Has anyone ever actually defined an affiliate program and what the affiliate marketers do to make money?
Do you understand what being an affiliate is all about?
Whether you’re a newbie or just a little overwhelmed by all the information floating around online, I’d like to help you get a better understanding what an affiliate marketer does in the affiliate program.
Are you brand new to affiliate marketing? Not sure what it’s all about? Basically, affiliate marketing is the process where you earn a commission for promoting other people’s products. You find a product you like, promote the product on your website, and receive a commission for every sale that you generate.
There are four basic levels that make affiliate marketing works:
- Join an affiliate marketing program.
- Choose a great product you want to promote and receive an affiliate link.
- Share the affiliate link on your website or on social media.
- Somebody clicks your link, purchases the product, and you receive a commission on the sale.
You’ll make a website, which is not as hard as you might think, and then you will place your affiliate links to the products you are promoting throughout your website. Then, when someone clicks on your link and buys the product within the cookies time frame, you get a commission!
There is a variety of affiliate networks that you can join to find products to promote, and if you pick a topic within a niche that is interesting to you. You must first make sure with a little market research that it is also profitable, and it can and should be quite a lot of fun to build your affiliate website.
An affiliate program is basically defined as an arrangement in which online merchants (such as Clickbank.com) pays you a commission to send them traffic.
The term “traffic” simply means visitors or people visiting your site.
Getting traffic to your affiliate links is key to your success in affiliate marketing. There is a huge range of different methods for getting visitors to your website, including signaling to search engines like Google that your website is relevant to your topic, and spreading the word on social media.
Because of the variety of strategies available to you, you will be able to find something that suits your strengths to get the ball rolling for your own affiliate website.
The goal is to be making your own money just with your own efforts and a computer, setting yourself up for some great potential income.
Knowing how to succeed as an affiliate for someone else’s product is very important to your online success.
Most of us start out as affiliates, selling someone else’s product for a commission.
In many ways affiliate marketing is the perfect online business.
You don’t have to create products or do customer service or answer pre-sales questions — as an affiliate you just promote and get paid.
Sounds good, right?
It sounds good because it is good. It can be a wonderful way to earn money online.
But the fact remains that some 98% (or more) of affiliates never make a dime online and very few of the 2% who do succeed make a full time living.
I believe this problem can be solved!
I want you to know that it is not too late for you. You have not missed out on anything.
You can begin today and find success as an affiliate marketer, if you work at it and use conservative and proven methods.
To begin right, you must have a clear knowledge what you are getting into as an Affiliate Marketer.
So, you sign up to be an affiliate of a website and you send visitors or traffic to that site. When those visitors take a specific action (most commonly – when they buy something) you get paid.
It’s as simple as that!
Every affiliate program out there will provide you with what is called an “affiliate link”. This is a special link that identifies you (the affiliate) as the source of traffic.
Each time someone uses your link or website to click onto the merchant’s website and buys something, you are paid a certain percentage of that purchase.
But how does the site know that YOU sent that visitor? Most sites use a technology called “cookies.” This simply means that a small file is placed on the visitor’s computer identifying you as the source of the referral.
That way the company can know for sure that you should be paid the commission when the visitor buys something.
Most major affiliate programs, including Clickbank, use cookies to identify which affiliate sent which visitor.
There are at least three parties involved in any affiliate transaction:
- The company who sells the product (or vendor as Clickbank calls them)
- The affiliate who sends the traffic (that’s you!)
- The person who visits the site by clicking your affiliate link (the visitor)
Affiliate programs do not bring good profits without some form of effort and organization on your part.
To make money as an affiliate with affiliate programs, you will need to learn how to “drive” traffic. Driving traffic simply means sending visitors to a website you are promoting using paid advertising or free marketing methods such as article marketing or social media like LinkedIn.com.
Affiliate marketing can be very profitable if you learn the system and promote it the right way. To maximize their profits, most affiliates choose more than one to promote.
There is usually nothing complicated about signing up for an affiliate program. Most programs are free to join.
But there is a downside here that you must avoid.
Since most affiliate programs are free to join, there is a temptation to join many at one time thinking you will be able to promote them all. This can lead to confusion.
My advice is to find a product you believe in and is passionate about and promote it with all your heart and strength.
Become an expert at promoting product X and you will learn how to promote any product. Then you can move on to promoting other products easily.
You see, the success is in the process and in the products you choose to promote.
Once you sign up for a program, you are usually free to place links on your website and in other places.
Affiliates are paid according to a legal arrangement agreed to upon sign-up. Affiliate commissions are based on the number of people the affiliate sends to the merchant’s site, or the number of their referrals who make a purchase or take some other type of action.
There are three basic structures for how affiliates are paid:
- Pay Per Sale: The most common arrangement. When someone you send to the business’ website buys something, you earn a certain percentage or designated dollar amount.
- Pay Per Visit: Some companies pay you based on the number of people your link sends to their website, whether they make a purchase or not.
- Per Lead: You are paid when someone uses your affiliate link to visit the company’s website and opts in, entering some required information (like an email address) the business can use as a sales lead.
Generally speaking, if your affiliate link on your website or other location brings their business traffic or money, the merchant will pay you accordingly.
As an affiliate, you help bring in the customer and the company does everything else: order processing, collecting payment, shipping, etc.
For you, promoting an affiliate program or programs almost adds up to free money. Just look at the benefits you get when promoting as an affiliate.
As an affiliate you never have to …
- Create a product
- Provide customer service
- Have a website of your own
- Provide a download page
As an affiliate you simply promote and get paid. It is simply the easiest way to earn money online.
The company wins too! For businesses, offering an affiliate program is not only an excellent way to sell products online, but also serves as a powerful and cost- effective marketing strategy.
Why? Because you (the affiliate) solve their number one problem – getting enough traffic to their website!
You get paid, and the company gets you to promote for them. A classic win-win situation!
5 Steps To Get Started As A New Affiliate Marketer
Step 1: Choose Your Niche
The first step towards making money as an affiliate marketer is to choose a niche. Your niche will determine what your website is about and the kinds of products that you are going to promote.
You don’t have to be an expert in the topic, but you do need to find it interesting if you’re going to be able to write about it and not run out of ideas for content or lose interest.
Step 2: Make a Plan
Before you rush into anything and run the risk of burnout, you should take the time to make a plan. While an affiliate business doesn’t require substantial financial investment, you are going to be investing a valuable resource; your time.
The majority of affiliate marketers start part-time and grow their passive income streams before becoming full-time affiliate marketers. If you are going to balance your current work with your new affiliate career, it’s a good idea to create a schedule to maximize your productivity.
Set aside time for keyword research, content creation, and content promotion. You’ll need to know how many posts you can write per week and create a publishing calendar to ensure that you always have new content ideas ready.
Step 3: Create Your Website
The next step is to build your website. This is going to be the hub of your affiliate marketing efforts.
There are loads of beginner-friendly website builders and WordPress themes out there, making it easy for a beginner with no coding experience to create a website.
Step 4: Research Affiliate Products
To make money as an affiliate marketer, you need to find products that are profitable, relevant to your niche, and interesting to your audience. You need to be strict with what you choose to promote.
Just because you like a product, doesn’t mean your audience will.
Keep the needs of your audience in mind when you choose your affiliate products. The more relevant the product is to your niche, the more likely that people will convert, and the more money you will make.
Check out the next section for more advice on choosing affiliate products to promote.
Step 5: Drive Traffic to Your Affiliate Links
Once you’ve created your website and found relevant products to promote, you need to drive traffic to your affiliate links. There are lots of different techniques you can use to drive traffic, but they can all be broken down into two sections; paid traffic and free traffic.
Paid traffic is from advertisements in search results, on social media, and any other place where you pay to display your ad. Free traffic is mainly generated from ranking in the organic search results.
As long as you create quality content, promote great products, and drive high-quality traffic to your affiliate links, you will make sales and earn commission. And that’s a sweet taste indeed!
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