At some point in your life, you must have crossed paths with someone
who posts stories about how he or she has made money by just selling a
few products. If not this then you would have heard about the Amazon
Affiliate Program, Flipkart Affiliate Marketing, or Shopify Affiliate
Program.
An affiliate marketing program is an arrangement in which a business
pays a commission for sending traffic and/or sales to another business
or influencer (“Affiliate”). This can be achieved through web content,
social media, or product integration. Affiliate marketing is one of the
best ways to monetize your blog, especially if you're not selling products
or services. Joining any of the affiliate marketing programs will give
you exclusive access to new content and special offers for your
audience while earning more.
The Internet has increased awareness of affiliate marketing business.
Amazon has also popularised this practice by creating affiliate
marketing programs. In this program, websites and bloggers place
links to products being reviewed or discussed on Amazon pages in order
to receive advertising fees when purchases are made. In this sense,
affiliate marketing is essentially a performance-based marketing
program that outsources the sales process across a vast network. It
predates the Internet, but analytics and cookies have turned it into a
billion-dollar industry in the digital marketing world. Companies running
affiliate marketing programs can track the links that generate leads
and see how many convert to sales through internal analytics. E-
commerce retailers who want to reach a wider audience of internet users
and shoppers can hire affiliates. An affiliate can have multiple websites
or email marketing lists. The more websites and mailing lists an affiliate
has, the bigger its network. Entrusted partners communicate and
promote the products offered on the e-commerce platform within their
network. Affiliates do this by placing banner and text ads, posting links
on their websites, and sending emails to their clients. Businesses use
advertising in the form of articles, videos, and images to draw the
attention of their audience to their services or products.
Types of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached Affiliate Marketing
These are basic pay-per-click affiliate marketing campaigns with no
presence or authority in the niche of the product they are promoting.
There is no relationship between you and the end user. All you do is
show your affiliate link to someone via Google Adwords, Facebook Ads,
etc. in hopes that they will click on your link and purchase your product.
This type of affiliate marketing is attractive to many people because it
does not require presence or authority. It takes time to build a reputation
and trust online with certain groups of people. However, many people
are afraid to work on a blog or website, or simply don’t have the time.
Related Affiliate Marketing
As the name suggests, related affiliate marketing involves the promotion
of products or services by an affiliate with some type of relationship to
the offering. Here you have some kind of online presence, either through
a blog, videos, or on social media—and you have affiliate links for
products related to your niche and these are the products that you don’t
actually use. In this case, the affiliate has expertise and influence that is
good enough to drive traffic, and their level of authority makes them a
credible source. However, the affiliate provides no guarantee about the
use of the product or service.
Involved Affiliate Marketing
Involved affiliate marketing means that you use a product or service,
believe in it wholeheartedly, and personally recommend it to your
audience in your content. This type of marketing creates a deeper
connection between affiliates and the products or services they are
promoting. They have used or are currently using the product and are
confident they can share their positive experience with others. Their
experience is the advertisement! On the other hand, since they make
endorsements, their reputation could be impacted by problems resulting
from the offer.
How to make money with affiliates?
Affiliates are provided with a unique link (“Affiliate Link”) which can
typically be clicked on using cookies. The cookie then tracks the user to
see if they have made a purchase. If you do this within a certain period
of time, the affiliate will earn a commission. Each cookie has a cookie life
that defines how long the cookie tracks a users online activity. For
example, if the cookie is valid for 30 days, the referrer must make a
purchase within 30 days of clicking the affiliate link to receive the reward.
Otherwise, you will lose track of your leads.
If you are interested in starting an affiliate program, there are many
different types of affiliate programs and you should choose the best one
for your business. You can also learn about affiliate marketing for
beginners provided by the top digital marketing institute.
Now let’s take a look at the types of affiliate programs.
Types of Affiliate Programs
If you want to promote your product or service, you can choose among
the best affiliate marketing programs being widely used by affiliate
marketers. When choosing an affiliate program, you should consider the
platform where your audience spends most of their time. For example,
does your buyer persona typically read blog posts, scroll through
Facebook, or use search engines when looking for new products? Let’s
take a look at some common types of affiliate programs. This will allow
you to start brainstorming for your own marketing efforts.
Search Affiliates
The program allows freelancers and entrepreneurs to pay their own
money to promote their offers in search results and other online
advertising platforms such as Facebook ads. If you want to make sure
your affiliate is following its search and advertising guidelines, your
affiliate has a background in SEO and A/B testing to see which ads
result in the most referrals for you — and more ROI for them.
Bloggers and Influencers
If your industry has impressive bloggers and social media influencers
who regularly engage with your ideal buyer personas, consider
partnering with them. For example, if you sell kitchen appliances, reach
out to recipe bloggers or YouTube influencers and ask if they’d like to
feature your products as a “recommended tool” in their next recipe post.
Ideally, this would result in your target audience taking a look at your
website, and if they like the products you offer, you could provide
additional revenue to the influencer.
Review Sites
If you offer a more expensive niche product or service, most buyers
should research the subject before purchasing. In that case, we
recommend researching the best review sites for your product or
service. Contact the company or author that published the article and ask if they would be interested in providing an affiliate link to their
product or service within the text.
Coupon Sites
If you have new products or services that are not popular in the market,
you can try joining a coupon site for a limited time. If you don’t want to
lose money by offering a discount on your product, it’s a good idea to get
first-time buyers to visit your website and become your brand’s
ambassador.
Email Marketing
This is best for small quantities. While you don’t want to mass email
customers who aren’t interested in your product or service, this can be
an effective method if you think properly about who is receiving your
emails. For example, if you sell design tools, you can work with your
marketing agency to ask them to include a link to your website in the
emails you send to your design clients. This allows clients to leverage
the tools to create higher-quality content while providing an additional
revenue stream for agencies.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money full-
time or as a side income.
Affiliate marketing is evolving with time. There was a time when blogging
and email lists were considered as the main ways for sharing affiliate
links, but now social media is also being widely used by influencers to
earn considerable income promoting affiliate products.
Whichever method you choose, you just have to ensure that the
products you share are pertinent to your audience’s needs, and steer
clear of any dishonest or illegal practices.
