How to Make Money in Affiliate Marketing
Are you already getting sales and cranking out passive income?
Affiliate marketing is a lucrative side hustle, but only if you do it right. Here are some tips for how to become a successful affiliate marketer:
Successful Affiliate Marketing Takes Time and Effort, But It’s Worth It
The best way to learn about affiliate marketing is by actually doing it.
It’s not hard to get started, but there are a few things you’ll need to make money from affiliate links.
You have to have an audience and a reputation before you can start making money from an affiliate link — and building those up takes time.
To begin, you’ll need at least one product (or service) that you want people to buy.
They purchase it from your website by clicking on an affiliate link.
You’ll also need some way of tracking how many sales are generated through your site (for example, Google Analytics), as well as the ability to change the price of this product whenever necessary (for example, Stripe).
For reference, here is a list of popular products that work well for beginners:
- Ebooks/reports
- Software products (like Landing Page Tools)
- Courses or membership sites
Find The Right Audience
Finding the right audience is a critical step to making money in affiliate marketing.
The best way to do this is by finding a niche that you are passionate about and know well.
Here are some other secrets:
- Find a niche with large audience numbers (10,000+ monthly visitors).
You won’t make much money from the traffic below this level because of low conversion rates and high competition for keywords.
- Find a niche where there are low barriers to entry (low competition).
If there’s already an established player in the space you’re trying to break into, it can be hard for beginners to get noticed.
Unless you have something unique or special that sets you apart from your competitors!
e.g., being able to offer higher quality content due to more experience or having access to exclusive products/services at lower costs.
Create a Sales Funnel
Creating a sales funnel is the first step in creating a successful affiliate marketing business.
A sales funnel is a series of steps that a customer goes through after first learning about your product or service, and it helps ensure that you’re converting as many leads into paying customers as possible.
The more steps in your funnel, the more conversions you’ll make!
There are two main types of funnels: Top-of-the-Funnel (TOFU) and Bottom-of-the-Funnel (BOFU).
TOFU funnels focus on getting people who know nothing about you to learn about what you offer.
These are usually done with PPC ads on social media platforms like Facebook or Google Ads Search Network ads.
TOFU content targets people who have not yet visited your website but might be interested in it based on their search queries or other demographic information.
BOFU content focuses on converting existing customers into repeat buyers by offering recurring revenue streams such as monthly subscriptions.
Examples include products like Amazon Prime memberships where users pay every month for free two-day shipping plus other benefits such as unlimited video streaming from Netflix and Hulu Plus.
Similarly, there are companies like Spotify where users pay per month, after a free trial period, so they can listen to music and podcasts online anytime.
Make Sure Your Content is Great
You have to be able to back up what you say with evidence, and you have to be able to do it interestingly. Think of it as Education & Entertainment (“Edutainment”).
If you’re not a good writer, practice!
If someone can write well and make money by writing for other websites, why shouldn’t they?
There are plenty of people out there who will pay anything for the right content.
The best creators know how important stacking value is for success.
Content needs to be unique and full of value for the reader — which means that when leads land on one of their pages through Google, they’ll find something useful.
Nobody wants another advertorial about a product or service.
People want to benefit from the time invested in your website.
Here’s how to guarantee you’re providing value in ALL of your affiliate marketing content.
Add Value by Creating a Bonus to Sweeten The Deal For Readers
One of the best ways to add value for your audience is by creating a bonus or sweetener at the end of your content.
Bonus items can come in many forms, but here are some ideas:
- Giveaway — offer something free. Something that they’re going to use and love, like a guide or list of resources.
- Discount — offer them a discount on your product or service if they buy within a certain amount of time.
- Consultation — offer a free consultation so they can ask any questions directly related to what you write about in your content piece.
- Webinar — host an online webinar where you answer questions live through video chat software such as Skype or Google Hangouts and record it for later viewing by others who weren’t able to attend live (this is also helpful if you have multiple authors).
Webinars are recorded on YouTube as well as anywhere else viewers watch videos (Facebook Live streams are very popular).
- Video series — create videos where people get answers directly from you in video form rather than text articles.
This allows people more time with you without having to read long articles!
You could even make the videos into podcasts (a series of audio recordings).
Audio files work better for certain audiences than written ones do (for example learners who prefer listening over reading).
Link to High-Quality Affiliate Sites
For example, if you are a blogger and you have an audience in the home improvement space, it’s a good idea to link out to high-quality home improvement websites.
The important point? Offer products and services related to your audience’s interests.
BEWARE: You shouldn’t just link out for the sake of linking out.
Your goal should be to provide value for your readers by linking them directly or indirectly (through contextual ads) to products or services that will help them solve their problems.
- High-quality affiliate sites offer content relevant to your target market.
- They have high conversion rates, and they’re not too expensive.
- They tend to not spam their users with ads (bad idea).
Grow Your Audience For More Sales
Once you’ve established your product, how do you grow your audience?
- Create a blog. If you want to build an audience around affiliate marketing, start with a blog.
It’s a great way to educate people about the industry and earn the trust of potential customers.
- Create a newsletter. A newsletter is another excellent way to keep in touch with your readers — and it can also help promote your products or services.
Make sure that the content of each newsletter is valuable or interesting enough to keep them coming back for more!
- Use social media. Social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook are great places to engage with potential customers on an ongoing basis.
Make sure that one of these networks is part of your plan if they aren’t already!
- Use paid advertising (Like Google AdWords). Paid advertising allows you to reach new audiences by showing ads related specifically to keywords.
Affiliate Marketing is a Lucrative Side Hustle
Affiliate marketing is where you can make money by promoting products or services offered by other companies.
When it comes to affiliate marketing, there are some different strategies that you can use…
In this section, we’ll cover some of the best ways for affiliate marketing beginners to get started and make money.
A famous example of making some extra cash on the side is through High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing with the Amazon Associates program.
The program allows you to outsource all of your work — from researching product opportunities and creating content around them, to tracking your earnings — all while earning commission on every sale!
Amazon offers two primary options: Individual Associates (which requires a $50 signup fee) and Professional Associates ($99/month).
The next step is identifying which niches would be most profitable for you as an affiliate marketer based on your interests and the popular topics people are searching for most often online today.
Conclusion
To make money in affiliate marketing, you must understand that it is an ongoing process.
You can’t set up a website and wait for the money to roll in.
Instead, invest effort in creating engaging content and connecting with your audience on social media channels like Facebook or TikTok.
You must be ready to try new things.
If one strategy doesn’t work for you, such as testing ads on Facebook or tools like Google Adwords Keyword Planner, you must be ready to change.
