Affiliate marketing is a way for you to promote and sell other people’s products without having your inventory.

You get paid when someone follows one of your links and buys something, usually at a commission rate that’s pretty high depending on the product type. It might seem too good to be true, but it isn’t!

I have personally made money with affiliate marketing in the past by promoting things like WordPress plugins and more!

This blog post will give you some basic information about how affiliate marketing works so you can start making money online today.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing might interest you because it’s the easiest way to monetize your blog if you’re a blogger.

But affiliate marketing isn’t just for bloggers. You can also use affiliate marketing if you have an online store or sell products on Amazon. For example, Amazon runs a very successful program where affiliates promote Amazon products and earn commissions from sales.

In short, it’s a relationship between advertisers and publishers where the advertiser agrees to pay the publisher a commission if a visitor follows one of their links and completes an action, usually buying something online.

Why should I use affiliate marketing?

There are many reasons why you should consider affiliate marketing. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ones:

*Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog, store, or website

* It is completely free to become an affiliate and sign up with popular merchant sites like Amazon or Click Bank

* You can promote products that your visitors might be interested in buying

* You can promote high-quality products from large brands with a good reputation

* You don’t have to worry about managing inventory. All you need is a link and an audience who trusts you.

How do I get started with affiliate marketing?

You can launch your affiliate marketing campaign in a few easy steps:

1. Pick an affiliate program to promote

You can find products by doing some keyword research and finding products that people are searching for on Google and Amazon.

2. Sign up for an account with the merchant

Signing up is typically free and only takes a couple of minutes.

3. Set up your affiliate link

You need a special web address to send people to, so they can complete the desired action and earn you a commission. You’ll be promoting these affiliate links in all of your promotion efforts, so make sure they look professional!

4. Promote! 

Once you have everything set up, promote your unique link and watch the commissions roll in.

How do I get paid?

Most affiliate marketers will use payment processors like PayPal to collect their earnings, so you’ll typically get your money within a few days after someone buys something from one of your links.

What are some best practices for affiliate marketing?

Because you’re promoting other people’s products and services, here are a few best practices to follow:

Only promote high-quality products

If you’re going to be an affiliate, you want to ensure your reputation is on the line. Promoting low-quality or untrustworthy products will reflect badly on you and can hurt your future efforts with other merchants. It’s also important to promote products that your audience might find useful.

Incorporate affiliate marketing into other promotional activities

You should use blog posts, social media, and email marketing to promote affiliate offers just like you would with any other product or service.

Optimize for conversions

Make sure you’re incorporating all of the elements necessary for a visitor to complete the desired action. That might require testing different headlines, images, and copy until you get a high conversion rate.

Write great content

If you’re blogging, writing great blog posts is still an important part of affiliate marketing. Don’t just write about the product or service you’re promoting; write in-depth and valuable posts that will help your readers.

Use relevant links within your content

You don’t want to spam your readers with affiliate offers, so only post links when it’s relevant and helpful to your readers.

Take advantage of social media

Social media has become a huge part of online marketing, so take advantage of services like Instagram and Tik Tok to promote your affiliate offers.

How does the commission work in affiliate marketing

You will typically earn somewhere between 4% to 10% commission on each sale. Of course, some merchants might offer higher commissions, but you’ll want to make sure you’re not promoting something that doesn’t convert well.

Types of Affiliate Products to Sell

As long as the merchant is reputable and offers affiliate programs, you can promote pretty much anything. But some of the most popular affiliate products on the market include:

Digital products

There are many different digital products you can promote as an affiliate, such as subscription services like Amazon Prime and Sling TV or tools like KeywordChef. You could also promote ebooks or courses related to your niche.

Physical products

If you have an audience who wouldn’t mind purchasing physical products, there are countless affiliate programs for all sorts of things on Amazon. But if you want to expand and promote other brands, then check out companies like ShareASale or FlexOffers that offer tons of different product categories across many brands.

Affiliate networks

Some people prefer to promote one affiliate program and earn a small commission on everything that person sells instead of promoting individual products. This is typically the best way for content creators with large audiences to earn money as an affiliate.

What are the most popular affiliate marketing networks?

Many different companies offer affiliate marketing programs, but some of the biggest names include:

ShareASale 

One of the oldest affiliate networks around, ShareASale offers thousands of products across many different niches. Many merchants have built their entire affiliate program through this platform.

FlexOffers

This relatively new company has already built an extensive network of nearly 5,000 different merchants. They also offer a smart linking technology that allows their affiliates to earn significantly more money.

Amazon Associates

This is another very popular affiliate network for bloggers to make money promoting products on Amazon. If you already have an audience to promote Amazon products, this might be your best option.

ClickBank

This has historically been one of the most popular affiliate networks. Unfortunately, they don’t offer many programs to promote anymore since they’ve focused on exclusive deals with their top-performing affiliates instead of using them as recruiting tools.

Pros and cons of affiliate marketing

Now let’s talk about the pros and cons of affiliate marketing.

Pros of affiliate marketing

You are paid for results

Affiliate marketers are generally only paid when they make a sale. Unlike many other web jobs, you have to wait until the end of the month to get paid. Therefore, the more sales that you can produce, the more money you’ll earn.

Easy to start

It’s easier than ever before to get started with affiliate marketing since many companies are willing to let you join their program without paying an application fee or holding your credit score hostage as traditional job opportunities do. All you need is a blog or a social media account to begin.

Your audience is your global network

While you might not have as much freedom as being a full-time blogger, you still have more freedom than working in an office every day. The people you affiliate yourself with are also your potential customers, and any other brands that those people support can become possible affiliate programs.

More free time 

If you’re working as an affiliate marketer, then you might be earning money while doing other things like catching up with your family or playing a few hands of poker. For example, you could make hundreds of sales in the time it would take you to watch a single episode of Game of Thrones (You also wouldn’t have to put up with the Red Wedding).

Cons of affiliate marketing

Your income is tied to your traffic 

The amount that you earn as an affiliate marketer is directly related to the number of visitors you have coming to your site. So if you lose traffic, then you’ll likely lose money too. It’s also hard to monetize mobile traffic, which is a growing sector of the web.

You have to be very self-motivated

It’s not easy creating quality content that generates sales every month. If you’re looking for a way to earn money without really caring about your success, this will probably not work out well for you.

You don’t make much money

You’ll probably start making a decent amount of income once you’ve built up enough traffic to your site and established yourself as an authority in your niche. However, it’s also very possible that this could take months or even years. Nevertheless, if you’re willing to put in the time and work required, affiliate marketing can be a lucrative source of income.

You might not like what you promote

One of the downsides of promoting and reviewing products and services is that you might receive a commission on something you don’t even like. For example, if your audience loves Apple computers, but you’re more of a PC person, then it would be unwise for you to promote Apple computers.

It takes a long time before you make a sale

You might expect that as soon as you start promoting something, then you’ll immediately see the sales from those promotions. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works with affiliate marketing. Just because you publish a product review or share an affiliate link online doesn’t mean that people will buy right away. It’s possible that you might not make a single sale for weeks or months after your promotion.

Do you need a website to do affiliate marketing?

No. You can promote affiliate products on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, suppose you want to start an online business that generates passive income through affiliate marketing or build a blog for your personal use or as part of your job. In that case, you’ll probably need to invest in some web hosting and design services.

Tips for being successful as an affiliate marketer

Develop relationships with the brands you represent

Your income depends on the brands you promote. It makes sense then to build positive relationships with these companies if they’re in your niche.

Focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content

You’ll want to publish high-quality posts that generate sales and not just post things to post things.

Give honest review

If you’re going to promote a brand or company, you should be open and honest about the pros and cons of doing business with them. This way, people will trust your recommendations more.

Share on social media

One of the best strategies for success as an affiliate marketer is to be active on social media. Share your best posts, videos, and images with your friends, family, and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Create landing pages for each product or service you promote

Landing pages are dedicated to one particular promotion. They’ll have a link for people to click to go directly to the product page on the website where they can buy.

Make sure you have a way to track your promotions

Without tracking, you won’t know which posts are making sales or how well certain keywords are performing when it comes to driving traffic to your site. You’ll need affiliate analytics tools like Google Analytics to keep track of everything.

Last Thoughts

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money online, but it does take work. The commission varies depending on the company you’ve partnered with and how much traffic your site generates. 

It also takes time to build up an audience—but once you do, there are many ways to monetize that following! We hope you found this article helpful!