ve started doing research on your own.
Either way, I’ll start with the basics.
Affiliate Marketing is where you sell other company’s products.
You sign up for an affiliate program and promote the links across the internet.
Whenever someone clicks and buys from your link, you’re rewarded with a small commission.
Digital Rental Method is all about generating leads for small business owners that need more customers, the lifeblood of any business.
The idea is you build simple ‘one-page websites’ to send ready-to-buy customers to local businesses.
It’s called the “Digital Rental Method” because you’re renting out your digital assets to businesses in exchange for a service fee…
With that said, let’s take a quick look at how these two compare side by side.
Affiliate Marketing vs Digital Rental Method: Side By Side Comparison
| Affiliate Marketing | Digital Rental Method (DRM) | |
|---|---|---|
| Profitability | The average affiliate commission rate is between 5% to 30%. | You earn profit about 70 to 80% margins. |
| Scalability | It depends. With paid traffic, it might be easy to scale, with organic, you have to produce more content. | Scaling doesn’t require more content. Just clone your assets to another city and niche. Then rinse and repeat. |
| Beginner-Friendliness | First sale can take months. | First sale usually happens within 30 days. |
| Number of Skills Needed | Paid traffic, copywriting, SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, conversion rate optimization | Paid traffic. |
| Control | Low degree of control. Affiliate programs can disappear anytime. | You control and own all assets. Success is fully within your control. |
Quick Verdict (TLDR): Which Is Better?
Ever wonder why a company like Netflix has put a stranglehold on the entertainment industry?
They stomped out big-bad giants like Blockbuster…Even AMC and movie theaters are struggling to hold people’s attention.
Repeat customers.
Netflix runs on a subscription model, where customers pay monthly to access everything they want in the comfort of their own homes.
Gone are the days of renting DVDs just to watch a movie you want.
That’s kinda like the difference between Affiliate Marketing and Digital Rental Method.
Sales in affiliate marketing come and go.
In some seasons, you might get tons of sales, but you can never wrap your finger as to why…
.. maybe you changed the text to say “buy now” instead of “grab yours here.”
Or maybe you changed the colors of the buy button from red to green.
My point is: Affiliate Marketing does not provide predictable income.
Imagine quitting your job because you rode high with $10k profit one month, only to earn a measly $2,000 another month..
I’ve gone through this myself..
I spent days and nights building my sales funnel.
I downloaded premium plugins, premium email services… all the fancy stuff gurus tell you to do.
It took me MONTHS testing different ads and audiences to target before, finally, something stuck..
I’d take all of my paychecks from work and funnel that to testing ads for this funnel, hoping that it’d be my golden ticket to financial freedom…
Is it a transformation photo that works best, or just a product demo video?
Should I put a countdown timer?
Do I make my call to action button red or green?
Like I said, finally, I found a formula that worked, and I was making some decent profit..
Then guess what happened?
The affiliate program shut down the offer! The product had gotten terrible reviews and the product was discontinued.
In that moment, I learned two important lessons about Affiliate Marketing.
- I didn’t have control.
- My income wasn’t predictable.
And that’s why I strongly believe, Digital Rental Method is the better choice in every conceivable way.
You set up your simple one-page sites once, and they’re like cash cows that pay you continually month after month.
It’s kinda like having your own digital rental property where you find tenants to rent out your space…
Every month, they pay you a service fee.. If they ever move out, you just find another local business.
Over time, you set up more digital properties across different cities and niches..
Soon you’ve got a list of clients paying you anywhere from $500 to $2,000+ every single month without fail.
Now that’s something you can actually hitch your wagon to and quit your job..
You don’t have to worry about whether you can put food on the table.
You don’t have to cancel that expensive family vacation or that big purchase..
Because you know the checks are coming in every month.
And I personally wouldn’t wanna pour my heart and soul into a business and live at the whim of another person who could take it all away at a moment’s notice.
If you want the best shot at firing your boss, then the choice is easy.
Digital Rental Method gives you the predictable recurring income you’re looking for, without any of the risks that come with Affiliate Marketing.
If that piqued your interest, check out this complete guide I wrote that goes over the process, step-by-step.
Affiliate Marketing Vs Digital Rental Method: What’s Different?
On a fundamental level, Affiliate Marketing and DRM work differently.
We’ll go over the differences in how they work so you get a deeper understanding of each model.
| Key Differentiating Facts | Affiliate Marketing | Digital Rental Method |
|---|---|---|
| Pay Model | Performance-based. You only get paid when someone buys from your link or takes a specific action. | Service fee. You’re paid every month at a flat rate. |
| Distribution channels | You can market your products anywhere online, like Google, social media, or even in private forums. | Local businesses are everywhere – on Google, business directories, social media, etc. |
| Operating expenses | Expenses depend on how you choose to market. It could cost thousands of dollars to drive traffic to your site. Or you could spend months posting content to build your following, but run on a low budget of $100 or less. | Works on any budget from $100 or thousands of dollars. To get results faster, you can increase ad budget and software costs. |
What Is Affiliate Marketing? | Everything To Know
With Affiliate Marketing you’re promoting other company’s products or services.
When someone clicks on your affiliate link, you get paid a commission.
Most commissions are a percentage of the sale price.
That said, I’ll go over the steps involved with affiliate marketing so you’re crystal clear about what life looks like if you choose to go down this path…
1. Choose your niche.
Your niche is the specific category of products you want to promote.
With countless websites and influencers out there, you need to stand out.
Instead of tackling a broad niche such as food, go with something a bit more narrow, like grilling..
2. Pick a content platform.
Next, choose a platform that matches your skill sets and where your audience is..
You can do Affiliate Marketing on just about any platform, including:
- Website or blog
- YouTube
- Social media
- Podcast
- Email newsletter
For example, if you sell a basketball program teaching people ball-handling drills, it’s better to choose a platform like YouTube than writing blogs.
Why?
It’s much easier to show the quality & value in basketball drills visually than it is through written text.
But YouTube opens up a whole new can of skill sets..
3. Find affiliate programs to join
Next, you need to sign up to become an affiliate. There are millions of affiliate programs out there, so it’s best to look for ones with:
- High commission rates
- Fast payouts
- High conversion rates
- Quality product and customer service
Just like when you recommend a product to a friend, you wanna make sure the stuff you promote actually works.
Because you could promote these products until the cows come home..
You can have the best ads.
You can have the best landing pages.
But if you’re promoting an offer that doesn’t check those boxes you’re destined to fail..
But nonetheless, finding affiliate programs is as simple as Googling your niche + affiliate program.
Or you could go the more generic route by finding products from major affiliate networks like:
- ClickBank: Over 4000+ digital and physical products to sell
- ShareASale: Opportunity to promote leading brands like
- Freshbooks, Etsy, etc.
- CJ: Specializes in big brand names
- Amazon Associates: Focuses on physical products and books.
All you do is pick a program.
Sign up for an account.
Then grab your unique affiliate link so you can insert them into your ads, social media posts, blogs, emails, etc..
4. Drive traffic to your affiliate site
Here comes the hardest part with Affiliate Marketing.. It’s actually getting people to click the damn link..
You have two roads you can take:
- Paid traffic – this is where you run ads directly to your website or even to the landing page itself
- Organic traffic – you post content and leave the links within your social media post or blog
Let me share a few examples of what that might look like:
The fastest way to make money with Affiliate Marketing is building an email list with paid traffic, so you can promote all types of products..
For instance, say you have a health and fitness blog.
You can run ads driving traffic to a free lead magnet to get people to subscribe to your newsletter…
Ideally, you wanna build up a huge email list of 10k, 20k, 50k+ subscribers…
Then you’ll write high-converting email sequences promoting products that your audience might be interested in…
Kinda like this.
But…
If you’re a beginner like most and don’t have thousands of dollars to spend willy-nilly on ads with no-guarantee of return, then you’re probably thinking of going the free method.
The idea is that when consumers are looking to buy something they’re searching for product reviews online.
That’s where you come in.
Being the “trusted” expert you are, you recommend products that fit their specific needs.
Let’s say you wanted to promote juicers on Amazon..
You’ll write hundreds of product reviews kinda like this in hopes of ranking them on Google.
Notice they’ve added links with buying options at the top of the blog.
But you don’t have to stick to blogs, if writing isn’t your thing.
You could make YouTube videos like these..
If you’ve already achieved results or are really knowledgeable about a particular subject matter, you could also be a social media influencer..
Just post little short 30 second clip like this, and who knows, maybe just maybe you’ll go viral.
But me personally, I wouldn’t wanna be on a perpetual hamster wheel, filming content and letting algorithms dictate my success..
Content has a short shelf life, so you always need to continually make content, which means the income won’t be very passive.
In summary: There’s many ways to skin a cat. You can sell just about any type of product in any niche…
But to be honest, most of the affiliate networks are filled with shady products with questionable results.
Just skim through ClickBank products, and you’ll find gimmick products like this…
Here’s a supplement with no proof of lab studies. No doctor recommendations.
And a ton of stock photo images on the landing pages…
No offense, but that’s not gonna convert very well if you ask me.
Who Is Affiliate Marketing For, And Who Is It Not For?
Affiliate Marketing is touted as the best passive income business model to “earn money while you sleep.”
Better yet, you can make money without needing to
… start a business
… own a product
… handle customer service
… have thousands of dollars for startup costs
Just spread your links across the web, and cash starts rolling in right?
Well, not exactly…
You’re probably gonna have to do all the heavy lifting of driving lots of traffic, only to get a small % of a sale..
That said, let’s go over who Affiliate Marketing is for and who it isn’t for.
Affiliate Marketing might be your cup of tea if…
- You have already built up a huge following on social media, a blog, or an email list.
- You’re comfortable waiting YEARS before seeing real results.
- You’re a master at running paid traffic.
That said, Affiliate Marketing is a bad idea if..
- You have no desire to be in the content mill. If the thought of putting out content after content every day and getting very little to show for it in return makes you sick, this isn’t for you.
- You want predictable income. There’s nothing predictable about Affiliate Marketing. Sure, it has the potential to be passive, but you can’t count on stable income from month to month.
- You want full control of your business. Any business can shut down their affiliate programs overnight, which can take away a huge chunk of your revenue. Unfortunately, this means that there are outside factors that control your destiny instead of you.
What Is The Digital Rental Method | Everything You Need To Know
The Digital Rental Method is a tried-and-tested system that thousands have used to successfully build online businesses, anywhere from $3k to $10k+ per month..
With DRM, the basic premise is to generate leads, and customers, for small business owners that don’t know how to do it themselves.
Why is this business so damn profitable?
Well, I have a buddy named Josh.. He once owned a moving company.
You know what the biggest problem he had was?
Marketing
He was swimming in quicksand, trying to get his business off-the-ground. As he told me,
“Creating the website was hard”
“Convincing people to try me out was hard.”
“Making sure the phone kept ringing was hard.”
You see, Josh isn’t the only one…
29% of small businesses don’t even have a fr*cken website.. Are you kidding me?
This isn’t the dinosaur age folks.. It’s not rocket-science people.
If you can click a mouse, you can make a website.
And this business is booming too… It’s kinda like the California gold rush of the 1800s.
An extra $130+ BILLION is being pumped straight into the industry, with more American businesses increasing their spend on Digital Marketing..
Moral of the story: The Digital Rental Method is here to stay. Those who catch on now, will enjoy the fruits of their labor for many years to come.
So how’s it all working? (glad you asked..)
No matter where you live, there are dozens of local businesses that need help getting more customers.
Think of niches such as:
- Realtors
- Lawyers
- Roof repair companies
- Swimming pool repair companies
- Car dealerships
- Plastic surgeons
- Dentists
- Landscapers
- Plumbers
The list goes on…
Let me give you an example – You see this search term?
At the top of Google, I ran little text-ads ranking for decorative concrete in Colorado Springs.
All those rich homeowners living in big ol’ mansions, they’re all dying to have decorative concrete to spruce up their outdoor space…
And these contractors are great at what they do, but unfortunately, they don’t know the first thing about generating customers for their business.
Here you come, riding on your white horse.
You set up simple landers with the power of drag-and-drop software.
You add some content relevant to the service being offered, slap a logo on and put a phone number on there for customers to call – voila!
You start firing up the ads and the business owner’s phone is now ringing off the hook.
They’re getting all kinds of requests and bookings, just from your simple ad.
You’re scooping most of the traffic for the search term and bringing in more hungry customers for the business owner than they’ve had in the last few months!
Why would the business owner not give you a little sliver to deliver in this case?
And more importantly, why would they not continue working with you? That’s found money!
You gladly rent out your simple landing page to him, in exchange for a service fee.
Then everything else is rinse and repeat…
You can simply clone your page and move to other cities.
Best of all, the business model is predictable and semi-passive, so you don’t have to work more hours to keep the money rolling in.
Who Is Digital Rental Method For, And Who Is It Not For?
After doing DRM for years, I can confidently tell you who it is for and who it isn’t for..
Digital Rental Method would be a great fit for you if…
- You want a business that runs itself. After you’ve set up your digital rental properties and ads, there’s very little upkeep on your part. This means you can do whatever you want with your free time, whether that’s traveling or just playing Fortnite on Playstation..
- You’re tired of spinning your wheels with other business models like MLM, real estate investing, dropshipping or even Affiliate Marketing. You want something that sticks and think DRM gives you the predictable recurring income to do just that.
- You want to quit your job for good. Many students have come through DRM and walked away from their soul-sucking corporate job.
But, it might not be a good idea if…
- You’re dead set on becoming an influencer and being stuck in the content hamster wheel.
- You’re looking for a get-rich-quick scheme and want money rolling in in 2 days.. (success takes work!)
- You have shiny object syndrome. You’re not ready to stick to one business and you have the itch to hop from one thing to the next.
Head-to-Head Comparison - Affiliate Marketing Vs. Digital Rental Method
Stuck between a rock and a hard place?
I’ll break down exactly how to pick the right business model between the two.
I’ll go over the most important factors you should be thinking about.
That way you don’t run into unexpected surprises down the road…
Profitability
Banks and investors look for one single thing when loaning out money to businesses.
Profitability..
They wanna know that you’re constantly bringing money in and are positive on the balance sheet.
That way you won’t go under..
The more profitable you are, the less risky your business is.
Affiliate Marketing isn’t very profitable..
It takes months of building up your audience and putting people first before you start seeing clicks..
Most conversion rates are between 1 to 5%…
So if you get 1,000 clicks to an offer, at best you’re getting 10 to 50 buyers..
But, right now the going rate for cost per click (CPC) on Facebook is $0.26 to $.30 per click.
At 30 cents per click, it costs you $300 to get 1,000 clicks…
Meaning whatever offer you sell, you gotta make more than $300 just to move past the break even point..
And getting 5-30% commission rates on most offers isn’t helping either.
Unless you’ve amassed a HUGE email list or blog traffic where you get eyeballs for free, it’s hard to be very profitable with Affiliate Marketing.
Juxtapose that to the Digital Rental Method, where you earn about 80% on profits….
So if you earn $10k in revenue for the month, you keep $8k.
Scalability
I judge the scalability of a business model by:
How hands-off it is
How simple it is
When the business is hands-off, you can earn more money without trading hours for dollars.
You don’t need to put in more manpower, which means you can spend your time doing whatever you please..
Second, the business should be simple enough to duplicate.
Meaning you can rinse and repeat over and over without too much complexity.
Okay, so Affiliate Marketing isn’t as hands-off as it’s portrayed.
- You have to continually write new email sequences
- Find new offers to sell
- Make new ads
- Write more blogs
- Film more content
It’s a perpetual cycle of work… It’s not really all that passive.
On the flip side, scaling your Digital Rental empire is simple.
All it takes is a few clicks and a phone call – voila!
You’ve gotten more money rolling in.
Simply just duplicate the existing ads and landing pages you’ve already got working for you in other cities..
Beginner-Friendliness
As I said earlier, the most important part of Affiliate Marketing is driving traffic.
That means you’re gonna need to be good at a lot of different skills like:
- Writing ads that sell
- Running ads on Google
- Running ads on Facebook
- Writing website blogs
- Ranking websites
- Converting users that land on your site
- Email marketing
And a whole lot more..
If you’re going to be spending time mastering these skills, why not do it in a way where YOU make all the money, instead of others profiting off the back of your work?
There’s a ton of upfront work on your end, with no guarantee of success.
You could have the best ads, the best landing pages, the best email copy, and even the best blogs..
But if the offer sucks and if the customer doesn’t like the products, then there’s no sale for you.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for working hard and doing what needs to be done to reap the benefits..
But if you’re going to pour your heart and soul into a business, your reward better be more than a minimum-wage job…
In fact, only about 12% of all affiliate marketers make $100k or more in REVENUE.
That’s before all the ad expenses, operating costs, and taxes…
So in reality, I imagine a very small percentage of people actually earn 6 figures..
And this graph also doesn’t show how many years it took them to hit their revenue…
On the other hand, DRM only requires you to learn one skill – paid traffic.
And, you don’t even have to be all that good at it outta the gate either.
If you can hit the ctrl+c (copy) and ctrl+v (paste) buttons on your keyboard, you can pretty much do this business.
I’ve seen guys and gals come in barely knowing how to work a computer, learn how to do this.
There’s scripts, templates, and even done-for-you systems that you can practically steal…
And if you put in the hard work for 3 to 6 months, there’s no reason you can’t make an extra $3k, $5k or even $10k+ per month..
Control
With Affiliate Marketing, you don’t own a single thing – not even the customers..
All the buyers go to the affiliate company’s customer databases, not yours.
And even worse, you do all the marketing and you’re left with a small piece of the pie..
Plus, within a moment’s notice, they can change the compensation plan or close out the affiliate program entirely..
With the Digital Rental Method, you own all the assets.
Every digital rental property you set up is yours to keep.
All the customers and leads are yours..
There’s no algorithm or company that tells you what you can and can’t do.
Conclusion: Which Should You Choose?
After spending years doing both Affiliate Marketing and the Digital Rental Method, I can say unequivocally that DRM is the better business opportunity, and frankly, it’s not even close.
If you already have a large following or a big email list, you might be able to hit the ground running from Affiliate Marketing.
You can tap into your existing audience and make money with it quickly…
But then again, if you don’t want to be part of another statistic where you’re making under $10k/yr from Affiliate Marketing, I suggest you look elsewhere.
There’s no point in putting in all that work just to make less than a McDonald’s wage.
Digital Rental Method works for anyone who is willing to put in the work.
As long as you can follow directions and apply the steps laid out in the tried and tested system, you can make it work.
People from all walks of life have made the Digital Rental Method work for them and have completely turned around their financial fortune.
Where they might’ve been destined for a life of mediocrity, they made the decision to course-correct and choose a life of financial freedom..
- A truck driver with no prior business skills replaced his income in 90 days…
- A teacher who was paid pennies by the education system built a 6-figure business in just a few months
- A stay-at-home mom with 3 kids added an extra $50k to her household income
- An Australian immigrant facing deportation turns it around and builds a new legacy for his family
The stories are endless. And the stories are so incredible that they feel like something from a Hollywood script.
At this point, you have 2 choices:
Keep researching, in hopes you find a business model that you can sink your teeth into
Trust your gut and take a leap with the Digital Rental Method
That said, I get it if you have some hesitation about the Digital Rental Method… Which is why I created a complete step-by-step guide on what this business looks like & how it works.
Just give it a good read, so you have a strong understanding of how it works! It just might be the business opportunity that you’ve been looking for.
Something easy to do without having to slave 30, 40 or even 50 hours a week..