Part #1: How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing (Step-by-step)
What is Affiliate Marketing in Simple Terms?
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting another person’s (or company’s) product. You find a product you like, promote it to your audience, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
It’s similar to a salesperson earning a commission, except you don’t work for the company. Instead, it’s like earning a reward for sending a new customer to the company.
In other words, when you help another company generate sales, you get a cut!
The best part is that you don’t have to spend the time and money to create your own products, because someone else has already done the hard work.
You can begin making money as an affiliate as soon as you have a place to recommend products, whether that's a website you have, a podcast you've started, or even on social media.
So, all you have to do is send traffic through a link to that product, and everything after that is out of your hands . . . right?
Wrong.
There's so much more involved to make this work well, which is why most people who attempt affiliate marketing fail, or just see a few dollars coming in from their efforts.
I want you to see amazing, life-changing results from affiliate marketing, which is why I'm thankful you're here.
There are two ways to be involved in affiliate marketing—either as a product owner/affiliate marketing program creator or an affiliate marketer.
In this post, we’re going to focus on how to do online affiliate marketing from the affiliate marketer side.
Affiliate marketing is quite simply one of the most powerful ways to generate an income online. Regardless of your niche, the upside with affiliate marketing is nearly limitless if you go about it the right way!
Part of the beauty of affiliate marketing, especially for beginners, is you don’t have to invest time in creating the products that will be serving your audience—because, guess what?
Those products likely already exist.
Because of that, affiliate marketing is an opportunity anyone can take advantage of, and it’s easy to get started.
Affiliate marketing examples are all around us—and you’ve probably been involved in affiliate marketing without realizing it!
If you’ve ever clicked on a link in a blog post to a product or service being offered on another website, there’s a good chance the owner of the website where you originally clicked the link received a commission from your purchase.
Yes, affiliate marketing is everywhere—but here’s the thing: few people understand how to take full advantage of it.
In fact, I believe affiliate marketing is the world’s most untapped source for generating passive income!
It’s a beautiful process that’s completely underutilized, and I’m excited to share with you exactly how it all works.
Who Is a Good Fit for Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing can be a great choice for online entrepreneurs, bloggers, and really anyone who has a website and is willing to build an audience they can serve authentically.
If this describes you, products exist right now that people in your target market are probably already buying, and if you can become the resource that recommends those products, you can generate a commission as a result.
Affiliate marketing can be an especially good option if you’re not ready to create your own product or service, but you want to serve your audience by recommending products that may be helpful to them.
Online affiliate marketing can also be a good fit for a wide range of people because you can apply a bunch of different marketing methods to promote affiliate products and services.
These include the same marketing methods you may already be using—things like search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, content marketing, and display ads.
You can even take advantage of other nifty ways to market products, like product reviews and unboxings.
Finally, it’s important to remember that affiliate marketing works best when you’re sincere and confident about the product you’re promoting.
You’d only sell your own product if you knew it could help people, and it’s the same with affiliate marketing. If you go in with a get-rich-quick mentality, you’re not going to be impressed with your results.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Let’s get into the details of how affiliate marketing works. There are three main players in an affiliate marketing arrangement:
You and your website—the “affiliate.”
The affiliate company (or network). In the simplest affiliate arrangements, you work directly with a single company to promote one or more of their products. There are more complex affiliate networks that provide an opportunity to earn affiliate revenue on a range of products, such as Amazon, Impact, and ShareASale.
The customer. This is a member of your audience who uses your affiliate link to purchase a product from the affiliate company or network.
A company that offers an affiliate marketing program may call it by a different name—these programs are also commonly called partner programs or referral programs.
Here’s how each party benefits from affiliate marketing:
From your recommendation, your audience learns about a product, course, or tool that may be useful to them;
From your recommendation, the company selling the product, course, or tool gets new customers they may not have found otherwise;
As a result of the sales to your audience, the company gives you a commission.
When done the right way, affiliate marketing can be a win–win–win.
But at the center of this is one thing: your audience’s trust.
When your audience believes you have their best interests at heart and trusts your recommendations, then all three parties in the affiliate marketing relationship ultimately benefit.
A lot of people worry about getting involved with affiliate marketing because it might make them look slimy or too salesy.
That’s why I’ve made it part of my mission to teach people how to do affiliate marketing in a way that makes it a win for everyone.
The biggest element to success with affiliate marketing?
Trust.
Earn trust from your audience first, and only recommend affiliate products that you’ve used yourself and know your audience will benefit from.
And you know what?
A lot of people do it the wrong way by taking an income-first rather than a serve-first approach.
These folks push random products and over-promote them without providing true value to their audience.
This has given affiliate marketing a really bad rap in some quarters, causing many ethically minded entrepreneurs to be wary of affiliate marketing.
But thankfully, you CAN do it right, maintaining your audience’s trust and having them thank you for your recommendations.
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing (and Drawbacks)
As with anything, affiliate marketing has its upsides and its downsides.
Later in this guide, I’ll give you the guidance you need to go about affiliate marketing smartly so you can make the most of the opportunities out there and avoid the potential downsides.
Here are the main pros and cons of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Pros
Low barrier to entry. Affiliate marketing is easy to get started with, and costs little. Most affiliate programs are free to join, and you don’t have to create, stock, or ship products, which also means less hassle/responsibility.
Low risk. You’re not the product owner, so you don’t lose anything if a customer doesn’t buy.
Passive income potential. Affiliate marketing provides the potential for passive income.
More freedom. When you start earning passive income, you can work anytime and from anywhere, as long as you have internet access.
Affiliate Marketing Cons
Not a quick fix. It can take time to generate the amount of traffic needed to result in substantial income.
Less control. You don’t own or control the product/service you’re recommending, so you can’t control the quality or customer experience.
Competition and audience fatigue. An attractive affiliate program means you might be competing with others for customers.
Offer fatigue. Audiences can also get “offer fatigue” if they see too much ongoing promotion from you.
Not all affiliate programs are created equal. While most companies that offer affiliate commissions are stable and ethical, there are shady companies out there too, some of which may not pay what they say they will. It’s important to do your homework.
Risk of link hijacking. Unscrupulous individuals may hijack your affiliate links, known as “clickjacking,” potentially stealing your commission in the process.
How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make?
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you don't have to invest the time and effort to create a product to sell.
You can begin selling something as an affiliate as soon as you have a platform to sell it on. In this way, affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn some extra income without a lot of hassle or upfront cost.
That said, it’s not a way to get rich quick.
Although affiliate marketing has been my number one source of income for a while, it took me a while to get to where I am, including building close relationships with the companies I’m an affiliate for.
In my very first month doing affiliate marketing (December 2008), I earned a whopping $163.16:
As you can see, I’ve done really well with affiliate marketing in the past 10 years—but it’s taken a lot of time and hard work to get to that point.
So, how much can you make once you’re up and running with affiliate marketing?
That depends primarily on how committed you are to making it work and how much time, energy, and focus you’re willing to put into it. It also hinges on a few other factors:
The commission percentage you receive for each sale of an affiliate product or service.
The size of your audience.
How successful you are at promoting those products or services to your audience.
Typical commission percentages vary depending on the affiliate company you partner with, and the types of products or services you’re promoting.
Digital products and services typically offer higher margins due to their lower costs of production and fulfillment—there are no raw materials, manufacturing, shelf space, shipping costs, etc.
These margins can be as high as 50 percent.
On the other hand, because of all the aforementioned costs, physical products tend to offer lower percentage margins, sometimes in the single digits.
Thankfully, there is no real limit on how much you can make as an affiliate marketer.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to augment your existing income, or even become your main source of income if you’re willing to make the commitment.
But in either case, if you’re looking for long-term success with affiliate marketing, you have to be willing to do it the right way.
That's it for today, please read the next part!
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