If you have a Web site or blog and are looking for a way to earn income from your
online property, consider affiliate marketing programs. Affiliate
marketing is the term used to describe a revenue-sharing plan where an online
automated marketing program lets Webmasters place an advertiser's banner ads or buttons on their own Web site.
Webmasters will receive a referral fee or commission from conversions when a customer has
clicked the affiliate link and performs the
desired action, such as make a purchase or opt-in for downloads or newsletters
on the advertiser's site. Advertisers invest in affiliate programs for lead
generation, and, of course, sales.
Affiliate Marketing Definition
Affiliate Marketing is a type of performance-based
marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor
or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The
industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer’ or
‘brand’), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from
and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the
affiliate’), and the customer.
Source: Wikipedia
Affiliate Network
An Affiliate Network (Commission
Junction, ClickBank, Google Affiliate Network etc.) is a hub which
connects the Advertisers and Publishers. The affiliate network have the
tracking technology, reporting tools and manages the payments. Advertisers may
choose an Affiliate Network(s) to manage their affiliate program or may use
their own in-house affiliate network/platform.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
When you join an Affiliate program and
choose the products that you want to sell, sellers provide you with a unique
affiliate code that you can use to refer traffic to the target site. Most
affiliate programs will offer ready made text links, banners and other forms of
creative copies whereby you only have to copy the code and place it on your
website to start referring traffic. When interested visitors click on these
links from your site they get redirected to the product site and if they
purchase a product or subscribe to a service you as the referrer make a
commission.
The sellers can track your performance
through your affiliate ID and the affiliate softwares that they use. You also have complete, real
time access to all sales and commissions stats.
You don’t need to sell products all the
time to make a commission. Different affiliate programs can use different
payment terms such as:
·
Pay per Sale: In
this program a merchant pays you a percentage of the sale price when the
purchase is completed.
·
Pay per Click: In
this program you get paid based on the number of visitors you redirect to the
Merchant’s website from your affiliate site, whether or not a sale is made.
·
Pay per Lead:
You get paid once the referred visitors provide their contact information on
the target site by filling out a simple contact form.
Why be
an Affiliate Marketer?
Affiliate marketing is considered to be
one of the world’s fastest growing and best internet marketing techniques to
earn money online and I will explain why:
·
Cost effective:
Marketing on the internet is cheap and you don’t have to worry about the
production cost as the product is already developed by the seller. You don’t
need a physical business location or hire employees either.
·
Global Market:
Online marketing gives you the opportunity to reach people all over the world
easily.
·
No Fees: You don’t need to pay
anything to join affiliate programs.
·
No Storage No Shipping: You don’t need to worry about storage, packing or shipment of the
product. They are all taken care of by the seller.
·
No customer support: You don’t need to provide any customer support or deal with consumer
complaints as the Seller does that for you.
·
Passive income: A
regular job can give you a fixed income as long as you continue to work.
Depending on your marketing skill Affiliate marketing can create a steady flow
of income even when you are not in front of your computer.
·
Work from home: If
you make enough money then you don’t have to worry about going to work at the
same time every day or getting stuck in traffic. You can work in the comfort of
your own home.
Tips on
Becoming a Successful Affiliate Marketer
After reading all the benefits of
affiliate marketing if you think you will be rich over night by selling
affiliate products online then you are wrong. Affiliate marketing is definitely
an excellent way to make money online but it’s highly competitive too. In order
to be successful in Affiliate marketing you need to know the market needs,
learn how to promote products, what works and what doesn’t. The following are a
few tricks on becoming successful in affiliate marketing that I have learnt
over time.
1. Only Choose a Handful of Good Products
The first mistake a lot of affiliate
marketers make is that they register with too many different affiliate programs
and try to promote everything. Pursuing affiliate marketing down this path can
become very overwhelming and you won’t be able to promote any product properly.
All you need in order to be successful is a handful of good products to
promote. Try to understand the market needs and look for products that align
correctly with the topic of your site.
2. Use Several Traffic Sources to Promote Products
Most affiliate marketers put up the ads
only on their sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach but know that
there are many other traffic sources that you can tap into and promote the
products simultaneously. The more targeted traffic you can send to the sales
page the more your chances are of making money.
Google Adwords can be used to drive
targeted traffic to a sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account
then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad. Obviously, you
will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost
is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running but I am
sure you get the idea.
3. Test, Measure and Track Your Affiliate Campaign
It is a very good idea to use different
product promotion strategies so you can figure out what is working and what is
not. Try to do split testing and measure the performance of each campaign then
take actions accordingly. Changing a few things here and there can increase
your profit dramatically. Make sure to place the banner ads on different areas
of your site’s pages. Some positions will make the ads more noticeable than
others.
Most affiliate programs will give you
basic stats that you may need but there is nothing stopping you from using your
own conversion tracking software too. There are many conversions tracking
sofware out there that you can use to track your affiliate campaign.
4. Research the Demand of the Product
If you try to sell a product that is in
low demand then chances are that you are not going to get many sales no matter
how hard you try. So it is a good idea to spend a bit of time researching and
finding out if a product that you are thinking of promoting is a product that
your audience needs. If your site gets decent traffic then you can conduct an
online survey and easily get input from your visitors.
5. Stay Current with New Methods and Techniques
Affiliate marketing is a very
competitive field and people are always coming up with new techniques. Try to
stay current with these new techniques and market trends otherwise you will
fall behind.
6. Choose the Right Merchant
When you promote a product you also
promote the person or the company who is behind the product so try to choose
wisely. You don’t want your visitors to go and buy a product following your
advice then come back unhappy. Do you think that this visitor will come back to
your site and take your advice again? Most likely no; this can hurt your
credibility in the long run. Usually, websites/company that offer good customer
service will have better customer satisfaction so try to stick with promoting
their products.
