What Is Affiliate Marketing?
What is Affiliate marketing? It’s a type of multi-level marketing where you are rewarded a commission for making a sale or providing a specific result to the vendor. It is a very common way for people to make money on the internet.
In other words, you get paid for sending traffic to a website. The first thing you should do (if you haven’t already) is to join at least three different affiliate programs. Some popular names for affiliate marketplaces include ClickBank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Affiliate Future, RevenueWire, FlexOffers, LinkConnector and AvantLink.
There are also other ways to become an affiliate. Some large companies offer affiliate marketing programs like Amazon and Shopify. It’s a matter of searching the websites of these companies to find out if they offer affiliate programs. Stick to selling products and services of companies you are familiar with and that you like or currently use.
How affiliate marketing works
I’ve joined ClickBank and I’m selling some of the products and services available from their marketplace, eg. health tonics, eBooks on relationships and yoga challenges. It’s easy to start; the hard part is of course making a sale.
You are responsible for marketing the product or service. You can use your subscribers email list, social media, platforms like Facebook and Pinterest to post ads, your website and blogs to promote your products and services.
All you need to do is think about what kind of products and services you would like to promote and sell on behalf of the vendor. For instance, if you have a website about health and well-being then it makes sense to stick with products and services about health. It wouldn’t make much sense to be an affiliate marketer for computers and technology.
Once you sign up and enter the marketplace you select the products or services that you are interested in selling. You can check out the links they provide to the vendor to see what the product or service is about and the resources provided to help you make the most sales possible. For instance, they may email you links to access ready-made ads, email templates, landing pages, free reports and free eBooks that you can use straight away. All the research and marketing has been done for you, all you need to do is copy and paste the words provided.
You will need to generate a ‘hoplink’, which is a tracking link or URL that directs potential customers to a vendor’s landing page. It also informs ClickBank (or the affiliate marketplace) which affiliate is directing the customer to the vendor’s page for commission purposes.
How long does it take to make a profit?
It can take several years to make profits with affiliate marketing. Your overall success depends on your ability to create quality content, promote products, and drive traffic. Creating a lot of content is the first thing you must do. Offer up a lot of free information. Give away your stuff. You can publish reams of e-zines, published letters, and any other printed material you want. The more, the better. Get as many search engines as possible. Don’t forget the image libraries, bookmarks, newsgroups, and forums. It’s time to start promoting after you’ve saturated the ‘information superhighway’ with all this free info. Use every form of media possible.
Once you have a system in place that works for you and runs smoothly on its own, with lots of traffic directed to your website, you can make good money without needing to do anything. It becomes an automated process and you start making passive income. It’s like a machine that runs by itself. However, getting to that stage takes time, patience and money (spent on marketing and writing lots of content).
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a good way to make passive income. Once you have your website well established and have a decent amount of traffic directed to your website or blog, then it will no doubt be a smooth sailing process to make sales. Make the first step today!
