The world of online marketing has changed so much in the past decade. Amongst the vast ways to make money online, Affiliate Marketing has stood the test of time. It is one of the quickest ways to generate a passive income and has proven itself to be successful for many. In this comprehensive article, you will find out about the right way to do affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
It is when you refer to someone’s products or services online and earn a commission based on their purchase of said products or services. When you don’t make a sale, you don’t get paid.
For example, when you are promoting a $200 product and the company pays a 10% commission per sale, you receive $20 when a sale happens.
How To Make A Sale?
Now you might be wondering about how you can make that first sale. There are actually two primary methods that you can apply and they are the free and paid methods. The basic gist of it works like this; You refer people online to the products or services that you are an affiliate of. Now we will get more in-depth into the two methods of generating a sale.
Free Method
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This process does take a while and requires patience and a bit of hard work from your end. But the eventual results will be outstanding. For the free method, you don’t have to own a website. Here’s how it works:
- Social Media Sharing: The best platforms for affiliate marketing are Facebook and Quora. Though Facebook is a bit strict on sharing affiliate links. You can join various niche groups on Facebook that might be interested in your affiliate products or services. For example, you are promoting gardening products. Then you would normally join a gardening group, build trust with the community and then pitch in your affiliate products that they might be interested in. In the case of Quora, answer questions related to your niche and share your affiliate links below your answers (when they are relevant to the question). Be wary of spamming your affiliate links everywhere as it is bad practice and might get you banned.
- Blogger Or Free WordPress: Free online blogging platforms like Blogger (Previously Blogspot) and WordPress(.com) are two effective ways to promote affiliate products and services for free. You can signup for free and have niche-based affiliate blogs where you promote your affiliate products or services. You also need to do a bit of SEO to get that targeted traffic to your niche. A good way would be to use a keyword research tool like UberSuggest to find keywords relevant to your niche and write blogs with those keywords. Within 4-6 months’ time, you will start to see some traffic. Also, make sure to promote your blogs on all Social Media platforms. Though free blogging platforms have lower priority in search engines, if you have a website built, then that would be more effective.
Paid Method
This is the fastest method to earn some quick money through affiliate marketing. But it is a bit risky and you need to think carefully before investing it.
- Paid Ads In Social Media: Advertising your affiliate products or services online in Facebook is a good way to get some quick sales. But for that, you will need a Facebook Page. With a well-designed Facebook Page, you can start promoting your affiliate products via sponsored facebook ads.
Create an attractive post on Facebook and boost it while targeting relevant keywords in the customer’s interest section. Let it run for 3 days, check the results on the 4th day and repeat the process on the 5th day. Through some creative testing, you’ll figure out which ad works best and sells the most.
- Promoting In Website: If you own a website, then follow the same processes in Step 2 of the Free Method to gain some free traffic. But another good way to have your affiliate products advertised via the paid methods are Google Ads.
For this, you need to signup for a Google AdWords account. You can bid for keywords and have your affiliate products or services placed on top of search results for easy clicks. But before you do this, I advise you to learn a bit about how Google AdWords work or find an expert as we will talk about in the next step.
- Hiring an Expert: You don’t want to get into all the technical nitty-gritty, but you have the money. Hiring an expert would surely help in this matter. You can find these experts on online freelancing marketplaces like Fiverr or UpWork.
Just search for “affiliate marketing”, you will be astounded by the vast number of services that you can find that can help set up your whole affiliate campaign. Try out the onest that have the “Top Seller” badge and has lots of positive reviews, a good example would be hiring someone with an average rating of at least 4.9 stars.
What Are Some Good Affiliate Marketing Networks?
There are tons of affiliate marketing networks all over the internet. But some of the most trusted ones are JVZoo and ClickBank. Their affiliate products and services have all the banners and content you will need to promote
it successfully in your campaigns. Amazon also has its own affiliate network called the Amazon Associates Program. To get approved for any of these affiliate networks, it is best to have a website ready with unique content. The commissions on JVZoo and ClickBank are higher than in Amazon, but Amazon does offer a vast list of products.
Final Thoughts
Many would say that Affiliate Marketing is a scam or it used to work once and doesn’t work anymore. This is because of the way of evolution of certain things. What once worked for Affiliate Marketing, doesn’t work now because the online world keeps changing and evolving. Though those who stay updated would know what works and what doesn’t. That’s why patience and virtue are key aspects of being a successful affiliate marketer. If you follow all the proper and legit methods, no one can stop you from making that first commission.
