How to start Affiliate Marketing: A simple guide for Beginners

Affiliate Marketing

Just one job or business can not give you everything that you desire for. People, nowadays, look for a passive income to supplement their salaries. Most people go to the online side hustle for the same. Some of them opt for an online store or business, while others go for blogging and Affiliate Marketing.

“A practice to promote the products of other merchants, in exchange for which you get a commission for the sale made through your affiliate link, is affiliate marketing.”

Basically, it is just the modernization of the traditional commission system. Affiliate Marketing, indeed, is one of the most effective and popular means of having a side income. Also, it is the fastest way of getting into an online side hustle.

Setting up an online business makes the cash flow easier and faster. However, Affiliate Marketing is not as simple as running display ads on our websites to earn. But, taking into consideration the profit which we can earn by Affiliate Marketing, it seems relatively easy and beneficial.

 

The first question which arises here is-

Can Affiliate Marketing be done without a website?

The answer to this is, Absolutely YES.

Even if you do not own a website, a blog, or any self-manufactured product; you can still get into an Affiliate Marketing Business. What you have to do is follow some of the simplest steps with this Affiliate Marketing Guide. And, you will shortly land into your own Affiliate Marketing Business. As we have said it is an easy and fast method to earn online, you may get your first commission with hours too.

For every niche or product, the formula remains constant i.e. traffic generation. The procedure taking place here is you drive prospects to the website of the merchant *through your Affiliate Link only*.

Now, the traffic generation can broadly be done by two methods:

• If you have money: Driving traffic gets easier with money. You can opt for paid Facebook ads, Google Adwords, or by running display ads. This way, People will click on your affiliate link and then will go shop on the merchant’s platform. And, the commission will be yours.
• If you don’t have money: There is no problem in this case too. You can opt for blogging, guest posts on other’s websites, or posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc.

An important aspect of Affiliate Marketing is an effective copywriting. Not everywhere you need to write yourself. Many merchants provide written material to copy & paste on your post or anywhere you want to. They provide emails to forward, blog posts, or even social media posts that you can use.

They provide it all to their affiliates to make it a win-win situation.

Behind the scenes of Affiliate Marketing Programs:

1. When you join any Affiliate program, a unique ID and specific URL for each product are given to him/her.
2. He/She adds that product link to his/her blog or posts. They may also use email marketing to attract customers towards the product.
3. When a customer clicks on the Affiliate link, he is redirected to the merchant’s website. A cookie gets placed on their computer which identifies the affiliate. It ensures that, even if the sale occurs after weeks or months, the affiliate gets credited with the commission for the sale made.
4. When the customer buys that product, the merchant checks the record for a cookie which identifies the source of referral.
5. When the merchant gets the cookie with an affiliate ID, the record is credited to the affiliate.
6. Affiliates are made able to see all the reports of their referrals and sales.
7. After a particular period of time, all the revenue generated by the affiliate gets credited to him/her.

 

How to get started with Affiliate Marketing? – 4 easy steps

The golden key point before getting started with Affiliate Marketing is-

You are getting money for advising your readers by promoting products or services which they were already thinking to purchase.

Let’s understand it further. You know well your readers already are looking to buy something. Whether you advise them or not, they are still going to buy what they want to.

So, as an influencer, are you able to add value for them by suggesting to them which product is good or bad?

Here, you will help your readers make smarter decisions. You are adding value this way. And, for this, you get a commission on every purchase made by your readers.

So, to get you going easily with Affiliate Marketing Business, we are providing this step by step guide for you:

 

1. Find out a niche you are interested in:

Now when you know how Affiliate Marketing works, you can think of various ways to get into it. The very first thing you need to know is a NICHE which interests you. When you get to know your niche, you will know of your competitors who already create content and earn by Affiliate Marketing.

When you focus on a particular niche, it makes you simplify things on such a large online platform. More knowledge, more content, and a definite audience. It all works together.

The more specific you are, the better it will be.

The question here is,

How to choose a niche?

Before everything you need to ask yourself a few questions which are:

• What topic do you feel passionate about?
• What is unique about your experiences?
• What can I deliver to people that others can’t?
• What are your previous interests or business?

When you will know the answer to these questions, you will definitely know what niche you are interested in.

For instance, if you are into accounts. You can write about the same in your blog posts. It will be easier than any other topic for you because you are already doing it and you have enough knowledge about the same to teach your audience something.

And remember, you can go for Affiliate Marketing with ANY niche. You can always find products to promote related to each niche.

 

2. Pick a product you want to promote:

There are two ways you can find a product for your audience. These are:

• You can promote a tried and tested product to your audience which may also be useful to them.
• The second way, you can find a relevant product for your audience from an affiliate network. But, make sure you go for this option only after buying it for yourself or after using a free sample of that product to promote only the trusted product.

Here, we are going to understand these ways-

• Promote a tried and tested product: The most effective and common means to get started is to promote already tested products.

This way, you become the affiliate for a product that you have already used, felt good about it, and would love to recommend. Make sure the product shows just the same results as you got while using it. You should be fairly confident about what you are recommending to your audience.

If you have been benefitted from any course or some eBook, you can recommend it to your audience. (Just that product should be useful for your niche and your readers.)

Summarize the courses, products, eBooks with which you had a good experience.

Choose from the list which one will be beneficial for your readers. You will surely have plenty of them.

Now, check for the affiliate programs of merchants of those products. You can check it by searching for the same on google or you can also directly email the merchant asking out for affiliate programs.

Now, you are good to go and start recommending these products to your readers.

Start being an affiliate with one product and with passing time, you can add more suitable products to your list And, if you don’t have a relevant product that you can use to become an affiliate, we have another option for you.

Come, let’s know about this other option too.

• Look out for some suitable Affiliate network: if you don’t have any experience with suitable products to get started with Affiliate Marketing, there is no need to worry. We have an option for you too.

This option is a bit complex in comparison to the first option above. It will ask for your time to find relevant products as well as some money to try those products out. Only after searching and trying you can promote any product truly to your readers.

This is to keep the credibility and trust of your readers secured in you.

Some of the most popular affiliate networks to begin with are:

• Amazon Associates program
• ClickBank Affiliate
• ShareASale
• eBay Partner Network
• CJ Affiliate
• Rakuten etc.

You can get started easily with Amazon Associates. Most of the Affiliate starts from here only.

Some programs also provide you an Affiliate Manager to get you going well. The policies and commissions are different for every niche and website. So, better go through the terms and conditions of the affiliate program you want to join.

 

3. Sign up yourself as an Affiliate:

Howsoever you work, directly through a merchant or by enrolling yourself on an affiliate network, APPLYING for the same is the first step.

You will need to provide-

• Your business contact information for reporting and tax filing. (You can also provide your personal information.)
• Details of your bank account. Here, they will send you the commissions.

When you will be approved as an affiliate, they will, in return, provide you with your personal affiliate link. This link will be trackable. Your affiliate ID is also attached at the end of this link.

When you join some affiliate programs, some of the websites provide a guide to the affiliates. It may include some tips and tricks to make your marketing effective.

Before getting started make sure you check all the FAQs, TnC pages of your particular Affiliate Network. It will help clear your doubts and queries.

 

4. Start promotion of your chosen products:

Most of the newbie Affiliate Marketers think of a question when they come close to failure to attract people towards the product they are promoting. They think-

Does Affiliate Marketing really work?

The answer to this is YES, But, you need to have a proper well-designed strategy to attract people towards that product.

What most of the failed Affiliate Marketers do is they just paste some banner ads of some product on their blog. But, trust me, it doesn’t look truthful, trustworthy, or something that you should open and give a chance.

Here, they slip up.

The solution to this is to make your recommendations worthy of the trust of your audience.

You must be thinking about what you can do about this now. So, I am providing you THREE options to get through this problem. Here are these:

• Review Writing: Try writing reviews of the products you are recommending. Reviews can be of some courses, eBooks, physical products, gadgets i.e. anything and everything.

In one review article, you can talk about just one product OR you can also talk about any two or more products in comparison.

(PS- Don’t forget to add all the related Affiliate Links at relevant positions of the article.)

If you like reviewing products, you can opt for a review website. Here, you can write your reviews for various articles. And, the Affiliate links will do their part, of course.

This way, this review website will act as a one-stop-shop for your Affiliate Products.

• Elaborated content related to the topic of product: This can also be referred to as “Soft Selling”. What happens here is, you write a comprehensive and definitive article on your website for your readers. And again add the Affiliate link to your product to soft-sell that.

For instance, if you write a blog post on Affiliate Marketing, you can add your Affiliate Link to an Affiliate Marketing course that you like. Many examples are there.

You just have to make sure that your topic is evergreen and the information you are providing is relevant and correct for your viewers.

In the same way, you can also post infographics, videos, social media posts, etc. But first of all, be truthful as you need your readers to build trust in you and your work.

Moreover, you need to focus on SEO. Choose only the right keywords, build links to your blogs to attract more and more traffic to your posts.

• Create high-end bonus content: Some Affiliate programs allow you to give bonuses to your readers, while some do not. So, if you have an allowance like this, you should definitely go for it.

An audience love bonus is given to them. It will help you to attract more and more people to your affiliate products. It will make you stand out from other Affiliate marketers.

You can provide many types of bonus content for your readers very quickly. Here are some ideas you can go for:

1. Free eBooks
2. A quick guide to ‘related topic’
3. Video demos for ‘How to use?’ of the product you are promoting
4. Small Complementary gifts
5. Discount codes etc.

Become an Affiliate Marketer: The Conclusion

Passive income is no more a fantasy. People saying it a silly option are themselves fool. In fact, passive income is today’s reality.

Yes, you can achieve it with Affiliate Marketing. It is not as effortless as it seems. It requires a LOT of hard work and persistence to achieve a position in this field. Make sure you have enough knowledge about all this before getting your hands on it. And, I hope this guide has helped you in knowing enough about Affiliate Marketing and Passive income.

As you have a huge following now, Affiliate Marketing is a good option to make money passively.

Another thing in favor is it is so easy to get started with. All the simple steps are explained above in this post. We have tried to explain every single detail that you would need to get started.

To summarize what you have to do is:

• To identify the product which your audience will happily accept buying. The product will be useful for them to start with something. (PS- you need to provide value to your readers with that product too)
• You can select any of the digital products from your personal favorite network. Tell the stories behind you studying or using that product. It will motivate your readers to get that digital product.
• Provide value to your viewers in your content or reviews. Also, add your Affiliate links Make sure you don’t be excessively sales in your posts.
• Be truthful, honest, and confident about what you are promoting.
• First, try and then promote only. Do not EVER take your readers’ trust in you for granted.
• And last, but not least, Be Persistent with your goals.

All the efforts you are putting in will be significant one day. And, all those links will make you have a lot of money in your bank accounts.

Good luck!