Does the world of “Affiliate Marketing” tempt you and you want to learn how to make money with it but don’t have a clue where and how to get started?
If this rings a bell, let’s first learn and understand what affiliate marketing is!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is the process where you earn money or commission by promoting a company’s products or services and drive a sale or push a desired action. You only get the committed commission when you convince the end consumer to take the desired action. Such action can be buying a product, subscribing to a mailing list, redirecting the visitor to the business site, and more.
This is believed to be one of the oldest means of marketing practices. This starts when the business advertises its products or services on the affiliate’s website or social media and is completed when the affiliate persuades the consumer to act based on the affiliate’s recommendation.
Affiliate marketing is inarguably one of the easiest and cheapest ways of advertising and selling a product as you just need to create a connection between the buyer and the seller. The affiliate takes their commission when the promised action is complete, and the deal is closed.
What are the Crucial Components of Affiliate Marketing?
Advertiser – Also known as the retailer, merchant, or the brand; an advertiser is also the party that creates the product for the consumers to buy. This can be a big Fortune 500 company or a startup; there could be anyone behind the affiliate marketing program. All they need is a product to advertise and sell without having to have an active involvement.
Network – Network acts as an intermediary between the merchant and the affiliate and takes your affiliate marketing to an altogether new level. Although the advertiser can directly collaborate with the publisher for promotion of their products, doing this via an affiliate network is immensely beneficial for everyone as the network also serves as a database for a bunch of products for the publisher to choose from.
Publisher/Affiliate – An affiliate or a publisher can be an individual or a managed company that does the marketing of the affiliate products. An affiliate chooses and promotes products or services and convinces its audience of the value of the merchant’s products so that the consumers end up taking the desired action. The resultant outcome can be buying a product, filling a form, subscribing to the mailing list, or clicking on a link. When the consumer ends up doing the intended task, the affiliate earns a fixed commission of the sale value.
Consumer – A consumer is the heart of any affiliate program cycle as there can’t be any sale or commission without the consumer. A consumer is usually the niche audience which is the targeted category for a merchant's product/service and a part of the affiliate's audience. A consumer may or may not know of the affiliate marketing program while buying the product or service as that depends on the want of transparency by the affiliate. However, a consumer needn’t pay anything higher than the typical price of the product.
How to Make Money in Affiliate Marketing (for Affiliates/Publishers)?
To be successful in affiliate marketing, one needs to learn what works and what does not while promoting the products. If you’re looking for answers on “How do I do affiliate marketing and earn well from it”, this is where you’ll find the answers:
- Hold Your Horses – There are many affiliate marketers out there and to survive and cut through the competition, you need to be patient and maintain your composure. While you’re waiting for your website or blog to build, make sure you feed them with quality and credible content that raises awareness and fetches you a loyal audience base.Meanwhile, attend affiliate marketing events, seminars, join online communities of like-minded people and expand your base. All this will eventually contribute to minting big money through affiliate marketing.
- Combine a Mix of Traffic Sources to Drive Sales Leads – The chances of making money online via affiliate marketing only get better when you choose to combine a healthy and diverse mix of traffic sources to the merchant’s website. It is a great strategy to increase sales and generate more affiliate revenue. You can choose to display the merchant’s ad at your website, in your videos, and share on your social media handles too. In a nutshell, the more the sources, the better the outcome!
- Choose Products Wisely – This single step can be a game-changer in your affiliate marketing effort! Select the products to advertise very carefully and based on your audience niche, interest, demographics, and needs. Understand what your audience needs or might be interested in based on your customers’ behavior and choices.Choosing to promote only selected products that interest your audience is highly likely to grow your affiliate income and get your merchant higher sales numbers.
- Zero Down the Right Advertiser – The quality and service of your advertiser’s products are extremely crucial to your affiliate marketing business. Always carefully select your advertiser and go for the ones that offer decent products that are true to their claims. If your audience buys the product on your advice and are unhappy with it, they’ll never act again on your recommendation.
Final Thoughts
Affiliate marketing is an attractive source of passive income. Just create a good website, put heaps of impressive content, build a loyal audience base, and join the affiliate programs to get started. However, doing it alone is an uphill task and no battle is fought alone.
Join an Affiliate Network and witness a surge in your affiliate income. Choose from a commendable list of advertisers and offers that align with your audience’s needs and start making big money online via affiliate programs.
vCommission is India’s leading Global Affiliate Network that houses prolific local and global brands. With a gigantic affiliate network of over 1 million affiliates and stellar advertisers, this is where the real marketing happens!
