Affiliate marketing can be a great additional stream of income. A lot of people dream about the riches that can be made from affiliate marketing, and it is totally possible to do. If you want to learn how to make money with affiliate marketing, then you’ll want to keep reading for the tips which will help you.
How to start affiliate marketing
- Find the affiliate program for products you want to promote
- Sign up for the affiliate program and get your unique tracking link
- Use your tracking link to promote the product on social media, in blog posts, or send a link to someone via email
- When someone uses your tracking link, they are sent a cookie that gives you credit if they sign up or purchase through that link.
Getting started with affiliate marketing
The internet has made it possible to earn a living from the comfort of your home—and we’re not talking about telecommuting jobs at big companies, but rather work that taps into your own creativity and productivity. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. Whether you’re doing it as a side hustle or as part of your larger business plan, there are many reasons why anyone with an internet connection can benefit from this type of activity.
First, let’s take a look at what affiliate marketing is: a performance-based business model that rewards affiliates for promoting other people’s products or services. The affiliate can be paid a commission for each lead or sale they refer.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of business model where you (the affiliate) are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or course.
This is usually done through your blog or website where you write an article about the product and then include your unique affiliate link that the company gave you.
In short: You don’t have to deal with customers, inventory, or anything like that. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to find customers for other people’s products and services.
Once someone buys after clicking on your special link, you get a percentage of the sale.
If you’re just starting out, this is a great way to make money online, especially since all it requires is sharing something on social media every once in awhile!
Affiliate Marketing vs. MLM
Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a popular way to make money online. You may have come across the term “MLM” before, and some of you might be wondering what MLM means.
MLM stands for multi-level marketing and it’s very similar to affiliate marketing (which I’ll explain next).
The Multi-level marketing involves selling products to directly to consumers (as opposed to selling them wholesale). Multi-level marketing products are sold through an agent who receives a commission on the sale.
That agent can then recruit other agents under them, forming a pyramid shape of agents that receive commissions from their sales as well as the sales of those below them.
Affiliate marketing is another great method for making money online. Affiliate marketers promote products through affiliate links, meaning they’ll receive a commission if someone purchases the product with their link.
Affiliate links are easy to spot because they usually contain the word “affiliate,” or sometimes “recommended” or something like that in the URL (web address).
This makes it easy for consumers to know where an affiliate link leads in case they decide not to trust it or want more information about how it works before clicking on it.
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How to find the right affiliate program for you
“What are the best affiliate programs for beginners?”
Let’s start with the obvious: you’ll want to find a good fit between your niche and an affiliate program. For example, if you love fly fishing, then you should consider promoting products related to that topic.
The more specific your niche is, the better. Why? Because it’s going to be much easier for you to rank on Google for a specific keyword than a broad one.
let’s face it, if people can’t find what they’re looking for using Google, they aren’t going to buy anything from you.
“How do I find the best affiliate program for me?”
It’s actually not as hard as it sounds! There are several sites that aggregate thousands of different affiliate programs into one place to make it easier on newbies like yourself.
We recommend starting with AffiliatePrograms.com and Shareasale.com but there are many other good options out there too (you can see our list of recommended tools in the Resources section).
You can also use Google or Bing to search “top [niche] affiliate programs” or “best [niche] affiliate programs”. The key is knowing how to tell if an offer is legitimate before signing up!
Top 5 Affiliate Programs to try
Affiliate marketing income potential
If you are looking for a way to make some extra money and you don’t have the time or skills to build an online business from scratch, affiliate marketing may be just the thing for you.
You can work on it part-time, during the evenings and on weekends. Or if you are already retired, it can be a lucrative pursuit that keeps your brain active while paying the bills.
If you do decide to turn your affiliate marketing into a full-time job, there is no limit on how much money you can earn. Once your site starts attracting visitors and building up trust with them, all of your hard work will start producing returns in both brand awareness and cash!
What top affiliates are earning right now
While top affiliates earn as much as $10,000 a month, it can take years of work to get there.
The average full-time affiliate marketer makes $300-400 a month, which is why most people don’t quit their day job in the beginning.
If you do want to quit your day job and have time to build your business before you need a steady stream of revenue, then the following examples might be for you.
“`Let’s look at what the top affiliates are doing and how much they’re earning from some popular affiliate programs:“`
- The Amazon Associates Program is currently one of the largest and most successful online affiliate programs. It’s also free to join, so anyone can sign up. You can earn commissions from anywhere (from home or vacation) on everything from food and electronics to furniture and apparel. Here are some examples:
- One Amazon blogger earns about $150K per month with his blog todayparentingtips. He promotes the best baby gear on his site and uses various text links that direct customers to Amazon where they can make purchases through his affiliate links while giving him credit for referring them there.
- The NerdWallet website earns $70K per month by promoting financial products like savings accounts and credit cards through their website blog entries with referral links embedded in them directly linking customers to financial institutions. where they can make transactions under NerdWallet’s reference code while earning this top affiliate money along every step of these transactions
The best high paying affiliate programs to join
There are lots of affiliate programs out there, but here’s a list of the high-paying affiliate programs you should really consider joining.
- MaxBounty is an industry-leading performance marketing network connecting trusted and skilled affiliate marketers with vetted high-paying advertisers on a cost-per-action basis. Our platform provides the infrastructure needed to drive scale and predictability for performance marketers looking to manage, grow and scale their businesses. Advertisers benefit from our diverse publisher base, while publishers enjoy the benefits of working with a single, easy-to-work-with platform that eliminates tedious admin tasks like invoicing and payment processing.
- ShareASale has been in business for 18 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. Their technology receives accolades for speed, efficiency, and accuracy – and their reputation as a fair and honest business is well known within the industry.
- Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the world today. With over 500,000 active users and over $40 billion worth of products sold online through Shopify stores alone! You can easily earn up to $5000 per sale on selling Shopify through your website or blog!
But where do you start? Click here for more information about how to start profiting from affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money from home.
Affiliate marketing happens when you promote someone else’s product or service and get paid a commission for it. It may sound like an incredibly simple concept, but there are many factors that go into the success of an affiliate marketing campaign.
There are hundreds of programs available to help you begin your affiliate marketing efforts, so how do you choose which one is right for your site?
The first step in this process is to understand what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
The best way to do this is to think of it as a relationship between three separate parties: the advertiser (sometimes also called the merchant or brand), the publisher (you), and the consumer.
If you currently don’t have a website, then I suggest that you create one immediately! If you want to start making money from home with your own blog, then I highly recommend WordPress as it allows for total customization.
Conclusion
By now, you should have a much better idea of what affiliate marketing is, who it’s most useful for and how to get started. The benefits of affiliate marketing are plenty, but the real question is, who can benefit?
Like in any business venture, education and the right mindset are essential for success. If you’re interested in making money on the Internet with affiliate marketing there’s no time like the present to get started! What are you waiting for?
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