Affiliate Marketing Basics
In this article, we will discuss the basics of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a great way for you to start earning passive income. But how does it work and how do you start an affiliate marketing business?
A lot of people are getting into affiliate marketing and thousands of companies offer affiliate marketing programs. If you are new to affiliate marketing, getting started can seem overwhelming.
When you understand the basics of affiliate marketing and how it works, you can use it as a way to increase your income, build a successful side-gig, and eventually detach yourself from the world of corporate jobs and be your own boss!
In this article, I am going to discuss the basics of affiliate marketing for beginners.
An Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
In affiliate marketing, brands pay a commission to affiliates based on sales they generate through referrals.
Imagine that you had an agreement with a local store that every time you brought a customer into the store and they bought a product, you got a commission. That’s affiliate marketing.
However today, affiliate marketing is mainly done online. By driving online traffic to a seller’s website, you can earn commission on anything they buy.
If you are not familiar with driving online traffic to a website, the internet is what has made affiliate marketing so easy.
Doing affiliate marketing online provides a lot of advantages over sending someone to a physical store, including the amount of traffic you can drive and in turn the number of commissions you can earn.
Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about online traffic, learning is simple. I have written a lot more on the subject of affiliate marketing, how to get started, in another article: A Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing.
In this article, I am just going to cover the basics of affiliate marketing.
The Three Parts of Affiliate Marketing
There are three parts to affiliate marketing:
Sellers. This is the brand or business you are marketing for. Sellers can range from local shops, individuals, or large nationwide retail brands. They are the creator and suppliers of the product itself. You would be surprised at how many commonly known brands offer affiliate marketing programs.
Affiliates. That’s you. Affiliates are the promoters and sellers of the products. By sending potential customers to a seller’s website or online store, you will earn commissions every time they buy.
Customers. Customers are the people you send to a website that buy the seller’s products. Customers are your target audience.
Essentially, sellers recognize that paying an affiliate marketer commission for sales is more affordable than paying for marketing and sales personnel. In turn, as an affiliate marketer, you can earn good money once you get rolling.
Affiliate marketing provides benefits for both affiliate marketers and the seller. That’s why it’s so popular.
How Much Money Can I Make as an Affiliate Marketer?
According to ZipRecruiter, the average affiliate marketer makes $60,000 a year.
However, I will tell you immediately that affiliate marketing takes hard work. It is definitely a way to generate additional income and potentially own your own business, however, it’s not free money.
Like any business, affiliate marketing takes research, study, practice, and consistency.
Annual salaries can range from $11,000 to $400,000 a year with the average being from $60,000 to $208,000 annual income.
The potential to make a good living through affiliate marketing definitely exists, but you will need to apply yourself.
Affiliate Marketing Provides Flexibility
One of the biggest advantages of affiliate marketing is flexibility.
A seller can create an affiliate marketing program based on specific products or services they want to be sold. They can also offer higher commissions for new products they want to launch.
And, as an affiliate marketer, you can choose which affiliate marketing programs to participate in and promote.
There is no single product that will automatically make you a ton of sales. The key is to choose a product you feel you can promote and sell, that you believe in, and find the right audience for that product or service.
The entire goal of affiliate marketing is to get a product promoted to the relevant audience who are likely to buy.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Earlier, I mentioned that online affiliate marketing provides a lot of advantages. Here’s how it works.
When you sign up to be an affiliate marketer, the seller will issue you a unique ID and a trackable hyperlink that you can use to promote their products.
This hyperlink (URL) is unique to you and any time your audience clicks on your link the seller will know that you generated that traffic. The hyperlink will also track what products that visitors buy and attribute those sales to you.
Most affiliate marketing programs will track when a visitor returns to a site and buys more, or if they didn’t buy the first time and return later to buy. This is how affiliate marketing can start to snowball and earn you more and more income the more visitors you drive to a seller’s site.
How Seller’s Pay Affiliate Marketers
Sellers all have different goals. Some want sales, and some just want traffic. There are three main affiliate marketing models:
PPC: Pay per click offers credits/payments forever someone clicks on your affiliate link and visits the seller’s site. Sellers who want to generate a lot of traffic to their website or online store will pay you for visits.
PPS: Pay per sale is the most common affiliate marketing model where affiliates earn a percentage of the referred sale.
PPL: Pay per lead is a quickly growing model where companies will pay a set amount for a qualified lead. This is used by sellers who require an actual sales conversation to sell a product or service. Software companies often offer this model since they are looking for potential clients they can sign up for. Brick and mortar-type businesses like an A/C repair service, a solar installer, or an energy consulting company can also offer a set amount per qualified lead.
Affiliate Marketing: How To Get Started
If you want to get started with affiliate marketing, the first thing you need to decide is whether you want to be a seller or an affiliate marketer.
For example, if you have a decent following on social media you may be considered to create and sell a product or to refer your audience to an existing product or service and earn commissions.
Deciding on what part of affiliate marketing you will participate in is the first step.
If you want to be a promoter, the next step is to choose what seller you want to market for. As I mentioned above, there is no single brand or company that is “hot” or will immediately make you successful.
The thing to do is pick a seller or brand that you are familiar with or passionate about. Check to see if your favorite brands offer affiliate marketing programs, chances are they do.
Let’s say you are a good cook, you could start driving traffic to brands that sell cooking equipment that you use. If you own a cleaning business, you could start marketing cleaning products and tools, and so on.
Tying affiliate marketing with something you are familiar with will make it easier to get started as well as drive traffic.
However, you do not have to pick something you are familiar with. You can choose any product you feel you can promote and sell. That is the beauty and flexibility of affiliate marketing, you get to choose what you do!
Once you’ve chosen a product and signed up for their affiliate marketing program, the next steps are to choose a potential audience and how to reach them through ads, social media, or marketing.
The Key To Affiliate Marketing
If I could give you one single piece of advice about affiliate marketing it is to keep at it.
If you see that a product or brand you’ve chosen isn’t selling, you can change your advertising strategy, change your audience, or choose a new seller altogether.
But keep at it. The more you work at it, the more you learn, the greater your chances of success. Once you start to roll, affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to earn really good money.
Almost any successful company you see has taken a lot of work. It went through pitfalls, testing, dips, and falls, and of course moments of success. Affiliate marketing is the same. The more you work at it, the more traffic you generate, the more audiences you can get in front of, the more money you will make.
Keep at it.
Affiliate Marketing: Conclusion
Affiliate is one of the three ways that I suggest you make your money work for you.
Whether you have an existing audience or not, if you are interested in finding a way to earn passive income, affiliate marketing can be your solution. And there are plenty of ways to get started and get involved.
Penny Millions
Editor, Sleepy Money
(570) 903-8960
info@sleepymoney.com