How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

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If you want to make an alternative stream of income online, then affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to do it.

Affiliate marketing is easy to get into, and it can set you up with a really solid source of passive income. With the right strategies, anyone can start to make money as a marketing affiliate.

If you want to start making money while you sleep, then it’s time to join an affiliate network. Follow this guide for everything you need to know about getting started with affiliate marketing and taking full advantage of this easy source of revenue.

1. What is Affiliate Marketing?
2. Why Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?
3. Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?
4. How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make?
5. How to Get Started With Affiliate Marketing
6. What You Need for Affiliate Marketing
7. How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
8. Tips to Increase Affiliate Sales
9. Become a Professional Affiliate marketer Today
10. Conclusion

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission by selling a product or service that someone else offers. As an affiliate partner, you are rewarded with a commission for each sale that you generate for the business.

You can also get affiliate programs that reward you for things like leads, clicks to a website, app downloads, or free-trial users, but generally, an affiliate is rewarded for sales.

Affiliate marketers are people who promote other brands and products for a living. Pretty much anyone can become an affiliate marketer, and it’s a great way to make an extra income through an effortless side hustle. Although, you can absolutely build up a solid 6-figure business from home through affiliate marketing.

Check out the webinar above for some expert insights on using affiliate marketing to create a 6 figure business from home.

Why Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?

Making money with affiliate marketing is pretty simple to do. Affiliate programs are generally free to join, and (usually) anyone can join them. This makes it easy to get started with an affiliate program.

Once you get started, one of the major benefits of affiliate marketing is that it can result in a steady stream of passive revenue.

Let’s say you have an affiliate link on a web page somewhere. As long as you keep that page up to date, this affiliate link will continue to bring you an income for years to come. The more affiliate programs you have running, the more income you can make.

Yes, affiliate marketing will require you to promote your affiliate programs – there is some work involved. However, once this is out there you can start making money through affiliates in your sleep.

There are a couple of reasons why affiliate marketing has become such a steadily growing industry. These include:

  • Affiliate marketing is easy to execute: You don’t need any expert knowledge or experience to successfully join an affiliate program
  • Affiliate marketing is low-risk: It’s a commission-based model that doesn’t really require any investment. You might not become rich quickly with affiliate marketing, but it’s very difficult to lose out.
  • Affiliate marketing is easy to scale: It’s easy to grow your affiliate marketing revenue as a single person because all of your existing affiliate campaigns will continue to generate revenue in the background. This makes affiliate marketing a great passive income strategy.

Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

Affiliate Marketing is absolutely one of the best ways to make a passive income. Not only is it relatively easy to make money with affiliate marketing, but the whole industry is steadily growing. In fact, the affiliate marketing industry is expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2022.

Affiliate marketing is also a really easy way to make a profit because it’s such a low to no-cost venture.

How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make?

When it comes to affiliate marketing, the sky’s the limit. Affiliates generally earn a commission rate between 5% to 30% of each sale. Low-level affiliates can earn up to $300 a day, while some “super affiliates” can earn over $10,000 a day. Of course, this is all relative to how popular your affiliate marketing business is and what kind of affiliate program you’re part of.

How to Get Started With Affiliate Marketing

In the most basic sense, you make money with affiliate marketing in three steps:

  1. You recommend a product or service to your audience by means of an affiliate link
  2. Your audience purchases this product or service through your affiliate link
  3. You get paid a commission for the sales your affiliate link generated

Pretty simple right?

It is, but there is more to successful affiliate marketing than this.

First, you need to have two things in place to make money through affiliate programs. These are:

  • An audience that belongs to a niche
  • Affiliate products to promote

Without this, affiliate marketing just isn’t possible. Once you have these two things secured, there are no limits as to how you make money as an affiliate marketer.

If you want to become an affiliate marketer, here are the first steps to take.

1. Choose a Niche

The first thing you need to do is pick a niche. It’s important to understand that some niches are more profitable than others. For example, finance is more profitable than food.

Amazon affiliate commissions

Above: example of different affiliate commission rates based on product niches

Having a clear niche is necessary for being able to attract and build up an audience. Your niche shouldn’t be too broad, and it should allow you to target very specific people. Successful affiliate marketers don’t necessarily need a big niche, instead, they just need to have a very engaged niche that they understand and can tap into completely.

It’s always a good idea to choose a niche that you’re genuinely interested in. This will allow you to promote affiliate links more authentically. It will also keep you interested in what you’re doing.

Great affiliate marketers aren’t shady salespeople – they’re honest and genuinely believe in what they’re promoting.

2. Create a Platform to Gather Your Audience

Now you will need a platform that allows you to build up your audience. The most typical affiliate marketing approach is through a website or blog, although you could also use YouTube, social media, courses, and events, or any other online channel to promote your affiliate links.

A blog or a YouTube channel are generally the best places to focus because they allow you to publish affiliate links that will stay evergreen and attract continual traffic. You can always promote your affiliate links on social media too, but these will soon get lost underneath new social media content. Using a combination of platforms is the best approach.

tech YouTube channel

3. Choose Affiliate Products to Promote

Now that you’ve got your website set up, it’s time to start promoting your affiliate products. Once you’ve got your niche in place, choosing your affiliate products should be pretty easy.

The easiest way to find affiliate products is to join an affiliate network. These are networks that connect affiliate marketers with brands that run affiliate programs. Both brands and affiliate marketers make more money out of this, so it’s a win-win relationship.

Here are some of the most popular affiliate marketing networks you can join:

Alternatively, you could sign up with brands directly. Think of a product you use and Google it alongside “affiliate program”. In many cases, you’ll find that a lot of your favorite brands have their own affiliate programs. And if they don’t have one, the product is probably available as an Amazon affiliate.

As you will see, there are many brands and products that you can choose from as an affiliate marketer. Get creative, and choose products that match your audience’s interests.

Magic Spoon Affiliate

What You Need for Affiliate Marketing

Once you’ve got your website set up and you have your affiliate links, it’s time to get those affiliate links out there to start making money!

While there are many different ways that you can do this, there are two essential things you will need for promoting your affiliate links. These are:

  • Traffic/reach
  • An email list

As long as you have these two things, you can start to make money as an affiliate marketer.

This is because you can get your affiliate links seen by people who visit your website, social media pages, YouTube channel, etc. Or, you can send out your affiliate links via email marketing.

In order to do this, you will need to focus on the following strategies.

SEO

SEO is the most valuable tool for any affiliate marketer. Let’s say you have a blog post that ranks at the top of Google search results. You will be able to get loads of traffic continually landing on that blog post, and clicking on your affiliate links. And if you keep that blog post up to date, it can stay at the top spot for many years. This won’t cost you anything, and it will allow your affiliate links to continually make money.

Besides just getting lots of traffic, you also get high-quality traffic with SEO. For example, if your affiliate link is selling a vacuum cleaner, you can optimize your post for a phrase like “best vacuum cleaner”. Whoever searches for this is looking for the best vacuum cleaner to buy, so if they land on your page, you can direct them to your affiliate link vacuum cleaner.

Google affiliate articles

Basically, if you optimize your website properly and get your SEO tactics down, you’ll be able to win at affiliate marketing.

The only problem is there is A LOT of competition out there, so ranking for the right keywords can be tricky. And there are a lot of different factors that go into SEO. These include:

  • Optimizing your web pages for the right keywords
  • Making sure the technical aspects of your site are working well (such as the loading speed or mobile optimizations)
  • Ensuring your content is SEO-friendly and answers the search term correctly
  • Getting backlinks
  • And many, many more ranking factors

Here are a couple of helpful tips to improve your blog for SEO.

However, if you really want to get great SEO results, the best solution is to work with an SEO expert. At Wishpond, we offer complete SEO services to help you rank for the best keywords. Book a demo to find out more.

Paid Advertising

You can’t always get your blog posts to the top. If this is the case, you can use paid ads to bring you traffic.

Paid advertising will allow you to get your affiliate links in front of the right people for more traffic and more sales. The only problem is that paid ads can be expensive, so you need to make sure your ad spend doesn’t overpower your affiliate income.

By using a platform like Brax, you can run affordable native ads that help you get the best possible ROI for each campaign.

Building an Email List

Building up a mailing list is something that all businesses need to do.

As an affiliate marketer, your mailing list is one of your most valuable assets. Once you capture an email address, you have that email forever. You can then target these emails with strategic content that markets your affiliate products or services.

Here are a couple of tactics that you can use to generate new leads and build up your mailing list:

  • Popups: Strategically placed popups on your website are a great way to capture emails. Make sure you offer some kind of value that entices people to sign up to your mailing list.
  • Lead magnets: You could offer something like a free eBook to anyone that enters their name and email address. Just make sure that this content appeals to your target audience.
  • Giveaways: Even though you’re trying to sell affiliate products, you could also run a giveaway to generate new leads. Choose a prize that your target audience will be interested in, and get them to enter their name and email address for a chance to win.

popup

These are just a few strategies that you can use to gather more email subscribers. With a tool like Wishpond, you can build landing pages, create popups, set up online forms, run social giveaways, contests, and way more.

How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

Now that you’ve got all your essentials set up, it’s time to start making money with affiliate marketing. Here’s what you need to do.

Create Content that Generates Affiliate Revenue

The role of an affiliate marketer is to get users to discover the right products for their needs through high-quality traffic.

You can’t just write up a bunch of content and randomly insert affiliate links. Instead, you have to carefully plan your content to make sure it reaches your target audience and adds value to them. To do this, you will have to really understand your audience and create content that matches their intent.

affiliate blog post

Above: example of blog content that you could use to promote affiliate products (in this case the products would be glue)

If you’re using affiliate links in blog posts, then understand that your target audience is looking for a certain product, but they don’t know which specific product is right for them. To get these people onto your blog, you will need to use investigational intent keywords. These are things like “what is the best vacuum cleaner?”.

Then, when the user finds your content, make sure you offer enough helpful information and guidance in order for them to want to buy your affiliate product.

If you’re promoting affiliate links through social media or YouTube videos, then make sure the affiliate products match your audience’s interests. If you are a social media or YouTube influencer, then you will have a very specific niche. The products you promote will need to fit right into this. For example, foodie YouTubers should promote food products.

Affiliate products

Strategically Promote Your Affiliate Links in the Content

The next step is to include your affiliate links in the content.

This needs to be done carefully. You don’t want to come across as being too pushy or too sales-focused. Instead, you should focus on adding value through your affiliate links.

What people like about affiliate marketing is that it’s a lot less in-your-face than traditional forms of advertising.

Don’t try to squeeze as many affiliate links into one blog post as you can. Only ever advertise affiliate links that make sense and add actual value to the user. Your goal should be to offer affiliate links that are genuinely helpful and valuable to the user.

Always try to include your affiliate links early in any blog post, and only add them in when necessary. Too many affiliate links will impact the user experience.

affiliate links

Optimize Your Traffic for Better Affiliate Marketing

There’s an idea in marketing called the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your profits come from 20% of your content. This isn’t an exact science, but the idea is generally true. You will probably find that the bulk of your affiliate revenue comes from only a few places.

Take a look at your source of affiliate revenue and where you’re getting the most traffic. These pages should be optimized as much as possible to increase your affiliate revenue even more.

Add popups to these pages, ensure your affiliate links are clearly visible and optimize your content to get as many clicks as possible.

Distribute Your Affiliate Products

Promoting your affiliate blog posts, videos, courses, or whatever other platform you’re using is important for making an affiliate income. Yes, you can just set it and forget it if you rely on SEO to bring you traffic. If you want to expand the reach of your affiliate products or services and make more affiliate sales, then you’ll need to take promotion seriously.

Email marketing is by far the best way to do this. You can send emails directly to your audience’s inboxes, and target them with personalized content. If you consistently send the right content to the right people, with enticing affiliate offers, then you will soon start to see a rise in your affiliate commissions.

Of course, don’t forget about your social media channels to promote your affiliate links.

Affiliate promotions

Top Tip: Creating special affiliate offers is one of the best ways to get people clicking on your links and making sales. Some affiliate programs allow you to promote offers like “use my affiliate code for a 10% discount off your first order”.

Tips to Increase Affiliate Sales

In order to make more affiliate commissions with each affiliate program, there are a couple of best practices that should be considered. Keep the following tactics in mind if you want to increase your conversion rates.

  • Interview a product expert: A great way to give your affiliate promotions more depth is to talk to a product expert on the topic. If you can get a recognized expert to help you promote your affiliate link, you will be able to build up more trust.
  • Create a product tutorial: Creating a tutorial focused on your product will help you attract more high-converting traffic. People search for things like “how to save money for retirement”. You can write a guide on this and include an affiliate link to a retirement planning solution. This will help you attract people who are actively searching for products like this.
  • Try different angles: Try out different angles for promoting affiliate products and see which ones work best for you. You could do an unboxing video, a tutorial on the product, a roundup post of best products, or more. See what type of content offers the best results for your audience.
  • Keep it legal: Always keep things above board when you promote affiliate links. Make sure you fully disclose that you’re offering affiliate links through a clear and simple disclaimer.

affiliate disclaimer

Become a Professional Affiliate Marketer Today

Although affiliate marketing is pretty simple, there’s a lot that goes into becoming a successful affiliate marketer. If you want to make a serious income from affiliate marketing then you’ll want guidance from an industry expert.

Martha Krejci offers a Professional Affiliate course that teaches you exactly how to grow multiple affiliate income streams on 5-10 hours a week (or less).

Check it out here, and use the code “wishpond” for 50% off.

Conclusion

Earning an income from affiliate marketing is incredibly rewarding. It’s a great way to supplement your existing income, and you can even do it professionally.

It only takes a couple of hours up front, and then you can enjoy years of affiliate income streams ahead. Follow the strategies above, and you will be able to build a successful affiliate marketing business that can make some serious money.

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