PublisherChallenge Breaks the One Million Dollar Mark

August 23, 2009 Posted by Tyler Cruz

PublisherChallenge was launched on February 7th, 2009 as a site dedicated to holding the affiliate competitions that used to be run on my blog.

5-months later, PublisherChallenge members broke the one million dollar mark. As of right now, nearly 6-months after its launch, the total amount of commission generated by PublisherChallenge contestants is: $1,045,227.24

I’m thrilled to have the site reach the one million dollar milestone… it just goes to show how much money is really out there in the affiliate marketing world. My next goal for the site is to reach the 5-million-dollar mark by one year’s time. That’s a pretty big goal but it’s certainly doable.

The screenshot below shows the total amount generated:

11

While it’s great to have reached the million dollar mark, this summer has actually been very slow. The economy, coupled with the recent PPC search engine slappings on rebill campaigns, has really taken its toll on many, if not most, PPC affiliate marketers.

But affiliate marketers are adaptable. I think it will take a little while, but many will bounce back and find a way to work within the new rules. Here’s hoping for a good autumn and 2010!

Below is a screenshot of the top-10 overall PublisherChallenge earners this year:

12

TheBehemoth has managed to secure his #1 spot with over $350,000 generated so far this year, but others have started to take chase such as Ends and eMonetized. eMonetized is a force to be reckoned with; about 95% of that $67,000 was generated in a total of 48 hours.

Over 550 Affiliates

PublisherChallenge has referred a total of 566 affiliates through 6 different affiliate networks. Now, that number is misleading as there will be a lot of overlap due to the same people signing up to multiple networks, but I think it’s safe to say that there are at least 300 unique affiliate members:

13

If you’re wondering why the PublisherChallenge.com members number doesn’t add up to the total number of affiliates on each network, that is because creating an account on PublisherChallenge is optional and not mandatory. You can still compete in the competitions and win prizes without having to create an account. Signing up as a member simply gives you more features and allows you to claim your name.

Over $30,000 in Prizes Given Out

The whole point of PublisherChallenge is to give away great prizes to hard-working affiliates.

To date, the affiliate networks who sponsor the PublisherChallenge competitions have given out over $30,000 worth of prizes so far. This number may be off by 1 or 2 thousand since there have been so many prizes given out that it’s hard to calculate exactly.

Among the prizes actually given out have been big screen TV’s, computers, cameras, cash, and video game systems.

Here are two examples of a couple prizes won by BeerNuts and TheBehemoth respectively:

14

64

New Competition Launching September 1st

I will be unveiling the next competition to run on PublisherChallenge within a few days. It will be run on PeerFly and be strictly tier-based.

What makes this competition different from the rest is that I’m going to be paying out $10,000 out of my own pocket to anyone who refers a contestant who makes it into the top tier, and $5,000 to anyone who refers a contestant who makes it into the 2nd-highest tier. So, if you know a lot of super affiliates and refer 2 who make it into the top tier and one who makes it into the 2nd highest tier, I’ll pay you $25,000.

Now, those top tiers will obviously require huge commissions to be generated, so you’ll need to know real super affiliates who can generate insane amount of money, but all you have to do is refer them and watch them make it into the top tiers and I’ll pay you 🙂

Stay tuned for more information on that soon.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment below, subscribing to my RSS feed, or following me on Twitter.
Posted: August 23rd, 2009 under My Websites  

43 Responses to “PublisherChallenge Breaks the One Million Dollar Mark”

  1. Ethan says:

    That’s great Tyler! Great blog and great idea’s! Good luck on your $5 Million dollar goal!

  2. Luke says:

    PeerFly must be banking off of your competitions. How many in a row is it now that they’ve sponsored? 🙂

  3. I will definitely be staying tuned. I had no idea this was even going on, but definitely want to take part, so looking forward to seeing what you launch on Sept. 1

    Warmest,

    Jonathan
    http://www.GreatLegalBenefit.com/today

  4. Greg Ellison says:

    That’s awesome about your site Tyler. Keep up the great work. Greg Ellison

  5. EarningStep says:

    wow… what a price . this time is my turn to win the prize

  6. Wow. Awesome. Need to check this out fast 🙂

  7. Typhoon says:

    Wow Awesome..Hey Behemoth please tell us how did you make that much money.
    Tyler please take his interview after all he is the top earner of publisher challenge.

  8. Tunes says:

    The main thing is not to win but to take part .. 🙂

  9. I didn’t even know about this site, thanks for posting Tyler. I will have to join the Publisher Challenge now!

  10. Brad says:

    lol, congratz with your PublisherChallenge website, i remember when you first showed it off.

    You’ve generated $1m. in comms. that’s crazy dude.
    You have over 300 great affiliates.

    Iam just thinking, If I got those affiliates to promote my product., i’d be buying a new car.

  11. PPC Coach says:

    Congrats Tyler. I’ve been participating in your contests even before Publisher Challenge was launched and it’s always fun to win cool prizes.

  12. This is great news. I would like to thank you for putting up such a healthy prize.

  13. MLDina says:

    Congrats on hitting the $1million mark. Goes to show what coming up with a solution to an ongoing challenge (all the contests going on the blog) can do. Do you think you would’ve reached $1million if you held the contests on the blog?

  14. I might want to give this a try, would be cool to win something for a change.

  15. I can’t help but notice The Behometh had negative ($6430) on 8/2. I’m too new to affiliate marketing to understand this. What would cause a negative day?

    • Tyler Cruz says:

      I’m not too sure what that is a result from… it is likely be due to a temporary glitch with the site… sometimes people will show a huge earning day or huge loss day because PublisherChallenge is trying to ‘sync’ up the totals.

      The other possibility is that he had leads “scrubbed”, but TheBehemoth did not do a lot of traffic for a while now so I’d say it’s the former.

      The day-to-day earnings graph is only an approximate set of data and isn’t exact due to time zone shifts mainly. And due to DirectTrack doing some weird things (such as on the first of each month), it also will show $0 earnings for most people on the first of each month, but make up for it on the 2nd.

      The daily graphs are meant more for an approximation of earning growth and trend. The monthly/yearly/all-time totals should be exact though.

  16. Kevin says:

    Congrats on reaching that milestone! Can’t wait till 2 million or should I say 10 🙂 lol

  17. man you are really rich just by blogging.

  18. paul says:

    That is some serious money!

  19. used tires says:

    Wow that is awesome that Publisher Challenge has reached $1 Million dollar mark! Looking forward to seeing the end of the year report on Merendi’s earnings =D

    Till then,

    Jean

  20. Great contest again! This is a great way to keep affiliate marketing and product creation fresh and exciting!
    Cheers,
    Thomas

  21. Bidet says:

    Wow congratz on the milestone thats a big achievement. This contest looks great and the prizes look good. Good luck to everyone.

  22. When you first started posting about the new site, I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to pull it off.. I guess I was wrong. 🙂

    Congrats on your success!

  23. Luke says:

    Congrats on hitting the $1million mark. Goes to show what coming up with a solution to an ongoing challenge (all the contests going on the blog) can do.

  24. Andrew says:

    “My next goal for the site is to reach the 5-million-dollar mark by one year’s time. That’s a pretty big goal but it’s certainly doable.”

    Really?

    That’s another $4m in a year.

    That’s $1m every quarter.

    That’s over $300,000 a month.

    Which looks to be wayyy over what the site is currently making, given the “this month” total in the screenshot.

    I’m all for you doing well, and I’ve been following your career for a while now, I just think it’s wildly optimistic and you are setting yourself up to fail.

    $4m, maybe. But not 5…

    In fact, how do the totals even work out? Let’s say that ‘yesterday’ was a low total, so an average is maybe $1,000 a day, double ‘yesterday’. Even if it was, that’s only roughly £150,000 it should have made in 5 months (1000*30*5).

    Hell, even if ‘yesterday’ was 5x as low as normal, that’s still less than 1/2 a million bucks, on average.

    I don’t get it?

    • Tyler Cruz says:

      It’s just a goal 🙂

      As mentioned in the post though: “While it’s great to have reached the million dollar mark, this summer has actually been very slow. The economy, coupled with the recent PPC search engine slappings on rebill campaigns, has really taken its toll on many, if not most, PPC affiliate marketers.”

      The site has had numerous $50-$200,000+ months before so I still think it’s feasible.

      • Andrew says:

        Fair enough, and I didn’t mean to seem like I was trolling.

        I just didn’t see where the figures were coming from – I mean, there’s slow, but as I said, I figured 5x as slow as normal is probably the lowest it’d get. More around 2x as low.

        Must be a hell of a bad month, but still, the $1m thing proves the whole clouds/silver lining thing true.

        Seriously, I wish you luck with it and hope you make it, and I apologise for how the “setting yourself up to fail” comment looked pretty rude and tactless, but that wasn’t quite how I meant it.

        • Tyler Cruz says:

          No worries, I didn’t take any offense to it.

          Yeah, the affiliate marketing world is very volatile and certainly has its ups and downs. Right now is an incredibly bad period for most affiliate marketers. People are getting slapped left and right for rebills, flogging, and fake endorsements (the big recent Oprah lawsuit).

          Hopefully the industry will bounce back soon though.

  25. Dean Saliba says:

    Wow that is very impressive for such a shot amount of time. I hope you geet a nice chunk of that as the owner. 😉

  26. bigdavestar says:

    Congratulations Tyler 🙂

    Looks like this website is a big success for you, how much money are you actually making from it per month?

  27. Publisher Challenge is great for affiliates to use to keep track of things 🙂

    -Mike

  28. Wow, over 1 million, huh?

    That’s inspiring!

    Congratulations on breaking that milestone.

  29. 1 Million, wow! That’s not including the affiliates you’ve referred from this blog, right?

    -James

  30. Holy crap! I guess you struck a goldmine with this, huh? So, you must’ve made at least $50,000 from it so far, huh? 😛

    Man, I really gotta stop procrastinating and get on this affiliate marketing stuff!

    Jay

  31. Again, as I’ve said before the problem is that people expect these things to work overnight, and the people who make loads from affiliate marketing are people who have been at it for donkey’s years, or are soooo bright and talented with marketing that most wouldn’t be able to touch them anyway!

  32. wew thats a huge amount out there it makes me sick.goodluck to the participants this contest looks great and the prizes look good. Good luck to everyone.

    Network Marketing

  33. Wow, over 1 million, huh?

    That’s inspiring!

    Congratulations on breaking that milestone…..

PeerFly

Leave a Reply