Affiliate Marketing Accounting: What's Your Actual ROI?

[noisyboy]

I just realized that I'm getting charged quite a bit of fees in the process of funding to traffic sources and then receiving funds from affiliate networks. Even if you are positive ROI with your campaigns, it's important to take into account these fees because at the end of the day as Robert Kiyosaki said, "It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep".

Here's a scenario:

1. I add funds to PropellerAds using Credit Card. They take 3% fees.

2. Afflow (Monetizer) Charge for Sending Money to PayPal: 3.5%

3. PayPal Charge to Receive Money: 5.3% (at least for me)

4. FX Currency Conversion Discrepancy (difference between the rate charged when loading funds and when receiving money in your local currency):

For me, with PayPal, it's around 8-10%.

Example

So let's say, I load $100 into PropellerAds and make back $130 with Monetizer. Here's how my fees would look like.

$100 x 0.03 = $3

Plus

$130 x 0.035 = $4.55

Plus

$130 - $4.55 = $125.45 x 0.053 = $6.65 (I will only receive $118.8 from PayPal)

And then there are FX Currency Conversion Fees. Although it looks like you made $18.8 in profit (18.8%