It is a great way to earn money online. Earning Through Affiliate marketing is a performance-based job, where your earnings will depend on how much profit you have given to the brand through your marketing efforts. 

The idea is to promote products sold by other brands on your website.

If your marketing skills can get them a customer who makes a purchase, then you get a commission for that. Therefore, you can earn while you sleep.

This business is actually based on the concept of revenue sharing. The brand which wants to improve its product sales can develop an affiliate program where it offers an incentive to all the promoters of its product.

If you are not a product owner, then you become a part of such an affiliate program and promote products that you think have value. This can be a good source of some passive income.

Parties involved in Affiliate marketing

If we talk about actual marketing then there are two parties involved. One is the creator and owner of the product and the second is the affiliate marketer.

Basically, the promotion of the products and marketing across different parties is what affiliate marketing is all about and each party receives an amount based on the contributions they make. 

Interestingly, you can earn from this sharing revenue even when you are the product creator as well as the marketer.

To know more about the parties involved in this business it is important you know some details about them. 

# Merchant: This party is the first part of the chain. A merchant is also known as, creator, the one who creates the product.

Merchants are not very actively involved in affiliate marketing; they just have to own a product that can be sold. Vendors, retailers, sellers, brands are also merchants.

# Affiliate: This party is also known by the name of the publisher. An affiliate may be an individual or an entire company.

They mainly try to convince potential customers about the value of the product so that they buy it.

The commission earned through this can range from a few hundred dollars to millions. 

# Consumer: They are the customers or buyers who complete the cycle. Without them, there will be no sales and hence no commissions.

Whether a consumer knows that he is part of an affiliate program or not will depend on how much an affiliate keeps things transparent. 

# Network: A network may or may not be considered as part of the affiliate marketing.

However, they sometimes act as the middle-man between the affiliate and the merchant.

In multiple cases, an affiliate might have to pass through the affiliate network to be able to promote a product.

A popular and large affiliate network is the brand Amazon. The Amazon Associates is the network that allows the affiliates to promote products sold on their platform.

The Affiliate payment terms you should know

When in the affiliate marketing field, there are certain terms related to the payment which you should know of before starting. 

1. Pay Per Sale (PPS)

As the name suggests, in this scheme you receive payment for every sale that happens due to the marketing you have done. 

2. Pay per Click (PPC)

The money is based on the number of visitors to your affiliate website.

For every visitor who visits your site and gets redirected to the advertiser’s website will fetch you some amount.

3. Pay Per Lead (PPL)

In this, the visitor has to enter his/her contact information on the website of the advertiser for you to earn money. 

What role to play in affiliate marketing?

To earn from affiliate marketing, you can take up the role of a merchant or an affiliate. Most are seen starting as an affiliate as it is easier.

Once you have earned enough to create products of your own, you can become a merchant and have other affiliates do the marketing for your product.

The process of becoming a merchant has been summarised in four simple steps.

Becoming a Merchant

Step 1: A Product Idea

The first step towards any beginning is to have an idea. If you have worked as an affiliate then you will be exposed to different products that are in demand. This might be a great source of ideas. 

Getting ideas is an easy task, but coming up with a purely original idea is difficult.

If your intention is to generate income from affiliate marketing, then it is advisable that you work on the existing products and services.

Find ways to improve the existing services.  

You are always free to choose a topic that interests you the most. The focus should be on things that people will be paying for.

Step 2: Idea validation

It is important to have the idea validated to avoid trying to sell something that people will not be interested in.

So, you need to find people who are willing to pay for your idea.

Make sure the people you find are genuinely interested in the product and will spend their money on it.

You also need to give them a chance to buy. You can propose to build the product on receiving a certain number of genuine orders.

Once assured that people want the product, start creating it. 

Step 3: Product Creation

It is always good to start with the digital products where the initial investment is lesser as compared to creating a physical product.

The product should be created in such a way that appeals to the consumers.

The affiliates should be convinced that they can earn out of marketing for this product.

One great product, to begin with, can be online courses, tutorial videos, eBooks or videos, and podcasts.

These products are trending in this digital world and can generate some decent profit once it starts selling. 

Step 4: Find Affiliates

Finding affiliate program partners has now been made easy, thanks to technology.

There are some popular platforms, Gumroad and Digital product Delivery which connect the merchant with affiliate program partners and help them collect their commission. 

Finding affiliates with a large audience is the tough part of this step.

Your earnings will depend on how far the information about your product can reach. 

Becoming an Affiliate

Step 1: Product Reviewing

This is easier than brainstorming for an idea or creating one as a merchant. On a daily basis, we use numerous products that we like.

Now you just have to talk about it in the public and tell them how you gained from the product and point out the good factors. 

You can start with any product out there, cosmetics, food items, games, and toys, or apparel.

If you are into reading, you can review books that you have read too. Comparison reviews are known to work best. Customers understand better. 

Step 2: Create an E-mail list

This is considered as one of the best marketing schemes. Ask for the visitors’ email addresses when they visit your site.

In exchange provide with something valuable, like a course on how to make your website famous, or similar things. 

The email address you collect will be related to very specific topics.

So, with a few hundred emails also you can improve sales.

Also, keep in mind to keep the audience engaged by sending them regular updates.

The updates should be about sales, reviews, comparisons, or simply a gist of new content on your website.

Don’t keep sending emails on the same topic.

Step 3: Live webinars

People prefer to see live demos or reviews before buying any product.

Seeing a live presentation is always better than reading a review on the web.

Create a simple page where people can sign up and be a part of the webinar. 

A week or so before the webinar you need to promote it also. You can do so on social media and your website.

Google hangouts can be used to host the webinar free of cost. 

In the webinar first, introduce the product, then list out its features one by one.

Share your own experience of using the product and explain both pros and cons of the product.

The goal is to convince the viewers to buy the product.

Step 4: PPC advertising

Paid advertising is a great way to increase margins. However, you can think about this only when you have gained a good position in the affiliate marketing business.

PPC advertising is one way to earn and you can use it to make more sales.

The fastest way to earn is to get people to sign up for the webinars you conduct. 

Tips on how to become an affiliate marketing

Patience

In affiliate marketing, there are many works that need to be done. Hence you need to be patient in this business.

You will have to upload quality content on the website, attend webinars and affiliate marketing events, join discussion forums, and online communities. 

Select attractive products

Don’t promote every product that you come across. It will be difficult to focus on all products and it won’t be of any use.

So, pick a few products which are unique and in demand. Such products have a greater chance of a sale and therefore, are more profitable.

Focus on targeted traffic

Attracting the visitor to your site is important. You can do that in the following ways:

1. Article marketing

2. Email marketing

3. Free advertising

4. Paid advertising

Put attractive ad links with graphics so that visitors can easily spot it on your website. 

Demand for product

Before choosing a product for marketing you have to do an elaborate research on the demand.

If the traffic on your website is of a decent level, then observe the traffic and sales from time to time and analyze the customers’ choices and behavior.

Promote those products towards which your customers are inclined. 

Read More Blog: – How to become a micro-influencer?

Latest methods and techniques

It is a very competitive environment where you need to stay updated about the latest techniques and methods.

Similar to digital marketing trends, affiliate marketing is also dynamic.

Hence, staying up to date is important in order to generate income.

Using tools

For your ad campaigns to be successful a great amount of market research, competitor research, and tracking is needed.

These can be done efficiently with the use of tools. Here are a few tools which can help you improve the campaign:

• BuzzSumo
• Feedly
• Buffer
• ClickMeter
• VigLink
• Flippa

Selecting the right advertiser

The advertiser’s website you select is an important factor that decides your business growth.

Customers should be satisfied with the products you are promoting, otherwise, your credibility might be questioned.

Make sure the customer service is reliable while you promote the company or brand. 

Test, measure and keep track

All actions should be tested and measure the performance to know which marketing scheme works and which doesn’t. Track the results you get.

This will help you to decide if your actions need to be changed or you can continue the same way. 

Also, compare your methods with your competitors to know better. 

How much can be earned through affiliate marketing?

The affiliates can be categorized into various groups based on their income. 

• Total beginners mostly have no income yet as they are still building a customer base.
• Low-level affiliates are the ones with a maximum income of $300 per day.
• Intermediate affiliates are the ones who earn in the range of $300 to $3000 per day.
• High-level affiliates have income much higher than $3000 on a daily basis. 
• Super high affiliates are experts in this business. Their income is above $10000 per day. 

The above numbers are estimated average. The profit will not be constant throughout the year.

Persistence is important in this business. The right niche and perfect strategy have helped people grow overnight.

Once you know what the market demands and how to gather customers for the products, you are good to go.

Also, look out for the niches which can generate a higher commission on sales.