Even if you have a successful career, deep down, you might wish to be some big shot entrepreneur. But as juggling life and work is already hard enough, how will you manage the transition from being a job holder to an entrepreneur? This thought often stops people from pursuing a different path.
Needless to say, with traditional entrepreneurship, you need a significant amount of savings to start your venture. And if you are living paycheck to paycheck every month, you might not have the funds to launch your own business. Does that mean your dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur will remain just a dream?
Certainly not! With affiliate marketing, you can become an entrepreneur at any stage of your life, in any place in the world. Whether you are a student, in your mid-career, or even a retiree, affiliate marketing can help you earn without stepping out of your home. And no, it is not a scam or a pyramid scheme that promises to multiply your assets overnight.
Then what is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is a fancy term for a referral. It is the process of referring or promoting a product or service of a company that you don’t own to other people. If other people buy the products or services as a result of your referral, you get a certain percentage of the profit from the seller. Sounds simple, right? While it is the core concept of affiliate marketing, there are numerous factors and processes involved in it, and that’s where things get more complicated. Let’s learn more about how you can be an affiliate marketer.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Now you understand affiliate marketing is the process of referring products or services. But how exactly do you refer, products and who do you refer these to? The referral can take place on different platforms to various audiences. For instance, once you find a product that you want to promote, you develop content for it; it can be a blog or a product review on YouTube. When you post the content, you add the affiliate link provided by the affiliate network, and if anybody clicks the link to buy that product, you will get paid.
In short, affiliate marketing is all about promoting other products, and you earn some commission if your promotion garners any sales. You can visit Performance Funnels to learn in-depth about affiliate marketing.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
With affiliate marketing, you use your marketing skills to promote a product. The more skilled you are at it, the more sales you can generate and get a higher commission. There are three criteria to measure your performance-
- Pay per Click (PPC)– with PPC, you get paid for every click on your affiliate link, regardless of it ending up in a sale or not.
- Pay per Lead (PPL)– with PPL, you get paid for every lead you generate through the link. Depending on the company, the lead can be an email subscription, app installation, or sign up for a trial.
- Pay per Sale (PPS)-with PPS, you get a certain percentage of profit from every sale you generate. The rate varies among different companies and affiliates. With Amazon Associates, you can earn up to 15% of the profit.
What Are the Elements of Affiliate Marketing?
The affiliate marketing process revolves around four elements- merchant, affiliate, consumer, and the affiliate network.
- The merchant– Anyone with a product or service to sell can be a merchant in the affiliate marketing process.
- The affiliate– The affiliate is someone who promotes the products of the merchants. If you create a blog to promote certain products, you will be an affiliate.
Affiliates are also called publishers, advertisers, or distributors. The affiliate could also be a niche site or a group of individuals formed to promote certain products.
- The Consumer– The consumer clicks on affiliate links and buys the product. If consumers don’t buy products, affiliates won’t get paid. So they are an element of interest for the affiliates.
- The affiliate network– To some, the affiliate network is not mandatory for a complete affiliate marketing cycle. However, these networks are essential to create a bridge of trust between the merchant and the affiliate.
Besides, when merchants deal with several affiliates, it becomes complicated to track their performance and manage their payments. An affiliate network can ensure smooth operation and payment distribution.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing?
Now, if you are intrigued to learn how to start affiliate marketing, you can do so by following some simple steps. This requires almost little to no cost for the initial sign-up, and you can make a substantial profit in no time.
Find a Platform
You need a platform where you can promote your content and products. From your Instagram or YouTube channel to a niche site, anything can be an affiliate marketing platform. The success of an affiliate program doesn’t necessarily depend on the platform you choose; it depends on how well you can use that platform to generate sales and traffic.
The choice of the platform depends on your marketing skills and marketing style- if you are skilled at a public presentation, you can create YouTube content. If you are skilled at writing, you can start a blog. However, regardless of the platform, make sure that your content includes affiliate links.
Depending on the platform style, you might have to pay a monthly fee for signing up; however, the fees are negligible compared to the profit you will receive.
Select a Niche
There are all sorts of products and services that you can promote. However, you must have specialized knowledge about the product or niche you are promoting; otherwise, your promotion will lack substance and sound phony.
For instance, if you are interested in health and fitness, you can acquire more knowledge regarding that niche and promote products in this category. If you have zero experience with cars and try reviewing auto parts, it will not be worth the effort.
If you want your site to rank higher in Google, you can narrow down your niche to more specific items. It will ensure your content reaches its target audience faster and gains more visibility. Always make sure your chosen niche aligns with your interest.
Join an Affiliate Program
To officially start your affiliate marketing journey, you need to sign up with an affiliate program. After signing up, you will get a unique affiliate link that identifies your affiliation. The link is required to identify the traffic you send to the merchant’s website. There are three categories of affiliate programs that you can join-
- High-paying, high-volume affiliate programs– These programs deal with the high-priced products that are more in demand. However, most of the products are once-in-a-lifetime investments- like a credit card, and you need to be highly skilled to promote them.
- Low-paying, high-volume affiliate programs– These programs deal with a wide range of low-priced products with a high volume of customers. As the price is usually low, your commission will be less. However, the high volume can make up for the low commission.
- High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs– These programs deal with very specific niche products with limited customers but yield high profits.
You can join any of these programs, depending on your skills and niche selection. However, you can also work directly with the merchants to promote their products.
Create Content and Drive Traffic
You need to create quality content to drive more traffic and generate more sales. If your content resonates with the audience, you will be one step ahead in generating sales. However, to ensure your content is informative and relevant, you need to have niche-based knowledge and interest. Moreover, you need to adopt SEO strategies that will rank your page higher to reach a substantial number of target customers.
Place your affiliate links in the right pages and context to get more clicks on the link. You can apply SEO strategies for organic traffic or use paid traffic to drive traffic to your affiliate site.
Track Your Progress
You can incorporate different affiliate tracking platforms to track your progress. This will provide you with the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies. If a certain strategy fails to make progress, you can swiftly shift to a new approach.
If you don’t have an effective tracking method, you will flounder with your content and advertising strategy. Metrics such as cost per lead, click-through rate, conversion rate, and return on investment can provide you an accurate picture of your performance.
Get Your Commission
Your commission will be based on generating sales or leads. However, the method or frequency of payment varies based on the merchant and the affiliate program. Depending on the platform, you can get monthly or weekly payments.
Your affiliate link will ensure the program gets notified every time you generate a sale or lead, so you will get paid for exactly the result you have achieved.
Why Should You Start Affiliate Marketing In 2021?
2020 was a year of economic uncertainty that compelled almost everyone to look for an alternative income source. The trend continues even in 2021.
If you are looking for a sector that will thrive even after the pandemic and that promises to go beyond 16 billion dollars in 2021, affiliate marketing will be the right option for you.
Besides, newer marketing trends are emerging to make affiliate marketing even more profitable and easy. These are some obvious reasons you should take up affiliate marketing in 2021-
- To generate passive income
- Work from home opportunity
- Convenience and flexibility of work; you can set your own pace of work
- You get rewards for your performance
- Requires little to no cost for setting up a program
- You are only responsible for generating sales; supporting customers or product satisfaction is not your responsibility.
The Bottom Line
Affiliate marketing is an all-encompassing marketing trend. From your favorite tech review YouTuber to humble food bloggers, everyone does it. If you wonder whether affiliate marketing is still profitable in 2021, rest assured that it is only set to grow further in the future. Just look at how the world has become more dependent on online shopping during this pandemic. And it doesn’t just stop here; global online sales will reach their peak in the near future. To tap into this potential, this is the best time to start an affiliate marketing program.
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