Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. If you’re just getting started this is a good way to get your “feet wet” in the online business world without having to create your own products or services. If you’re an experienced marketer, affiliate marketing can add a nice extra income to your business.
This article will help you get started in affiliate marketing and even help you to rise to super affiliate status.
How does affiliate marketing work?
Simply, you sell other people’s products on your websites and blogs. When you see a product you would like to promote, you can sign up for the affiliate program and start promoting that product on your website. As an affiliate, you will receive your own unique ID which will track any sales sent from your site to the affiliate site.
A good affiliate program will also give you information on where and how you can track your sales, where your clicks are coming from and payment information.
You can find affiliate programs through networks like Commission Junction (CJ.com) or Clickbank.com. These networks act like “middle men” and take a certain percentage of every sale sold through them. You will also be paid directly through the network rather than from the vendor.
The plus with these types of programs is that you can choose as many programs as you’d like all in one convenient place and payment is quite easy to track.
The downside is you don’t often get as many promotional tools or training that individual affiliate programs will offer you. Many individual affiliate programs (especially those related to information products) will also offer you higher commissions.
Here are a few places where you can find affiliate programs to promote:
When you are first getting started in affiliate marketing, it can be a pretty daunting process. It can all look confusing but by following a few simple rules you can get started and learn more as you go along.
Remember, you don’t have to learn everything at once and a lot of your experience and growth will come through trial and error. Having said that, it’s often advisable to arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can so that you can get started on the ‘right foot.’ Here are a few tips to help you get started…
Affiliate Marketing Do’s and Don’ts
Do figure out who you are selling to:
Defining a Target Market is a key task in building up an affiliate income. If you don’t know who you want to sell to, how will you decide what to promote? And dig deep here. Don’t just say ‘Men’ or ‘Parents’. Choose a people group that can be defined in just a few words; Like ‘Brand new single moms’ or ‘Older men with thinning hair.’
Do make a list of what your target market needs:
Sit down with pen and paper or a fresh document on your computer and think like your target market. What do they need right now? What do they consume a lot of? What do they want when they have extra money? You’ll probably come up with a pretty good list.
Do choose affiliate programs carefully:
Different merchants offer different commission rates. Scout out the highest commission rate with the best affiliate resources available. Check out the website and make sure that it is easy to navigate and buy from. Check things like Cookie duration to make sure that you have the greatest chance of profiting from your promotions.
Do treat affiliate marketing like a real business:
The more you put into your affiliate marketing the better your chances of gaining super affiliate status. Treat your affiliate marketing like a real business and it will grow and develop over time. Spend time writing reviews, articles and promoting the products you believe in.
Don’t plaster your website with affiliate banners:
Introduce your affiliate recommendations in a natural way. A button or banner is great but may not make you too many sales, a product review or a personal recommendation will go further.
Don’t over promote products:
It’s easy to get overexcited and over do the product offers with your subscribers. Keep some balance and give more than you take. This will keep your list happy and more willing to consider your offers. Of course, you do need to promote things to your list; after all this is your business, but try to find a balance between free information and product promotions.
Don’t give up too soon:
Affiliate marketing is a business that builds up over time. You need to focus on developing your web traffic and email lists while you continue to faithfully offer your market what it wants and needs.
Those tips will give you a good starting point. Another particularly important element of affiliate marketing is your website. A good website can increase your sales where a poorly designed website can reduce your income, and we don’t mean you have to design a flashy, all singing and dancing website (actually you’ll want to avoid that). Instead, focus on offering quality, valuable content, and clean design to your visitors.
How to really make affiliate programs work:
1. Be sure that the affiliate programs you promote are relevant to your niche. It goes without saying, but if you have a site about babies and parenting, it’s not a good idea to promote golf related products as these aren’t relevant to your target market.
2. Write honest product reviews. Write informative and honest product reviews. This is a great way to give your unbiased opinion on a product and to build trust with your subscribers. And if a product is faulty in some way you can add that as a note (or you can simply choose not to promote it). Your readers will trust you more if they know your recommendations are honest and sincere.
3. Find the correct placement for affiliate links. As mentioned above, affiliate banners and graphics don’t usually work as well as providing informative content and weaving affiliate links where appropriate throughout that content. For example, you can write a quality article about helping your baby recover from colic and in that article, you can link out to resources which will help parents remedy this problem.
4. Set up your own domain or blog. You can’t do this for every affiliate program, but if you find a product which has really helped you and offers a generous commission, you can set up a blog and speak about your experience using this product. Make regular posts and comments about how the product is helping you and your experiences with it and link to the product in your blog posts.
5. Try to find affiliate programs that offer ‘lifetime cookies’ or ‘lifetime customers’. This means that when you send a member to the affiliate site your affiliate link is tracked in their system and even if the member doesn’t purchase the product right away, you’ll still get paid if the person returns and buys from that affiliate program at a later date.
6. Redirect your affiliate links through your own domain. There are many benefits to redirecting your affiliate links. It’s easier to track and remember your links when you need them. If a program changes their links, it’s easy to go back and change your links. You will also present a more professional image; many affiliate links are long and very ugly; your visitors may be suspicious of these links. Redirecting your affiliate links solves all these problems.
In conclusion, always remember to provide quality content and information and once you do that you can concentrate on making product recommendations. As your business grows, you will find other tips and strategies which work best for you and you can start experimenting a little more. By working the tips and advice in this article, you can actually start making affiliate marketing work for you.
