Affiliate marketing is a great thing and we all have heard a lot about it! But the question is: How to get started with affiliate marketing? So here is the answer! 

In this guide, we will cover everything you need to know about affiliate marketing and how you can use it to earn a good passive income!

 So without any delay, let’s get started!

First things first. What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is promoting a specific product and service and getting a commission for each sale. We have often seen “sponsored post” or “affiliate link” mentioned on the websites, so this is what they are talking about! Every time someone will click the link to open the website and/or purchase the product or get a service upon your recommendation, you will get a certain amount of commission from each sale. This is how it works. Now let’s see how it is done.

First of all, you have to choose a specific affiliate program according to your interest and requirements. You must know the products and services provided, the mode of payment, and the commission offered by the program.

If you like the terms and conditions, then sign up and wait for confirmation. Once your request is accepted, then you can start adding the custom links to your content to earn a commission for each purchase.

There are several companies and programs available and you can choose any according to your interest. Generally, these programs are divided into several categories, so that it is easy for you to select the ones that match your niche. After confirmation, you can use the affiliate links for promotion in your content, newsletters, emails, etc.

Once you have reached the amount decided, you are paid either through PayPal or via checks or bank transfer.

Now that you know the basics, let’s dig in deeper to learn more about affiliate marketing and how the system works. So keep reading till the end to learn everything about it.

The Merchant

The merchant is someone who owns the product, and can also be called the seller, retailer, or creator of the product. It can either be a big company or a single individual behind the affiliate program. They just need to sell their products via the links.

The Affiliate Marketers

These are the publishers, and just like the merchant, an affiliate marketer can be anyone from a single individual to a big company. You can produce as much amount from the affiliate marketing business as you want, depending upon your reach and how many people buy a product upon your recommendation.

This is how the whole marketing process takes place. An affiliate markets and convinces people to buy a certain product and that is how people end up buying it.

The Consumer

The consumer, which you can also call the customer, is someone who buys the product upon your recommendation and that is how the whole marketing system goes. The affiliate promotes the product on either social media, through billboards, or the blog, so that it can reach the maximum audience for sale.

The consumer must know that he/she is being part of the affiliate marketing program. Usually, it is given as a disclaimer that “We may get a commission for the purchase of this item”. Another important thing that you must know is that the consumer does not pay any extra price for the product, rather, the cost is the same as the retail price of the product.

The Affiliate Network

An affiliate network often works as an intermediate between the merchant and the affiliate, thus it is important to discuss as well. An affiliate network for example Commission Junction usually deals with the payments and the product delivery. Sometimes if a merchant manages the marketing program via an affiliate network, then also, you have to work with the network for the dealings. Apart from this, an affiliate network also works as a database from where a marketer can choose the products to promote.

An example of this is Clickbank or the biggest network for promoting consumer products is Amazon.

The Amazon Associates affiliate program is very easy to use and anyone can sign up to generate custom links for selling the products. Whenever the consumer purchases the product through the affiliate link, you get a small commission for it.

So now you know the basic terms in the affiliate marketing system. Now let’s learn more about how the system works and how to get started!

How to Get Started?

So as we discussed, the affiliate marketing system usually involves the merchant and the marketer (assuming that you are not going for any affiliate network). Then you can either become a merchant or a marketer. Being a merchant, you work with others to promote your product and in return, you pay them a certain commission for each sale. Otherwise, you can become a marketer promote and sell products, and earn money from the commission.

Although most people choose to be an affiliate, thus promoting products to earn money, it is not an easy route and it takes a long time to gain enough traffic that can purchase products upon your recommendation.

So let’s have a look at the 4 basic steps for beginners!

How to Become an Affiliate Program Merchant?

Here is what you have to do for becoming an affiliate merchant.

First of all, you must have a product idea and it depends on what's popular in the market.

Next, you have to validate the idea to make sure that the audience wants it.

After the product validation, next comes the creation of the product. If it is a physical product, you must calculate the investment and you must also know the risks. Otherwise, you can also work on digital products to earn a good income. This is a good option for beginners as there is not much investment and it just needs your time and skill.

Once you have launched your product, next you have to find the affiliates for the promotion of your product. You can use the affiliate networks for this step. Let’s now discuss each of these steps in detail!

Step 1: Coming up with a Good Product Idea

To make good money, you have to choose a product that people already like. Work on how you can improve the quality of service, and how your product can solve the problems in a better way. Go through the reviews and you will know exactly how to make your product better than the one already available in the market.

To check which product is popular, you can use various tools for example Buzzsumo.

These tools help you find what people are looking for, based on their shares on social media. Similarly, you can check the YouTube search results to find out what people usually search for.

Once you find out the product idea, now comes the next question: Will people pay for your product?

Step 2: Validation of your Product Idea

To find out if people will pay for your product, here is a simple technique. Simple copy any one of the product’s URLs and plug into any tool for example Keyhole. You will find out the people who tweeted about the topic. Then you can reply to those people and tell them about your idea. Also, make sure to ask them if they would buy it or not. If they say yes, then you must quickly ask them to buy and tell them to wait till a certain order level is reached. Once you reach the level, then you can start finalizing the product.

Step 3: Create your product

As discussed, creating a digital product is much easy as compared to a physical product. There are various courses available on the internet to learn more about it. Digital products require only time, and not any money, and usually, you just have to pay for the course to learn a skill. Therefore, it is easy and a good thing for beginners.

Step 4: Find the affiliate partners

Once you have created your product, now you can find your affiliate program partners you can set up your affiliate partners with the help of some tools like  Digital Product Delivery.

Finding an affiliate partner with a good audience is important for successful marketing. Simply send them a mail with an introduction of your business and product and discuss with them the terms and conditions. Just make sure that you don’t sound greedy and you give a good commission especially in the case of digital products.

So these are the basic steps if you want to become a merchant. Now let’s have a look at how to start your journey as a marketer in the affiliate marketing business.

How to Become an Affiliate Program Marketer?

It also requires four steps discussed below.

First, you have to review the products on your YouTube channel or the blog. Then, you have to check the emails to connect with the audience.

You can, then, work on the joint venture webinars to make sales, along with creating new content and working on new mails. Once that is done, then you can scale your growth. Now let’s discuss each one of these steps in detail.

Step 1: Reviewing the products

This is relatively easy, as compared to being a merchant. Here you just have to talk about the product that you use/have used or like. Just make sure that your review is honest and you are genuinely helping the people.

Step 2: Connect to people via Email

This is the best thing you can do. Build an email list of the people who visit your website. You can easily do it using tools like Hello Bar.

Once you have the emails, make sure you send them regular updates or at least once every week. This can make more sales than anything else, so do not miss out on the emails. In each mail, you can send them a call to action to buy a certain product. With that, you can tell them why you recommend the product and why they must buy it.

Step 3: Create webinars

Another great thing is the webinar! You can create a simple landing page for your webinars using tools like LeadPages. This is a great way to engage the audience and you can also have a live question and answer session to answer all the queries of the audience. In the webinars, make sure you present the product you are promoting, its features, and why and how it is different from the other similar products in the market. A good tip here is to ask your merchant for a special discount for your audience. This multiplies the sales by a great amount and benefits all three; the merchant, the marketer, and the consumer.

Step 4: Grow your Affiliate Marketing Business

Once your affiliate marketing setup begins, now is the time to grow it with PPC Advertising. You can use PPC advertising to get more people to join your webinars and to grow your email list, all of which ultimately results in more sales.

Things to Avoid in Affiliate Marketing Business

Now that you know everything about the affiliate marketing business, here is what you must always avoid:

• First of all, never compromise on the quality of your content. Add value to your article, and make sure that the quality is not compromised.

• Work on building customer trust and relationship building. If the audience trusts you, there are good chances that they will buy the product recommended by you.

• Choose the products very carefully and go through the reviews before you recommend them.

• Do not become greedy for the commissions, and make sure you do not promote anything illegal or unethical.

How to Track Your Success?

Once you are into the affiliate marketing business, you must know how to calculate your success. There are various tools available on the internet that help you in tracking your performance and gathering data for analysis.

Some of the key affiliate metrics include:

• Number of clicks

• Ad Spend

• Net monthly sale

• ROI

• Conversion rate

• Overall revenue generated

These metrics help you find how often people click on your affiliate links and which content people like the most. This can help you improve the quality of your content and you can use the analytics to work more on the content people like. All of this will in return increase the sale and help your affiliate business grow.

And that was all about it! We hope that we have helped you to learn everything about affiliate marketing and how you can start as a beginner. Just make sure that whether you are working as a merchant or a marketer, never compromise on the quality and stay loyal to your customers. Also, make sure to keep an eye on the metrics to see how you can improve to make more sales. SO what are you waiting for? Start now! Best of luck!