What is Affiliate Marketing? (Easy Guide on How to Start )

This easy guide will help you to understand all the concept of affiliate marketing.

Some terms you will come across when you are in the business.

It will also walk you through how to start affiliate marketing.

All basic requirement things to know to be successful.

Let get started:

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting other brands or individuals’ products and services and earning a commission when customers performed an action or buy through your affiliate tracking links.

For example:

If you are an affiliate marketer and decided to promote products or services from an approved brand or company.

If you are successful in promoting them, that is customers buy through your affiliate tracking links.

Then you will be able to earn a commission for each sale that you generate.

Some Affiliate Marketing Terms

Merchant: A person or company involved in wholesale trade.

Advertiser: A person or company that pays for advertising a product or service online, or in other ways.

Affiliate Marketing Programs: are partnerships that pay commissions for promoting products or services on a website, blog, social media, or platform.

Affiliate Marketing Network: An affiliate network is where merchants and affiliates get together.

The merchant makes his/ her products and services available to the affiliate to promote through an affiliate network.

Affiliate or Publisher: The person who tries to promote products or services of a merchant using his/her own channel.

Using the promotional material provided by the merchant and get a commission whenever there is an activity or sales.

Affiliate Commission: It is the reward an affiliate gets after promoting products or services, meeting their need.

Affiliate Tracking Link: Sometimes referred to as affiliate link.

It is a type of URL you get from the brand owner.

It informs the merchant whenever there are actions or sales.

Lead: A contact with the potential of becoming a customer

Some Business Payment Model

Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA):

It is the type of business payment model, in which affiliates get paid for generating a specified lead or sale (action).

Cost Per Click (CPC): In this type of business model, you earn when your audience takes an action.

It could be signing up for a product or service or signing up for the trial period.

Your audience doesn’t have to buy the product or service before you earn a commission.

Cost per lead (CPL): refer to the specified action of generating a lead.

Cost Per Mile (CPM): means cost per thousand impressions.

An affiliate gets paid per thousand actions.

Cost Per Order (CPO): An affiliate will get paid per order in which they contribute.

Pay Per Click (PPC):  This is the type of payment model in which affiliates get paid for each click on one of their ads.

Click Through Rate(CTR):  Clicks divided by impressions = CTR

It indicates how often visitors click on your ads.

For example: if 1000 visitors visit your blog and only 100 visitors out of them click on the ad, that means,

Your CTR 1000 divide by 100 = 10%

Service: It is the work that an individual, business, or organization provides to a consumer.

Product: Production of goods or useful things by an individual, business, or organization to a consumer.

Digital Products: They are available in an electronic form online or through download.

Examples: Digital templates, E-books, Software, Digital tools, and so on.

Digital Service: They are services that you can deliver online or in an electronic form offline. Eg, Online courses, Membership sites, any services you can get online or through electronics.

Physical Product: They are products you feel and touch, for examples TV, Radio, Table, chair, Hair products, Drugs, and so on.

Affiliate Marketing Involves 4 Parties To Achieve  Result

• Advertisers or Merchants

•   Affiliate Marketer

•   Affiliate Network

•   Consumer

3 Things You Should Do Before Starting Affiliate Marketing

1. Choosing a Niche/ Topic/ Category

Choosing a niche is very important because you have to target a specific audience or groups of consumers.

If you think you can promote anything or everything, you are definitely preparing for failure.

Some affiliates may think they should promote affiliate programs in a different category,

so that they can increase their commission but this is not the right approach to affiliate marketing.

You must choose a category, this will help you focus and increase your sales and increase your commission.

There are various profitable niches you can choose from,

Like:

Cooking Niches: Food Recipes, Cooking Gadgets, Kitchen Decorations, Kitchen Utensils, Cooking Tutorials

Health and Fitness Niches: Fitness, Weight Loss, Organic,

Nutrition, Vegan, Health advice, Herbal, Essential oils

Money Niches: Debt Settlements, Bitcoin, Investing, Credit Card, Mortgage

Tech Niches:  Web hosting, WordPress, VPN, SaaS, Gaming, Software, Tools

Home and Family Niches:

Home security and safety, Pets, Parenting, Home decoration, Home items, Gathering, Baby product

Passions Niches: Travels, Sports, Photography, Events

Lifestyle Niches: Fashion, Beauty,  Jewelry, Airlines, Luxury, Cruises, Hotel

Legal Niche

Education Niche

Those are a few niches that I can mention.

They are to give you the idea of what you can choose, there are lots of topics you can decide on.

What is important is your interest in that topic,

and you have skills or you are willing to learn about the topic. 

Before you pick it because you will be creating lots of useful content about your chosen topic.

2. Your Platform to Promote Products and Services

You have to choose or set up platforms to promote the affiliate products or services.

It’s best to set up your own website or blog because it’s more reliable than other platforms.

According to research, most successful affiliate marketers have their own website or blog

To promote their chosen products and services.

Another reason is that some brands or companies will not grant you the approval to promote their product without a website or blog.

If you have your own blog, you have control over the products and services that you will promote.

How do you promote them, and what kind of content do you write for them.

3. Payment Method

You need to check the payment method and set up your own payment method account.

Most affiliate brands or companies accept PayPal, Pioneer, or Stripe.

Depending on the country you are residing in.

You must set up the payment method account to receive your payment from the companies.

Types of Affiliate Marketing Websites

• Product Review Websites

The focus of this type of website is to provide details reviews of products and services.

Many people search online for product reviews to make their decision before buying a product or service.

That is why the product review website gets a lot of commissions.

If you wish to create a review website, choose a category

and create a website base on that.

For example, if you want to promote computer and their accessories, you may create a website based on that.

When people search for reviews about a type of computer and its accessories.

 If they find your reviews useful they may buy it based on your recommendation.

you will receive a commission for it.

• Products or Services Comparison Websites

It is the type of website use to filter and compare products on the specification, features, usage, and pricing of the products or services.

• Personal Website/Blog

This is individual or groups of individuals creating different articles in blog posts.

By promoting different types of products and services in their niche through them.

You can learn how to build a blog by clicking here

• Shopping Directories (coupon website)

This type of website is for promoting different types of affiliate products and services.

By providing the audience coupon to get discounts on products and services they buy through their affiliate tracking links.

Depending on which type of website you should create?

Affiliate marketers are achieving good results by creating review products and services websites or personal blogs.

Steps to Start Affiliate Marketing

1. Choose a Profitable Niche

Choose any topic of your interest eg Cooking, Tech, Health, fitness, etc.

2. Create a Website

By signing up with a reliable web hosting company and registering your domain name.

You can read more about what factors to beware of, when signing up with web hosting company here

Then create your website to be functioning very well.

You can design your website or blog according to the niche you have chosen.

For example, if your niche is cooking or photography, there are specific things you may want to display.

You can look into others that are in your niche that are successful to get inspiration on how to design yours.

Learn how to create your website/ blog in an easy way with the guidance of the article by clicking here

But don’t copy exactly the same thing so that you will not get penalized for that.

3. Start Creating In- Depth Content

You need to create useful content for your audience for free to gain an audience faster.

You need to optimize it for search engines to get free organic traffic to your website from Google.

Start promoting the content by joining various social media platforms to attract visitors to your blog.

You can start to collect emails on your affiliate marketing website and start gathering loyal readers.

You can do this by providing them with valuable things in exchange for their email.

Use Designrr.io to create an E-book in a simple way that will attract visitors to download and give their email in exchange.

4. Join Affiliate Programs and Networks

This affiliate program you want to join should have products and services categories that you want to promote on your website.

Some affiliate marketing programs you can join, just click on them to find out more about them.

They include:

• DreamHost

• Bluehost

• TubeBuddy

• GreenGeeks

• Cloudways

• Pabbly

• Sage Financials

• Amazon Associates

• E-Bay partner Network

• BH Cosmetics

• Cheapflights

• Momondo

• Boatbookings

• Shopify

Some reliable affiliate marketing networks include

1. Impact.com

2. ShareASale

3. CJ Affiliate

4.  Awin

5. Rakuten Advertising

6. Peefly

7. FlexOffers

If you are just starting out, you may not get approval for some affiliate program but don’t worry I have done research and I have listed some of easy affiliate program approval that anyone can join and get the affiliate links and start promoting them. Click here to get them.

5. Create YouTubes and TikTok Videos (Optional)

As video marketing is gaining popularity, you can take the advantage.

Start creating video content around your niche.

You can also promote your website or blog through the channels.

6. You can create useful tools ( Optional )

A downloadable library, courses, and a membership site around your niche.

This will help you become an authority in your niche and it will also help you to gain backlinks to your site.

7. Runs Ads ( Optional)

You can learn how to run ads to promote products and services.

There are various platforms you can use such as

Facebook, Quora, and use Google Ads too.

How To Choose A Niche/Category

For your affiliate marketing website, choose a category/ niche of your interest, demand, have skills, or are willing to learn about.

You Can List Out The Topic of  Your Interest,

Eg weight loss, Beauty, Fashion, Travel, Legal, Finance, Software, etc.

Which topic do you think you can give your all without getting bored with?

You can achieve results around any topic as long as you have the skill to persuade people and you can give it you’re all.

There are so many affiliate marketing programs available that you can promote around any topic.

Make sure you have the skill and confidence to provide valuable information for your audience around that niche.

Skill + Valuable Information+ Audience = Profitability

Make Sure To Have These Five Pages on Your Affiliate Marketing Website

• About us page

• Privacy policy page

• Terms and Services page

• Affiliate links Disclosure page
• Contact us page

When you have these pages on your affiliate marketing site, search engines will understand that a real person is operating the website, not a robot sitting behind the website.

About us page:

You should have the About us page so that visitors will know what your website or blog is about and what to expect when visiting your website.

A privacy policy page:

It is a legal statement that explains how a brand or company collects, handles, processes, and respects its audience’s personal data on a website or app.

Terms and Services Page

It is the legal agreement between a service provider and a person who wants to use the service.

It can be a disclaimer, about the use of the website.

An Affiliate Disclosure page:

An affiliate marketing disclosure for your website or blog is a statement that informs your audience about your affiliate tracking links on your content so that they can make informed decisions.

Contact us page:

This is a page where your audience can reach out to you.

Sometimes some brands may want to reach out to you, if you have a contact us page, they can do that.

Make sure to have all these pages on your website or blog.

Some affiliate platforms will not approve your website or blog if you don’t have them.

Your site will also stand out in the eye of Google and other search engines.

So make sure to have at least an affiliate link Disclosure page, Privacy policy page, and About us page if not all the five pages mentioned above.

How To Find Affiliate Marketing Programs

You can search on the browser with different queries.

To find affiliate programs, search for:

• Your niche + affiliate program

Type these on the browser, and different affiliate programs or platforms will show up.

For example, if your topic is about writing,

you can type best writing tools + affiliate programs, fitness + affiliate programs in the browser.

It will suggest some of the top affiliate programs in that particular niche that you have researched.

• Products or services name + affiliate program

That is if you already know the name of the product you want to promote.

You can type the name of the products or services + affiliate program.

It will  suggest various affiliate products or services you can promote

• Try to join an affiliate marketing platform

 If you are in any affiliate platform, you can ask questions about which are the best affiliate products or services you can promote in your niche.

• To avoid Scammers You can follow some of the top successful affiliate marketers in your niche

To know the type of products or services they are promoting or suggesting to promote.

You can click here to join some of the affiliate program that I have listed, with there payment and cookie period.

How To Choose Affiliate marketing Program?

Ask These 4 Questions before Choosing The Program

1.Is the product or services you are willing to promote related to your topic or niche?

2.  Is it useful or beneficial to your audience?

When your audience reads your content can you influence them to click through your affiliate tracking link?

3. What commission rate will you earn whenever there is a sale?

4. What is the cookie period of the product before it’s expires ?

Steps To Choose the Program

1. Take a look at the products or services under the program

2. Check the commission rate that each program will offer.

3.  Check the payment method from the merchant

4.  Are there helpful tips for affiliates? Like tutorials, and guidelines on how to promote the products or services.

5.  Read and understand their guidelines and payment.

Different affiliate programs have different terms and conditions of payment, date of payment, types of payment, and conditions for payment.

Do they need you to make special disclosure or not?

After you have read and you are okay with their terms and conditions, then you can signup for affiliate marketing program of your choice.

Read here for more guide on how to get approval for affiliate program

Types of Articles That You Can Create

1. In-depth reviews of products that you wish to promote

  This type of article contains the pros and cons of the products and services you are writing about.

2. List Articles

Top 11 washing machines for 2022, 21 best weight loss products that will make you lose weight in simple ways.

These types of articles increase commission rate because you can add affiliate tracking links of each product in your articles

3. Comparison post

In this type of article, you narrow the research down to the two best popular products.

Write each product or service’s pros and cons, their features, and their prize, for your audience to be able to choose the one they prefer.

4. Resource List/ Product you use or Recommend

Promoting  Your Articles Through Social Media Platform

1. Promoting on Facebook

You can promote your articles on the Facebook platform by creating a post and adding relevant pictures.

Facebook has a lot of audiences that you can reach out to and attract to your website.

2. Promoting On Instagram

Link your website or blog in the bio.

Create posts and stories on Instagram

You can use visual communication like Images, and infographics to promote the products.

Then direct your audience to buy through the link in your bio.

Make sure you use relevant hashtags related to the products.

You can attract traffic to your website is by joining various platforms and learning their rules.

Adding value to people and you can mention your website to your follower to read more or learn more there, don’t overdo it.

Another way to generate traffic to your affiliate marketing blog is using Question and Answer Forums.

Q & A forums are types of forums where different people are asking questions and several people answer them.

Quora and Reddit are examples of question and answer forum you can join.

Tips You Can Use on Q & A Forum Like Quora

1.  link to your articles while answering questions on Quora

2. Don’t spam, make sure you link only when it is relevant.

3. Don’t share your articles links on every answer that you write on the platform.

4. Make sure you write helpful answers without any links on the platforms

5. You can create a blog on Quora and link back to your affiliate blog through the articles you create on the blog on Quora.

Conclusion:

Earning through affiliate marketing is very rewarding, If you can be patience, persistence and ready to update oneself through reading.

It may be overwhelming at the beginning that is why you should follow this easy guide to make it less difficult for you.

If you can be patience and persist through out of your journey of affiliate marketing without giving up on the way, the reward you will get is unimaginable.

You can earn passive income through affiliate marketing, if you don’t quilt.

Disclosure: Some of the external links in the post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and take action or buy the item, I will receive an affiliate commission directly from the vendor, but there will be no additional charge to you.

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