Affiliate Marketing: Ultimate Guide Updated 2024

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting another individual’s (or company’s) products. Essentially, you find a product you like, you promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you help make.

A typical salesman sells products from one company, but an affiliate marketer can sell products from multiple clients or companies and reap commissions from all of them.

According to Statista, business spending on affiliate marketing is projected to touch $8.2 billion in the US alone by 2022, up from $5.4 billion recorded in 2017.

An appetizing statistic, wouldn’t you agree?

And, we as marketers live in a blessed time where various technologies enable us to connect with prospects from across the globe, increasing business opportunities instantly.

However, to avoid any misconceptions concerning this article or affiliate marketing, do note – affiliate marketing takes work (lots of it, especially in the beginning). There are no shortcuts to success in this field, just like any other.

That being said, this write-up will help you understand certain processes that will allow you to experience better financial gains in the affiliate marketing world.

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is, the next step is to understand how it works?

In a gist, a merchant issues a unique link to each affiliate; the affiliate then shares the same through their content platforms or sources.

A client uses said link as a specific path to make a purchase, which results in the merchant making a sale.

And the affiliate, his/her commission.

This link serves two purposes –

• It allows the merchant to attribute a particular sale back to the correct affiliate.
• The link comes with a designated expiration date (this is great because it lets you get paid in commission even though a specific buyer may have delayed an immediate purchase).

The next question that most presumably asks is how much money can I make through affiliate marketing?

Truthfully, there is no predetermined income bracket that you can be sure to find yourself in.

It all depends on the niche of your choosing and (not to sound like a broken record, but…) the amount of work you put in as well.

Let’s take a look at six steps to follow when starting your affiliate marketing career:

1. Choose Your Platform

Although affiliate marketing can be carried out on a host of platforms, it has been found that either a YouTube channel or a blog is the most ideal platform to use when setting up base.

With respect to the former option, YouTube is a brilliant platform that lets its users create and upload content for free.

Your videos can be optimized for SEO purposes, and affiliate links are to be included in the description.

On the other hand, blogs are cheap (sometimes, costing only a few dollars per month) and relatively easy to maintain. Once you have constructed your blog’s framework, optimize it for search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. to better the blog’s ranking. The better the ranking, the more likely you are to attract traffic and improve sales figures.

Note: As per the regulations set by the Federal Trade Commissions, you need to disclose that you’re receiving an income through affiliate endorsements.

So, don’t forget that disclaimer!

2. Select Your Niche

Firstly, if you’re going to be the primary content creator, choose an area that interests you personally. (Hey, if you’re going to go through with this, you may as do it about something you have a passion for, that you’re interested in.)

It makes the process easier to cushion when the going gets tougher, the struggle is more personal, and the crushing of predetermined goals is all-the-more glorious.

Several affiliate platforms crash-and-burn due to a lack of consistency. Remember, there is no shortage of new entrants in this collective pond.

According to market.us, there will be over 5.3 billion Internet users until 2023, which means 66% of the total world population will be online.

That’s a lot!

So, if it’s a blog you wish to start, begin by niching-down. Focus on building up traffic towards a specific area of interest. Once you have achieved that, you can then showcase other areas of interest that you are just as intrigued by and build even more traffic accordingly. This will give you the best chance of success.

3. Research Affiliate Programs

Essentially, there are three types of affiliate programs that individuals can opt from:

• Low-paying, high-volume affiliate programs
• High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs
• High-paying, high-volume affiliate programs.

These are rather self-explanatory.

However, most of what you base your decision on will depend on your level of expertise and your niche of choice. If you’re targeting a business audience, then program B (high-paying, low-volume) might be the direction you may want to consider. If your area of focus is that of customers, then, program A (low-paying, high-volume) would appear to be the most suitable choice.

A simple Google search will allow you to locate these affiliate programs.

4. Create Compelling Content

This is a no-brainer!

They say that content is king.

If that’s the case and your ‘content’ wasn’t any good, it would be safe to assume that you’re doomed, to say the least. To successfully promote your affiliate platform, you must create original, high-quality content with which your affiliate links can be seamlessly woven into.

Create content that not just acknowledges a visitor’s query, but rather helps solve it in the process.

This will lend value to what you have to offer, build a higher level of trust among your target audience, and in doing so, potentially increase the number of your willing-to-buy prospects significantly. 

A bit of research and consult like some salesforce agency might be worth looking into to drive the content where you want it to be.

5. Grow Your Audience/ Drive Traffic

There are three ways by which you can accomplish this, they are –

• Paid traffic – This is where you, with the help of pay-per-click ads, pay for traffic to your site. But, this at times can prove to be an expense that some would rather do without.

• Build an email list – For you to build an effective email list, you must be willing to share information of value. It is a strict give-and-take interaction that is based on trust and takes place solely between a client and you. A well-curated email list has been proven to increase ROI substantially.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is the process of optimizing your web pages to rank high on search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. Effective SEO through target keywords can increase the number of prospects interested in what you have to offer or promote.

6. Promote Affiliate Offers

When promoting your affiliate offers, consider the following –

• Use attractive call-to-action buttons
• Seamlessly merge your affiliate links neatly with your content (avoid coming across as spammy)

But that’s not all!

Remember, you’re the middleman.

It’s one thing to get a prospect to click-through to the product page, but, once there, the checkout process authority lies solely in the merchants’ hands, as do the conversion rates.

To stay ahead of this curve, do your homework in advance on a particular affiliate program. This can be carried with the help of a simple Google search.

It will give you an idea as to whether an affiliate program will work for you by checking to see if other individuals are making money through it.

Conclusion

These aforementioned fundamental steps are part of a formula that has been tried and tested numerous times over.

And guess what? – It works!

Apply these practices to your affiliate marketing work structure for optimum results. However, merely following them will not ensure overnight success. As mentioned time and time earlier, affiliate marketing takes time.

Once you’ve made your first few sales, focus on setting higher targets and effectively achieving those goals, only to keep pushing your projected boundaries even further. And before you know it, you could be lucky enough to quit your full-time job and make affiliate marketing your primary source of progressive passive income.