What Is Affiliate Marketing?

So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, affiliate marketing basically refers to promoting or otherwise “featuring” products in our content that visitors to our website are then able to purchase online, and we are paid a commission when they do

Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. The third-party publishers are affiliates, and the commission fee incentivizes them to find ways to promote the company.

The Internet has increased the prominence of affiliate marketing. Amazon popularized the practice by creating an affiliate marketing program whereby websites and bloggers put links to the Amazon page for a reviewed or discussed product to receive advertising fees when a purchase is made. In this sense, affiliate marketing is essentially a pay-for-performance marketing program where the act of selling is outsourced across a vast network.

How to get started with affiliate marketing

Follow these seven simple steps.

 

1. Decide on a platform
2. Choose your niche
3. Create great content
4. Drive traffic to your affiliate site
5. Convert clicks to sales

 

Step 1:  Decide on a platform

Here are some suggestion:

Best Affiliate Programs of 2021 (High Paying for Beginners)

Shareasale

Shareasale is a massive affiliate network with over 3,900 merchants and 1 million+ affiliates. They’ve been in business for 19 years and are a leader in the industry. Some of their top verticals to promote include fashion, home and garden, food and drink, and B2B. But there are plenty more.

Additionally, they provide great features, including affiliate marketing classes, training webinars, merchant recommendations, and marketing tools to help you grow your revenue.

Their platform is also reliable on the technology front. Specifically, the Shareasale platform provides easy access to affiliate links, reporting tools, and pride themselves on transparency, speed, efficiency, and accuracy.

If you’re starting and want to get your toes wet in affiliate marketing, I recommend you join Shareasale as an affiliate first.

And if you’re a merchant looking for affiliates to promote your products, you can sign up as a merchant.

 

ClickBank

ClickBank is an affiliate network known for being home to thousands of digital products like e-books, videos, and software. They’re simply middlemen between product vendors and affiliates. … They then list your product in their marketplace so that tens of thousands of affiliates can see you

 

Digistore24

Digistore24 highest goal is to transform the world of online business specializing in digital products and to achieve that, Digistore24 is active in several important areas at the same time. Digistore24 core business is our reseller platform, where they automate the online business of tens of thousands of Digistore24 members, conquer technical obstacles and advise our customers. 

 

JVZOO

Jvzoo is an affiliate platform established by Bryan Zimmerman, Brian Rose and Chad Casselman. It is an American company where you as affiliate, but also as product maker can turn to. The Company was established in 2008 and has grown rapidly in a short time. Jvzoo only offers the payment option PayPal, making it the ideal platform for reciprocal sales. Membership systems can benefit enormously of this. Unlike other affiliate / publishers platforms you receive immediate payment on your PayPal account with every sale. In the case of a refund it is also immediately debited from your PayPal account. It is a handy way for getting cash quickly, although you obviously still have to withdraw it to your bank account from your PayPal account. Since Jvzoo only works via PayPal, PayPal support is necessary in the country where you are operating for you to even work with Jvzoo.

Jvzoo has several great features for publishers (product makers). This makes Jvzoo easy to combine with a WSO, so you can promote the products on the WSO forum straight away. If you want to promote your own product via jvzoo you only pay after the sale has taken place. It works on the basis of No cure no pay. If you do have any sales you pay a 5% commission to Jvzoo, or $17, 00. Do you not even have a website? No problem! Jvzoo offers the option of creating a sales page and landing page via the jvzoo system, allowing you to sell your own products without having your own website. Dime sales (sales where the price increases with every sale) are also an option that Jvzoo offers.

For affiliates the makers of Jvzoo have also made several fun features available. You can for instance add your own bonuses to your affiliate links. To convince clients to purchase via your affiliate link you can give them a bonus. This bonus shall be sent immediately upon purchase via Jvzoo. So you as affiliate do not have to take any further action.

The only disadvantage of Jvzoo to other networks is that you have to be approved by every seller as affiliate. It could therefore take a while before you may promote a product, or it could even occur that you may not promote the product that you would like to promote at all.

 

Amazon Associates.

Sell any product on Amazon directly through your Pinterest pins. If you’re in the US, you will need to have a website or blog to get approved. You can earn up to 10% on over one million products. They also help you post links and promote products on your site with banners. While they’re not a network per se, they provide a massive range of products.

One extra benefit is that when you link to a product with your Amazon affiliate link, you get credit for any product the user purchases in that session. Additionally, if they add a product to their cart and it remains there, you get credit for up to 90 days.

 

You can also promote single offers direct from the vender:

Here are my picks for the best website and ecommerce affiliate programs:

 

Brand	Commission Rate	Cookie Duration
1. Wix	$100 per sale	+ 90 days
2. BigCommerce	200%	+ 30 days
3. Shopify	200%	90 days
4. ClickMeter	90%	90 days
5. Superb Themes	Up to 60%	30 days

 

Best Recurring Affiliate Programs:

What Does Recurring Payment Mean?

When the payment is “recurring,” it doesn’t just occur once, but repeatedly as long as your commissioned user is still a paying customer. Recurring income programs pay their commissions monthly because of the customer retention rate. Most recurring programs are software as a service (SaaS) advertisers whose platforms require a monthly subscription.

Wordable.

Wordable is a SaaS tool that helps content creators instantly publish content from Google Docs to their CMS (WordPress, HubSpot, Medium, Shopify, BigCommerce, and more).

 

SEMRush.

SEMRush is an influential SEO tool website owners can use to track keywords, conduct site audits, and view competitive insights in their online marketing. Their program is called BeRush, and they offer their affiliate partners a 40% commission.

 

Aweber

Aweber is email marketing software that is great for businesses and marketing teams because of their email templates and design features. They offer a 30% recurring rate.

 

ConvertKit.

ConvertKit is one of my favorite email marketing tools as it’s great for bloggers. They have a visual automation builder and can create triggers based on website actions and actions inside of emails. A friend of mine runs their program, and they offer a 30% per month.

 

ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels is a popular landing page builder, and they offer a 40% payout on all sales. They have a lot of different ads and courses you can promote and an intuitive dashboard to grab your links.

 

Here are the top-paying cryptocurrency affiliate marketing programs.

 

Binance (referral program)

Commission: 20% of referral’s trade fees, 40% if holding 500+ BNB

Payout: Pay in real-time to Binance account

 

Coinbase (referral program)

Commission: When a user buys $100 of BTC, receive $10 of BTC

Earning period: Once per customer

 

Ledger Wallet

Commission: 10% of the net sale amount

Payout: Payout in BTC, with 0.1 BTC minimum payout amount

 

LocalBitcoins.com

Commission: 20% of the user’s trading fee per trade

Earning period: 1 year from the user’s registration date

 

Trezor Wallet

Commission: 20% of sales

 

Step 2:  Choose your niche

 

1. Define the needs of your niche market. Since your affiliate products will target the market your website serves, your affiliate product selection should focus on the needs of that market. If your site offers information on pet care, identify the consumer needs of the typical visitor to your site. Make a list of all of the product types these consumers might regularly purchase, and what services and promotions will interest your regular site visitor. This list can help you identify the right affiliate products
2. Join a free affiliate network, such as Clickbank, Paydotcom or Commission Junction. Affiliate networks like these offer free membership with registration. Once a program has accepted your registration application, you will receive a log in and password. You then can use the network to select affiliate products and programs for your website.
3. Locate a suitable product category in your network by entering keywords (pet care, for example) into the search term field. You’ll then be able to choose from among numerous affiliate products. Research products within the results list to select the best options for your site. According to Internet marketing guru Allen Gardyne, never select a product to market before trying it out first. Know as much as you can about the people behind the product. and decide whether you can believe in it.
4. Evaluate the products based on specific criteria. Each product should fit well within the context of your site. It should appeal to the needs or desires of your niche market. Each product should solve a relevant problem that visitors to your site have. The affiliate site to which you link should have a good sales presentation, clearly present the benefits of the product and be easy to navigate.
5. Review the sales statistics of the product to ensure that it’s a good seller. The affiliate network will provide these statistics, so you can evaluate what volume of sales you can expect with the appropriate marketing techniques.
6. Research the commission percentage for each sale. Some products will offer a whole dollar amount on sales or services, but most will offer a percentage ranging from 10 percent to 75 percent. Some products that offer the highest commissions are not always the best products. It is always better to select a product with higher volume sales and a lower commission versus a high commission on a product that doesn’t sell well. Try to select products that offer a residual commission, as well. That way you get paid for a long time after the initial sale.

 

Step 3:  Create great content

1. Write your own personal truth. The biggest sin in the world of affiliate marketing is to write about a product that you haven’t tried, don’t love, or have no personal experience with. Instead of making this mistake, aim to write your truth, your whole truth, and nothing but your truth. Here’s why: your readers trust you and they want to know that you’re recommending a product to them because you’ve tried it and loved it, not because you’re making a few bucks off of it.  With this in mind, don’t ever pitch products you haven’t used or don’t like. Your audience will be able to see right through it and you’ll lose credibility and readers.  To take it a step further, tell your readers exactly what you loved about a given product, and go the extra step to point out how it benefited your life, improved your outlook, or provided you with something special they’ll take interest in.
2. Make your affiliate marketing content reader-centric.  With affiliate marketing content, the reader is at the center of the entire thing, and it should stay this way forever. To make your affiliate marketing content as successful as possible, keep your reader at the center of it.  As you write, you should be thinking about what your readers want and how much they’re willing to invest in it. What’s more, you should also be thinking about why they want it and what’ they’ll gain from using it.  These things can have a longstanding impact on the value of your affiliate marketing content, and can also prove that you care about your readers and are willing to step into their shoes.
3. Be honest. Just like nobody wants to try products you haven’t tried or didn’t like, nobody wants to purchase products you weren’t honest about. While it may seem smart to play up a product when it’s actually disappointing or sub-par, this will cost you trust and readers in the long run, and can have a massive detrimental impact on your readership.  With this in mind, always be honest about the products you’re pitching. While you don’t have to be mean about a product’s flaws or shortcomings, your readers aren’t going to buy the fact that every product you’ve ever tried is your new favorite item in the entire world. What’s more, being honest makes the five-star reviews that you do give carry that much more weight.
4. Incorporate your affiliate products into stories…naturally.  When it’s done well, affiliate marketing shouldn’t feel like affiliate marketing. Instead, it should feel like a natural recommendation issued by a friend to a friend.  With this in mind, seek to incorporate mentions or anecdotes about a product, good, or service into your other content. This will help you keep your content fresh and will also go a long way toward building reader trust and making the products you mention more appealing and exciting to your readers.  Finally, when people can see something in action, it’s a great way for them to build a relationship with it, which means that showcasing how you’ve used or enjoyed a product and building those mentions into your everyday content is a very compelling tactic.
5. Vary your approaches.  Affiliate marketing content shouldn’t feel formulaic, and it’s important to keep it as fresh as possible for your readers. In light of this, consider varying your approaches to affiliate marketing.  In addition to saving you from becoming a stiff, boring blogger people don’t want to read, this approach will also help you locate new audiences and showcase your best experiences with a given product, good, or service.  With this in mind, focus on what your audience loves and seek to share your affiliate experiences on all of your various platforms. This will keep things fresh and make your recommendations as authentic and unique as possible.
6. Focus on products customers love.  Again, your customer should be the center of affiliate marketing. If you’re not focusing on products, goods, and services they’ll love, you’re missing the mark.  While we’ve already covered the fact that it’s critical to feature only the products that you like, it’s also important to remember that your preferences and your readers’ won’t always line up seamlessly. When this happens, it’s essential that you put your customers’ preferences first, since they’re the ones who ultimately benefit from affiliate marketing.With this in mind, work hard to provide rundowns on things that will actually benefit your reader’s lives. They’ll thank you for it and you’ll be a much more successful affiliate as a result.

 

Step 4:  Drive traffic to your affiliate site

Now let’s move onto the best ways to use your affiliate links to make money online this year.

Here are 11 Easy Ways to Promote Affiliate Links.

After Google AdSense, a report found publishers said affiliate links generated more revenue for their website than other forms of marketing. This is due to the ability to promote affiliate links through various tactics, platforms, campaigns, and forms of content.

To be a successful affiliate blogger, start by promoting your affiliate links in these top 11 places.

1.  Affiliate Website Reviews.

Just as you were researching affiliate marketing programs to join, you should deeply understand the companies that you’re promoting and the tools or products they offer.  Use this opportunity (and include your affiliate links) to write honest reviews about the products you’re promoting. Your first focus should be on keyword research and including headings that best match a searcher’s intent when researching the product you’re promoting.  In these reviews, provide in-depth information about everything a potential customer would need to know, such as:

How to get set up or buy the product.

The top pros and cons of using the product.

Examples of others who have been successful with the product.

Tips to be successful with the product that your audience can use.

While you are using these reviews to generate clicks on your affiliate links, it is important to be objective, fair, and transparent with your content. Other review sites are also one of the top places to promote your own website, so make sure to know how they work inside and out.

2.  Deep Product Tutorials.

On top of developing reviews of the products themselves, you can also promote affiliate links by creating in-depth product tutorials. This is similar to reviews, but you’re taking a deep dive into “how-to” focused content. For instance, if you join the Amazon Associates affiliate program, select products you have experience with and write content around:

How to use the product.

How to order the product.

The pros and cons of the product.

Where to find the product.

Insider product tips.

3.  Affiliate Banners.

In addition to text links in your blog content, affiliate programs also provide links in the form of affiliate banners. You can place these clickable banners in several places on your website, such as:

The sidebar of your blog.

The header and footer of your website.

Embedded in blog content.

In email marketing messages.

To use affiliate banners, first, check to see if your respective affiliate program offers this capability. Then, copy and paste the provided HTML into the desired spot on your website.  If you have difficulty doing so, don’t be afraid to reach out to the affiliate program’s manager for help. Keep in mind that “banner blindness” is making banners less effective, so employ contextual text links as often as possible.

4.  Automated Welcome Emails.

As an affiliate marketer and blogger, building up a loyal following of readers is crucial to long term success. Email marketing is an advantageous tactic for driving visitors to your website, distributing your content, and managing relationships with readers.  Once readers subscribe to your blog, send them an automated welcome email series. In this email, utilize affiliate links by sharing relevant articles. However, don’t be spammy with your links.  For example, if your 7-part welcome email series is about starting a WordPress site, don’t automatically litter email 1 with a bunch of affiliate links. First, build trust with your readers by telling your unique story, then eventually provide information that will help them most. Affiliate revenue is secondary to helping your readers.

5.  Resources or Tools Pages.

To produce ongoing and passive revenue from your affiliate links, you need to position yourself as an authority or thought leader on particular topics.  As part of your marketing strategy, create a Resources page on your website highlighting the top tools and products you recommend. On this page, list and discuss the products you regularly use and recommend – and you can’t fake this. You must authentically use the products on your resource page and love them so that you know your readers will benefit from their use.

6.  Inside of Digital Products.

As you grow your website and following, you can also begin to create and provide exclusive digital products such as eBooks and online courses to your audience. Naturally, these digital products provide perfect opportunities to embed your affiliate links inside.  Be sure to include these links organically into your content. Your digital products shouldn’t feel like sales material, but rather moments for readers to learn more about a particular topic.  For example, if you have an online course about starting a blog, section 1 may include an affiliate link to sign up for Bluehost as a hosting provider. It’s a natural place to put your affiliate link inside of your course.

7.  YouTube Affiliate Links.

You know videos are a powerful marketing tool, especially for affiliate marketers. In fact, Animoto found 93 percent of businesses reported gaining a new customer as a direct result of a video posted on social media.  As an affiliate marketer, you have the ability to create video content around a variety of topics and include your affiliate links in the process. There are two main ways to embed affiliate links into your video content.

First, the easiest way to use YouTube affiliate links is by including them in your video description. If you use this tactic, be sure to verbally and visually call out the description in your video. Most YouTubers use phrases such as “Click on the links in the description below” to direct viewers to the right place. The second tactic is to use YouTube annotations. These are the transparent boxes that pop up at preselected times and places within a YouTube video, often with a call-to-action. Each box is hyperlinked, offering the perfect placement for your affiliate links.  For the best results, use both YouTube affiliate link tactics to your advantage.

8.  Promoting Affiliate Links on Facebook.

Another place to distribute your affiliate links is on Facebook via your personal profile or a Business page.  Make sure you’re not spamming your followers’ Facebook feeds with affiliate link posts. Your goal is to convince someone to click on your affiliate links and make a purchase. Do so by posting entertaining, educational, and intriguing content that includes affiliate links.

9.  Instagram Affiliate Links.

Much like promoting affiliate links on Facebook, you can also generate affiliate traffic from your Instagram posts. However, Instagram has one major exception: Instagram posts are not clickable.  Instead, you must drive fans to your bio to click on a link.  A workaround to this problem is to include links in Instagram Stories. Once you gain more than 10k followers, you can add links to your Instagram Stories content.  If selling on Instagram is a priority, make it a point to first build a loyal audience. These loyal followers will be more likely to click on your affiliate links, whether in the bio or Instagram Stories and engage with your content.

10.  Pinterest Affiliate Links.

Since Pinterest is a visual social media platform, you have several opportunities to drive traffic to your affiliate links, especially those which promote physical products.  For the best results, create pins and boards around a particular product. Or, you can include a pin with your affiliate link in a board focused on a broader topic.  For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for a nutrition company, create a Pinterest board around healthy eating tips, ideas, and recipes. Within that board, make sure to include one or two pins that use your affiliate links.  Test out both tactics and see which one drives the best results by checking your affiliate dashboard as well as Pinterest Analytics.

11.  Twitter Affiliate Links.

Using affiliate links on Twitter involves a bit of wordplay. Since you only have 280 characters to convince someone to click on your affiliate link, you need to be creative. Experiment with different styles of copywriting and see which method drives the most affiliate link clicks.

 

Step 5:  Convert clicks to sales

10 Smart Strategies To Convert Web Traffic Into Sales

 

1. Build An Email List

Once you have the traffic on your website, you want to be able to continually communicate with potential customers and move them down the sales funnel. The best strategy is to have a solid email marketing plan. To get people to opt-in to our email list, we create a highly desirable lead magnet that solves a problem your target audience is likely to have. Once you have their email address, put them through a welcome sequence of emails designed to help the customer know, like and trust your brand. Providing as much value as possible is key in this stage. When you do present them with a sales opportunity in the future, it will make them more likely to convert.

      2.  Have Conversion Tracking In Place

If you want to make sure your traffic and paid advertising efforts are working out, you need to have a system in place to measure actual results. One of the easiest and most effective ways to accomplish this is by placing a conversion tracking pixel on your confirmation page. This way you can see what traffic is generating leads and from where. The better tracking you have for this, the better campaign optimization and ROI options you can move forward with. Another tip is to start playing around with landing pages and split testing with new demographic targeting options. With all of these metrics and conversion tracking in place, there is no reason for you to have no idea how your advertising and paid marketing is converting. 

3. Create Fantastic Gated Content

It’s unlikely that many customers will purchase something from you on their first visit to your site. The key to success is to get them to come back—and the best way to do that is to get their contact information by offering a great piece of gated content in exchange for their email address. Then, you need to have a good nurture campaign so you can follow up and get them to return to your site on a regular basis. 

4. Have Tiered-Value Offerings To Capture All Buying Stages

Not all potential customers are sales-ready when they visit your site. To capture the most value, offer content that reflects different degrees of interest. For example, if your clients are enterprises that require a substantial amount of education upfront, you may want to use a blog post that addresses a big trend to capture leads who haven’t identified a need for your solution. Offer a use case document to capture prospects who want to grasp the scope of your solution better or use a case study to attract in-market buyers who are actively evaluating their options. It’s equally important to create lead nurturing campaigns with customized content for the various stages identified in order to move leads through the sales funnel and ultimately convert them into paying customers. 

5. Try Multiple Channels

People are creatures of habit, so many times we always resort to tactics or strategies that worked for us before. However, with new startups or products, you would be wise to entertain new marketing or sales channels. For instance, maybe you had a cheap impulse buy consumer goods product for your first startup, but the next product you release is a more B2B-targeted, expensive product that requires a longer buying cycle. Facebook ads might not work for the later product, but perhaps direct sales, LinkedIn advertising or reseller partnerships could yield better results. 

6. Check Your Bounce Rate

We measure a lot of statistics when running a campaign. One important statistic when it comes to conversion is your bounce rate. You can run a great marketing campaign that generates millions of traffic, but has less than 0.001% of conversion. Higher bounce rates are an indicator that your content or landing page is not persuasive enough to convert the sale. Check the tone of your content. If it is not consistent with the rest of your campaign, change it. Check the copywriting. If it doesn’t persuade your friends to opt-in, change it. – Maria Thimothy, OneIMS

7. Remove Perceived Risk

Increasing conversions on your website is often about reducing your customers’ perceived risk. You have to ask yourself, “What is preventing my website visitor from becoming a customer?” Chances are, it’s uncertainty. If they are unsure about your product or believe it’s too risky to buy, they probably won’t. One of the best ways that I’ve found to remove customer hurdles and reduce customer risk is to offer a guarantee. A risk-free guarantee and easy refund policy eliminates customer uncertainty and takes away any perceived risk associated with your product. Customers can buy with confidence knowing that if they aren’t satisfied, they can always return it. Reducing uncertainty in your customers’ minds will lead to more visitors buying your products, thus increasing your conversions. 

8. Focus On A/B Testing And Conversion Rate Optimization

Getting traffic to your site is only half the battle. Getting them to convert or turn into revenue is a whole different beast. We’ve found two methods to be extremely effective. The first is A/B testing to ensure that we’re making continual improvements to our campaigns and our landing pages. The data that you’ll get back during A/B tests will help drive your site optimization towards more positive outcomes. The second is conversion rate optimization (CRO). The goal of CRO is to increase conversions on your site, which may include updates to the UX, the content, the design or the overall workflow. Utilizing CRO and A/B testing can dramatically improve your conversion results on your site or campaign.

9. Create Content And Images That Resonate With Customers

The best way to convert cold and warm traffic into sales is to draft content and create images (on your website, blog, newsletters, etc.) that actually resonate with your target audiences. You can figure this out by doing a little research on what ails your audience. Building an emotional connection with your audience in your sales funnel will let them know you understand their pain points and problems and have a product or service that will help reconcile that problem.

10. Build A Thoughtful Funnel

Converting traffic on top of the funnel is nearly impossible in the context of expensive purchases or services. Instead, consider what it would take to turn your cold traffic source to a satisfied customer. Techniques include a variety of opportunities, from e-books and email courses through webinars to free consultations. Warming up leads and building trust requires multiple steps, and continuously delivering value will turn a higher percentage into customers. Combine free content and extra insights with remarketing and external acquisition of traffic for best efforts, but most importantly, don’t push for a sale too early when it comes to top-of-the-funnel traffic.