Think about that product you enjoy using and you can’t stop referring the products to your family and friends. But instead of recommending the products free without any form of payment, you can start making money with your recommendation and reviews. This is called Affiliate Marketing.
Now that you know that you can start making money with affiliate marketing, the question becomes, how?
I’ll like you to know that affiliate marketing is not difficult. Anybody can do it as it doesn’t so much knowledge of digital marketing or you having the products physically.
Excitingly, there is no limit to the amount of money you can make. As a brand, you are able to generate more sales, and you are noticed by new people. While as an affiliate, once you are able to join one of the best affiliate programs then you are on your way to making a steady flow of income.
With all these in mind, let’s get right into it.
What is affiliate marketing?
Simply, affiliate marketing is a type of marketing done online where an affiliate/publisher gives recommendations or reviews a product or service to an audience and when the audience buys the product, an affiliate commission is given to the affiliate.
Like I said earlier, affiliate marketing is not difficult, all you need as an affiliate is a unique tracking link. When your audience clicks on the link, your computer stores a cookie, and your commission is based on the cookie duration window.
Cookie duration is usually created into the affiliate program by brand and it varies. Often, brand credit sales are between 30 and 90 days. For instance, if someone clicks on the affiliate link and didn’t make a purchase till after 80 days, the affiliate will still receive credit.
Who is an affiliate?
An affiliate can be anyone; influencer, content writer, podcaster, YouTuber, or even a blogger.
It is best to only recommend products you have used and know about. You shouldn’t because of money to recommend a product you have not used. Doing that will make you lose the trust your audience has in you and that is the last thing you’ll want.
Types of affiliate marketing
1. Related affiliate marketing
This is a type of marketing that involves people who have an established presence online and give links to affiliate products related to their niche without having to use the products.
It could be a link on the side of your website or in your blog post. For instance, if you want to talk about the best educational app for kids on your website, you can generate an affiliate link to those apps and you don’t have to use the apps.
This is one of the effective ways of affiliate marketing, but you are likely to lose the trust of your audience if you are recommending a product you’ve not personally used.
2. Involved affiliate marketing
This is a form of affiliate marketing where the affiliate has used the recommended products or service, believes in it, and is involved with the brand they’re recommending and their audience.
When you are involved with a brand, the products you are recommending become genuine and your audience will easily believe which can help generate more conversion.
For instance, as a YouTuber, you can add the link of a product you are using within your video, it is different from the ads displayed on your video by YouTube.
3. Unattached affiliate marketing
This is the type where the products or service is not the same as the niche of the affiliate, neither are they do they know much about the product they are recommending.
The modus operandi of an affiliate is to drive traffic and generate sales by running an affiliate marketing campaign and Pay Per Click. There is no form of relationship or connection between the affiliate and the audience.
It can be tough to make enough income with this, as you don’t need to build trust with anyone. It is just you relying majorly on paid ads.
How can affiliates make money?
1. Choose a niche
The first thing you’ll want to do as an affiliate is to choose a niche. While it is tempting to choose a niche based on your passion, it is best to choose a niche that you can make money from.
To choose that, you will have to do research on your market and competitors. Get up to date with trends to know what products being are interested in and willing to buy.
2. Create quality contents
It is important to know that as a content creator you should always create quality and engaging content. You don’t want your content to look strange to your audience. Hence, you need your content to resonate with your audience.
Your content should be educative, relevant, engaging, and add value to your audience. Your content approach must be strategic and timely, If not you’re unlikely to be successful with affiliate marketing.
3. Be familiar with the products
Like I said earlier, don’t recommend a product you’ve not used personally or you are not familiar with. Doing that will mean you are shooting yourself on the leg and will make your audience uninterested.
Being familiar with the products will make your content genuine and relatable to your audience. That way, you are able to convince them to buy the products.
4. Set realistic goals
When it comes to affiliate marketing, you don’t expect to start earning and building an audience in a day. You have to take things one step at a time.
You need to set realistic goals to avoid being disappointed. Set your goals and consistently work on achieving them with time. You can use the SMART goal principle to achieve your goals.
Summary
If you are looking for what to do to make money, you should think of affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you can work for yourself. You’d also have a flexible schedule with no limit to how much you can make.
The best affiliate programs to make the most money are Amazon and hosting companies like HostGator, BlueHost, and SiteGround. They offer some of the highest commissions.
Be aware that you need to plan on where your products will be promoted. Also, the company you are interested In promoting for and the strategy to generate traffic. Traffic is what makes affiliates fail, so you must have a strategy in place to make the most out of it.
With all these, take the bold step and commit to affiliate marketing. Check out the best paying affiliate programs.
Thanks for reading.
