Guide To Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular marketing tools for e-commerce platforms in the world. Affiliate marketing is responsible for 16% of global e-commerce platforms sales. The industry of affiliate marketing has also grown for the better of affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketers boast over making upwards of $50,000.

We see links from celebrities and influencers when we use social media sites. These links are provided from different fitness brands, beauty products, food, beverages and even some services. The fact is unsurprising that these celebrities earn from providing these links to their followers and subscribers.

This trend has been bringing the attention of people to have a growing following on social media. When utilized in the right way, affiliate marketing can be a great way of earning without having to work hard.

Affiliate marketing is the new normal for brands. 83% of major brands prefer affiliate marketing paired with digital marketing over traditional marketing tools. This type of marketing is popular and has a better reach than any other pairing of marketing tools these days.

Additionally, successful affiliate marketers are being paid extremely well. When affiliate marketers do things the right way, it helps them earn money easier than getting a job. It takes you away from the grind and provides you with an opportunity to earn through this affiliate marketing program.

So what is affiliate marketing? And how does it actually work? This article will help you navigate through these questions.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing refers to a marketing method in which affiliates aim at driving the products to sell or services for a business. These affiliates pour in their own effort to bring these target audiences and in return are rewarded for the business that they bring in.

This marketing is often termed performance-based marketing. It is based on performance as the affiliates or affiliate marketer are only paid in the case of a customer purchasing the affiliate product or services they are redirecting them towards.

These affiliate marketers are paid on the basis of their performance rather than their efforts to advertise the products. It is a sales tactic where a affiliate commission or other form of rewards is given to affiliate marketers who bring in business to the firm.

One of the best advantages of doing affiliate marketing is that marketing can be scaled according to the choice of the affiliate marketer or the business. Unlike a traditional salesperson who is selling things of a single business, an affiliate marketer do it for more than one business and earn affiliate commissions through these companies.

Affiliate marketers usually provide links from their website of products and services of other businesses. Affiliate marketers are responsible for putting in efforts to promote the affiliate products in order for the sale to occur. They are basically the salesperson to the business who promote their products in return for a affiliate commission or on another basis of payment.

How does Affiliate Marketing work?

The process of an affiliate program starts when an affiliate marketer provides an advertisement or link on their website or social media channels about a business or product. The target audience clicks on the provided link to view the affiliate products or services.

The customer upon clicking the link is redirected to the website of the linked product or service. Let us suppose the target audience clicks on an affiliate link to the shoe brand where she purchases the shoe. What happens from here is the affiliate detailed link is recorded by the site when she makes a purchase.

When the sale is made and the purchase is confirmed, the transaction is credited to your website as an affiliate marketer. Hence you get paid in a affiliate commission or other monetary rewards according to the previous agreement with the said business.

The affiliate programs involve four core components with three parties and an affiliate network. They are explained below with a step-by-step guide of knowing affiliate marketing:

Affiliate Merchant

Affiliate merchants are businesses that are selling their affiliate products or services. They can be any size of business or a ecommerce platform. They can be solo entrepreneurs with a niche market or a big brand with customers around the world. The merchant can be vendors, innovators or retailers. The affiliate merchants can offer both products and services to be sold in this trade or even product idea.

The job of the merchant is made easy by affiliate marketing. They just need to be open for affiliate marketing and invite the marketers for promoting their affiliate products.

They also have to pay these marketers when they make a sale of their products. Affiliate marketing is very beneficial for affiliate merchants because they do not have to put in an effort to make the sale. They simply have to pay the affiliate commission fee to the marketers who made their sale.

Affiliate Networks

Affiliate networks are networks through which the product is connected to the target audiences. Affiliate networks are the places through which affiliate links are provided to the customers by affiliate marketers.

These networks can be social media sites of the affiliate marketer. They can range anywhere from Facebook and Instagram profile to the inclusion of the link in the YouTube video description box of the affiliate marketer.

The affiliate networks can also include websites and blogs of affiliate marketers. They often use organic search engine optimization (use of backlinks and other methods for ranking on top of a search engine), keyword research (Search for keywords to include in their blogs or website) and search engine marketing to optimize their sites. They generate traffic to their affiliate networks and earn through the sale of the affiliate products or services.

Affiliate Marketers

Affiliate marketers are the people who are providing target audiences with affiliate links. They are the people who put in efforts to sell the product or services of the vendor to receive compensation in the form of monetary rewards. They are lead magnets paid for conversion rates.

An affiliate marketer can be promoting affiliate products from different brands. They can associate themselves with more than one brand or vendor and earn by selling their product to the customers.

These affiliate marketers employ affiliate links with various networks that they have available. They use them to promote these affiliate products to the customers in exchange for the affiliate commission they receive.

Customers

Customers are people who purchase the products or services from affiliate links. They can be people who are visiting a blog or website and click on an affiliate product link.

How to earn commissions as an Affiliate Marketer?

Being an affiliate marketer can prove to be an easy side hustle for most people. It can be easy paying work where minimal hard work is demanded. It can be a passive income that can help you get your savings up in no time.

So how do these people earn commissions from being an affiliate marketer? Well, there are two different models that can be employed for being paid. This has to be done in agreement with the affiliate merchant and the affiliate marketer.

It is an inexpensive and fast way of making money without going through any hassle. It is just related to just selling the affiliate product for a passive income.

But there are many complicated ways to get paid with affiliate marketing. There are ways marketers will earn rather than just selling the product through affiliate links. Here are some of the ways to paid by through affiliate marketing:

Pay per sale

Pay per sale is the most followed form of payment in an affiliate marketing structure. It follows a payment model where affiliate marketers are paid on the basis of sales made by them. They are paid on the basis of the link followed by the target audiences and a product or service bought by the customer.

They are paid on a percentage basis of sale made of the affiliate product or service. They are paid for the conversion rates of the target audience from buying the product.

Pay per click

In this type of payment method, the affiliate marketer gets paid for the traffic driven to the site of the merchant. They are paid on the basis of the increase in traffic received from the marketer.

The affiliate marketer needs to share the link to redirect the target audience from their own website to the site of the merchant. They get aid for the increase in the number of people clicking on the merchant’s site rather than buying a product.

Pay per lead

Pay per lead means the merchant paying the marketer when the customer completes the action is completed by the target audience rather than just clicking on the link. These marketers act as a lead magnet for the merchant.

The payment is made when the target audience completes action after following the affiliate link to fill the form, signing up to the website or subscribing to the website.

Example of Amazon Associates program

Amazon Associates program is an affiliation opportunity create by Amazon. Through the help of this marketing program, Amazon aims to allow bloggers to refer target audiences to their website. They will help these bloggers and website holders to earn a certain affiliate commission call the referral fee.

The program boasts to be free for marketer to join. They can create links back to Amazon leading target audiences to buy the products from their website.

Amazon Associate Program provides 10% of the purchase made by the customer as referral fees to the affiliate marketer. They believe that it is convenient for customers to be redirected from a trusted site.