What Is Affiliate Marketing And How Does It Work?
What Is Affiliate Marketing And How Does It Work?
Are you interested in affiliate marketing, but don't know exactly how it works? Do you want a hands-off business that can provide you with residual income for years to come, with high-profit margins and a stress-free lifestyle?
If you've answered "Yes" to all of those questions, and you want to learn more about how affiliate marketing can help you to achieve the income you're looking for, then this article will tell you how.
I want to give you the inside scoop about affiliate marketing, and how it can supplement your current income, and eventually replace it within a short period of time.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Here's the most basic explanation of what affiliate marketing is.
Affiliate marketing is an online business model where you get paid for helping to successfully promote and sell another person's or company's product. You earn a commission every time you make a sale for another company.
It's your job to recommend a particular product or service and market it successfully so that you can earn money whenever someone buys through your affiliate link.
It helps to know how to market online successfully as an affiliate marketer because your income will be based on how many sales you help to generate.
So all you're doing essentially is recommending a product, inserting your affiliate link in places throughout the recommendation, getting people to click on your affiliate link, and waiting for them to buy so that you can earn a commission for the sale.
What Is An Affiliate?
An affiliate is someone who helps to market a product or service using various marketing techniques available to them online. An affiliate can be a whole company, or simply an individual.
But most of the time, you will find that most affiliates are bloggers or people who create alot of content. It's in your best interest to promote an affiliate product in a niche or industry that you're well familiar with.
The amount of money you make on each sale is based on the terms of the affiliate program that you sign up for. Usually, commissions are presented in the form of fixed percentages of each sale, but sometimes it's a general dollar rate that the product owner sets for every sale that you make.
Who Are The Companies?
Most of the time when you sign up to be an affiliate for a product or service, you'll be working directly under a company. An affiliate company is any company that will pay you to market their products successfully.
You should know that not all affiliate programs are based on the "pay per sale" model. For example, you can get paid for every lead you help generate or every click you help generate. For more information on the different affiliate program models, check out my article here:
What Is An Affiliate Network?
An affiliate network is a company that acts as a "bridge" between a company/merchant and their affiliates. Affiliate networks are also known as middlemen. They help to manage the relationship between a seller and an affiliate and often distribute payment to both the seller and the affiliate after the sale is made.
There are alot of affiliate networks and platforms on the internet. You can read these articles below on some of the most popular ones on the internet today:
Affiliate networks provide statistics about campaigns to both affiliates and vendors, and they typically offer checkout solutions for customers who are looking to buy. And when you join an affiliate network, you get access to all of the companies and products that are within the affiliate network.
Some of the most popular affiliate networks online are:
- CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction)
You should know that there are many more affiliate networks online, and there are some that provide companies and products in tiny niches. This can be useful for you if you're in a niche where you create content around topics that aren't considered mainstream news.
What Is An Affiliate Link?
An affiliate link is your "special link" that people will click on to order the affiliate product you're promoting. You'll receive this link after signing up for an affiliate program, or after signing up to be an affiliate for a particular product.
The affiliate link is typically a long URL with a tracking ID at the end. The tracking ID identifies YOU as the referrer of a click that is sent to the product's sales page. This is how affiliate networks and merchants know that YOU were the one that provided the sale for them.
You can insert your affiliate link in your email messages, blog posts, banners on your website, your ebooks, social media posts, or in other marketing outlets. You must use an affiliate link because otherwise the seller or company of the product will receive 100% of the sale.
How Much Does It Cost To Join An Affiliate Program?
It's free to join most affiliate programs, but it's totally up to the product owner to decide whether or not they will charge you to join.
Some vendors want to qualify their affiliates, so they will have you fill out an information form that tells them who you are, what your website is, and how you plan on promoting their products.
When you fill out this form, affiliate program owners will usually get back to you within 24-72 hours. The more highly acclaimed the product that you want to promote is, the more detailed the application form will be.
While there is usually no cost to join an affiliate program, sometimes there will be costs to promote the product. For example, you may choose to do pay-per-click advertising, email autoresponder marketing, run social media or Youtube ads, and of course, you'll have to invest your time.
How To Become An Affiliate Marketer
Do you have a good idea now of what affiliate marketing is and how it works? Hopefully, this article has educated you on the basics of affiliate marketing and how this online business model works.
To become an affiliate marketer, all you have to do is sign up for your first affiliate network or affiliate program. Anyone can do it, and there are no qualifications needed to start an affiliate marketing business.
However, to make your first affiliate sale, it's in your best interest to learn how to do a few basic marketing skills, such as:
- Knowing how to write a blog post
- Knowing how to write a product review
- Knowing how to rank high in the search engines
- Knowing how to create a Youtube video
- Knowing how to get social media traffic
- Knowing how to run ads successfully
Knowing these things will only give you an advantage in the affiliate marketing game.
Are You Ready To Get Started?
The sky's the limit when it comes to affiliate marketing and your earning potential can be massive. Many ordinary folks are making 6-figure incomes yearly with affiliate marketing, and you can do it too.
The amount of money you will make will depend on a few things:
- The product you're selling
- Your conversion rate
- Traffic quality
- A person's motivation to buy
It's not hard to earn affiliate commissions. In fact, there's a free video that shows you the simplest way to start earning big-ticket affiliate commissions.
To learn more about this video, simply visit here to watch the free video training now:
Randall Magwood is an affiliate marketing coach and recommends his
free book that shows you basics of affiliate marketing. He's the creator of this blog, and recommends all beginners check out his
"Affincome Training Kit" program. To learn more about his Affincome Training Kit, simply visit here:
Affincome Training Kit
