How Do People Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing technique by which you, as an affiliate, can earn commissions for marketing or recommending a company or person's products or services.
It is similar to a referral program where you can recommend or promote the products and services you like to your audience on your blog, website, social media or YouTube channel.
And if you're audience buys a product or service through you, you earn a small commission on that sale. Commissions can be a percentage of each sale or a fixed amount, and sales are determined by affiliate links provided to you by the product/service owner.
If this sounds confusing, let me make it easy for you by explaining how affiliate marketing works and what are its main components.
How does affiliate marketing work?
In short, you can join affiliate programs that suit your niche and audience. You can connect to such programs either through direct brand partnerships or by joining affiliate networks.
When you join an affiliate program, the brand or affiliate network provides you with a unique link to include in your promotional materials, such as your blog or YouTube channel.
This is how you create content around the product and include links within it, allowing your audience to click and buy the product or service.
When a sale is made through your link, you earn a small commission on that sale. Affiliate marketing involves various people who create and promote a product or service. The main components of affiliate marketing are Product Owner, Affiliate, Consumer and Affiliate Network (optional).
Let's look at their relationship and roles in affiliate marketing.
Product Owner
As the name suggests, the product owner is the owner of the product or service that needs to be marketed. It can be a large enterprise, a small and medium business or an entrepreneur who has created a product.
A product can be anything, such as a tangible item such as a refrigerator, cosmetics, etc. or an intangible item such as an online course.
Similarly, a service could be web hosting, car rental and so on.
For example, a product owner could be a web host who wants to expand their audience by reaching more people through a blogger whose readers could be potential web host customers.
Affiliate Marketer
An affiliate marketer is a publisher, which can be a company or individual, such as a blogger or YouTuber.
An affiliate marketer promotes the seller's services or products on their platform or website by persuading the audience.
To do this, they can create compelling content about a product or service, explaining its benefits.
If readers or viewers like the product or service, they can check the provided product links and click on them to purchase. In case of a successful sale, the affiliate marketer receives a percentage of that sale.
To be successful as an affiliate marketer, you need a brand that the audience trusts enough to take into account its recommendations.
Consumer
Affiliate marketing is aimed at consumers. Consumers can be a regular audience, such as blog readers or YouTube channel subscribers, who regularly browse the creator's content in search of information.
If they find the content helpful, as well as the recommended product or service, they may purchase it.
Affiliate network
While you can directly connect with a brand and become an affiliate, you can make the process easier by doing so through an affiliate network like Amazon Associates.
They act as intermediaries between the seller and the partner and handle issues such as product shipping and payments to streamline the process.
Some merchants only run their affiliate programs through an affiliate network. In this case, to promote a service or product, you will have to go through this network.
It can also provide you with a variety of product and service options.
Is affiliate marketing worth it?
Sometimes marketers may wonder why they would want to become an affiliate marketer just to earn a small percentage of a sale they make.
Is it worth it? Why affiliate marketing when there are so many ways to make money online? Affiliate marketing is one of the most inexpensive ways to make good money without the hassle of creating a product and selling it yourself.
All you have to do is recommend the product to your audience and earn money.
Let's take a look at the benefits of affiliate marketing to see why you might want to consider this option.
Source of passive income
Unlike a regular job where you have to work regularly to keep making money, affiliate marketing allows you to make money while you sleep.
With a certain initial investment of time and effort, you can consistently earn big money when someone purchases through your link.
Low investment
Starting a business usually requires certain costs. If you want to create a product, you will need many things - an idea, money to produce, a team to market and sell the product and other investments.
However, getting started in affiliate marketing will not cost you any money.
You just need to put in the time and effort to create content around the product and convince your audience to buy it.
Work from anywhere
Affiliate marketing works online; therefore, you can work from anywhere, creating content and inserting links.
That's all. Your content will bring you income as long as affiliate links work.
This is a great option if you hate the office environment and love working from home.
Better Performance, More Revenue
Usually, a job pays a fixed salary if you work 40 hours a week or 45 hours. Although you may receive some bonus depending on your good work, it is still limited.
However, affiliate marketing is completely dependent on your performance.
The more effort you put into creating your content and building your brand and audience, the more you can earn.
How and how much is an affiliate marketer paid?
Affiliate marketer gets paid in different ways:
- Pay per click for redirecting customers from your blog or marketing channel to the seller's website where the product was originally listed.
- Pay per sale to receive a small percentage of the product's sale price
- Pay per lead to get paid based on the number of conversions from leads who sign up for your newsletter, download the guide, take part in a free product trial and more.
Now an interesting question - how much can an affiliate marketer earn? Well, there is no limit. You earn based on your efforts, payment model and the niche or industry you choose.
You can earn from a few hundred dollars to tens and thousands of dollars every month from your affiliate programs (if you do everything right, of course).
Your earnings will also depend on the number of affiliate programs in your niche, the number of subscribers, the quality of your content, and your reach.
For example, Ryan Robinson, a blogger and affiliate marketer, made about $44,000 in June 2020.
Also, according to PayScale, the average income of affiliate marketers per year is about $51,217.
How to get started with affiliate marketing?
To get started with affiliate marketing, there are a few things you need to know:
- Content Creation Platform
- Selecting the products and services you want to promote
Creation of a marketing platform
To talk about a product or service that you can recommend to people, you must have a platform where you can create content and run promotions.
This could be a website or blog, a YouTube channel, or a social media profile like Instagram. Starting a YouTube channel or social media profile does not require much hassle or investment.
But if you want to start a blog, you may need to invest a few dollars in it. You will need a domain name, web hosting and a website builder like WordPress, which is effortless for everyone, even beginners.
With this guide, you can easily create your WordPress site without coding.
Choice of products/services
When your website or marketing platform is ready, you need to select the products and services to promote.
To do this, you must understand what exactly you want to promote or where to start your blog or channel.
Always choose products and services from your niche to keep your audience and not confuse them with products from a completely different niche.
You have two options here - you can either partner directly with the seller or join an affiliate marketing platform.
If you are a beginner, the last option may be easier for you. They will connect you with sellers and help you earn good money.
Here are some of the affiliate networks you may want to consider:
Amazon
Amazon introduces the Amazon Associates Program for bloggers, publishers and content creators to monetize their traffic.
Choose from millions of products and use simultaneous links to recommend your audience.
You will earn a certain amount for each qualified program or purchase. Simply sign up, join a community of thousands of bloggers and content creators and post your product to spread the word to your audience and increase sales.
Amazon gives you up to 10% commission on every eligible purchase and program. You can also set up linking tools to create a unique product link that will help visitors open the product page directly.
ShareASale
Monetize your content with the ShareASale affiliate program and build profitable and long-term partnerships by recommending relevant services and products to your readers.
ShareASale helps content creators and influencers reach more audiences and profit by partnering with the brands they love. Media Partners can also use the Partner Program to manage, create and find relevant brand partnerships.
You can track the performance of your affiliate program with reliable and transparent reporting.
Also, attract more customers by rewarding them for purchases.
Awin
Promote products and/or services to your audience with Awin affiliate links and build profitable partnerships with top brands.
It offers an easy-to-use and intuitive platform with consistent and fast payouts. Whether you're a media partner, web page owner, blogger or publisher, connect with the right brands, promote them and earn commissions.
Easily generate trackable links to share with your audience, stay up to date with offers and promotions and track your performance to improve.
You will also get advanced tools to optimize your work.
Rakuten
Join the Rakuten community for FREE and start earning today. Rakuten works with various stores and redirects you to the product page where you want your audience to make a purchase and earn cashback commissions.
Open a FREE account within 30 seconds, make in-app or extension purchases and grow your cashback. You can withdraw cashback either via check or PayPal.
Rakuten can also make your shopping experience fun by allowing you to earn money while shopping.
From restaurants to horseback riding and clothing to electronics, Rakuten finds the best deals for you so you can shop with ease.
Make purchases of at least $25 within 90 days of joining the program and receive a $10 welcome bonus.
CJ
Connect with world-class brands by joining the CJ affiliate marketing program and monetize your content.
CJ offers innovative solutions and tools combined with strategic guidance to help you grow your business.
You get robust tools to understand your audience and reach out to them with the latest products and offerings to improve the user experience.
CJ provides strategic recommendations based on the distribution model, business size, vertical, and region.
Its intuitive platform will help you effortlessly start your membership and earn commissions for successful purchases.
You can also use how-to guides to find the right brands and the latest technologies to grow.
Use the Deep Link Generator to generate links directly from a site or convert existing URLs into links.
It offers two payouts per month and you can track commission and historical payouts from the partner dashboard.
You can also analyze partner performance in terms of commission metrics based on advertising features and product type.
The CJ API provides flexibility in managing relationships, searching for products, accessing offers, viewing program metrics and promoting products.
Click bank
ClickBank is one of the leading marketplaces where you can earn high commissions on quality products.
It features over 4,000 quality products from thousands of sellers for affiliate marketing. Device-level ClickBank tracking helps you earn money for every sale.
It also guarantees reliable payment delivery and offers the highest commissions in the affiliate program industry, including CPA and Revenue Share.
In addition, the ClickBank platform educates new affiliates with in-depth expert training and an extensive library of practical strategies to advance their affiliate marketing career.
impact.com
Understand your audience choices, partner with brands, and start your affiliate journey to make money with impact.com.
It allows you to monetize your content with viewer-friendly products and device tracking and gives you the control and flexibility to build profitable, long-term partnerships.
Withdraw your amount once a month on a set day when your balance reaches a certain level. Whichever currency you choose, get paid instantly via BACS, PayPal, or direct transfer.
Plus, you get custom SMS, email alerts, and the ability to quickly and easily respond to changes with campaign reports.
4 steps to making money online with affiliate marketing
Here are some affiliate marketing tips to help you make money through affiliate marketing once you have chosen your preferred marketing platform, be it your blog or the aforementioned networks.
Choose your niche
Getting started in affiliate marketing is easy, but the competition is very high. And to stand out, you have to be specific about what you are going to talk about and what you recommend to your audience.
So choose a niche and build your brand around it. This will help you build a focused brand and an audience that knows what they can expect from you.
And when they encounter a problem or seek advice on a topic, they will come to you for information or product recommendations and drive your partnership efforts.
For example, you can choose a technology niche if you love this area and have certain knowledge in it.
You can review related products such as web hosting services, cyber security products, SaaS software and so on.
Find relevant affiliate programs
You can find various affiliate programs, but join the ones that are relevant to your niche and match your level of expertise so that you feel comfortable talking about them. It can be:
- High pay for low sales
- Low pay for high sales
- High pay for high-volume sales
If you are targeting a business, you can choose high-paying programs with low sales volume because they are niche like web hosting, software products, etc.
But if you're targeting consumers, you can choose low-pay, high-volume programs because you'll be promoting tons of products with mass appeal.
Likewise, products like credit cards have high fees and high sales volume. If you would like to recommend a product you like, you can also contact the company and ask if they have a partnership agreement.
Create valuable content
Creating high-quality content is the key to a successful affiliate campaign. Whether you're blogging or creating videos on YouTube or IG TV, make sure you post valuable content that solves and benefits your audience.
Also, promote products and services that you truly believe in before recommending them so that your audience will trust you.
For example, if you are a beauty blogger, you can review products that have helped improve your skin or solve skin problems.
Traffic drive
Once you've started creating good content and building a specific audience, it's time to increase your traffic so more people click through to your affiliate links.
You can do it in the following ways:
- Create an email list of your readers or audience. Send them useful information, promotions, newsletters, webinar links etc. to encourage them to keep visiting your site and witness more sales.
- Perform search engine optimization ( SEO ) to optimize your web pages and increase their ranking in search engines such as Google or YouTube. To do this, identify the keywords consumers are looking for, add them strategically to your content and build links.
- Use PPC advertising where you pay for website traffic. This is good if you have high-paying affiliate links and a marketing budget.
Conclusion
I hope this information helps you make good money with affiliate marketing.
You can either work directly with the brand and promote their products and services while earning commissions or choose the affiliate network that suits you best and make money online while you sleep!
