Affiliate Marketing: A Beginner’s Guide To Making A Living Online

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Marketers earn commission promoting products and services on their websites, blogs, social media channels, newsletters and other platforms. There are no barriers to entry, meaning anyone with internet access can do it.

Benefits of affiliate marketing

Easy to start

You don’t have to spend money to start. Using social media and free blogging platforms, anyone can promote products and earn a commission. However, to capitalize on its potential, it would be wise to invest in a good host.

Work from home

For seasoned affiliate marketers, it’s a great opportunity to work from home or anywhere in the world. It’s extremely flexible.

No customer support

You don’t have to deal with customers or returns, since you’re just promoting the product. This allows you to focus on important things, like improving your content and research.

Earn Money

You get paid for every visitor who buys something through your links. This could be anything from products, services or software. There is no limit to how much money you can make since there’s no limit to how many sales you generate.

An active community

There are plenty of resources available to help you succeed in your journey. You can find mentors, read blog posts, join Facebook groups and more to learn from other people who have in-depth knowledge of affiliate marketing.

Become a marketing pro

Affiliate marketing will help you gain valuable skills that you can use in other areas of your career. If you eventually launch your own business, blog or app, you have hands-on experience on how to navigate through the world of marketing.

How do affiliate marketers make money?

There are various methods of compensation, the most common payout being commission-on-sales. This means you’ll get a percentage of the sale price. The amount of commission depends on the agreement between the affiliate marketer and the merchant.

Companies can also pay out for pay-per-lead; the more traffic you convert to leads, the more money you’ll make. This is achieved by directing customers to the desired website and having them perform the desired action, such as filling out a form, signing up for a free trial, subscribing to a newsletter or installing software (pay-per-install).

Affiliate marketing channels

There are numerous ways to promote affiliate products. Whichever method you decide to use will be up to you. Nevertheless, to fully maximize your earnings, it’s best to learn as much as you can and utilize all tools at your disposal.

Affiliate marketing and social media are a match made in heaven. With social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Youtube and Twitter you can reach millions of people, at no cost to you. You can promote anything from books, tech gadgets, car accessories, apparel etc.

To launch successful campaigns, create relevant content that your audience would appreciate. For instance, instead of just posting random links on your feed (don’t be a spammer), create a short video or a detailed post, explaining why you love that product you’re promoting. You can even get creative by making a skit and showcasing how this product has improved your day-to-day life.

In addition, customize your content to purposefully target a specific niche. For instance, if you’re on LinkedIn, it might be wise to promote professional tools for the office, as this will likely make sales. Always tailor content to the right audience.

(Note: TikTok’s algorithm is quite impressive. Even if you don’t have a large following, your post will likely be discovered.)

Blog/Website

Blogging is one of the best ways to market affiliate products online. It allows you to create a community that people can always rely on to get information about specific topics. Click this link to learn all about blogging and other ways you can make money.

Here are a few tips to utilize your blog for affiliate marketing

Pick a good niche

Pick a niche that you’re interested in or have knowledge of. This can be anything from tech gadgets to dog toys. For some people, finding the right niche is a mix of trial and error, but the options are limitless.

Once you’ve figured out your niche, the next step is to create content by writing product reviews and tutorials, by identifying customer problems and needs.

Also, factor in competition and profitability when choosing a niche, because that will directly affect your earnings. You can do this by using tools such as Google trends and more.

Write helpful content

If you write informative and well-detailed content, more people will trust your opinion and may be willing to buy what you promote. Your blog will also be the go-to place for that type of niche. People will know that your blog has the best information about specific topics and always recommends the best products.

Landing page

You can create different landing pages for specific products. This is a great way to share and market products that are seasonal or on sale. Traffic to your landing page can come from a social media post, email newsletter or paid ads.

Email list

An email list is a collection of emails that a blog/website gathers from visitors who sign up to receive updates, news, subscriptions and promotions.

Once your list grows, you can send offers for products or services that your subscribers may be interested in. If they buy something, you’ll get a commission for the sale.

However, avoid spamming people with random links to products. I personally prefer to send emails about the latest articles I’ve posted and within those articles, that’s where I’ll embed affiliate links.

You can also send a well-designed graphical email, showcasing a product on sale, or some of the best deals. A visually enticing email usually tends to grab people’s attention and can lead to potential sales.

Here are some tips for building your email list

Value-driven emails

The best way to grow your email list is by delivering great content. If you have a blog, work on creating content that is useful, informative and helpful to customers.

A lot of bloggers also create free books/PDFs that can only be accessible by signing up with an email. You can always come up with clever ways to grab your audience’s attention.

A great welcome email

You have a small window of time to make a good impression on your new subscribers. Make sure you send a welcoming email with clear instructions on how to unsubscribe.

Autoresponders and drip campaigns

Autoresponders are automated messages that go out automatically when someone subscribes or unsubscribes from your list (depending on what you set up). The message can be anything from a simple thank you or goodbye note.

Drip campaigns are similar and include a series of emails sent out over time based on certain criteria, like when someone opens an email in their inbox and visits your site; An automated message will be sent thanking them.

These two types of emails can help you build long-lasting relationships with your subscribers over time.

Use an email marketing service

By using an email marketing service like Mailchimp, it’s easier to reach out to your subscribers at once. Mailchimp can also send emails to targeted audiences and has a detailed analytics page to track email marketing metrics.

Mailchimp also has beautifully designed templates that look professional. You can use these templates to market affiliate products to potential customers.

Repurposing content

We’ve covered all sorts of ways you could promote affiliate products to potential customers. The final step is now to combine all these methods to create one solid revenue stream. For example, if you write an article about the 10 best bicycles to buy this summer, that’s content you could recycle and use to create a YouTube video. The same content can also be summarised to create a social media post and an email for your subscribers.

A guide to link building

What Is Link Building? Link building is the process of getting other sites to link back to your site — either directly or indirectly. This helps increase your search engine rankings by increasing the number of “votes” or “links” coming in from other sites that Google considers as important sources of information about your website or product.

Link building also helps improve user engagement with your website and drives more traffic back to it — which is why it’s so important for any business trying to grow their traffic and sales through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

It’s okay if this section doesn’t make sense. To learn more about SEO optimization and link building, read our detailed article here!

Integrity is the key to success

The most successful affiliate marketers are passionate about what they’re promoting and have made it a mission to really understand the products and services being marketed. This ensures that customers have access to a trustworthy source, and in return, creates a revenue stream for you.