You might probably be thinking of building your side-hustle and realized to start and earn from affiliate marketing. I was also on the same place when I started looking for ways how to earn online before I found affiliate marketing.
How difficult is it to start affiliate marketing? Starting an affiliate marketing is very easy. You just need to add the product link to your site/channel and anyone who clicks it and makes a purchase, you will earn a commission. HOWEVER, it takes some time before you can start earning from your affiliate programs.
It may take you from a month to a year before you can start earning from those affiliate programs.
In this post, I’ll outline the relevant information you need to consider when starting an affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing and how it works?
Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products or services. The affiliate simply need to search for an affiliate program from a company or person, then promote that product or services and earn a commission for each sale the company or person makes.
This is also one of the ways how most bloggers make money aside from ad revenue which they are earning from their websites.
Affiliate marketing has so much potential in terms of adding revenue if you wanted to add to your website or channel or you are now planning to start your online business.
How do affiliate marketers get paid?
This may vary depending on the affiliate programs that the companies are offering:
- Per sale
- Per lead
- Per click
- Per install
Pay per sale
This is the typical affiliate marketing structure that you can see online. In this program, you will get a commission everytime the company sold a product to a customer thru your site or channel. The best example for this is the Amazon Affiliate program.
You will earn commission every time someone has purchased a product from Amazon through your site or channel.
Pay per lead
This is an affiliate marketing structure wherein you are being paid for every conversion of customers. The affiliate must be able to persuade potential customers to visit the merchant’s website or subscribing to a news letter. ClickFunnels is one of the company that offers this kind of affiliate program.
Pay per click
This kind of affiliate program requires customer to reach certain clicks before the affiliate can earn commission. The affiliate is paid based on the increase in web traffic.
Pay per install
This is usually the case for gaming or app niche, the affiliate will earn a commission for every time the customer has purchased from the merchant’s website and install the related game or application.
Why be an affiliate marketer?
There a couple of reasons why you have to consider starting affiliate marketing:
- No or little expertise needed
- Low entry barrier
- No or low risk involved
- Passive nature
- Multiple options to choose from
- High potential income
- Performance based rewards
- No customer support needed
No or little expertise needed
There are no specific requirements needed in order for you to get started in affiliate marketing. You can apply to different affiliate programs of each merchant. However, please bear in mind that there are some merchants who require specific number of page views or traffic before they approve your application.
Low entry barrier
Everyone can start affiliate marketing, you can either create a website or youtube channel.Please note that both your website and your channel still need some traffic in order for you to reach out to you audience and be able to get clicks to your affiliate links.
There are some people who just tried creating a FB ads that includes an affiliate link, I don’t personally suggest that as it doesn’t create a continuous income and requires upfront cost in order for you to run the FB ads to reach your desired audience.
The key to affiliate marketing is building a brand and trust from your audience.
No or low risk involved
All you have to do is add a link to your website or your channel and every time someone used that link to purchase a product or service, you will get a commission. No risk is involved in doing such thing.
Passive nature
The great thing about affiliate marketing is you can earn while you are sleeping, once it has been setup to your website or channel you don’t have to do anything at all.
Please note that most of the affiliate links have a cookie duration (this is the duration in which the affiliate link will give you any commission for everytime someone purchase a product to your link, once it expires, you won’t get any commission at all)
With this, you might need to update your post from time to time if you are promoting the affiliate links through your website.
Multiple options to choose from
There are thousands of merchants who are offering affiliate program to affiliates just to promote their product or services. This allows almost every niche in blogging or youtube to choose whatever they wanted to promote. Thus, it gives different options to each content creator for monetization.
High potential income
The affiliate program can range from commission rate of 1% to 60%, this may vary depending on the type of products or services being promoted.
For Amazon Affiliate program, affiliates may earn up to 10% depending on the type of the specific products purchased in Amazon.
We found that Hostinger Affiliate program (this is a web hosting software that serviced those who wanted to host their websites) offers as high as 60% commission rate per eligible sale to its affiliates.
Imagine if you can promote several of these from your site or channel, this can really push your monthly revenues to the roof.
There are other affiliate programs that you can search in the internet that can give a better commission rate and terms depending on your niche.
Performance based rewards
The more traffic you can bring to your site or channel, the higher you can earn from affiliate marketing. This is a great tool to use as you start growing your site.
Affiliate marketing is purely based on your performance, the more you establish the trust with your audience the more you can earn from your affiliate programs you linked.
No customer support needed
You don’t have to worry about any customer support. The merchants have to deal with selling the product or services. All you have to do is promote the product or service and let the customer decide whether they will purchase the product or services. You don’t have to deal with customer support or even unsatisfied customers.
Any complaints from the product by the customer will be handled by the merchant.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is very easy to start and has so much potential, however, keep in mind that in order for you to start earning you have to work hard in building the traffic and audience of your website or channel.
Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme as it is just similar with other businesses, it requires persistence to gain the trust of your readers and audience, before you can start earning from it.
