Mastering Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
Table of Contents
A passive income is probably something everyone has dreamt of, but only a few have achieved. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to generate passive income if you’re wondering how to start.
YouTube, Instagram, and blogs are just a few examples of platforms that can be used to perform this marketing method.
This is an in-depth look at affiliate marketing in 2023: What is it about and how beginner affiliate marketers can get started with it, as well as some of the best affiliate programs anyone can use to earn some passive income.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is the practice of incentivizing third-party marketers (affiliates) to promote a product or service. Affiliate marketers could be other companies or individuals who do not necessarily have first-hand experience with your products.
For every successful referral, these affiliate marketers earn a commission paid by the business hosting the affiliate program. Have a look at the infographic below to see how a typical affiliate marketing cycle works.
As affiliates only get paid when a sale is made, affiliate marketing has become a cheap and efficient form of marketing for companies looking to reach more people and in turn, as more people are looking to earn passive income from the comfort of their homes, affiliate marketing is one of the best options.
The goal of affiliate marketing is to generate sales by rewarding affiliate marketers for every sale they make.
As an affiliate marketer, you are rewarded for every deal you help the business close.
Explaining The Affiliate Marketing Business For New A New Affiliate Marketer
When you work as an affiliate marketer, you promote a company’s products or services and receive a commission for each sale you generate.
There are no barriers to entry, and you can get started with no money. Affiliate marketing, for beginners, may be challenging at first but when mastered, is one of the best ideas for an online business since it is easy to set up and requires no financial investment.
Your primary responsibility is to promote the products and services, not sell them directly. Therefore, you don’t need to invest time and money in customer service.
Consequently, the only investment you need to make is in your time. By following our guide, you’re almost guaranteed to make at least some affiliate income- there is almost no risk of failure.
You can also do affiliate marketing on a large scale. The result is a regular passive income from promoting products from numerous companies at the same time.
- You will choose an affiliate program to sign up for.
- The company you choose will give you a unique affiliate link.
- The browser cookie that is stored on readers’ devices when they click that link means you’ll get paid even if they don’t buy right away (although cookies usually expire after a certain date).
Consider this example: You have a food blog and you review a $1000 cookware. For every reader who clicks on your affiliate link and buys the cookware after clicking on the affiliate link you provide, you’ll receive $500 as you commission.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? As an affiliate marketer, you can earn quite a bit.
Here’s how much you can earn as an affiliate marketer.
How Much Money Can You Make With Your Affiliate Link?
According to PayScale, affiliate marketing generates an average of $51,217 in passive income each year. In the bottom 10% of the income distribution, $37,000 is earned, whereas in the top 10%, $71,000 is earned.
According to Glassdoor, passive affiliate marketing income averages $65,800 per year. The range is from $42,000 to $83,000.
Based on ZipRecruiter data, passive affiliate marketing income on average is $154,700 a year and $12,892 a month.
Does the size of the company seem big enough to you? There is even the possibility of earning more than that.
A Step By Step Guide On How To Get Started With The Right Affiliate Program
Step 1: Choose a Platform and a niche
The platform is where you will promote your affiliate link, while the niche is the category of product you have an interest in.
Affiliate marketing business is mostly carried out through blogs, YouTube channels, and social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. The affiliate marketing industry is driven by content so be sure to always put out the the best content possible to maximize your affiliate revenue.
In order to build an audience of people who will read your content and click on your affiliate links, you should use a blog as a primary channel for affiliate marketing.
Every industry has a variety of blogs, which is why choosing a niche is crucial to your affiliate marketing success. The most competitive niches are those that earn higher commissions – like personal finance, travel, and technology.
Your niche shouldn’t be determined by affiliate marketing and commissions. Make your choice based on what you are passionate about. Providing high-quality content to your audience is the key to success in affiliate marketing.
Furthermore, no matter what industry you are in, you can market a product or service. It is common for companies to have affiliate programs. If there’s a company you particularly want to collaborate with that doesn’t have one, you can negotiate one for yourself (provided there’s a good amount of traffic coming to your blog).
Step 2: Choose an affiliate program in your preferred niche
Affiliate programs can be classified into three categories: low-volume with high commissions, high-volume with high commissions, and high-volume with low commissions.
Affiliate Programs with Low-Volume and High Commissions
There are affiliate programs that pay very high commissions in certain niches, such as finance, banking, and business.
The disadvantages of these are, however, as follows
- These niches require expertise. To promote them, the affiliate marketer would need to speak in technical terms and industry jargon that could be difficult to learn.
- As the competition rates are high, these affiliate programs could be very competitive because everyone wants a share of the cake!
Beginner affiliate marketers should only sign up for these affiliate programs if they run a blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram page that concerns a very technical topic. People would trust your recommendations if they know you are an industry expert.
Here are two examples of high-paying affiliate programs in niches with relatively low volumes:
Affiliate Programs with High-Volume and High Commissions
Due to their mass appeal, some niches offer programs with high commissions that can also be promoted to a large audience.
Some of them may require specific expertise, and they can be competitive. Here are a few examples.
Affiliate Programs with High-Volume and Low Commissions
The last type of affiliate program is relatively easy to promote but typically offers lower commission rates. These are usually the best affiliate programs for successful affiliate marketing beginners.
Choosing the right Affiliate Program
There are many factors that will impact your ability to succeed and make profits in affiliate marketing, but many beginners are tempted to focus on affiliate programs with higher commissions.
High paying affiliate programs paying very high commissions and not selling could make an affiliate marketing business far less profitable than having one paying low commissions but high conversion rates.
Here are the main factors to consider when choosing an affiliate program to start affiliate marketing:
Relevance
You want to ensure that you already have an audience in the niche you have selected. Having a million followers who are interested in fintech won’t make a difference if you promote fashion items. The point here is to ensure the product or service is a good fit and relevant to your niche and audience.
Familiarity
Only promote products or services that you’ve personally tried and would promote for free. Do not let the commission offer drive you into promoting products or services that are questionable.
Support
Due to the possibility of issues arising, we recommend working with trusted and established brands. See what other affiliates have to say about the program. Affiliates need tools and resources like banner ads, creatives, email templates, and client testimonials to be successful.
Legitimacy
The first thing you should do before promoting a product you haven’t personally tried is to look it up. Read reviews, watch YouTube reviews and product descriptions and ensure it is well received by the masses, especially people in your audience.
Conversion rate
For an affiliate program to be profitable, it must have a high conversion rate, since most affiliate programs use CPS compensation models, established brands are a better choice, as they are more likely to have visitors convert.
Cookies
A cookie duration determines how long you are eligible for commissions on referred customers. For maximum affiliate income, you want the cookie duration to be as long as possible.
Commission
When it comes to commissions, consider the following: will you receive a one-time payment or a recurring payment?; what compensation model will be used (CPS is the standard, but some programs will use a pay-per-lead or pay-per-click model); and will you receive second tier-commissions (percentage of sales generated by affiliates you refer).
Terms and conditions
Finally, make sure you fully understand the payment terms and methods, and the marketing terms and conditions that the affiliate program you’re looking at offers.
Tips for finding the best Affiliate Programs
Affiliate marketing beginners should find some of the best affiliate programs in your niche by thinking about brands, products, and services you use in your daily life.
Consider products you use yourself or think your readers will find useful. You should also make sure you can incorporate them organically into your content without making it appear like a paid advertisement. In an article about internet security, you might want to include an affiliate link for antivirus software if you have a tech blog.
Start by searching for an affiliate program on the website of one of your favorite companies. If you don’t find it, try searching for BRAND NAME + AFFILIATE on Google.
In addition to affiliate programs, affiliate networks are intermediaries between you and companies that offer affiliate programs.
Joining an affiliate network will make it easier to work with multiple merchants as an affiliate. These networks are also used by some brands to offer their affiliate programs.
You can also find conversion metrics on most affiliate networks, which will help you determine what merchants convert visitors into sales.
When choosing an affiliate network, ask yourself these questions:
- How much does it cost? There are some affiliate networks that require a monthly fee or a starting fee. Since affiliate marketing does not require startup costs, you should avoid them.
- How well does it fit with your niche and your audience’s interests? You can find this out by scrolling through the list of companies and seeing if your industry is represented.
Is customer support available? Choosing a network that offers a range of customer support options is a good idea.
Top Affiliate Marketing Networks For Beginners + Top 3 Affiliate Programs
Before we begin reviewing affiliate networks you can join as a beginner, we will first review our top 3 affiliate programs you can sign up for right away even if you are 2 days old into the affiliate marketing business.
1. All Time Design Affiliate Program
Our team at All Time Design has just launched a great affiliate program with one of the best offers possible.
ATD is one of the world’s leading online graphic design services that allow anyone to find unique and professional solutions to all their graphic design needs for a small monthly subscription.
with All Time Design.
earn upto 25% Recurring commission
All Time Design affiliate program is easy and free for anyone to join. You are three simple steps away from becoming an affiliate for ATD. Our application only takes 5 minutes or less, and if your referral taps on your affiliate link to sign up for our services and stays with us beyond our 21 days trial, you get a 25% commission credited to your account immediately. You can pick your preferred payment delivery method directly through our portal where you will receive your commission on the first of every month.
2. Metricks Affiliate Program
Metricks is an affiliate marketing software that helps businesses create and run their own affiliate programs. You can sign up to promote Metricks and earn commissions of up to 20%.
Metricks takes care of everything, including hosting the products and providing customer service, and you earn money by referring other businesses to sign up.
3. Binance – Crypto Affiliate Program
If you are a blockchain or cryptocurrency enthusiast, Binance’s affiliate program should interest you. Binance’s referral program debuted with a 50% incentive on Bitcoin trading fees (BTC). Binance’s commissions are paid in real-time.
Binance’s crypto affiliate program commission is up to 50%, and the payment method is whichever cryptocurrency your referral trades in, so create a Binance account and start earning fast! Know more about blockchain development.
Now we will review affiliate networks
1. Amazon Associates
As an affiliate marketing program for one retailer, Amazon Associates is technically nothing more than that. Amazon, however, has an enormous range of products that share certain characteristics with affiliate networks. In fact, their advertising claims they offer the widest range of products on earth.
Beginner affiliate marketers are required to go through an application review process to become qualified as an Amazon Associate. It is a basic requirement that you make at least three sales within your first 180 days.
It is also Amazon’s requirement that any site that promotes their products must have original content (even if there is no advertising). You need at least ten posts to qualify. Blogs and traditional websites aren’t the only options. As long as you have sufficient content and engagement on your social media platforms, and mobile apps, Amazon is happy to accept your sales.
A wide variety of products are available on Amazon, and associates can promote anything they like. Associates are also recognized for all purchases made by people referred by them, not just those made on the particular product advertised on their site.
If someone clicks on a link on your website leading to a pair of Nike trainers but ends up buying an expensive iPad on Amazon instead, then you still receive a commission on the sale of the iPad.
Amazon Associates, however, has the disadvantage that
t its commission fees are relatively low. Most products fall within the range of 4 or 5%, but the percentages vary by type. For example, the commission percentage on physical video games and video game consoles is only 1%, and televisions are only 2%.
2. ClickBank
Affiliate marketers are able to find top affiliate programs through ClickBank’s marketplace, harnessing the power of their digital marketing partners (affiliates) with a library of over 6 million unique products to reach 200 million customers worldwide.
Some Clickbank products provide affiliate marketers with commissions of up to 75%, one of the most significant advantages for the affiliate network. You can find a variety of digital products and offers on Clickbank’s online catalog that affiliates can promote. It is also possible to promote products that offer upsell options during the purchase process. Adding upsells to your product or service gives your customers more value and increases your profits.
ClickBank has many products that sell as recurring subscriptions. As long as the customer continues to renew their subscription, you’ll continue to earn money month after month, year after year.
3. eBay Partner Network (EPN)
As one of the world’s largest online marketplaces, eBay is well known for its popularity. There are 1.4 billion listings on the site at any given time. It may come as a surprise to learn that 80% of all merchandise sold on eBay are new.
eBay’s Partner Program is designed to encourage people to refer prospective buyers to the site. It is eBay’s partners who send their customers to the eBay global marketplace to shop.
There is a good chance that some of those users will purchase something after being referred to the site. Upon doing so, the referring affiliate marketer receives credit for the sale. Since eBay manages its own affiliate network, they provide tools, reports, and resources for partners.
Like Amazon’s affiliate program, eBay’s Program pays different rates for different types of products, and the percentages are all relatively low, compared to some of the more specialist networks. These lower rates, however, must be balanced against the potential for a greater volume of sales.
For buyers who drive a large amount of traffic to eBay, eBay also offers a Premier Program. Partners who send a substantial business to eBay are invited to participate in the program, which offers them exclusive content to increase their earnings, early access to new tools, and other benefits.
4. FlexOffers
FlexOffers refer to their product owners (merchants) and affiliate marketers as advertisers and publishers, respectively,.
Their FlexOffers.com PublisherPro affiliate marketing network was recently launched. A wide variety of products, promotions, and online-only offers are featured on their network from top global brands and niche advertisers. In addition to banner ads and text links, they can also provide unique promotional copy that can be easily inserted into any site.
Affiliate marketers can promote enticing advertiser campaigns through their websites, email campaigns, social media, and many other channels through FlexOffers.
Affiliate marketers will receive a commission each time their traffic completes a commissionable action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or completing any other action for which the advertiser is willing to pay.
FlexOffers.com offers over 12,000 affiliate programs across nearly every retail category.
Commissions are typically paid by advertisers as a flat amount or as a percentage of the sale. Commissions are typically paid by advertisers as a flat amount or as a percentage of the sale. The payments are generally made on a monthly basis and are subject to a 60-day grace period. Here, unlike the cj affiliate network, you will find some of the highest-paying affiliate programs.
5. JVZoo
According to its description, JVZoo is an all-in-one platform for digital commerce. A total of 9.5 million products are sold across 22 categories on their website. There are over 200 niches and categories in JVZoo’s Digital Product Library.
This network provides newbies with the tools and solutions they need to run successful and profitable online businesses. The company is a safe place for product creators and marketers from all over the world to meet and work together.
Training and affiliate tools are instantly accessible to affiliates. JVZoo’s Marketplace offers affiliates access to thousands of products that are perfect for promoting to their audiences, and affiliates can sign up for free.
A designated PayPal account is used by affiliates to receive commission payments directly from vendors.
All products in a sales funnel have one link, which is useful for affiliates. Offers like one-time offers, upsells and downsells, as well as cross-sells and cross-offers, fall into this category. By offering exclusive bonuses, affiliates can encourage prospects to click through their affiliate links. With a bonus product, they can automatically deliver it to the customer along with the purchased item.
6. LeadDyno
Using LeadDyno’s affiliate marketing software, affiliate marketers can access E-CommerceAffiliates.com’s affiliate network.
With LeadDyno, you can drive affiliate sales from start to finish. A customized Affiliate Dashboard is provided to each new affiliate. The affiliate marketer’s custom dashboard contains everything the partner needs to promote a brand’s store and its products.
Users of LeadDyno are welcome to join E-Commerce Affiliates.com for free. The website is devoted to e-commerce products. The company is actively seeking editorial websites to join its network. There is an affiliate program attached to every product on the network. Over 1800 affiliate programs are currently active across 21 product categories.
7. MaxBounty
Through MaxBounty, you can increase affiliate sales, leads, signups, app installs, and any other action deemed necessary to grow your business.
Additionally, MaxBounty offers affiliates the chance and tools to promote the products of their clients. Bloggers, media buyers, social media marketers, and email marketers can promote high-converting cost-per-action campaigns from hundreds of advertisers.
The affiliate can choose which verticals to promote – the areas in which they are most knowledgeable. Depending on the pricing model they choose, they can earn money from CPA, CPS, CPL, and CPI.
Currently, there are more than 2000 active campaigns. Affiliates benefit from a quick payment period thanks to MaxBounty’s weekly payments payment. Furthermore, you can reward the best affiliates with a variety of performance-based incentives.
8. Pepperjam
It was Pepperjam’s vision to create a platform that facilitates the creation and building of relationships and connections through affiliate marketing.
This platform, called Ascend, allows businesses to manage affiliate marketing in one place.
Ascend is the core technology behind Pepperjam’s affiliate network. Pepperjam is looking for successful marketers to become partners. In contrast to many of these networks, Pepperjam is more selective and is unlikely to accept applicants without prior experience.
The publisher (affiliate) of Pepperjam is paid on the 1st and 15th of each month.
9. Rakuten Marketing
Rakuten Marketing is one of the most established affiliate networks. People with loyal social media followers or regular website visitors are always in demand as affiliate marketing publishers. Partnering with thousands of leading and emerging brands across a variety of industries can help you provide your visitors with more personalized and organized advertising experiences, with links to products they care about.
With their educational tools and training, you can improve your affiliate marketing program and jumpstart your commissions. Publishers who achieve platinum status receive early access to technology and consultations.
Rakuten’s affiliate program is easy to sign up for. The affiliate marketing process is divided into two steps:
- Join the Rakuten Marketing Affiliate Network.
- Apply to join specific advertisers’ affiliate programs.
To be accepted into the program, you need to meet specific criteria set by each advertiser. As well as being relevant to the advertiser’s products, your affiliate site content must also comply with brand guidelines.
10. LinkConnector
A brand’s ability to partner with top affiliate talent is enabled by LinkConnector (LC). LinkConnector provides affiliates with the opportunity to earn commissions from their affiliate site traffic. Affiliates agree to place merchant ads and links on their websites in exchange for a commission.
With LinkConnector, affiliates can easily manage their promotions and grow them. Among its useful features is the ability for affiliates to automatically apply for campaigns that meet certain criteria (for example, campaigns with a product feed or coupons).
Affiliates working with LinkConnector must be ethical and dedicated. Rather than quantity, quality has been their priority since 2004.
Rather than concentrating on screening out fraud, merchants can grow their campaigns efficiently by working with only serious and successful affiliate marketers, hence, it is not a great idea of affiliate marketing for beginners.
Step 3: Create high-quality content
Successful affiliates understand how to create content that drives traffic to their affiliate links. Why is that important?
In order for your affiliate links to be clicked, you must be perceived as a trustworthy and reliable source by your audience.
Fortunately, there is a variety of affiliate marketing content types to choose from. Most affiliate programs will give you marketing assets to start with when you are approved as an affiliate, however, you should be a little more independent, just in case you are required to come up with your own unique affiliate content.
Several surveys reveal that prospects prefer affiliate content that is original and unique to the content creator.
Tutorials, product reviews, listicles, and resource pages are the best content types for affiliate marketing.
As soon as you create your blog, do not wait, start driving traffic to it as soon as you can.
A paid search campaign and a content marketing campaign are the two main options you have.
A successful affiliate marketing strategy requires paid traffic to complement your efforts. High-paying affiliate programs can make it worthwhile.
When you’re starting out, you probably have a limited marketing budget, so you’ll want to start with low-commission affiliate programs.
Paid traffic, however, isn’t the best option, and you’ll want to start generating traffic from search engine optimization (SEO), which involves optimizing pages to rank highly on search engines.
Your blog will get free, consistent traffic if you accomplish this.
If you want to win in your content marketing strategy, create informational blog posts that answer your audience’s questions or solve their problems, all the same, try as much as you can to infuse your affiliate link somewhere it is visible so that your content can cause some conversions to happen. Read the next step for more information on this.
Step 4: Promote your affiliate Links
As soon as you have created great content, it is time to get your readers to click your affiliate links. Keep these factors in mind when promoting affiliate links:
Placement
Make sure affiliate links aren’t placed in areas of the page that aren’t visible to many users, like the bottom.
Context
It is important to make sure your content and what you write about align with the products, services, or brands you are promoting. Do not stuff in a link to a television clearance sales in your fashion blog.
Callouts
Make your content more skimmable by adding buttons, tables, or boxes throughout to attract your readers’ attention to your affiliate links. If you’re comparing two products, consider using a comparison table to create a great user experience and make the links stand out.
Step 5: Promote Your Content
You should promote your high-quality content to increase your blog’s visibility once you have high-quality content. You will automatically gain attention if your content is high-quality, informative, and well-written. However, promotion is necessary to speed up the process at first.
Promotion is something you can choose from a variety of options.
If you don’t create content for a newsletter, we recommend starting that as soon as possible one (if you don’t have one). You can promote your content on social media. Your content can be turned into an infographic or interesting image for channels like these, and you can encourage users to read the article in its entirety.
You can also repurpose your content into YouTube videos.
Guest posting – writing articles for other blogs – is a great way to promote your content and build links. It can take a lot of time, so make sure your content will entice readers to read more on your blog or website.
With LinkedIn, you can create a new article repurposed for the B2B market and enable users to share it on LinkedIn and other social networks.
Now you know what affiliate marketing is all about and how it can benefit you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Affiliate Programs for Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
How much can a beginner make in affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing beginners can earn between $100 and $1,000 monthly depending on the niche. On the other hand, advanced affiliates can make between $10k to $100k a month. Top tier super affiliates can boast of $100000 plus/Month.
Can I start affiliate marketing for free?
Affiliate marketing is cheap however, for beginner affiliates, the main difficulty for many beginners is the initial costs, ranging from purchasing domains and e-commerce servers to training and publishing books, etc.
Is affiliate marketing easy?
Affiliates require knowledge, experience and work. It isn’t easy to achieve, but if done right, it generates an impressive income. What qualities do I require for success as an affiliate marketer? Interest in a particular industry and experience.
with All Time Design.
earn upto 25% Recurring commission
