Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

by Maria Eves

Affiliate marketing is one of the coolest ways to generate additional income for your household. You can choose to refer other companies' products and services or promote your own brand as an affiliate marketer.

This information will help walk you through how to become an affiliate marketer who promotes other brands.

Table of contents:

What Is Affiliate Marketing And How It Works?
Why Affiliate Marketing?
What Are The Different Types Of Products You As A Business Can Sell?
Seven Must Have: “Components” to start affiliate marketing:
How To Choose A Niche For A Product And Audience.
Best niches for affiliate marketing.
What Is Your Chosen Affiliate Marketing Commission Model?
Types of Ecosystem Model Commission:
What Is The Difference Between An Affiliate Network an Affiliate Program?
Brand Your Business With A Domain & Hosting For Your Website Or Hub.
Choose The Best Affiliate Program.
How To Promote Affiliate Links.
Email Marketing Tools Are A Must Have
SEO - Search Engine Optimization

What Is Affiliate Marketing And How Affiliate Marketing Works?

This is when you market another company's brand of products and/or services to receive a commission.

Classic example: As a realtor agent, they do not own the house. They list the house and do the marketing to get people to come to view the house and if someone buys it, they get a commission.

Affiliate marketing is a proven business model where you do not have to store products or distribute the products. This is all done by the company that owns the products. You are purely connecting a potential buyer to a company's product or service that solves the potential buyer's problem.

To become an affiliate or partner is simply by registering with your chosen company. Once accepted you are then provided with a special affiliate link per product. e.g. affiliatelink.com/your-unique-id

That affiliate link can be tracked internally for when someone clicks on it and if they buy something you get paid a commission. As an independent affiliate entrepreneur, you can customize your own tracking links for various projects. The commission is predetermined based on your contract with the company and what percentage of commission you are paid.

Most affiliate programs are free to join. Upon mastering affiliate marketing, you can upscale from a side hustle to a profitable online business idea generating passive income.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

First and foremost it has low start-up costs.
You don't need to create any products or services.
You don't need to deliver the products or even provide customer service or support.
A merchant account is not needed.
81% of brands rely on affiliate programs.
Proven reliable business model.
Passive & residual income - truly unlimited income potential.
Multiple streams of income.
Thousands of products to choose from.
No inventory no shipping costs.
Location-independent, where you can operate from anywhere in the world as long as you have a computer and internet.

What Are The Different Types Of Products You As A Business Can Sell?

Physical Products:

The most common type of product small businesses sell is the physical product. They come in various categories to choose from. Some are in high demand whereas others are not, so choose wisely. What takes your interest is it books, shoes, clothing, jewelry, and furniture just to name a few.

Services can also be sold. They can range from washing your dog, to cutting your hair, to cleaning your house to even washing your car or even doing your nails if the service is provided in your location. If you want a website or hub built for you that is also classed as a service.

Digital Products:

Digital Products are on the rise. They are downloadable products. Perhaps a course interests you. This can be downloaded onto your computer. All software is downloadable. Gift cards and vouchers are downloadable and such a great gift to send somebody. For those who do not have an interest in the overheads of distribution of a physical product, digital products are a great choice.

Seven Must Have: “Components” To Start Affiliate Marketing:

An Audience:

People who have the same interest in what it is your sharing with them.

An Offer:

An affiliate product or service that helps your audience solve their problem and or achieve their goals.

A Traffic Source:
At the start of any business, traffic is one of the most important components to focus on, because without any traffic visiting your website or hub, nobody gets to see what you have to offer let alone any conversions.

Internal Traffic Sources can come from your email list vs External Traffic Sources from the likes of Social Media traffic, PPC traffic, YouTube traffic, and Blogging. A must-have source of traffic to connect your audience with your offer.

A Website or a Hub: This is where people can come to visit your home on the internet where all your affiliate marketing activities are positioned.
Email Autoresponder - This way you can start capturing your leads, building relationships and building your business asset.
Funnel & Website Builder - As an independent business build customized capture pages/landing pages to capture your list and position your business on the internet with a website or hub builder. (Some companies provide capture pages/landing pages.)
Tracking System - Where is your traffic coming from? Identify where the source is. e.g. Youtube, facebook, twitter, ppc ......(some companies provide an internal tracking system.
SEO Tool - When creating content on your website or hub, keywords are the key to be found on the search engines. Learn to rank your content on the 1st page of google and be found. Thus creating organic traffic.

How To Choose A Niche For A Product & Audience?

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered how you could have ended up where you are? Maybe you were looking for that passion that you knew was there, but just couldn’t seem to find it.

It’s okay if you haven’t found your passion yet, everyone has to go through this process of discovery at some point in their lives. And while it may feel like something you won’t be able to figure out on your own, with the right amount of time and effort, you will find your passion and make it an integral part of your life.

To Keep Your Passions Alive - Talk About It

Expressing yourself through writing can be cathartic. Writing about what you love—or what you think about often—can also be a great way to focus your energy and eventually put that energy into action. And, as a bonus, if you like writing enough to do it for pleasure or for practice, then maybe it’s something worth doing for other people too.

Get Creative

In his book The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield describes an idea called Turning Pro. He says that artists need to stop worrying about making money from their creative pursuits and instead should be focused on doing what they love for its own sake.

Try New Things

If you’re stuck in a rut, try something new! New experiences can help wake you up and challenge your interests. Maybe there’s an activity or lifestyle you always admired but never tried. Did you play guitar as a kid? Have you ever taken dance lessons? Do you like to teach? You might just be surprised at how much fun you have. There’s nothing wrong with looking outside of your current field of interest when trying to find a passion!

Reflect On The Past

Before you can decide on your future, you need to reflect on your past. Most of us spend our days mulling over what we’re going to do next rather than thinking about how we ended up where we are now. But it’s only when you look back at where you started that you can figure out where you want to go.

Realize That Nobody Is Perfect

When looking for your passion, stop trying to find something you’re good at. Don’t aim for perfection; that’s too limiting. Instead, think about what you love doing and what you are willing to dedicate a lot of time and energy into—that’s when you start getting closer to discovering your passion. There is no perfect position or job—there are just things that can make us happy or unhappy. Choose wisely, because happiness is important!

If You Don't Do Something, Nothing Will Happen

Many people struggle with finding a passion and achieving their goals because they’re unsure of where to start. If you don’t actively seek out your passions, it will be difficult to know if you have found your true calling. So get involved in as many activities as possible, see what piques your interest, and go with that passion. You might find that there are multiple things you enjoy equally and can pursue them simultaneously; if so, do both!

Embrace Failure

When you pursue your passions, you’re going to fail. Everyone does. By building a tolerance for failure in your life, you will come out stronger each time and appreciate success that much more when it arrives. Don’t wait for a sense of security or comfort—go after what excites you, even if it scares you. The only way not to fail is not to try at all. So be brave and live boldly. Go for what lights your soul on fire and leads you toward happiness!

No One Else Can Tell You What Your Passion Is

Finding your passion is something you have to decide for yourself. Think about what it is that makes you happiest and find a way to turn that into your career. Perhaps helping others. Maybe it’s telling others about your idea, or helping them make their own—it doesn’t matter. Find a way to get paid for doing what you love and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Best Niches For Affiliate Marketing:

Education

Online Dating

Technology

Travel

Finance

Home Security

Gaming

Let's say you start a regular blog about cooking cakes. What sort of cakes? Break it down more to find your niche. Could be wedding cakes or birthday cakes or everyday household cakes. Find your niche.

Perhaps your an expert on how to cook via video and use that as content marketing on your blog and get people to subscribe for future updates. In doing this encourage them to share your content.

Once you have decided what your niche is, your time is invested in content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to help to continue to grow your audience and build your business asset - your list.

What is Your Chosen Affiliate Marketing Commission Model?

When choosing an affiliate network to join take note of what the commission model is available and be aware of the Eco System Model For Commission.

Most affiliate networks pay a 1 done commission meaning you do a sale and you get paid once. Any future upsells that same buyer does is paid to the network, not to you.

Be aware that there is an Eco-System Model for Commission with some networks. Meaning any further sales made from that same buyer you get paid a further commission and ongoing.

Meaning we put the same amount of work in but the outcome will multiply.

An affiliate marketing EcoSystem Model for the commission is where there are various types of affiliate products that have a NEED in the Marketplace.

When you market that product you have a capture page marketing funnel up front to capture your leads information. Your lead comes through the front end of your marketing funnel and perhaps purchases and ongoing continues to buy from inside the affiliate network over time. You get paid a commission.

Types Of Ecosystem Model Commission:

There can be low-end products vs medium to continuity products to the back-end high-end products that pay commissions. Whether your potential buyer buys today, or later down the track you get paid a commission.

Continuity products are my favorite, being monthly paid products bringing you in a residual income with some affiliate networks. It's like a monthly subscription type of product. Every month they pay that subscription and you get a cut in commission monthly. This can go on for years an years for that subscriber.

Now that’s called working smart.

Back-end high-ticket products can be seated at the rear of the marketing funnel. These can bring in a minimum of $500 which is 50% in commissions so you can imagine the $1000 commissions for 1 sale. Back-end products can be classed as a business opportunity. Like network marketing gives you access to products for example: in gold and silver products or health and wellness products just to name a few.

When it comes to the super affiliate marketers you can now see how wealth is built especially when it comes to recurring income. As a product that brings a need to the marketplace place solving the problems of wanna-be marketers.

So to be successful as a great affiliate marketer online you need access to all of this model – the ecosystem model for commission.

Don’t you agree?

There is nothing better than getting paid over and over again. This is a long-term business model and stability for your business.

This is how you have the potential to make a lot of money fast with the high ticket offers and the smaller products to back up filling your money bucket. You can make a few sales a month and continue to build on continuity products.

Affiliate marketing eco-system models are ideal for making money online.

📚 Learn More: Connector Model Hub Based.

There is one type of model that will put your business ahead of the pack. The Connector Model.

What is the difference between an Affiliate Network an Affiliate Program?

You may have heard of the terms affiliate networks and affiliate programs, and are unsure which one is best for your needs. In this blog post, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both an affiliate network and an affiliate program, so that you can make an informed decision about which one is right for you.

Brand your business with a domain and hosting

To be found on the internet you need your own branded domain in your own name as the business or in your niche. That domain will then be forwarded to your website or hub.

Your branded domain website or hub is the backbone of your business. So if you promote on social media you will be able to funnel them back to your website or hub via your domain.

Godaddy or Wix is a great place to choose a domain. It's inexpensive for any business owner. Preferably a dotcom domain e.g. yourwebsite.com.

Once you have your domain you can also choose to host that domain so you can then start creating your website or hub and start blogging if you choose.

Choose the best affiliate program

Not sure which affiliate program to choose? Choose a program that aligns with your niche with a product that's in high demand with an affiliate program and company that's well established.

It is not good to target high-paying affiliate programs but to find the affiliate offers and products that will appeal to your audience.

Awareness is key. There are affiliate platforms that don't use outside 3rd party tools and therefore have every tool required built internally.

We are talking about tracking links and marketing funnels & blogging platforms which are essential to your marketing efforts. With various affiliate platforms you may find having to go outside to a 3rd party can become very expensive overall. Choose wisely.

As you peruse products and services or browse through affiliate platforms, always keep in mind that the product be aligned with your future audience.

As the expert in your niche choose an affiliate program that aligns with your brand and income goals.

Now you can go do some research on testimonials of other people's excitement of the product or affiliate programs which will also confirm it's a great product and a great company.

Make sure it's not a fly-by-night product or company. You want a product and company that supplies it that will be around for a long time.

3rdly your list could be internet marketers looking for a solution to their challenges vs health and fitness people who subscribed to your list for exactly that - health solutions. So make sure it's a product that fits in with your list of subscribers.

Does the product pay enough in commissions to make it worth your effort?

We all need to justify our time so make sure the product pays either a high enough percentage or a high enough total amount in commissions to make it worth your time.

Take notice that some products have low front-end prices to make it easier for people to buy into- also known as a funded proposal. So make sure to review the page as to what is in their funnel. Depending on which company you choose for your products and services most are a one off product only with no further upsells

How To Promote Affiliate Links:

There are various ways to promote your affiliate links.

Blogging: When blogging promote your affiliate links. Add to your blog a resource page with various tools and courses and add your affiliate links there.

Build an email list: Write a blog post and send your email list to the blog post that has your affiliate links.

Display banners: Integrate display banners into your blog with affiliate links.

Utilize social media platforms: When posting on social media send them back to your blog posts.

Organic Traffic: - Free traffic. Take up a course on search engine optimization (SEO)and learn how to rank your blog post content at the top of Google search engines using great keywords in your title, descriptions and keyword phrases for YouTube and blogging.

Create YouTube Channel: One of the most significant ways to generate free traffic back to your affiliate links.

YouTube videos have massive traffic-generating potential. Via mobile devices, YouTube reaches more adults during prime time than any cable network.

Create YouTube videos integrating affiliate products that appeal to your audience, then post links back to your content on your blog or hub in the video description.

Email Marketing Tools Are A Must-Have:

A must-have tool is autoresponder software that captures your leads and builds your list. Getresponse or Aweber is a great place to start so you can integrate it into your capture page - landing page.

Stats show that affiliate marketers who use email marketing earn 66.4% more than those who don’t.

Send your email list leads to your blog content.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Find relevant search terms for your website content.

When promoting an offer via a blog post, it is a must to research which keywords someone might use in a search engine to find an answer to a related problem.

Google Ads Keyword Planner is one of the many great free tools that can help.

Your welcome to leave us a comment and share what subject peaked your interest and why?

About The Author

Maria Eves

Founder CEO DigitalAffiliateMarketingHub