How Does Affiliate Marketing for beginners Work?

Affiliate marketing can get pretty technical, even for those well-versed in digital marketing. Fortunately, you don’t need to know all the details to get started. Here is a quick look behind the scenes:

• When an affiliate joins the merchant’s program, he or she is given a unique ID and a specific URL to use when promoting the company’s product.
• The affiliate includes the link in their blog post and/or via their email marketing efforts and invites readers to click it to find out more.
• When a potential buyer clicks on the link to visit the affiliate partner’s site, a cookie identifying the affiliate is placed on the website visitor’s computer. The cookie ensures that the publisher is credited with the referral sale even if it occurs days or even weeks later.
• Whenever a buyer completes the sale process, the merchant checks the sales record for a cookie identifying the source of the referral.
• If the merchant finds a cookie with an affiliate ID, the affiliate is credited with the sale. The merchant makes reports available so that the affiliate can see their referrals (clicks) and sales.
• The merchant pays the affiliate commission at the end of each payment period (i.e. revenue sharing).

How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 4 Steps.

Here’s the key point you need to understand if you want to become an affiliate marketer: You’re earning a commission in exchange for giving readers valuable insights on products or services they were already thinking about purchasing. You use your blog and the Internet to systemize that process, providing valuable advice to thousands of people.

Here’s a step-by-step process for doing exactly that:

1: Choose a Product to Promote as an Affiliate.

As ethical content creators, we’re constrained in the products we choose to represent in one of two ways:

• Either we’re limited by our experience to products that we’ve used and liked, that have affiliate programs and that are a good fit for our audience
• We’re constrained by the products we can get access to in order to evaluate them, either by buying them outright or getting a free sample or trial. No matter which approaches you take, expect to have to invest time and money into researching the best products for your audience.

2: Get Yourself Set Up as an Affiliate.

Whether you work directly with affiliate merchants or through a network, you’ll have to apply, be approved, and provide certain information so that you can be paid.

At a minimum you’ll need to provide:

• Your personal/business contact information for tax and reporting purposes.
• Your bank account where commissions will be sent.
  In turn, the merchant must provide you with:
• An affiliate link. Whenever you post about the product, you’ll use this trackable link. It will have a long tag at the end of each link that includes your affiliate ID.

3: Start Promoting Your Chosen Affiliate Offers.

Ultimately, all your hard work finding and evaluating products only pays off if somebody takes your advice and makes the purchase, right?

For that to happen, you need to put your recommendation in front of your audience. Even more importantly, you need to make your recommendation trustworthy.

This is where a lot of affiliate marketers slip up. They think slapping a banner ad up on their blog that links to affiliate products is all they need to do.

Well, here’s a little secret:

The most successful affiliate marketing offers look nothing like that. No PPC or veiled recommendations on social media.

4: Comply with Legal Requirements

Don’t be afraid to be transparent. People will appreciate your honesty and want to support you to repay you for making their lives better.

So, wherever you share an affiliate link, whether it’s in blog posts, web pages, or emails, let your readers know that you stand to earn a small commission if they buy through you — and if they choose not to use your link, no worries.

Assure them that you wouldn’t recommend any products if you hadn’t used them yourself or were confident, they could help them.

It’s also a good idea to create an Affiliate Disclaimer page on your website.

Affiliate Marketing Pros & Cons for Beginners

These are the major pros and cons of affiliate marketing for beginners:

Pros

• It’s a great way to make passive income.

While you’re off working at your full-time job, your affiliate links and blog posts will be working in the background. With the right combination of SEO and engaging, honest writing, you could be looking at a passive income cash cow.

• You don’t need marketing experience.

You don’t need any marketing experience to become an affiliate, though a bit of SEO knowledge and writing chops never hurt.

• You can do it in your free time.

With only a bit of time + money investment upfront (setting up a website, getting set up with affiliate programs, and creating content with your affiliate links) you can start making money.

Cons

• You have zero control over the offers, products, or services.

You don’t have to mess with products (creating, distributing, selling) but at the same time, you don’t have any control over what you’re promoting, either.

• It can be competitive.

Affiliate marketing is relatively simple, so there will be plenty of other affiliates out there competing for clicks and leads – some of them with years of experience behind them.

• There are scams.

Affiliate marketers need to be wary of scams and fraudulent affiliate programs.

The Bottom Line of Affiliate Marketing for beginners

That dream you’ve had of making passive income isn’t just a silly fantasy.

It’s a completely achievable reality.

Sure, it’s not as easy as pushing a magic button all over your site, but with a little knowledge and persistence, you can definitely do it and even turn it into an online business.

Once you’ve gained a respectable following, affiliate marketing is one of the best business models for making money (and from the comfort of your own home too).