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Affiliate Marketing

When you become a member of the Affiliate Marketing community, the world of online marketing opens up before you. You’ll have access to affiliate marketing training opportunities, high-value affiliate products, and plenty of affiliate promotional tools.

You’ll also discover how to use your personal blog, website, or social media to promote products. When you build a following, you can use your audience to grow your business and promote products you’re passionate about. In addition, you’ll gain the ability to connect with people who have shared interests and can become future customers or colleagues.

With the right tools and training, you can start your Affiliate Marketing journey successfully. In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of this proven, money-making opportunity.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes for a moment. Imagine you’re an online marketer who’s just discovered the wonders of affiliate marketing. Through affiliate marketing, you’ll be able to partner with businesses who want to sell their products or services online. When someone clicks a product or service link you’ve posted on social media, they’ll be taken to a merchant’s website where they can make a purchase. While that purchase may be related to your blog article, it’s not necessary. Simply because someone visits a merchant’s website doesn’t mean they’ve automatically bought what you’re promoting. In fact, a lot of research goes into making sure that affiliate marketing is as effective as possible.

Why Should You Consider Affiliate Marketing?

Apart from the exciting opportunities it presents, why should you consider affiliate marketing?

First, you should look into affiliate marketing because it’s a proven way to make money online. In 2016, Forbes magazine named affiliate marketing as the #3 lucrative and promising online marketing industries, and according to Business Insider, there are more than 100 million American consumers who regularly use online shopping browsers like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. With so much potential traffic, it’s clear to see why companies are turning to affiliate marketing.

There’s also the fact that many companies aren’t making enough money from organic traffic. In other words, when users visit a business’ website or social media pages through organic searches or clicks, this is called “direct traffic.” However, businesses often struggle to make enough money from direct traffic, so they turn to alternative methods of marketing, like affiliate marketing.

In affiliate marketing, you’ll be rewarded for driving consumers to a specific product or service — usually a retail store, e-commerce platform, or virtual reality software.

How can you master Affiliate Marketing?

If you want to master Affiliate Marketing and want to become an expert, Forbes says it best when they mention that “the secret to becoming a successful affiliate marketer is to become a successful blogger.” Once you’ve established yourself as an authoritative voice in your industry, you can leverage your established following into a thriving affiliate program.

You’ll start by choosing your niche. You don’t need to be overly technical, but you should familiarize yourself with the general concepts behind affiliate marketing and choose a niche that you’re passionate about. For example, if you’re a lifestyle blogger who covers fashion, you might choose to affiliate market for fashion accessories or clothing items.

As a brand or business owner, you’ll then need to decide what you want to promote. You might choose to promote an online marketplace like Shopify or Big Commerce, a software company like HubSpot, or even a retail store.

From there, you can build out a landing page in your preferred marketing platform that’s completely dedicated to promoting a product or service. When someone clicks on a sponsored link or graphic on your landing page, they’ll be taken to a product or service page where they can make a purchase. While that purchase may be related to your blog article, it’s not necessary. Simply because someone visits a merchant’s website doesn’t mean they’ve automatically bought what you’re promoting. In fact, a lot of research goes into making sure that affiliate marketing is as effective as possible.

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Apart from the potential for making money, what are the benefits of affiliate marketing?

First, it’s a proven way to build a sustainable income stream. As a beginner in affiliate marketing, you might initially feel worried about making enough money to pay your bills. After all, it can be difficult to find the right products to promote, and you’ll often receive few earnings per day. This is why it’s essential to start small and build up your income slowly.

By establishing yourself as an expert in your chosen industry, you can then choose products that you’re familiar with and that relate to your niche. Furthermore, you’ll gain the trust of people in your industry who are already familiar with you. This in turn, can lead to more collaboration opportunities, as well as, the chance to get paid to promote products and services that you love.

Where can I find products to promote as an affiliate marketer?

Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in your chosen industry, it’s time to start promoting products that can make you money. To do this, you’ll need to learn to use your smartphone’s GPS to hunt down the best sales opportunities wherever you go. You can do this with the Google My Business app, which can help you find nearby businesses and learn about their offerings. Using your own phone’s GPS to find the best prices is also a smart move.

In addition to this, you can also use tools like Swagbucks to earn cash back for shopping online. Swagbucks is a trusted online platform that connects shoppers with brands and businesses that offer a reward for their purchases. So if you buy a coffee maker from a store that’s connected to Swagbucks, you’ll earn a few dollars back. You can use this to buy your next coffee, or you could use the funds to pay a friend or teammate who is working on a project for you.

How Do I get started as an affiliate marketer?

If you want to get started as an affiliate marketer, the first thing you need to do is to register with affiliate marketing platforms like ClickBank or ShareASale. These platforms will teach you how to create effective affiliate marketing campaigns and how to build up a following. In addition, they’ll provide you with all the necessary tools to do so. From there, you can take it upon yourself to build out a following and make money online.

Forbes recommends that you start by creating blogs around your favorite topics. When someone discovers your blog and likes what they read, you’ve opened the door for an affiliate relationship. From there, you can begin to create blog posts around affiliate products that you’ve found useful or important. When you build a reputation as an authoritative voice in your industry, it’s then time to enter the affiliate marketplace and earn money online.