So you’ve heard of affiliate marketing, but have no idea what it is. How does work?
Affiliate Marketing is an extremely attractive way to make a relatively passive income online by promoting & marketing other peoples products – and earning a commission for each sale.
Want to sell a Camera on Amazon? You can earn a slice of the action. Refer someone to an online Course you found handy? Take your cut – that’s affiliate marketing
Now you’re getting the idea of how this form of marketing works. Sound Awesome? That’s because it is!
You probably want to know a little more about Affiliate Marketing though, like how to start, how does it work, what are the pros and cons?
Well below I’ll explain it all for you :)
The information about affiliate marketing in the video above is also written below!
How does Affiliate Marketing work?
As I said earlier, affiliate marketing is when you send someone to a product or service and you get paid if they follow through with the purchase, but what’s the method behind it?
Basically, when you sign up to become an affiliate with someone, they give a link or a ‘link generator’ that you can use on your website for marketing their product (or emails, Youtube, etc). If a person clicks on that link, a tracking cookie sends your information along with the visitor so they know to attribute the sale to you when it goes through. It’s all automated.
Usually, you get a dashboard you can log into and check your stats. How many people you sent to the affiliate’s website, how much money you’ve earned and when you can expect to paid.
Sre, Affiliate Marketing sounds like a crazy scam but it’s legit, I make thousands of dollars every year promoting affiliate products. The best part is I just receive the occasional email while I’m chilling out doing other things with a message ‘commission notification – you made a sale’ – although not all affiliates will email you when you make a sale. But you get the idea, you literally make money while you’re sleeping or doing other things, it’s a form of income known as ‘passive income’.
This form of passive income all boils down to that link – if you can send people through it and get them to buy than you can make money with Affiliate Marketing.
How do People Succeed with Affiliate Marketing?
It’s simple.
- Create a ‘thing’ that is useful and free that people want and find a way to recommend a product with an affiliate link.
- Send as many people to that ‘thing’ you think will buy the product.
So what’s ‘the thing’?
There’s a few different options for creating this ‘thing’, a resource that offers people something they want. The main thing is substance, you offer some information or media you think people will respond to. You can then add that information or media to:
- A website or blog that you own. You can use paid ads, rely on free social media tactics or SEO (Search Engine Optimization or Google) and try to funnel people to your affiliate marketing offer. Even if you don’t want to run a website, it’s handy to have one to use so you can ‘cloak’ you affiliate link, so instead of being a long complicated URL, you can shorten it to something like ‘http://youdomain.com/product’. You may also need a website for some of the following avenues.
I show you how you can start a WordPress website using Hostgator right here. - An Email List which offers Freebie in exchange for signing up. I prefer to combine both the above and this method as Email Lists sell so much better than most other methods. You can sign people up to your email list and have a pre-determined list of emails that go out automatically and ‘warm up’ your subscribers so they’re more likely to buy, I do this using ConvertKit. If they don’t buy, you have the opportunity to make other affiliate marketing offers down the line as long as they stay subscribed.
- A YouTube Channel that offers free and helpful advice or tutorials that you can recommend your product in. This, again, works best in tandem as you can send people to your website or mailing list for more. Starting a YouTube Channel is free, here’s how you can do it.
Once you have your ‘thing’ (or things) up and running you start sending people there. You can create and promote your content on Social Media, with Paid ads or you can try your hand at SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to get people to see what you’ve created. As long as you create value and let people know about it you can make some progress in your affiliae marketing efforts.
Pros of Affiliate Marketing
There’s a reason you’re reading this post, you’re looking for something good to make some money with and learn how it works! Well, there’s plenty of advantages to generating an income with Affiliate Marketing.
Below are the main reasons I love affiliate marketing:
- Passive income – once you set things up you can walk away and the sales happen without you.
- You don’t have to create a product – with affiliate marketing you’re selling someone else’s product so you save time and money on development.
- It’s cheaper to switch products – since you didn’t spend forever creating a product to sell, you can switch your referral by changing links if you discover a better product.
- It’s very cheap to start – all you really need is a website and some time.
- You don’t have to offer customer service – the product creator does all of that stuff!
- It’s very scalable – there’s no limit on how much money you can earn with affiliate marketing !
- You can do it anywhere – its online, so you can lvie the whole laptop lifestyle or work from home. Up to you!
- It’s performance based – the better you are, the more money you’ll make.
- It’s fun!
Cons of Affiliate Marketing
Naturally, every method of business has both the pros and the cons. Here are some reasons to consider not doing affiliate marketing.
- Progress can be slow – You either need to be skilled with paid ads or build trust and an audience. That all takes time (espcially if you’re a beginner).
- You only get a percentage of the price – if you own your own product you get to keep everything, in this it’s just a slice of the pie.
- Some products are low value so you need to try the prodcut ro doa lot of research because you’re putting your name next a crappy product if you promote it.
- You can lose your income – Commissions can drop or affiliate programs can disappear altogether! You have no control and can lose you r income quickly.
- it’s harder to keep customers – If you send a cold lead to a product and they buy, your affiliate gets their info not you – that is why I love selling from an email list.
- The work is mostly upfront – will trade hours and dyas for pennies initially, but once you hit your stride it can take off with out you.
- It’s performance based – if you aren’t skilled at it you won’t make much. But invest in yourself and enjoy learning as it pays off!
How do you Start Affiliate Marketing?
Research a niche and find some products to promote then build your website and ideally start an Email List.
Then be prepared to put in some hours and get creative! This is a fun opportunity to try out your ideas and see hwo they work when it comesto selling and generating traffic. Have patience though as it defintely takes time.
Spend some time really looking for the right program or product (or products – there’ no limit to how many). FInd sometihng with a good commission that is also high quality so your job of selling and earning more money becomes much easier.
If you’re not sure where to find affiliate programs, then fear not…
Where to Find Affiliate Marketing Programs
There are plenty Affiliate offers to choose from out on the internet. Below are the main networks you can explore, with more info beneath.
- Amazon Associates
- ClickBank
- Shareasale
- Linkshare
- GiddyUp
- JVZoo
- CJ Affiliate by Conversant
- Avangate
- eBay Partner Network
Many businesses and websites have their own affiliate program and use no network, check their website footer for ‘affiliate’ or ‘partner’ program – or even do a Google Search for “(website name) affiliate program”.
That should give you what you need!
So, get started!
You’re armed with the right information, so go out there and start building your affiliate marketing empire!
If you have any further questions, please leave a comment below and perhaps I can help. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you again soon :)
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