Affiliate marketing is at it’s core relationship between advertiser, publisher and consumer. Online, you are affiliate that’s referring customers or sales to another business or market. This is similar as method of agents selling houses but they still don’t own the house, they are promoting house on behalf of their clients and earn some percent of the sale when property is sold.
Affiliate marketing works in a way that affiliates are advertising services and products of some business in return for commission for all clicks and sales. Affiliates are displaying various ads for advertisers and promoting them in form of text links, banner ads, search boxes or something else. Whenever sale is completed, advertiser is paying money to affiliate, depending on percentage of sale amount, or sometimes it can be already fixed amount.
Advertisers are usually companies which selling different products, like gadgets, clothing, electric devices, toys or something else. Companies that are dealing with thins kind of marketing prefer affiliates for promoting their products because they only have to pay for conversion. The final segment which completes affiliate marketing is affiliate network. It connects affiliates and advertisers. They have technology tracking, tools for reporting and they manage payments.
Lets explain the process of how affiliate marketing is working from beggining to finish. When you want to be affiliate you will sign up with your website to affiliate program. I recommend trying to apply for Amazon or Clickbank program. When you write articles about specific product or whenever you mention your advertiser company use the affiliate link so that customers can click on that link and be transferred to advertisers webpage. When this happens, advertisers company registers ” cookie ” on your page, and if that user buys product you reviewed or anything else, you will be paid for sale. Payments are usually done at the end of a month.
There are many strategies that can help you in becoming great affiliate. You should consider reviewing only products your’e familiar with, because you will sound more confident with it. So try to promote something that helped you achieve something and will help other people too. Never go with the route of telling someone directly to buy specific item, try to recommend it by talking about your personal experience with it. People do lot of mistakes when they are starting in this business for the first time. Don’t join too many affiliate programs you come across, instead try to focus on choosing them wisely not overloading yourself as it will come to the point of being unmanageable.
Try not to be naive and put ”buy this now” all over your page because in the end it’s not your job to sell products, you should rather help users to decide why they should make a decision to buy specific product or not. People like to read reviews from others. Try to compare the product you are offering with 2-3 other similar product, because when users are buying something in their head they already narrowed decision to few of them and they need help in order to choose the right one.
If you are just starting as affiliate, don’t go chasing new idea to earn online just because it looks shinny at the moment, as there will be many false methods constantly. This can distract you from your project. Becoming affiliate requires lot of work and focus. Be self motivated, and once you become aware of mistakes with enough learned skills you will develop your website or business and make nice profit in long term.
