It’s also my favorite income stream because it gives me the most freedom and flexibility.
That’s why I’ve created this step-by-step beginner’s guide, which includes everything you need to know about affiliate marketing and tips on how to make your first money out of it.
Make yourself comfortable and let’s get started…
What is affiliate marketing?
In simple terms…Affiliate marketing allows you to make money, by recommending a product or service to your audience and earning a commission when they purchase it, or complete some other action associated with it.
How does affiliate marketing work?
There are 3 simple steps:You recommend a product or service to your audience.
Those people may purchase the product or service thanks to your recommendation.
You get paid a commission for the sale.
Here is a quick example
Let’s say someone has a blog about tech reviews. And that person writes a review about his favorite headphones.He can partner with the company that sells those headphones as an affiliate. They’ll give him a special link to the headphones with his affiliate ID.
Every time he uses that link in a blog post and someone clicks it, his affiliate ID follows them for a specific amount of time.
If they decided to buy those headphones at that time, he will earn a commission out of it.
I think you got the point.
The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing
When it comes to affiliate marketing, the pros outweigh the cons at any time.However, affiliate marketing still has cons. That’s why you have to decide whether it’s right for you or not.
And here they are:
Pros of affiliate marketing
You don’t have to create the product. Someone else has to do this hard and time-consuming work.Low responsibility. As an affiliate, you don’t have to deal with inventory, customer service, infrastructure, maintenance, shipping, returns etc. These are all the responsibility of the person who creates the product.
It gives you more freedom. Affiliates have more time to focus on what they want to do next, while still making money in the background from affiliate commissions.
High chances of high commissions. Some affiliate programs offer high commissions. Digital products, for example, usually have commission rates from 30 to 70%. Those are crazy numbers if you ask me.
Low risk. You won’t lose that much if affiliate marketing doesn’t work out for you. The only thing that goes through my mind that you can lose, is the precious time.
The entry barrier is set low. Many affiliate marketing programs are easy and fast to join.
Low maintenance. You can share an affiliate link once on your content and earn commissions for days, weeks, months and even years.
Zero costs to start. Joining an affiliate program is completely free.
Huge income potential. Using a winning strategy can make your income explode.
A wide range of choices. Most of the products come with an affiliate program attached. Think about the products you use and love. You could easily earn money from them as an affiliate.
Cons of affiliate marketing
It takes time to build trust. Even though it’s easy to become an affiliate, without an audience that trusts you, it will be hard to achieve your goals. Building trust takes some time, that’s why you have to be consistent in your work alongside with patience.It takes time to gain traffic. Again, affiliate marketing is much more profitable if you have a lot of people watching your content, even better with an email subscriber list. Don’t forget about the things above.
You don’t control your audience’s experience. Once you make a referral, your audience may have a bad experience with the advertiser. This can reflect poorly on you and lose their trust.
You don’t control the product or service. Just like you don’t control your audience’s experience with an advertiser, you don’t ultimately control the product or service itself. If they don’t like the product, it can reflect poorly on you as well.
You can lose commissions. It is possible that your promotion may not lead to your commission, but to some other affiliate, due to advertiser way of tracking a customer’s path from referral to purchase.
It’s hard to stand out. Usually, affiliate programs have lots of affiliates. If there’s a promotion going on, it will require a ton of work to separate yourself from the other affiliates, so people buy through your links and not others.
Unwanted restrictions. Many affiliate programs have vague terms and conditions and for the affiliates is crazy important to know and follow them properly. If not, you can get kicked out of a program without warning, which is something to avoid.
Ways of Making Money from Affiliate Marketing
Obviously, affiliate programs reward their affiliates in different ways. Here are some of them:commission. A percentage of the purchase price, this is a common way.
pay per action. Here, affiliates are paid when customers complete a specific action, like when someone signs up to the advertiser’s email list or prints a coupon via your link.
bounties. Affiliates are paid for every customer they send to an advertiser’s site.
prizes. Some affiliate programs offer physical items or cash to the best-performing affiliates in a particular promotion.
credit. Some affiliate programs compensate affiliates in the form of store credit.
How much can you make with affiliate marketing?
The answer is simple…There is no limit on how much you can make!
Affiliate marketers make a wide range of income, from a few dollars a month to five & six figures a month.
Everything depends on how you handle things like:
your content quality
your marketing strategies
the trust you offer to your audience
how many people read/watch you content
What are the typical affiliate marketing commission rates?
This commission rates vary depending on the affiliate program.For example, Amazon Associates pays quite a low percentage for a sale. However, affiliate programs, especially for digital products pay 30 to 70%.
How affiliate marketers get paid?
As usual, it depends on the program you sign for, but the common methods of payment are PayPal, direct deposit, a physical check in the mail, rewards.
How affiliate marketers get paid?
Again, it varies.But most of them pay you monthly and some of them weekly or quarterly.
Be aware there is usually a lead time for accounting returns and processing before you see the money.
Also, some programs require you to earn a minimum amount, called threshold, in commission before you will be paid. Expect from some affiliate programs to have a 50-100$ threshold.
But there’s nothing to worry about, as long as your goals are set high.
Disclosure: The content on this page does contain affiliate links, meaning I do get some percentage of the product purchased but at no additional cost to you. I do this to help finance the free content that I publish on my website, so I appreciate your support.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing
Well… First of all, you have to become an affiliate marketer, right?It’s quite simple to become one because there are no certifications and training required, neither fees to enter.
You can join most affiliate programs easy and fast, get your affiliate links and share them with your audience.
A right way to do affiliate marketing
Before I go in more details, here are some easy steps to follow:Create excellent content. Use a blog or an email newsletter to share your work.
Focus on providing valuable information. Write about something you love and you’re interested and aim to help your readers.
Stay consistent. Consistency is the key; keep publishing regularly to engage people and keep them interested.
Don’t jump on promoting affiliate products. At first, concentrate on gaining trust and providing useful and trustworthy information.
Start promoting. Once you’ve gained trust, slowly start promoting things you use and love.
Things you need to start affiliate marketing
A place to share your work. Think about starting a blog, a website or an email list, a place where people can see your content.Don’t jump on promoting affiliate links straight to your social media accounts.
It Might be risky because you don’t control their rules, as a result, your accounts may suffer.
Use social media, to promote your blog posts for example. Well… you definitely have to promote your content on social media platforms.
Quality content. People don’t like to see nonstop affiliate promotions. It won’t get you anywhere, and we don’t want that.
Produce useful content and aim to help an audience solve a real problem and after that start recommending products.
An audience. You’ve got to aim a niche and target a specific group of people.
Your ideal audience is the one you know well because you’ve been there and you have the answers to problems they usually face.
Trust. It’s all about trust. Be trustworthy and sincere in everything you do online.
You won’t make sustainable income if you don’t have the trust of your audience.
Products to share. Once you’ve ticked everything from above, you can begin to recommend products or services to your audience.
Do you need a blog for affiliate marketing?
I think is the best way to start affiliate marketing on a blog because is the perfect place to store all your content, also, being available all the time for the readers.
Do you need an email list for affiliate marketing?
Technically no, but is highly recommended.It will definitely improve your chances of making money as an affiliate marketer if you use as many ways to communicate with your audience as possible.
And email marketing is one of the most effective ways of doing it right.
Sometimes is considered more valuable than the blog/website itself, but without them, you cannot grow the email list properly.
As a result, both the email list and the blog must work together.
So, start with a blog, where your content is always available.
Next, start an email list which is considered a fantastic opportunity to communicate with people by your rules, engage with them and give them trust.
In that way, you don’t have to wait for them to come to your blog, you can go straight to their inboxes.
ConvertKit
Do you need a lot of traffic for affiliate marketing?
Not really, but it helps.More traffic means more people who will potentially buy the product you promote.
However, you can still make money as an affiliate even if you don’t have tons of traffic.
Unfortunately, some affiliate programs prefer a certain amount of traffic to accept you into their program. In these cases, your traffic counts.
But, don’t let those low traffic numbers (if it’s the case) keep you from trying affiliate marketing!
Hard work pays off!
Choosing Products to Promote
Recommend affiliate products that are relevant for you and work into your niche.If you got an idea of a product to promote, ask yourself the next questions to determine if it’s a good choice:
Do I have experience with this product? It’s important to be familiar with the product you promote. First, you know what you are talking about. Second, you start to build that trust with your audience.
Would I recommend this product to my family or friends? Think about if you would encourage your family and friends to spend their time and money on this product?
Will my audience realistically buy this product? Again, promote a product that fits your niche and your audience’s needs. Be also careful at the product’s price tag.
Where do you get ideas for products to promote?
There are 3 places to get the right ideas from:
Yourself. Focus on promoting products you already use. Think about them, make a list, find affiliate programs for them and start creating content.
Another available method is to review the existing content.
You may have been talking about a product without having attached an affiliate link on it.
Try to find out if there are affiliate programs for it and start updating that content with affiliate links.
Your audience. Products that solve your audience’s problems are excellent to promote as your readers are usually open to spending money on them.
Ask your readers about what they want. Interact with them on social media, blog/video comments or Facebook Groups, for example.
And don’t forget to check your Google Analytics for useful information about your visitors.
Others in your niche. Always take a look at how are other content creators in your niche doing. Check what types of ads do they use, what are they promoting, what products do they keep talking about.
Joining Affiliate Programs
First, it’s important to understand the difference between affiliate programs and affiliate networks.An affiliate program works for a single company and an affiliate network gives you access to many affiliate programs of many companies at once.
You can be part of multiple affiliate networks and individual affiliate programs at the same time, so don’t feel limited.
Do you know what product or service you want to promote?
There are several ways of finding an affiliate program:+ check the company’s website. Look for a separate page like “Affiliates,” “Affiliate Program,” “Referral Program” or something similar and follow the steps to sign up.
+ google it. Search for terms like “(company) affiliate program”. You will probably find what you need.
+ contact the company. If you can’t find evidence of an affiliate program, consider getting in touch with them and ask if they are willing to set one up.
+ join an affiliate network. You have access to a wide range of different affiliate programs.
Once you found one, the joining process is usually quite clear and fast.
Things you should look for in an affiliate program
Income potential. The higher the commission rate, the better.But there are always affiliate programs with a low commission rate that is worth joining.
Cookie length. Again, the longer the cookie length the better.
When someone clicks through one of your affiliate links a cookie will track their browsing activity and gives you credit for actions they take, like making that product purchase.
Terms. Check if there are rules that might make a program not worth it for you.
Commissions. Many programs will pay you one time for sending a customer.
Other programs will pay you a commission as long as the person you referred is a paying customer.
Let’s say that someone is using a digital product and is paying monthly for it. Well… you get a monthly commission too.
This could go for years and you will still get a commission out of it.
That’s why we love affiliate marketing.
Company’s strategies and relationships. Companies with solid sales pages, funnels and launches are really worth it.
Also, if they communicate with their affiliates, notify if there’s something new, offering marketing advice or tools, even better.
Look out for them!
Company’s reputation. Recommending something with horrible customer service or unreliable products may affect your reputation too.
Be careful!
Best affiliate programs
Tons of them…
It will depend on your niche and the products you want to promote.
Here’s a quick list:
Affiliate networks
ShareASaleAmazon Associates
amazon
Clickbank
Besides their platform, Clickbank is here to help you master affiliate marketing, by teaching you how to promote other people’s products or even create your own product and promote it on their website.
Everything is set up for you on their program called “ClickBank University 2.0”.
Creative Market
creative
CJ Affiliates
JVZoo
Elegant Themes
elegant themes
Affiliate Programs
courses you’ve taken & likedyour email service provider: I would recommend ConvertKit to those starting an email list today.
your blog host: I use Bluehost and I highly recommend it.
tools you’re using
How To Use Affiliate Links
Everything happens around your link, use it properly an carefully.How it works:
You will receive a unique link with your unique affiliate ID to promote.
Share the link with your audience.
Someone clicks it and goes to the product or service you promote.
Your affiliate ID will be tracked via a cookie.
If they complete an action before that cookie expires, you are awarded.
To find your affiliate links, you have to access the company’s affiliate program and look for a specific page like an affiliate dashboard.
There you can find all the information you need to promote and access your links.
The process varies from program to program but most of the companies provide a separate place for.
Before to share your affiliate links, always check the terms and conditions for affiliate programs to find out if there are certain limitations.
Places to share your links
blog postslink your images
sidebar
footer
emails
video descriptions
reviews
tutorials
social media
webinars
“Tools” or “Resources” pages
in your ebook
How to share your affiliate links properly
Always disclose. Let your readers know when you are using affiliate links.An image disclosure or general disclosure at the bottom of your site is not enough, make some research.
Don’t waste all the information. Offer enough information so your audience knows what the is about, but don’t give all the details on your content.
Some product information may change, such as price or certain features of the product and can create confusion.
Secondly, the product details are better explained by its company, so it’s better to stick to your own experience.
Avoid using widgets and plugins. You can share your affiliate links tanks with all kinds of tools, but it will slow your site down.
My advice is to stick to your basic HTML and use your images when it’s possible.
Attach affiliate links to images. Users always tend to click an image in order to jump on another page.
It is worth using practice, don’t skip it!
Use them naturally but clear. Avoid being spammy and using the same pattern of sharing them.
Mistakes to Avoid in Affiliate Marketing
Not being aware of the terms and conditions for each affiliate program. You are responsible for knowing the rules of the programs you join.Ignoring them will force the advertiser to kick you out of the campaign.
Giving your audience great product reviews without actually being familiar with the product. Your readers deserve honest opinions about the products you mention in your content.
At least, if you haven’t tried a product, but you know that is a great and helpful one, mention that fact in your content.
Prove your honesty!
Promoting irrelevant and low-quality products. Most of the readers will notice that and unfortunately, you will lose them.
Promote things that helped you, knowing that will help your people too.
Promoting too many affiliate products. Instead of promoting everything that has an affiliate program, focus on a shorter list of products.
You won’t look spammy at all, plus you can be 100% convinced that those products are truly what you need for you and your audience.
The Next Steps in Affiliate Marketing
Once you’ve got the basics, here are some tips to follow next:1. Work on your affiliate link’s placement in your posts
It’s important to eliminate distractions. Be careful at links that can take the reader away from your content.Try to put your affiliate link as close to the beginning of a post and don’t forget to disclose first.
2. Take advantage of your affiliate program freebies
Many affiliate programs provide free guides, webinars or lead magnets designed to get customers to them.And you can share these freebies with your audience using your affiliate link so it’s a win-win-win situation.
3. Offer your bonus to affiliate deals
Consider adding a bonus such as an ebook or a checklist to get more interest on your affiliate deals. Make sure that it fits the affiliate product.4. Don’t be scared to experiment
Try different promotional tactics, networks, types of content, ads, post patterns, links placement and many more. Make small changes constantly, things might work way better.5. Be honest
Talk about what you like and don’t like. Include pros and cons, mistakes you’ve made or they made… the reality.Be fair and you will build trust.
6. Use your personal experience
Prove something with your evidence, bring your own material and you will succeed. Also, don’t forget to “Be honest”.7. Check the best affiliate deal
It doesn’t happen often, but some affiliate programs are offered in more than one place. That means some affiliates might pay you more, through a different affiliate network.8. Ask for special discounts or coupons
Affiliate managers will gladly create special coupons just for your readers.Plus, people love discounts!
9. Find new products to promote
Create a list of affiliate products that fits your future content. Consider searching for new products to promote, when you have some free time.In conclusion, affiliate marketing appears to be a great method of monetizing a blog, even the best method for beginner bloggers.
You can start sharing your affiliate links from day 1, so there are no excuses for trying it.
Before you go, don’t forget to check out my other posts, you may find them very useful.
Affiliate Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide | A step-by-step beginner's guide, which includes everything you need to know about affiliate marketing and tips on how to make your first money out of it.
