What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing model that enables third-party publishers to promote another businesses products or services.  The publisher will receive a percentage of the sales, leads, or traffic based on their contract agreement.

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing arrangement where an online retailer pays a commission for sales, traffic, or leads generated from referrals.

Affiliate marketing enables both publishers and merchants an easier route to achieving marketing goals.

The publisher is able to significantly increase their income through creating content and publishing on their platform.

The marketer is able to reach a larger base with a team of affiliates – sometimes resulting in 2x,3x, or 10x the sales.  Many merchants would not be able to reach their sales goals without a strong team of affiliates.

HOW DOES AFFILIATE MARKETING WORK?

  • The Affiliate (or "Publisher")
  • The Merchant An individual or entity that agrees to promote the merchant's product or service
  • The Affiliate Network Acts as an intermediary between the affiliate and a merchant. Affiliates often connect with several merchants in an affilaite network. An example of an affiliate network is cj.com
  • The Customer The individual purchasing a product through an affiliate
  • Step 1 Set up your WordPress Blog – After you download the guide, you can get your WordPress website up and running in 20 minutes with HostGator’s easy 1-click-install. I highly recommend HostGator due to their affordability and the WordPress developer page speed. Compare WordPress hosts here to select the best host for your specific business needs.
  • Step 2 Sign up for affiliate marketing programs – Join a few of the affiliate programs, develop content, and start selling! Affiliate marketing is great, because anybody can make a living doing affiliate marketing if they put the time and effort into creating helpful content. You’re not reinventing the wheel – follow step-by-step instructions and you will be on your way to a successful affiliate marketing business in no time.
    • Select a product or service you’d like to promote – it’s best to select products that are in line with what you’re already writing about – however you can also opt to develop new content based specifically around the affiliates that agree to work with you.
    • Amazon Associates is one of the largest affiliate networks around and allow you to promote almost everything.  The payout can range from 2 – 10%.
    • Commission Junction – CJ.Com is another affiliate network that allows you to work with several different merchants at one time.
    • ClickBank is ideal for people looking to promote more on the internet marketing (think e-book, online courses, digital download arena)
    • Awin is an affiliate network that works with a lot of popular software companies.If there is a specific product or service you’re interested in working with (Such as Elementor Pro) – Visit their website, scroll to the bottom of the website, and see if they have an “affiliate” link in the footer.  If you don’t see one, search Google or Bing:  “company affiliate” to get additional information.
    • Impact – Another great affiliate network that is ideal for people
    • Rakuten Affiliate – Perfect affiliate network
    •  eBay Partner Network – Similar to Amazon, only different.  eBay offers a lot of used products, where Amazon seems to promote newer products.
  • Step 3 Automated Email Follow-up – The next part in developing a successful affiliate marketing sales funnel includes integrating automated lead generation and email marketing. Sign up for Aweber to get started – with free programs available, and affordable monthly options for growing businesses, turn more leads into sales with automated email follow up.
WHAT IS YOUR BEST ADVICE FOR AFFILIATE MARKETERS?
  • Don't sell bad products & expect repeat customers.
  • Only sell products that you would use yourself or you would feel comfortable recommending to your close friends & family
  • If you wouldn't eat it, don't serve it.
  • Provide exceptional customer service. Answer questions as they come in.
  • Answer all questions your readers may have in advance
  • Don't SPAM your audience
  • Don't confuse your audience - provide direct links to products - do not be deceptive with download buttons and click here links.
  • Always tell your audience exactly where a link will take them.
  • Don't cheat your brand and downgrade your website by offering poor products and services - only offer the best ones.
  • Don't recommend junk if you want to be taken seriously - people are coming to your website to get honest reviews.
  • Don't just put the boiler plate review online - if you haven't used the product - test the product. If you haven't tested the product, don't sell the product.
  • Create an enjoyable user experience
IS AFFILIATE MARKETING "WORTH IT?"

Is affiliate marketing worth it? Affilate marketing is worth it if you decide ahead of time that you’re going to put in the time and energy to develop content – don’t go into affiliate marketing thinking you’re going to get a bank deposit of $20k next week just because you created a post with an affiliate link.  People spend years before they get to the point that they can successfully leave their full time job to become an affiliate marketer – however others may put in hard work for a few months and see large payouts when they launch – it’s all about your content and the amount of work you put into it.  Crappy content and crappy effort yield crappy results.

WHAT IS THE HIGHEST PAYING AFFILIATE PROGRAMS?

Is affiliate marketing worth it? Fiverr and HubSpot can pay up to $1,000 for a single course BigCommerce & Shopify pay even higher payouts.

IS AFFILIATE MARKETING LEGAL?

Yes, affiliate marketing is legal.  However, not all programs may be offered in your location.  Check with the affiliate company, and your state’s local laws about the program you’re joining.  You will also want to check out the taxable information for any affiliate programs you become apart of.

WHAT ARE THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING PRODUCTS?

It’s tough to say what the “best affiliate marketing products” are, because everybody is different.  If you’re talking specifically monetary based with high conversions – online software and service providers often pay a nice amount for annual sales. However, those are not good affiliate marketing products for somebody that has no knowledge in online software and services.  If you are focused on developing content about pets – then find affiliate marketing products related to pets – joining an affiliate program that sells online software will be of no benefit to you if all of your content is about dog training.

HOW DO YOU CREATE AN AFFILIATE MARKETING NETWORK?

Most companies that offer affiliate marketing will have a few different paths to managing their affiliate teams.

HOW MUCH MONEY DOES AN AFFILIATE MARKETER MAKE ANNUALLY?

The low end of the affiliate marketer salary is around $54,000.

The high end of affiliate marketing salary is $154,000

However that can vary dramitacally – given the fact that there are a lot of itnernet marketers that make millions a year,

And people that just list is as a job because they made 2 sales last year totaling $600.

WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO SELL AFFILIATE PRODUCTS?

Affiliate products and sales perform best when the following procedures are implemented

  • Consumer UX | UI Design is implemented across all pages
  • Content developers understand their content funnel and design a sales funnel in which they understand the dynamics of their sales pipeline
  • Automated sales funnels that are not dependent on SPAM are implemented for lead generation and new visitor follow up
  • A clear and concice checkout process in installed with consumer USER EXPERIENCE (UI) & and as few checkout clicks as possible are priority #1
  • Advertisments are kept to a mininum and content creation with a focus on solving the users #1 problem are designated as top priority

What are the Top Affiliate Marketing Platforms?

Some of the top affiliate marketing platforms include: 

  • cj.com
  • clickbank.com
  • Rakuten Advertising
  • impact.com
  • AWIN
  • ZINFI
  • PartnerStack
  • Everflow
cj.com
clickbank.com
impact.com
Rakuten Advertising

CJ.com Review

How Can I Start as an Affiliate Marketer?
  • Step 1 Set up your WordPress Blog – After you download the guide, you can get your WordPress website up and running in 20 minutes with HostGator’s easy 1-click-install. I highly recommend HostGator due to their affordability and the WordPress developer page speed. Compare WordPress hosts here to select the best host for your specific business needs.
  • Step 2 Decide on the products you'd like to sell
  • Step 3 Create posts reviewing products, how-to articles, or entertaiment articles and find products that you can suggestive sell in those articles.
  • Step 4 Find your products and services you'd like to promote at sites like cj.com , clickbank.com, impact.com - or by visiting the product you want to sell and finding out if they have an affiliate program.
  • Step 5 Sign up for sites like Amazon.com and Ebay.com if you have a wide set of products you'd like to sell.  WordPress has a lot of Amazon plugins that you can use to build e-stores that only promote Amazon products of your choice.  6. Join an affiliate marketing network or find a few independent companies that you'd like to promote
  • Step 6 Create content that is focused around the particular product, and write solutions for people that are looking for problems - with the product you are promoting being the solution
  • Step 7 Build social media profiles that focus on offering solutions to problems in a niche industry - more specifically, with the product or service being the highlight - i.e. focus on a niche, offer helpful advice, and promote the product as the key to your target audience's #1 problem
1 Year of Hostgator for $89
What is an Example Marketing Affiliate?

This Hostgator Ad is an example of affiliate marketing. 

If you click on this Hostgator ad and make a purchase, I’ll earn a mininum of $65.  

Even if you only pay $89 (or less, depending on the sale that is currently active), 

I’ll earn $65 (or more) based on a variety of factors.  The reason being is that Hostgator is anticipating that you will continue services with them for several years due to the fact they believe you will be successful with their product.  

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