How does Systeme . io make over $215,000 in MRR from affiliate marketing

Customer acquisition is one of the hardest challenges startups face
There are hundreds of articles, tweets, and podcasts showcasing success stories. But it takes a lot of time to read and listen to all these stories and extract the main learnings. Then there is testing all these strategies and seeing which one would work for you.

• Go with what you think is right
  Unless you're an expert in this field, going with your gut feeling will likely end up with you wasting time.
• Buying a course
  Good courses can be expensive and hard to find. You might think that online courses don’t fit your needs, but there are different types of courses. Some are long and complicated, and others are short and to the point. You need to find a type that suits you best.
• Hiring marketers or agencies
  Hiring a high-profile agency comes with a hefty price tag, and these agencies don't always prioritize small companies. Full-time marketers can do the same job at less expense, but these services often don't offer experience or quick turnaround times.

What is Systeme?

Systeme.io is an all-in-one solution to build sales funnels, webinars & memberships, run affiliate programs, send unlimited emails & sell physical products for an online business easy & accessible. Although their website builder is not as robust as Brizy's, it's well-suited for small and local businesses.

They make over $675K in MRR

+30% of their MRR comes from affiliates

They paid over $324k in commissions in the last 30 days (with a 60% commission rate), which means that 40% went to them - over $215k, which is roughly 1/3 of their current MRR. One note here is the number of affiliates they have enrolled - 112,934.

They monetize both their SaaS platform and multiple info products

They use these info products as lead magnets (paid) and promote them both in their community and using social media. Another thing they do (see below) is to monetize them via their affiliate program.

In the last 30 days, they made over $23,082 only from these info products

Source: Google Sheet

The best-sold info product

This is their best sold info product, that brought over $3000 from their affiliates (plus the $4600 paid as commissions). In total, they made roughly $7600 in sales, and with a price of only $7, that means over 1000 sales in the last 30 days alone.

Their early Growth Strategy

I highlighted their early Growth Strategy in The Bootstrapped Way, here are the key takeaways:
Aurelien Amacker (the founder) already had a 50k email list for his online business that was pulling in $30k per month through online courses.
Upon launching Systeme, he sent a couple of emails to the list and landed 400 paying customers, approx. $15k MRR right away.
Back in 2019, when they were generating around $120K MRR, the revenue was split this way:

• $50K from paid subscriptions to System
• $30K from online course sales
• $40K from coaching sales

Some important notes:

• the first $100K in MRR came through the French market
• he started by creating courses, then selling coaching services, and later built Systeme.io
• it took them 3 years to go from 1 to 1,000 customers in the English market (total active customers is 8,500)

Their secret: conversion-focused emails

I've been a Systeme io customer since February 2022, and since then they sent me roughly 63 emails. I wasn't part of all their email nurture campaigns, but those that I actually got were really good, conversion-focused with a clear call-to-action for each email.

Their key growth channel: email

Doing a quick Google search you're going to notice Systeme.io being positioned and promoted as a "free" funnel builder. This is no coincidence, this is their Hook, their TOFU (Top-of-the-funnel) - capture demand by offering a free solution perceived as high value and slowly convert them to paying customers via email.
75% of the emails I got from them were Promotional Offers. Something interesting though, they practice what they preach - a stair-step funnel-building approach. They lead with a low-ticket info product. Almost all the Promotional emails I got from them advertised $7 info products (courses, landing page templates, ebooks, etc).

Their email nurture sequence // Week #1

Although 70% of their emails are promotional, they start by sending a few informational content.
As you can see, in the 1st week, you'll get 5 informational emails and 2 promotional, sent one per day.

Their email nurture sequence // Week #2

Starting with the 2nd week things change drastically, they'll promote both their SaaS and also at least two info products. Most probably this comes after doing a lot of A/B testing and seeing a huge business uplift if you focus your sales efforts in the first few weeks.

They've built a Marketplace around info products

Why settle with selling only your info products when you can invite all your affiliates to publish and promote their own products and services. At this moment, there are 854 offers on the Marketplace, and over 60% of them are info products.

What is the best commission rate?

Although their Affiliate program is by far the most successful one, there are over 10 other programs that made over $5000 in total sales so far.
It seems that a sweet spot for an enticing commission rate is between 50-60%, which is way above what the average affiliate programs offer.

How much money does an affiliate make?

Short answer, it depends on your audience size. 11 months ago Jonathan Montoya was making over $15,000 in just 30 days, with an audience size of at least 50,000 people (youtube + emails).

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