You might have heard people talk about making money 24/7 and while they sleep. So now you’re wondering what is affiliate marketing and does it really work. Let me tell you why it’s the best!
People who think about making money online, 99% of them start with affiliate marketing.
That’s how I started.
It’s the idea of promoting brand name products thru companies affiliate programs.
When people buy your brand name products, you can stand to make some very lucrative commissions.
So today, I want to dive deeper into what affiliate marketing is about and how you can get started.
Table of Contents
What You Need To Know To Be a Successful Marketer
To be an affiliate marketer, there are things you need to know that is vital to your success.
There are many people who fail because they jumped into affiliate marketing without doing their due diligence of researching platforms.
Before I go any further, I commend you for taking the time to do your research here. This is also a great way to keep yourself from being scammed online.
It’s important to get proper training on:
- How affiliate marketing works.
- How to find your niche products/service.
- How to get your targeted niche audience to find you.
- How to build a trusting relationship with your audience.
Having this knowledge will help you be a successful online affiliate marketer. In addition, I suggest joining a large community of like-minded people who can mentor and support you on this amazing journey.
==> CLICK HERE: Learn Affiliate Marketing for FREE Starter Member
No-Risk and No Credit Card Information Requested
The Concept of Affiliate Marketing. In Simple Terms.
The best explanation of affiliate marketing:
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make” by Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income
Affiliate marketing gives you (the affiliate) the opportunity to promote other companies (merchants) products or services and you do this through their affiliate programs.
You may not realize this but there are 10,000’s of these affiliate programs.
The idea is to join the relevant affiliate program(s) that best suits your niche website.
When you’re approved, the company (merchant) gives you an affiliate link that you put on your site and promote their products/services.
Pretty much anything you buy online whether it be products/services you can be an affiliate marketer for it and promote them on your online business.
How Affiliate Marketing Works. Understanding the Basics.
Let’s say someone comes to your website. You wrote some product reviews.
That person liked what they read and clicked on that special affiliate link and purchased.
Congratulations, you make the commission!
Companies will gladly let you use their ad banners and affiliate links to insert them into your website. People will click on them and are automatically sent to their products/services.
So these companies have affiliate software that also keeps track of your performance through your affiliate links. Your affiliate link is your unique id with the company.
If you want to see your sales record all you have to do is sign into that company’s site and look at your performance details.
Companies will send you an email congratulating you on your sale and some will let you know there is a pending sale.
Often times, these companies will have a minimum threshold you need to meet before they will pay you.
The most important goal is to bring traffic to your site and give them the experience of the product/service that will help them solve their needs and issues.
When you do that and they like what you offer, they buy and bam you make the money.
Can you see the beauty of affiliate marketing?
Do your research and you will find affiliate programs for really anything you can think of.
Finding affiliate programs in your niche market is easy. Just enter in your search engine the following:
“your niche+ affiliate programs” without the apostrophes.
Example: Say my niche is, “scuba diving for beginners” and I find to find an affiliate program on it.
I enter: “scuba diving+ affiliate programs” and you can see some of the amazing results in the image below:
If you really can’t find an affiliate program for your niche, don’t be afraid to approach the company you want to partner with.
To do this, however, you will want to have a good-looking website and let them know you are an authority on their product/services.
Give that company a good impression of how you can make money for them. I really think you might surprise yourself on how successful you can be doing that.
What You Can Earn As An Affiliate Marketer.
Actually, the sky could be the limit for you. Affiliate marketing does work extremely well and you can make extra money or it can become a full-time passive income.
Take a look at how much Pat Flynn made in October 2017. Pat is one of the wealthiest internet and well-known affiliate marketing entrepreneurs in the world.
What you can earn is really up to you.
How hard do you want to work?
Some affiliate marketers make in the 2 digit figure but they may be just starting out or perhaps they’re not putting in the effort.
If anyone tells you that you can make fast money overnight as soon as you sign up and give them your credit card, these scammers are only in the game of taking your money.
I’ll be honest and tell you that having any business whether it’s local or online, takes HARD WORK.
Talk to any successful entrepreneur and they will tell you they worked hard, made sacrifices, and most importantly, they never gave up.
You can make as much as you like but not only does it require hard work, it also depends on how much traffic you bring into your site.
NO TRAFFIC = $0
To bring traffic, you need to write quality content and lots of it that’s relevant to your site and audience.
I’ve seen very successful members in the affiliate marketing training platform I’m with, and they’ve written over 400 articles and they’re making 5 to 6 digit figures a month.
This is RD40’s success story (CLICK HERE to read his story)
RD40 is a Premium Member of Wealthy Affiliate, my #1 Recommendation of an online affiliate marketing training platform.
There are lots of ways to bring traffic like FREE traffic which is the method I focus on most. I also use social media and YouTube videos.
The other way to get traffic is to pay for your traffic and ads which can be quite costly if you don’t do it right.
Like I say, I prefer the FREE traffic and it’s the best way to start so you get the real fundamentals of online marketing.
The way to reach your free audience is by finding what they enter into their search browser.
Don’t forget you will have competitors and so you want to find keywords that have a low number of competitors with lots of traffic. There are keyword research tools that make your life a whole lot easier.
You rinse and repeat this process on every post (article) you write on your website. Make sure to put your affiliate link on the offer of your post.
You can literally bring in thousands of free traffic from social media and YouTube videos just by promoting your product through them.
Some affiliate programs and networks you can join are:
- Awin (Click here)
- Commission Junction – CJ Affiliate (Click here)
- Rakuten LinkShare (Click here)
- ShareASale (Click here)
- Amazon Associates (Click here)https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
NOTE: Not all the US States are allowed to promote Amazon products so you will need to check their rules.
My advice is to not get too carried away with joining a bunch.
Many of the above will require you to have a website with content and traffic already coming to your site but don’t be discouraged…
I know the perfect online affiliate marketing training platform for you. It’s the platform I am a member of and it FREE to join.
Some ways you (affiliate) can get paid by merchants:
Pay Per Sale
You make a commission on this program when the product/service you promote is sold. Some programs have a recurring commission like what Wealthy Affiliate offers.
Pay Per Click:
This is based on the number of people who click on your affiliate link and are sent to the merchant’s site and you don’t even have to make a sale to earn your commission.
Pay Per Lead:
You get paid when your targeted audience fills out their contact information on a contact lead form with a link.
The Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer.
According to Statista.com by the year 2021, it’s expected there will be 2.14 billion people who will purchase products online.
In 2019, they projected 1.92 billion people.
What are their reasons?
People these days seem to be too busy to drive to shopping malls.
They want other people’s opinions too and so they’ll do their research online and read reviews.
Whatever their reasons are, online shopping is huge and it will only get bigger as technology grows.
There are millions of products that can be promoted online.
Amazon, for example, is the largest affiliate program in the world. They have over 500,000,000 products on their website.
Their commissions’ structure is not overly large but you can still make a good chunk of money yearly.
Some US states have been blocked so you cannot promote products on Amazon… not sure why.
But wait… there are more reasons why affiliate marketing works so well with affiliate marketers:
#1. No Inventory. Yup, you have absolutely no inventory to carry so this eliminates huge costs.
#2. No Packaging, No Shipping. The merchant looks after all this. All you do is just sell.
#3. No Customer Complaints To Deal With. Fortunately, you don’t have to deal with complaints. The merchant looks after this too.
#4. No Fees to Join. Legitimate affiliate programs are FREE to join.
#5. Work anywhere In the world. You can work at home, or travel anywhere in the world as long as there are internet and access to a computer.
#6. Be your own boss. You are in control of how many hours you want to work but remember having your own online business is HARD WORK.
#7. Earn Income 24/7. Even while you sleep, and wake up the next morning, you might have a very pleasant surprise.
The Not So Good of Affiliate Marketing
#1. Hard Work. Now as far as I’m concerned HARD WORK is good. Some people may not like to work hard and if this is you, you may want to reconsider finding other methods of making money.
#2. Takes Time. It takes time to build your traffic.
You can purchase traffic but that’s very costly and/or go with FREE traffic thru search engine optimization (SEO) but that takes time to build your traffic.
Either way, you must build trust with your targeted audience and that takes time.
If you have perseverance and the will to not give up, you’re on the path to success.
#3. Inadequate, Scammy or Costly Training. Many people do not get proper training on the fundamentals of affiliate marketing.
There are also lots of scam training platforms who promise you their get-rich schemes and only want your money.
Some affiliate training platform will tell you don’t have to do anything because they do everything for you. I know this sounds very convenient but your knowledge of affiliate marketing is very limited.
Beware of all kinds of upsells because these sites only want your money. They give you a website but you don’t own it or you can’t take it with you when you decide to leave their platform.
Who Affiliate Marketing Is For.
There’s a misconception in the world of internet marketing. A lot of people seem to think they need to be a computer geek.
This is absolutely not true! You don’t have to be computer techie or know coding.
There are no skill requirements. Anyone can do this. I don’t know any coding and I’m definitely not a computer guru, look at what I have accomplished on my site.
However, in order to be a successful affiliate marketer, you should:
- Have a passionate niche or have something you’re interested in learning about.
- Have the burning desire to help your targeted audience by offering them useful solutions to solve their needs or issues.
- Be totally committed to work hard, set your goals and never give up.
- Have a computer and access to the internet.
- Absolutely get the proper online affiliate marketing training.
My #1 Recommendation For Your Online Affiliate Marketing Training.
By now, you should know you’re not going to get rich over-night.
To join the affiliate programs and networks I mentioned above, it’s best to have a website, one that you will be proud of.
Can you do affiliate marketing without a website? Absolutely, however, hard work is still required and you will still need to build trust with your audience on social media and YouTube. Paid traffic and ads are expensive too.
If you really want to build trust, then do it with your own website and create your brand. In the long term, this is how you keep your audience coming back for more information.
This is also the way to create a long-term passive income. Unlike MLM’s (Multi-Level Marketing), you don’t have to chase people, people come to you when you have your own website.
PLEASE DON’T PANIC!
I promise, creating your own website is PAINLESS!! This will only take you about a minute or even less than a minute!!
Here is a video by Kyle, the co-owner of Wealthy Affiliate…this is how fast you can create your own website.
==> CLICK HERE or ON THE IMAGE BELOW!
Would you like to try this now? Create your own website in 60 seconds or less right now, just click on the image below…
Heck, you don’t even need to pay big $ on my recommendation. In fact, it’s FREE to join as a Starter Member with Wealthy Affiliate.
They are my #1 recommended online affiliate marketing training platform in the world.
Remember I said to join a training platform with lots of like-minded people? Well, Wealthy Affiliate has the largest and friendliest community of over 1.4 million members from all over the world.
Their members range from newbies, advanced, to the very advanced. Ask any question about your training and someone, somewhere will answer you 24/7.
Wealthy Affiliate’s platform teaches you how to be a successful affiliate marketer and it doesn’t matter what your passionate niche is. If you don’t have a niche, well they will help you with that too.
Just know that merchants are looking for affiliate marketers who know the tricks of being successful. There are members of Wealthy Affiliate who are making very lucrative income:
Another success story from a Wealthy Affiliate member.
Eric’s story… (CLICK HERE to read his story)
I’m a member of Wealthy Affiliate and this is where I get continual training, mentoring, and run my own online businesses.
I’m also an Amazon and PADI affiliate for my scuba dive website. I quit my day job in the oil patch 2 years ago.
Sometimes I work at home or during my dive travels because my dive online business allows me to work anywhere I choose. I recently created a new website, the one you’re on now.
I want to help people who want to dive into the internet world and don’t know where to begin or how to start their online business so they can live their dream lifestyle like I am doing now.
When you join I will welcome you on the inside, and be your coach and mentor. How does that sound?
Wealthy Affiliate’s training teaches you how to get FREE traffic first and once you have traffic, you learn about email marketing and paid ads.
There are NO Upsells. Just the FREE Starter Membership which I advise you do first.
The Premium Membership is what I am and I pay less than $1 a day ($359 USD a year) or you can go monthly at $49/month.
The yearly price is a much better deal!
There is NO RISK and NO CREDIT CARD INFORMATION IS REQUIRED. In fact, you can stay as a FREE Starter Member as long as you like. I will coach
==> Click Here to Read My Review of Wealthy Affiliate
Some things you can learn from Wealthy Affiliate:
- Create your own niche website in under 60 seconds
- Learn to choose your niche
- Develop your brand
- Learn more about affiliate marketing
- Learn how to write helpful content
- Learn how to rank on Google’s first page, Social media
- Access to like-minded affiliate marketers
- Be part of the community
- 24/7 support
- Earn and learn within WA
- FREE Starter Membership
- Paid Premium Membership
Are you ready to take action? If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the Comment Box below and I promise I will reply back.
Thanks for reading!
Monica
Thanks so much for breaking all this information down for me! I’ve come across affiliate marketing a few times but it always seemed like something I didn’t have the ability to do or something I couldn’t do at a beginner level. With the step by step training offered with your program, I can see that I was very wrong! I like that the program offers a trial period so I can check out the platform and everything it has to offer before I decide to invest. Thanks again!
Hi Shannon,
You’re welcome and thank you for your comment!
Like you, I had the same thoughts before I joined with Wealthy Affiliate.
Their step-by-step training and the trial period is perfect for anyone, especially for beginners. It’s absolutely no risk.
I know you can definitely do affiliate marketing Shannon.
Monica
Looking at the screenshot where there’s a profile of WA member RD40, I realized this program is really capable of making us big money. Imagine, $15,000 during that month of November, that’s huge money! This convinced me that those saying WA can’t make us good money, are either liars or have not tried affiliate marketing with WA yet. You know, there’s a lie that’s circulating on the Internet saying WA members are not making money, and that this program pays so little, but with that screenshot, it convinced me otherwise.
Hi Gomer,
Nice!! Thank you for reading my article and I appreciate your comment.
People are definitely making money using the Wealthy Affiliate’s training platform. In fact, I have saved a bunch of success stories and those are only from people I follow. I can’t imagine how many success stories there really are if I followed all the members… over 1.4 million members. There are also many members who keep their successes private to themselves which I totally understand.
In fact, the owner of Human Proof Designs is still a member of Wealthy Affiliate. His business is now making 1 million dollars +.
Yes indeed, I have heard people talk in the internet world about how people were not making money in Wealthy Affiliate’s platform but I would speculate the majority of them were not willing to work hard in their online business and simply quit.
I had a local business years ago and I worked my butt off, in fact, every day including weekends to make it profitable. I did well in it and sold my shares.
Sucessful entrepreneurs will always tell you they worked hard, made tons of sacrifices and in the end, they are reeping their rewards and living their dream lifestyle.
Monica
Excellent review on the pros of affiliate marketing. It’s great that you pointed out that it’s hard work. Sometimes people think making money online is like winning the lottery, quick and easy with no investment or work. They often forget how many tickets people purchased to win the lottery and that’s an investment with a very slim margin of success. I prefer affiliate marketing. Thanks for the article!
Hey Selenity,
You’re welcome and thank you for reading my article and I appreciate your comment.
Lol…nicely said using the lottery. I agree… I prefer affiliate marketing myself.
I do buy lotto tickets but I think the most I ever won was $10 over I don’t know how many years.
Monica
Thank you for a very informative and engaging article. I have thought about doing something online to generate income, but was not familiar with affiliate marketing until recently. I’m sure it will vary case by case, but is there a minimum amount of time before you can expect to see some income from an affiliate marketing website?
Hi Cedric,
You’re welcome and thank you for reading my article. I appreciate your comment and question too.
In regards to your question about a minimum amount of time… this really depends on how hard you work.
I’ve seen affiliate marketers generate a small amount of income in 3 months. It can take 6 months or even a couple of years depending on how much quality content you write while offering helpful and useful solutions to your targeted audience.
Affiliate marketing is all about helping your audience. Work hard, write lots of helpful content and most of all never ever quit.
I hope this helps.
Monica
Hello Monica you have given a really concise explanation of what Affiliate Marketing is. Affiliate Marketing is a powerful way to earn an income. But you hit a very important point. You have to be professional about it. You have to know what to look for.
This is a super guide for both people who have never done Affiliate Marketing and people like myself who are veterans. Having good proficient people like yourself and a great system like Wealthy Affiliate. Newbies will be hooked up for success.
Veterans will not waste their time on a Spam platform. I have done that before. It happens. But the less the better.
Pro Tip: The tip about contacting vendors personally. That is great. I have never actually done it. But I will in the future.
Love what you’re doing keep sharing the helpful information!
Hello,
Thank you for reading my article and I appreciate your comment.
Aaah yes, the part of being professional hits home for me. I think it’s important to feel good about our online business.
Like you, I have been on spam platforms and it sure leaves a bad taste.
I’m glad you like the tip… I have done that myself. I approached a company that had no affiliate program and they really were quite interested. It took a while to get things working and in the end, I’m happy to say we’re still working partners.
Monica
The biggest pull toward Affiliate Marketing for me is all the benefits that come with being an affiliate marketer. Unlike a lot of other make money online programs, I really love the fact that I do not need to package anything, ship to anywhere or handle any form of inventory. I have read and seen people that this has and is working for and that is the reason why I am interested in this area of online business. And I must say that this article was detailed enough to inform, enlighten and point me to the right direction.
Hello,
Thank you for reading my article and I appreciate your comment.
You’re so right about the benefits of affiliate marketing. It’s why I chose to do affiliate marketing.
I’m glad to hear the article was detailed to get you headed in the direction of affiliate marketing.
Monica