Affiliate Marketing for Beginners : Why it is an Easy Income Model

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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners Why it is an Easy Income Model

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Waking up at a ridiculous hour. Traffic is gridlocked, streets are jammed with drowsy commuters. After slogging through mind-numbing emails until five o’clock, it’s sweet to be released.

Does that sound awful?

Imagine being able to make money at any time, from anywhere, even while you sleep – rather than dealing with the monotony and stupor of the rat race for a few bucks?

Affiliate marketing is based on that concept. Basically, it’s easy money. 

Affiliate marketing is a popular method for generating significant revenue online and boosting sales. New marketing tactics that are less traditional have proved to be extremely beneficial both for affiliate marketers as well as brands. They include:

  • You should take advantage of affiliate marketing as the USA saw an 81% increase in the number of brands and an 84% increase in the number of publishers for affiliate marketing. 
  • By the year 2020, the United states alone saw the market grow 10%from the past year making it a $6.8 billion industry. 
  • In 2018 it was estimated that 62% of content marketing costs were assessed from traditional marketing and they generated three times more leads than traditional marketing. A whopping 16% of all online orders were made thanks to affiliate marketing. 

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners - A Guide

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

As a form of advertising, affiliate marketing refers to the process of compensating third parties for generating traffic to the company’s Web site or products and services. They receive commission fees for promoting the company on third-party sites, which encourages them to find ways to do so.

Affiliate Marketing: An Introduction

Affiliate marketing has grown in popularity thanks to the internet. 

Affiliate marketing occurs when websites and bloggers post links to Amazon’s pages for a product they discuss or evaluate in order to generate advertising revenue. Amazon (AMZN) popularized affiliate marketing by creating an affiliate marketing program.

A form of pay-for-performance marketing, affiliate marketing leverages an extensive network of affiliates to sell products.

Despite being older than the internet, affiliate marketing became a billion-dollar industry with digital marketing, analytics, and cookies. The affiliate marketing program can track how many leads are converted into sales by performing analytics internally.

Affiliates can be hired by e-commerce merchants who want to reach more Internet users and customers. Depending on the affiliate’s size, the affiliate may own more than one website or email list. The more sites an affiliate owns, the larger its network becomes. 

Affiliates promote the electronic commerce platform’s products to their networks based on the information provided on the e-commerce platform.

Through banner advertisements, text advertisements, or links on its website, or by sending email to its clientele, the affiliate generates revenue. Ads are used by businesses to draw attention to services and products through articles, videos, and images.

The e-commerce website is accessed after clicking the ads or links. An e-commerce affiliate earns a commission when customers purchase a product or service; it can range from 5% to 10% of the purchase price.

Affiliates and merchants profit from this model by increasing sales creating a win-win situation. 

This is one of the most popular systems and is gaining more popularity with every passing year. 

As technology improves and the internet expands, the model will become easier to implement. For example, commissions on qualified leads are tracked and paid more efficiently. They have a better chance of improving their products because they can track sales and leads more effectively.

Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of affiliate marketing will be helpful to anyone who wishes to pursue it. It is beneficial for affiliate companies to properly vet and qualify their partners. Using this method, products and services are advertised effectively at a low cost, increasing brand recognition, and expanding customer reach.

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How to Start Affiliate Marketing as a Beginner

1. Choose a platform

Affiliate marketing is theoretically possible on any online platform. Including Instagram.

In general, though, a blog and/or a YouTube channel are much more effective at growing your audience and affiliate sales.

The cost of setting up a blog is lower than it was even a few years ago. Many tutorials are available on the Internet that guides you through the process. What’s great? A few dollars a month may be all you need to get started.

Optimize your site for search engines once it is up so that you are more likely to rank well. When you publish your content, you can include affiliate links. 

Secondly, YouTube can be used. Many people use YouTube because it is free to create and upload content. Ensure that your video content is well-optimized for SEO, and link to your affiliate products in the description. 

Youtube is filled with various types of affiliate content, and people do love looking at it. Make sure to make the content engaging and something that people would like to share. 

Note that affiliate links must be disclosed. When you receive income from an endorsement you are required to be transparent, according to the FTC.

You can add it to your website’s footer or create an entirely separate page if you’re using a blog. When posting to YouTube, include this information in the description. 

2. Choose your niche

It’s no secret that blogging today is very competitive. By 2021, Statista predicts that there will be 31.7 million bloggers in the United States alone. 

Niche down to increase your chances of success.

Focus on a single category when choosing a topic. Clothing, for example, is quite a broad topic. Instead, you might want to focus on something more specific, such as summer clothing.

You may rank higher in search engines if you keep your topics focused on a small number of topics.

NOTE: Are you looking for some quick-start ideas? Here are some cool suggestions.

You should choose something you are passionate about if you are going to be the primary content creator.

Lack of consistency leads to the death of many affiliate sites. Having a passion for a subject will make you much more likely to push forward, even when times get tough.

Even if you don’t have a lot of experience, don’t worry. “Document, don’t create,” advises Gary Vaynerchuck. Documenting your learnings makes for great content and offers people a way to follow your development.

Working with seasoned experts in a particular niche is great if you’re outsourcing the content. You can gain more traffic, engaging visitors, and affiliate sales by hiring experts that help you create high-quality, trustworthy content.

3. Find affiliate programs to join

Affiliate programs are divided into three categories.

A. Low-volume, high-paying affiliate programs

Affiliates can earn high income from these niche programs.

Just 80 customers could earn you almost $700 a month as part of ConvertKit’s affiliate program. There is, however, a limited pool of buyers since their CRM software is aimed at small business owners. There are not many buyers in such a niche. 

In addition, programs with high commissions tend to have more competition. Unless you are a skilled marketer with deep pockets, you will have difficulty making a significant amount of money as a newbie.

B. Affiliate programs with low commissions and high traffic

The programs for which affiliates earn are low payouts, but offer products that appeal to a broad audience.

Take the PS4 games as an example. Playing PS4 is popular among many people, but most games only cost about $50, and affiliate commissions are usually in the low single digits. Consequently, if you’re lucky, you’ll make $2–3 from each sale.

There are usually a lot of products to choose from when it comes to these types of programs. As an example, Amazon’s affiliate program offers a lot of products. Almost everything Amazon sells is eligible for a 10% commission.

You may also benefit from getting a commission on the total purchase value rather than just on the product you recommended.

The results of these types of affiliate programs depend on high traffic.

C. Affiliate programs with high payouts and volume

The products involved in these programs have mass appeal, and they pay high commissions.

Taking credit cards as an example.

Credit cards are essential to most people, and they tend to stay with the same company for decades (sometimes even longer).

Affiliate marketers with deep pockets and a lot of experience tend to be drawn to these products. In addition, some tactics used to promote these products are spammy.

Don’t forget there are programs like this out there.

Selecting affiliate programs that are right for you

The focus and level of expertise of your site will determine the amount of traffic.

The second model, with its low commissions and high sales volume, is more likely to be the most suitable if you’re targeting individual consumers.

You’ll likely choose the first model if you’re targeting a business audience: high-paying and low volume. Generally, promotional software and hosting products are the most popular.

4. Produce high-quality content

You must create high-quality content with affiliate links that naturally fit into your site if you want your affiliate website to succeed.

When creating affiliate content, you should emulate these techniques.

Don’t impulsively curate products from Amazon’s best sellers list. Provide content that meets the visitor’s needs.

How? Buy and Test the product if you’re doing a review. 

You can always start with what you have at home if you don’t have the money to buy everything. In the case of a technology blog, you could write reviews on the gadgets you own.

5. Get people to visit your affiliate site

You’ve created great content. To make your affiliate links more effective, you must get more people to read your post.

To boost traffic, consider these three options:

A. Paid traffic

As the name states, this is where you pay for traffic to your site. Paid search campaigns are a good choice.

With paid traffic results are immediate, you start paying for traffic, you start getting it right away.

It does have some downsides, though.

Your profits will be eaten up first by ads. For advertisers, losing money is quite normal before making it is quite common.

Optimizing paid traffic campaigns takes time. Be realistic.

As soon as you stop paying for advertisements, your traffic will stop.

If you’re part of an affiliate program that pays well and you can maximize the number of clicks, ads are an excellent traffic strategy.

Nonetheless, if you are a complete beginner with paid marketing and if you are using a lower commission program such as Amazon Associates, you might not want to pursue this option.

B. SEO

In search engine optimization, pages are optimized to appear high in the rankings.

Getting traffic from search engines is passive so you can keep ranking high for as long as possible.

At its core, SEO involves:

  • Identifying the search terms used by your target audience;
  • Create the content on relevant topics that you just researched. (blogs, product pages, etc)
  • To get these pages ranked higher, we take care of the “technical” stuff (link building).

C. Create an email list

It is easy to communicate with readers through email lists at any time.

You can inform your readers when you roll out new content. This will pull them to click on your affiliate links more often.

Your list of contacts can be sent email promotion directly into their inboxes. 

You must convince readers on your site to sign up for your email list in order to build it. To do that, you should offer valuable content.

6. Get clicks on your affiliate links

There’s no guarantee that people will click your affiliate links just because you have amazing content.

Several factors must be taken into account.

A. Where to place links

 

The affiliate links on your homepage will rarely be clicked because most people never scroll to the bottom.

When you introduce a link after every word, your content will feel spammy.

Links should be placed within the context of the other factors listed below.

B. Background/context

 

Consider a scenario where you’re writing an article about the best lawn mowers under $500.

It wouldn’t make sense to start with this:

I’m reviewing the best lawn mowers below $500.

It looks like spam and the links are out of context.

In my opinion, this makes more sense:

In this review, I’m going to tell you about three lawn mowers under $500 that you can get on Amazon. I’ll tell you about product number 1, product number 2, and product number 3.

C. Callouts

You can make your posts more skimmable by including callouts, such as buttons, tables, and boxes.

7. Increase sales by converting clicks

For you to make money in affiliate marketing, you need two conversions.

Clicking on the product page is the first conversion.

This action is completely within your control. The tactics listed above will help you to achieve better results.

The visitor who purchases the product is the second conversion. As an affiliate marketer, you do not have any control over a merchant’s checkout process.

It’s important to look for merchants whose programs convert well and play the game to your advantage.

You can find them in several ways:

A. Reports of public income

 

If affiliate programs make decent money, then the product is likely to convert well.

How will you find out if people are making money through affiliate programs?

You can find out how much affiliate deals generate for bloggers by looking at public income reports.

This information is easily available on Google.

You can see a few blog posts about how bloggers have earned money from Amazon Affiliates if you search for “income report amazon affiliate”.

B. Engage in a discussion

 

It’s best to sign up for an affiliate program you’re interested in and ask questions when little information about it is available.

You might want to inquire about their conversion rate and what their top sellers are making every month. 

You can use this information to figure out if you should promote that affiliate program.

C. Let your intuition guide you

 

When in doubt, trust your gut.

If you have any doubts about promoting a program or product, or if you wouldn’t personally recommend it to a friend or family member, then don’t do it.

How do affiliate marketers get paid

If you’re looking to increase your income online, affiliate marketing has undeniable appeal. Affiliate marketing is a fast and easy alternative to selling products directly. After an affiliate connects with a seller, how does it generate a commission?

Answers can be complicated.

For the affiliate to get a kickback, the consumer does not always need to buy the product. Different affiliate programs measure affiliate contributions differently.

Various methods may be used to pay the affiliate:

1. Pay per sale.

As an affiliate marketer, you will typically work within this structure. Affiliates earn a percentage of the product price after consumers purchase the product through the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliates receive commissions only if they are able to get investors to invest.

2. Charge per lead.

An affiliate program that pays affiliates when leads are converted is known as a pay per lead affiliate program. In order to earn revenue from the affiliate, a consumer must engage with the merchant’s website and complete the tasks such as sign up for a newsletter or trial, fill out a contact form, or download software

3. Pay per click.

Affiliates will be rewarded for redirecting their marketing platform’s visitors to the merchant’s website by taking part in this program. Affiliates must sell the merchant’s products in a way that will entice the consumer to move from their website to the merchant’s. A percentage of the increase in traffic is paid to the affiliate.

Which affiliate marketing is best for beginners

Unattached Affiliate Marketing

It is a basic affiliate campaign where you have no authority and no presence in the niche where you are promoting a product. Through Google Adwords, Facebook ads, etc., you’re merely displaying the affiliate link in hopes that someone will click on it, buy the product, and you’ll earn a commission.

There is no need for a presence or authority in affiliate marketing, which is why it is so attractive to many! Online service providers are generally too nervous to jump into running a blog or launching a website due to the time commitment or lack of interest. This is the only option they have.

As a business model, I don’t agree with this model since it’s not what a business model is. Yes, it’s a model to generate income, but is it one which allows me to build relationships with the end user? 

No. You become the middleman when you engage in PPC affiliate marketing.

This model makes it harder to focus on the customers you’re serving and more on the potential revenue. And that’s the downside of affiliate marketing.

Related Affiliate Marketing

The second type of affiliate marketing is Related to Affiliate Marketing. A situation like this is when you have an online presence-a blog, podcast, video, or social media page-but you’re not actually using the products that have affiliate links to them.

Most people who put links in their blogs do not utilize the products and services they offer. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is a great strategy to earn a little extra cash from your website if you place affiliate links that are related to your niche. People trust anyone who has a website and puts such people in a place of authority.Whether it is in the sidebar as a banner or as a text link in the body of the post, people will trust you when they see the advertisement.

Nowadays, I believe in promoting only products that I have extensively tested and agree with. Without knowing everything there is to know about a product, now I don’t want to give out dishonest information to my readers, right? 

Choosing the wrong products to promote, regardless of whether you are friends with  the owner or think it will be a good fit, can lead to loss of goodwill and a loss of audience hence. One bad affiliate link can in the future ruin all your effort in building authority and trust. Check that you have faith in the product you’re promoting and that the company behind it will take good care of your audience.

Involved Affiliate Marketing

A personally involved affiliate marketer is someone who has used the product or service personally, believes in it, and recommends it to their audience. In your content, as part of your strategy and life for whatever you are talking about, not in a banner ad or somewhere that says “recommended resources.” As a result, the product is almost considered a necessity by everyone since it is part of the process.

Summing it Up

Affiliate marketing is a booming industry, and if you are any good at promoting or talking about products, you should definitely try your hands at it. It is a cost effective yet high earning system which can help you break free from your regular 9-5 job. 

About the Author

My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.

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