What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is the marketing done by an individual to gain a commission on the sales from a business owner.

Businesses allow individuals to promote their products or services by utilizing their promotional assets. They are paying affiliates for every single customer.

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where an affiliate earns a commission for promoting another company's or brand's products or services.

This is done by sharing unique links or codes that track the sales or leads generated from the affiliate's efforts.

How Affiliate Marketing works?

There are four things involved in affiliate marketing. A company, an affiliate, customers and the commission.

Here's how it works:

The Merchant/Brand:

A company that has products or services they want to sell. It can be an established company or a startup.

Many companies instead of searching individual affiliates they prefer to add their brands on an affiliate marketplace.

An affiliate marketplace is a marketplace where both the company and affiliate can search as per their needs and niche.

Many online platforms has setup marketplaces.Such as Clickbank, Share and Sales and many others.

Hence a merchant, brand, marketplace, company or any businesses can be considered as a merchant.

The Affiliate:

Someone who promotes the merchant's products or services on their platform (website, blog, social media, etc.).

An Affiliate not only who promote but also generate leads and sells for the merchant.

Some company pay just for the leads. Merchant pay the affiliate a fixed amount for a lead. That is the cost per click for the merchant.

But normally the companies pay for the sales made by an affiliate.

You can also signup at a marketplace and choose the brand that you want to promote or sell. In most of the marketplaces signing is free of cost.

To start affiliate marketing you don't have to invest money. But you have to invest your time for making strategies and promoting the products.

The Consumer:

Someone who sees the affiliate's promotion, clicks on the affiliate link, and makes a purchase or takes a desired action (e.g., signing up for a free trial).

A consumer may be your known or unknown. You can find consumer on your website or blog by getting their email address. You can also search on social media.

You can also develop your consumer base offline in your local area. Although it is more time consuming.

The Commission:

The merchant pays the affiliate a commission for each sale or lead generated through their link or code.

Affiliate marketing can be a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate. The merchant benefits from increased brand awareness, website traffic, and sales, while the affiliate earns income for their marketing efforts.

Ways to do affiliate marketing

There are many different ways to do affiliate marketing, but some of the most common methods include:

3 Simple steps to start affiliate marketing

Content marketing:

Creating blog posts, articles, or videos that review or recommend the merchant's products or services.

Content marketing is a powerful tool to attract and engage your target audience, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales.

Start content marketing by knowing your audience, defining your goals and choosing the right content formats.

Then create your content accordingly. Don't forget to promote your created content and analyzing the results.

If the results are not satisfactory in a certain time period change your strategies.

Social media marketing:

Sharing affiliate links on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Is it that simple?

Social media marketing is not just sharing affiliate links and spamming it. You may be banned.

For starting social media marketing utilize content marketing strategies.

Create engaging content, valuable and informative posts apart from promotional posts.

You may also posts some entertaining posts relevant to your products.

Bassically you have develop a strong relationship with your audience and make them your loyal followers.

Email marketing:

Sending emails to a subscriber list that promote the merchant's products or services.

Applying right strategies you can gain a lot by email marketing.

Read 7 Email Marketing Tips

Paid advertising:

Using paid advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to promote affiliate links.

Many experienced affiliates use paid advertising for generating sales. But it may be risky in initial phase. You may spend more money in advertisements and may earn less commission then the money you have spend on ads.

Hence use paid advertising if you are capable of taking risk or you are confident that you may earn by advertising.

Final Thought

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn money online, but it's important to choose the right products or services to promote and to build a strong following before you can expect to see significant results.