Affiliate marketing is a scalable and easy way to make online money. You’ll be surprised by just how much this 6-billion worth industry can serve as your cash-making machine. If you are looking for another income stream that will give you passive profits, affiliate marketing is a good way to go.
But hey, take it easy. Fetching even small size of the billion-dollar pie isn’t as simple as flooding your blog with affiliate links. In fact, many affiliate marketing neophytes found themselves lost by the coaxed promises of blogs and videos on the Internet.
You need to learn some affiliate marketing fundamentals before rushing into how you can actually earn from it. If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing just yet, here’s a brief digest of what it is. Keep your eyes on the screen!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
A large number of independent entrepreneurs, online publications, and independent creators have been using affiliate marketing to drive tens to hundreds of thousands of profits every single year.
The Internet is filled with frivolous marketing testimonies of their so-called “real experience” with a certain product. While some were true, some were sponsored affiliate marketers trying to entice you with sweet words to get you to buy the product.
Affiliate marketing is pretty simple on the surface. You basically just need to find a product that you’d like to promote, talk about it in a way that others will be compelled to buy it, and then give your viewers a way to buy the product by putting up your link.
Every time someone clicks and buys through your link, you will earn money (commissions). The more referrals or sales you make, the higher the amount of money you can earn. Your commissions can earn from cents to thousands of dollars.
If done right, affiliate marketing could actually earn you more money than your regular 9-5 job.
In affiliate marketing, you have no responsibility for the delivery of a service or product. So, you have no other task but to attract leads and convert them into customers.
If you are a beginner in the space and are looking for ways of monetizing your website and social media accounts, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest ways to begin. You don’t need any marketing degree or academic qualifications to be successful in the field.
2 Simples Steps to Get Started
This method with take you a bit of hard work and consistency, but here are the austere ways you can make money with affiliate marketing as a beginner in 2022:
Step 1: Identify what you want to promote
Rushing into affiliate marketing to catch the latest fads can get you into trouble. Crazes end faster than they emerge, after all. So, before getting started, you need to have a clear conception of what you want to promote— is it a product or a service?
If you want to promote a product, one of the best go-to online affiliate marketplaces is ClickBank. After you sign-up, you will be welcomed by numerous products you can promote, as well as different product categories to choose from.
Another marketplace you can go to if you want to promote a product is Amazon. Go to Amazon Associates and sign up as an Amazon affiliate.
On the other hand, if you want to promote a service in your affiliate marketing business, Shopify, GetResponse, and BlueHost are good places to go.
You need to determine what you want to promote— service or product— to know how you could effectively advertise them.
In the process, you will need to choose a niche and analyze competitive landscapes to learn about the available programs. This is necessary to figure out a sustainable affiliate marketing strategy and a content plan that will drive your readers crazy in getting them.
Step 2: Traffic
There are quite a few types of traffics to focus on, including:
- Free Traffic
- Cheap Traffic
- Paid Traffic
Free Traffic
As long as you are willing to be patient, affiliate marketing won’t cost you a fortune. Attracting leads can be done for free because many outlets are freely accessible for anyone.
There’s a vast array of gratis traffic sources that can help you gain more and more visitors, one of the most lucrative ways is through YouTube.
Quite a lot of YouTubers are into affiliate marketing right now and are making big profits by doing it. If you are afraid of having to show your face, don’t worry. There isn’t a need for you to do that.
Even as a beginner, if you know your way how to disrupt the YouTube algorithm to make your video rank, you can get hundreds and thousands of viewers in no time. These viewers will be your target market on the platform.
For instance, you decided to promote a tangible product under the gaming niche.
After signing up in Amazon Associates, look up the products (computer, keyboard, mouse, and the likes) you are using personally for gaming. Get your affiliate link to the product/s and put them up in the description box of your YouTube video.
Building up a new YouTube channel just for the sake of affiliate marketing might seem to be a hassle, but it works and can provide you with a profitable affiliate marketing business over time.
Cheap Traffic
To get traffics without hurting your pocket too much with expensive advertisements, you could run your own website with BlueHost for only about $2.95 per month. Of course, with a website, you are going to need an article.
To convert your readers into a customer, you have to find a way to connect with their human emotions to find out their sweet spot. Put yourself in their shoes and identify the things they would love to hear.
Try visiting other websites that promote the product you are eyeing. This will give you an insight that can serve as your reference.
Keep in mind that the headline of your article should be attractive enough to fire up the interest of viewers to check out your website. Find a topic and keyword that possesses great search engine potential.
You could try using TubeBuddy to find high-volume keyword phrases that have low, competitive rates. Or, if you have already established your websites and harbor loyal readers, set your focus on the article’s content.
Create a grammatical-error-free, quality article with a 3% to 0% plagiarism score. The article should cater to the needs of your target audience. Insert your affiliate links in the text smoothly.
Once you create a website and post an article, you can engage with relevant online communities and social media groups or pages. Put up a brief copywriting or advertising caption to present your website link. This can help boost your audience globally.
Let’s skip paid traffic since it’s not a beginner-friendly way to acquire traffic for affiliate marketing.
Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?
Affiliate marketing is one heck of a lucrative business— if executed the right way. However, it takes a commitment of time and effort to make it a real profitable business.
Getting into affiliate marketing is a lot of work at first, but once you’ve set this passive income stream, you’ll have nothing else to do but to wait for profits to come even while you sleep.
Before diving into the affiliate marketing bandwagon this 2022, make sure to conduct thorough research.
