Affiliate marketing is a type of online marketing which has been recognized as one of the leading factors that drive e-commerce sales. It is a part of online marketing, which means you can use this strategy together with other online strategies to make money online. For example, starting your own blog enables you to monetize it in many different ways, one of which is affiliate marketing.
Like with any of these strategies, you will need to understand the basics to be able to determine how this could help you and how this can be to your benefit.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing. It is a strategy that is based on tracking the performance and enabling you to earn income this way.
Merchants and affiliates
There are two principal roles in affiliate marketing. Firstly, there are merchants. These are individuals who have a product or service they need to promote. In order to do so, they create affiliate programs where the affiliates can join. The purpose of these affiliate programs is to allow potential affiliates to get the tools needed to promote the products and services on behalf of the merchants. Merchants are also called advertisers and they usually provide material necessary for the promotion, which includes banners, images, product/service description, and most importantly, affiliate links.
On the other hand, there are affiliates who search for interesting affiliate programs to join. Affiliates, also known as publishers, are individuals who are interested in monetizing their online presence by featuring the affiliate links.
In a nutshell, the whole process looks like this.
You will be a publisher (also called affiliate) and your goal will be to find merchants (advertisers) you want to work with. Using special links that track clicks, you will promote the products on your blog on behalf of the merchant. Each time a sale is registered through one of your links, you will be given a percentage of that sales price. The income affiliates can earn represent the percentage of the sales price. This is why this type of marketing is also called performance-based marketing. If your blog is successful, you will generate more traffic and you will maximize the income through affiliate links. Once featured on your blog, these links will keep bringing income from the sales you manage to generate, for as long as your deal with the merchant is active.
When it comes to merchants, this arrangement is even better for them, as they do not need to invest in promotion and they do not have pay affiliates in advance.
Since the topic of this ebook is focused on making money online, we will explore affiliate marketing from the point of view of an affiliate.
What do you need to become an affiliate?
As an affiliate, you will look for available affiliate programs to join. In order to be accepted into an affiliate program, you will need to fill in an application form and go through the approval process. This application usually includes:
• You name
• Company name
• Email address
• Website
• Social media accounts
• Country
Other details might include questions about your company, such as size and the number of employees. The goal with all these questions is for a merchant to assess whether or not you are a good fit for their campaign.
It is important to have in mind that merchants are usually cautious when choosing affiliates because there are affiliates that might damage their reputation. Also, some merchants have a specific target group or a region they are targeting, which means there could be additional criteria when approving someone’s application to become an affiliate. For example, if they believe that your target group does not match theirs enough, this might be the reason to turn you down.
Since this whole process works only if you have a way of reaching online users, you will also need to have an online presence and relationship with customers.
