Affiliate Marketing- Everything you need to know

What if you get to know that you can earn money without working monotonously 9-5? Or you don’t have to slog the whole day to earn a bare minimum? You would be head over heels, right. That is the concept of affiliate marketing. It allows you to earn money from wherever you are whenever you want.

What is affiliate marketing?

It, specifically, is a process by which you can earn commission by promoting products of other people, or companies. It has gained popularity ever since the introduction of digitalisation. Digital marketing has altogether pushed up various other online modes of marketing and sales. One among the many is affiliate marketing.

It is a significant tactic to generate online revenue and is beneficial to both brands and affiliates. Businesses spending on affiliate marketing will reach $8.2 billion by 2022 only in the US, as shown by Statista. As an affiliate, you are one of the salespeople of the company or person whose product’s you promote.

It works on a commission basis. If someone buys a product through your affiliate link, you get a prescribed commission for each sale you make. The most significant benefit of being an affiliate marketer is that you can earn from sale of various products, whereas in a company you would only earn for selling a particular kind of product.

Types of Affiliate Marketing Programs

1. PPC Affiliate Marketing

Pay Per Click or PPC marketing is very simple and easy to understand. Here, the affiliate marketer gets paid a certain amount of commission even if the customer uses his/her referral link to visit the product. If the sale is proceeded, the affiliate is paid accordingly. The rate of commission is very low for PPC.

2. PPL Affiliate Marketing

In Pay Per Lead program, an affiliate is paid per lead generation. That is , a customer must fill in the form or sign up for a newsletter. The visitors must sign up from the affiliate referral in order to generate commission for the marketer.

3. PPS Affiliate Marketing

In a Pay Per Sale program, the commission is granted when the referrals make a purchase. The rate of commission is comparatively high. Different platforms have pre determined rate of commission depending on the type of the product.

4. Site-wide commissions

Some programs happen to pay commissions for a sale of any product through the referral. Throughout the site, if the customer makes any purchase, the affiliate will get a certain amount of commission.

5. One-time commissions

These are that type of programs where the affiliates get paid once the described action is completed by the visitor. If the action gets completed, the task of an affiliate gets accomplished.

6. Recurring commissions

The affiliate is entitled to these commissions only till the time a customer is signed up. These are mostly related to subscription-based programs. Once the subscription ends, the commission also gets terminated.

How to get started with Affiliate Marketing?

1. Decide a platform

You can be an affiliate marketer on any platform, even Instagram. But to begin with, it is easier to start building an audience via a blog or a YouTube channel. Starting with a blog is comparatively easy and does not require much technical knowhow. You must know the basics about SEO and then you can begin with a great blog. From there you can start adding affiliate links and start earning.

2. Choose a niche

It is possible that you can start with multiple niches, but you can never be sure about the competition. It is better to focus on a particular topic like fashion, or food, or even technology. Keeping specific topics as your niche helps you stay focused and target the right audience.

3. Find the right affiliate programs

Finding the right affiliate program that helps you earn with ease is important. You can choose from the following 3 kinds of affiliate programs.

• High-paying, low-volume
• Low-paying, high-volume
• High-paying, high-volume

Choosing the right program decides on your success as an affiliate marketer.

4. Focus on creating great content

Content is the key ingredient to make the recipe of marketing tasteful. No matter what the platform is, you must ensure that the content is engaging, relevant and relatable. Moreover, your content should give solution the problem of the customer. Video content, written content, podcasts, graphics, whatever you curate, must engage with the customers.

5. Drive traffic to your site

Here is where the importance of optimisation kicks in. Traffic can be attracted on your website both, organically and inorganically. Search engine optimisation, social media optimisation, paid advertisements, etc. are methods through which you can attract the quality traffic on your site.

6. Get clicks on your links

This is the main task that one needs to perform in order to succeed as an affiliate. Your links must have a context. Having good content is not enough; placement of links in your text plays an equally important role. If your links are at the very bottom, users might even not see them. And if the links are at the very beginning, users might bounce back as it may look spammy. You need to maintain a balance. Using callouts like buttons and boxes attract readers’ attention. With proper uses of placement of links and buttons, you can insist users click on them.

7. Convert leads to sales

For a successful affiliate sale, two conversions must take place. First happens when the visitors click on the link. The next is when they buy the product through the link. Once they have clicked and are redirected to the merchant page, the decision to buy totally depends on the merchant and user. But you can write or describe the product well in your content so that the customer make the decision to buy.

Affiliate Programs you can join

There are many companies that provide affiliate marketing programs and have different terms and conditions.

• Amazon
• Flipkart
• Shopify
• Hubspot
• Hostgator
• Godaddy
• ShareASale
• Solvid
• eBay
• Rakuten Marketing
• Reseller club
• vCommission

Why become an Affiliate Marketer?

1. Flexibility

Affiliate programs offer the flexibility of work. You can work according to your time preference. You can even postpone work if you want to take a break. This the most important benefit everyone looks for today.

2. Passive Income

Where regular jobs require you to be physically present at the workplace to earn money, it lets you earn even when you sleep. By investing time at the beginning, you earn for a long time.

3. Work from anywhere you want

As an affiliate marketer, you have an edge over the others. You can work from wherever place you want to, your home, your office, or even you can even travel and work along. You need not stop your work if you plan a vacation.

4. Cost effective

Mostly businesses require huge investments. Affiliate programs can be entered into with a low cost. There is no fees to register in such programs and so you need not go through a lot of hassle.

5. Performance-based rewards

As an affiliate marketer, you can work less and still earn the same salary. Your efforts drive success and not the number of hours you put in. Curating engaging content is what determines your revenue. You get paid for your outstanding work.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is a very wide discipline. One can explore beyond boundaries in it. Thus, it can be a source of secondary income for people. But if someone wishes to make it their primary profession, it offers many advantages associated with it. You just need to know the right niche and perfect platform for yourself.