What is Affiliate Marketing? Learn The Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of best option to make money on internet but still there are lots of people who want to make money but does not have idea ‘what is affiliate marketing’. I received so many comments and emails from the people who are looking for easy earning options like data entry jobs and online surveys but when I talk to them about affiliate marketing they don’t have any idea of affiliate marketing and how to earn from this & then I decided to write on this topic so people can learn the basics of affiliate marketing.  

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’). Definition of  affiliate marketingby Wikipedia.

But in the simplest language affiliate marketing is a wayto promote the products and services of the online merchants and earn commission. It means, if you want to earn money through affiliate marketing then just follow these 4 simple points-

1. Find a merchant who want to sell its product or service
2. Join its affiliate program and receive a unique affiliate link
3. Promote the merchant’s product through that affiliate link
4. Collect cash

There are hundreds of thousands of online merchants you can find online who are interested to sell their products through affiliate program but finding a right merchant with right product is very important. You will even find number of affiliate networks where you can join and promote hundreds of products through one single interface.

What is an Affiliate Marketing Network?

There are thousands of online merchants who has the best products and services but does not have an affiliate programs because of number of reason like either they can’t afford this, they don’t have perfect tracking system of affiliate promotion or they don’t have time to handle the system and want to outsource the whole process & where the role of affiliate marketing networks come. They have the state of the art software to monitor the activity of affiliate, can handle their account and directly pay to the affiliates on behalf of the merchants. So its always better to start affiliate marketing with an affiliate marketing network than a single merchant because you have the option of choosing the product and advertiser of your choice, you can compare, test and stick one the one who is earning you more money in the same efforts. Some of the best affiliate networks are Clickbank, Commission Junction, ShareASale, Google Affiliate Network, ClixGalore etc.

How to promote an affiliate program & when do you get paid?

Its important to understand what is the meaning of promotion and how to promote an advertisers (merchant). There are number of options an advertiser can pay you when you promote its product. The can pay you for every sale, leads (inquiry or free signup) or even clicks/impressions. Most of the advertiser will pay an affiliate only for sale but there are many advertisers or merchants who pay for leads or clicks or impression. Promoting is one of the biggest task for affiliates. Many internet marketers promote by creating a review site, through their blogs, PPC programs like AdWords, article marketing etc. Many of the marketers are using new ways like web 2.0 sites, social media like Facebook, YouTube etc.

Advantages of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the most lucrative business on internet because of the advantages it carries. The biggest advantage is you don’t have your own product but still you can make money by selling other merchant’s products. This is like you are the owner of these products. You don’t need to maintain any stock, no need to worry about the shipment after someone purchases or even don’t need to track your customer lists. Everything is taken care by the merchant. Other advantage is the income potential. You can earn up to 70% commission by selling the products or in some cases you can earn even 100%. Yes, that is absolutely true. There are even merchants like hosting providers, membership sites which if you sell can earn you lifetime commission till the customer has the membership with the site. That is the gold mine!! What else you want if you setup a promotional campaign and that is giving you automatic income even if you are enjoying a great vacation on a beautiful beach of Goa with your girlfriend. So don’t get delayed, no more thoughts, create an action plan as provided below-

Create an Action Plan

Join an affiliate program

If you plan to make money through an affiliate marketing then its better you start with an affiliate network. Clickbank or Commission Junction is recommended. Join one of them and spend at least 3-4 days understanding everything about the site and the concept. Once done, write all your interest and hobbies on a paper.

Choose a product

Its better you promote a product which matches your interest. Find the merchants which has those products and services. e.g if you are fitness freak, you can find a product related to fitness, if you are a gadget lover, you can find the mobiles, tablets and other gadgets to promote.

Research the demand

After choosing 2-3 products, find its demands whether its a hot product or not and if people are searching online for this. You can check in AdWords keyword tool, YouTube, Google Trends etc. You need to spend more time here because you have to take your decision based on this. After doing the research, choose the one with the highest potential.

Promote the product

There are number of better ways, you can use to promote an affiliate marketing product and the easiest one is by creating a review site. A review site is something which is created by a user of the product and providing the review of the product by writing advantages and disadvantages as an experienced user. If you thought of creating a review site, always buy the product first, use this for sometime and then write the review. Review site is something which gives you the best conversion as this is the last stage a buyer is searching before taking a final decision for purchase. You can also promote through AdWords, Social Media sites if you don’t want to create a site. Many people also promote through article marketing, web 2.0 sites, free classifieds etc.

Conclusion-

Affiliate marketing is a business of focus and Patience. Don’t get motivated if you don’t find the results in the initial phase. Even the biggest gurus made so many mistakes & got failures. But they learn from the failure, keep working and finally become millionaire. The key to success is accept failures as a next step to success. Who knows out of 100 attempts in affiliate marketing, only 1 attempt can make you earn, you never thought of earning.

Have a great luck……

Tagged as: affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing network, affiliate program