I am sure, you would love to make money while you sleep. Isn’t it?
Passive Income- The intention behind an Affiliate Marketing business. This is how 99% of people start affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make a passive income stream.
If you’re just starting out, don’t worry as this guide has everything you need to start an affiliate marketing from scratch.
Are you ready? Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Here is the definition:
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting another person or company’s product or service. You simply promote that product and earn a piece of the profit from each sale you make.
In simple words, you find a product or service that interests you, promote it to other people and earn an amount of the profit whenever someone buys the product.
Every big company that sells products online, offers an affiliate program, which is free to join by any individual. It is as simple as creating an online profile. After joining these programs you can promote it on your blog or your social media platforms.
The best part about affiliate marketing is that you can do it from any part of the world and scale it as you go. As an affiliate marketer, you can promote products from many different companies and earn commissions from all of them at the same time.
When it comes down to the actual marketing, there are broadly two sides of an affiliate marketing equation
- The product creator or owner
- The seller or the affiliate marketer
However, successful affiliate marketing has about three parties:
The Advertiser
Also referred to as the creator, the seller, the merchant, the retailer the brand, or the vendor. This is the party that creates the product. It can be a person or a company. Advertisers don’t necessarily have to be actively involved in the production, or manufacturing process. All they need is a product or service to sell.
The Publisher
Also referred to as the associate, or the partner, or an affiliate that can be a single person or an entire company. This party attracts and convinces the buyers of the product so they can end up purchasing it. Affiliates can generate a few hundreds of dollars per month or tens of millions in commission.
The Consumer
The consumers are the actual buyers of the product. So this is the most important party that makes the affiliate system go round. Without sales insight, there won’t be revenue to share or commissions to give out.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
The affiliate marketing business process has various stages, however, to simplify it I put it in below points:
- First, you join an affiliate program
- You pick a product or service to promote
- You get a unique affiliate link for the selected product
- Then, you share that link on any platform of choice, either via a Blog post, Youtube videos, Ads or Social media
- When someone purchasees that product through your affiliate link, then you earn an affiliate commission
How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginner?
Here is the comprehensive list and step by step process to start your affiliate marketing business.
Step#1-Create Your Digital Tribe or Platform
Your starting point will be to start a blog in a targeted niche and use this platform to promote your product. This is by far the cheapest and easiest way to start an affiliate marketing business.
Other platforms can be a YouTube channel to promote your products. You can create a youtube channel in your niche to promote your products.
Another platform is Email marketing. Create an email list through your newsletter subscription or though other opt-in methods and use this list to promote your product.
Step#2- Join a Good Affiliate Program
Find a good affiliate program or network that offers products in your niche. This is free and simple to register. However, affiliate programs follow the approval process to maintain the quality of the affiliate network.
I talked in detail about top affiliate programs and marketplace separately in this post below.
Step#3- Find a Relevant Product
Once you get approved by the affiliate program, then the next step is to find the relevant product you want to promote. Search the products in the affiliate marketplace under your niche and you will find several products on offer.
You can choose to promote products you are already using. These would be much easier to convince people to buy since you’ve experienced firsthand how useful they are.
You can choose several products from different merchants and promote them to expand your portfolio and increase your income.
After all, if you can make money using affiliate marketing, why limit yourself?
Step#4- Create The Right Content
Create the right content around the products you want to promote keeping in mind your target audience.
First, research the topic before you start writing. Then decide the best way to provide the value to your audience. Now write the content and make sure it should be amazing, appealing, and with a unique value.
Remember there are those audiences who will still be on the border and not able to make the decision and you have to convince them to cross over. Sharpen your copywriting and sales skills, and you’ll surely notice a difference.
Step#5- Promote and Advertise Your Product
Blogs and websites are the most cost-effective methods to promote your affiliate products. You can write a good product review and recommend it to your audience.
But, before that, you need to create trust and authority with your digital tribe. You should have enough audience to covert as lead or make them purchase your product.
You can bring the audience to your blog though writing an SEO friendly content that ranks in the search engine on the keywords related to your product.
You can also do paid advertisements to bring targeted traffic to your blog or website.
Don’t have a Website or Blog?
No worries! You can still do affiliate marketing without a website.
Here is how:
- Vlogging or Video Blogging
YouTube is the largest vlogging platform and the second-largest search engine in the world, and it’s a great place to earn affiliate commissions without having a website.
Whenever you see a YouTuber reviewing products or asking you to “click on the link in the description,” that’s the affiliate link.
Unbox or describe the product to your audience. Walk them through the pros and cons and everything about the product that values them.
To succeed as an affiliate marketer on YouTube, you will need to produce excellent content, learn how to leverage keywords to increase the reach of your vlog, and finally, build a list of subscribers and convert them.
- Go-Live
Live videos are the highest engaging content on the internet. You can go live on your social media platforms like FB Live or Youtube live-streaming.
The best way to go-live is by conducting a live-webinar and promoting your products through sales-funnel.
Webinars are interactive sessions that give your audience a personal feel and experience where you can easily promote your product.
- Display Ads
Display Ads or commonly known as Banner Ads are the most useful and productive forms of advertising today. There is no need for a website, no SEO, no content, no blog post or video required.
All you have to do is find websites that are related to the product you’re promoting and receive many visits.
This can be done by registering yourself with a good Ad network that offers this service. Some of the top ad networks are:
The advertisement rate is $10 for every 1000 impressions. This is not a bad rate, but make sure that the amount you spend buying ads will come back with interest once you start earning from the ads. It’s known as a positive return on investment (ROI).- Join Free Publishing Platforms
Medium and HubPages are free publishing platforms, where you can join and publish your content and get paid.
Medium is an excellent platform to publish your article for free. It works similarly to a social media website. You create an account and follow the instructions to start writing your article. You can not advertise through it but you can make your online presence and build your brand.
HubPages is user-generated content, revenue-sharing website. The content you post on Hubpages is hosted on the Hubpages website, so there’s no need to worry about starting a website or looking for hosting.
The best part is, Hubpages provides HubTool where you can create your article and advertise your product through ad “capsules”.
The downside is that you don’t own this content. Your content can, therefore, be removed at any time which is, of course, you would not like.
- Post on Forums and Online Communities
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
Different Methods to Make Money Through Affiliate Marketing
There are different ways to make money using affiliate marketing. These are:
- Pay Per Sale (PPS)
This method is the most common structure in affiliate programs. Once the consumer makes a purchase, the merchant pays the commission to the affiliate, which is a specified percentage of the sale price.
This avenue needs you to get the consumer to purchase the product before you can get paid. Your marketing strategy should, therefore, excellent for you to earn.
- Pay Per Lead (PPL)
With this method, you can earn money when anyone sign-up and gives you his details. Every sign-ups is called lead and the process is called lead generation.
You need to convince the consumer to visit the merchant’s website and complete a particular action, whether signing up for filling a contact form, or a trial version of a product, downloading a PDF or subscribing to a newsletter.
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
In this method, your goal is to ensure customers click on the merchant’s website. Engagement is critical here to ensure consumers move from your platform to the merchant’s site.
The higher the web traffic from your site, the higher is the payout.
Pay per click implies that affiliates get a commission for every click that customers make. This could be clicking on ads or links that promote a merchant’s product or service.
There are multiple buzzwords and definitions that are important to know to be successful in affiliate marketing even though they’re seemingly behind the scenes.
Different Types of Affiliate Marketing
There are 3 main types of affiliate marketing: Unattached, Related and Involved affiliate marketing. Let’s know them in details:
- Unattached Affiliate Marketing
These are basic pay-per-click affiliate marketing campaigns that do not require your presence and authority in the product you’re promoting.
In fact, there’s no connection between you and the end consumer, and all you’re doing is placing an affiliate link in front of a potential customer either via Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other methods of promotion and hoping that they’ll click on your link, buy the product and you will earn a commission.
This type of affiliate marketing is very attractive because there is no presence or authority is needed.
It takes time to build up an online reputation and trust with certain groups of people to whom you want to sell your products. Also, many people are scared to work on a blog or website due to lack of time or afraid of operational costs.
- Related Affiliate Marketing
In this form of affiliate marketing, you need to have an online presence, which could be in form of a blog, social media, podcast, or videos- and you have affiliate links of products related to your niche, however, these products are those you don’t use or have never used.
Not necessarily, everyone who puts some of those affiliate links on their website uses or has used those services and products, and that’s fine.
Adding affiliate links on your site that are relevant to your niche is a powerful approach to earn passive income.
For example, finance-based blogs may use several affiliate ads for financial institutions. Similarly, internet marketing based blogs may choose to promote web hosting or email services that offer affiliate marketing services.
- Involved Affiliate Marketing
In this affiliate marketing, affiliates promote only services and products they use personally and then recommend it to the audience.
There is, however, a level of responsibility that you have to uphold while making these kinds of recommendations, especially if you have a lot of trust and influence over your followers.
Unlike related affiliate marketing, involved affiliate relationships are built on trust and authenticity.
For example, if you enjoy mountain biking and you like a specific make and model of the mountain bike, then you can promote it with confidence and authority, and your audience will find a reason to trust you and purchase the product from your recommended merchant.
You can choose any of these three affiliate marketing types, However, Pat Flynn, an affiliate marketing expert advises, it’s always good to promote products those you’ve used and experienced their benefits personally.
What Are the Top Affiliate Networks to Consider?
Here is the list of top affiliate programs/networks you should sing-up to start your affiliate marketing business:
ClickBank is the most popular choice among new affiliate marketers as it is easy to get into this network. What’s more, this program offers very high commissions, as high as 75%. ClickBank is known for its regular and reliable payouts. There are plenty of products sold on a recurring basis, which means a great source of recurring income for you, as well as products with upsell options to help boost your income. Clickbank marketplace offers more than 6 million digital products in over 20 categories.
ShareASale is one of the largest affiliate networks out there, running for nearly two decades.
Shareasale offers thousands of products for promotion. You’ll receive everything you need as an affiliate, and you can get access to detailed statistics of the product you choose to promote.
The network is well-loved by marketers and merchants because of its user-friendly interface, fast, free sign-up, and support for affiliates running multiple websites.
It has a huge variety of merchants to choose from in over 40 categories, including some big names.
CJ Affiliate, formerly known as Commission Junction, is an affiliate marketplace. It is a great program for more experienced marketers, with 300 brands, including many of the world’s top brands.
You would need a good amount of traffic to get accepted, and there are strict conditions for staying on as a publisher. The sophisticated toolbox has some great features for more advanced affiliate marketers.
For affiliate marketing beginners, Amazon Associates is a great platform to kick off your new venture.
Amazon is among the most famous sites, and it’s big-name can help you earn thousands of dollars.
Your job is to bring new clients from external traffic sources to the Amazon site. They offer varying commissions for different categories. Owing to its popularity, other marketers are already promoting many of the products.
It’s a great way to make money without having a strong background in affiliate marketing.
Amazon Associate program offers its affiliate program county-wise. You can join the program as per your target audience.
How To Choose An Affiliate Networks?
There are many affiliate networks out there in addition to those mentioned above. You may choose to work with just one program, or with several.
Though you can join as many as you want, but choose the network that offers your product and gives a better commission.
Check for payment structure, payout policy and payment mode.
Be sure to look at the policies beforehand, so you are aware of your possible earnings, any additional incentives and any other relevant information.
FAQs Related To Affiliate Marketing
1. How much does it cost to join an affiliate program?
There is no fee for joining an affiliate program, however, your total cost depends on what promotion technique you are using. For example, a blog post doesn’t cost much, except for the initial setup cost, but PPC marketing, email marketing, and advertising need some investment to get you ROI.2. How much money you can make as an affiliate marketer?
There are affiliate marketers who are making millions of dollars a month via affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is also known as performance-based marketing and hence the amount one can earn is depends on the individual’s capabilities. It can be limitless.
The key here is how you are approaching the whole process. Are you using a blog or using PPC to market affiliate products.
3. Is affiliate marketing safe and legal?
Yes, it is safe and legal, as you will simply be using the affiliate link provided to you rather than a direct link to any site. However, in a certain jurisdiction, you are supposed to disclose that you may be compensated for endorsing the product. You need to mention it in your Affiliate Disclosure page.4. How do I find new products to promote?
Affiliate marketplaces such as those mentioned above are the best places to start your affiliate marketing research. You can browse and find your niche and see the top performing affiliate products to promote.5. Affiliate marketing and AdSense: Can we use both?
Yes, you can use both, as affiliate marketing does not violate any AdSense TOS. However, it is not advisable to use both monetization methods on the same site. AdSense needs a high traffic site to get you a decent income, whereas the affiliate site can convert well even with small targeted traffic.6. Is it important to have a blog for affiliate promotion?
Not necessarily, but a blog is really the best promotional tool. You can always use methods different methods of promotion such as PPC, email marketing or advertising on media to promote a product. However, the best way to make the most out of affiliate marketing is to have a blog. Learn how to start a blog here.Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a real business you can engage in, and not just a trending topic.It is a good way to earn a living, but before you can start counting your commission earnings, there are a lot of things to be done.
You need to find the product or service you want to promote, identify your target audience’s needs, and adjust your website or blog for affiliate marketing purposes or find the method if you want to do it without a website.
There are so many resources you can take advantage of so get down to it already.
This very informative guide is only the beginning but gives you a perfect launching pad for this journey. Take it all in and dig deeper.
All the best!
Related Articles