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Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing stands as an online sales method that allows a product owner to increase sales by allowing others who target the same audience, “affiliates”.
To earn a commission by endorsing the product to others.
At the same time, it makes it likely for affiliates to earn money from product sales without creating products of their own.
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing involves referring to a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website.
The affiliate earns a directive every time someone buys through the unique link associated with their referral.
Done right, this performance-based opportunity can become an essential part of your business, bringing you a healthy income.
How does affiliate marketing work?
To join an affiliate marketing program, it’ll be essential to take these five simple steps:
- Find and join an affiliate program
- Choose which offers to promote
- Become a unique affiliate link for each offer
- Share some of the links on your blog, social media platforms, or website
- Gather a commission anytime someone uses your links to make a purchase
Commission rates vary dramatically, contingent on the company and the offer.
On the low end, you’ll earn about 5% of the sale but, with some arrangements, you can earn as much as 50% regularly when promoting a class or event.
Here are affiliate marketing programs that provide a flat rate per sale instead of a percentage.
Benefits of the affiliate marketing model
However, Affiliate marketing gives several benefits to affiliates (i.e., you): its ease.
- However, your side of the equation involves handling the “marketing” side of building and selling a product—educating customers. You donAs a result, and you have to worry about the model.
- Affiliate marketing is low risk. Meanwhile, there’s no cost to join affiliate programs. Here you can do making money with an established affiliate product or service without any upfront investment.
- The Affiliate marketing also can generate relatively passive income through commission—the ideal money-making scenario.
- However, you’ll have to invest time creating traffic sources. Here your links can continue to deliver a steady paycheck.
- Lastly, successful affiliate marketing offers the potential to scale your earnings without hiring extra help significantly.
- You can present new products to your current audience and build campaigns for additional products while your recent work continues to generate revenue in the background.
- Before you get too excited, know that excellent affiliate marketing is built on trust. So while seemingly there are an endless number of products or services to promote, it’s best only to highlight those you use or would recommend.
- However, when a product interests you or fits within an existing hobby, becoming a great marketer for that product takes a lot of work.
How to find affiliate programs?
Doubt you’re interested in how to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing.
Then, you’ve got a few options. Unfortunately, not every company offers affiliate programs—some businesses manage their affiliate programs while others use an affiliate network.
An easy method to find affiliate programs is to visit an affiliate marketplace or platform. Then, browse your niche to find top-performing affiliate platforms.
Some of the most popular:
- AffiliateNetwork
- AvantLink
- CJ by Conversant
- ClickBank
- FlexOffers
- LinkConnector
- RevenueWire
- ShareASale
Another choice is to visit the websites of the crops and services you use and like to see if they have an affiliate program.
For example, large companies often have programs they promote on their sites, such as Amazon Associates or the Shopify Affiliate Program.
Here you also can take a more direct approach. Here, spread out to the owner of a great product you come across and see if they offer an affiliate marketing program.
The uncertainty they don’t, they might be happy to arrange with you, such as providing you with a unique coupon code to share with your followers.
The best contracts often are found when you’re the first to inquire and have a relevant distribution channel, such as approaching the seller of a new fitness product if you’re a health and wellness blogger.