What is Affiliate Marketing and how does it work?
Everyday affiliate marketers earn millions in commissions. Annual affiliate spending is projected to hit 7 billion by 2021, with a 10.1% annual growth.
What is affiliate marketing?
As an affiliate marketer, I get paid a percentage of the sale price to promote products or services through web content or social media. drive traffic to the seller’s website where the sales are made. When my-traffic results in a sale I’m paid a commission.
That’s it! Wash, rinse, and repeat. Also, It’s pretty easy to become an affiliate, simply go to almost any company’s web site, click on the affiliate link and follow the directions. Some company’s ask that you have a business ID, but many don’t.
How much money can you make as an affiliate marketer?
As an affiliate marketer, my income is directly proportional to the time I invest and what percentage a product pays. I can earn a few dollars, a few thousand dollars, or tens of thousands a month.
Amazon affiliates, for instance, earn between 1% and 10% on product sales (not my top pick). Hubspot, on the other hand, pays a one-time commission of $1000.00 on enterprise website sales. Wealthy Affiliate pays a 40% commission (a much better rate); more on this later.
The Pros and Cons of affiliate programs.
Pros
1. No inventory or shipping costs so, no upfront cash needed.
I was an Amazon seller once. I either needed stuff shipped to my house or shipped to Amazon for fulfillment by Amazon. Either way, there was always an upfront cost that ate into my profits; as an affiliate, there’s none of that.
2. I’m not limited to promoting just one product, so my earning’s potential is massive. I can scale my efforts up with an assistant or outsourcing. ( This is how many affiliate marketers earn millions a year.)
3. Here’s the best part! A single product review has the potential for unlimited income! If I review a product on my website or Youtube, that one review can continue to earn money week after week, month after month, indefinitely. This is like having the royalty rights to a book or song; it’s passive income.
Cons
1. I have no control over the products I promote and every product has a life cycle. So when my product life cycle runs out, that’s it. However, this really isn’t bad news, because there are tens of millions of products I can promote. I simply stop promoting one product and add another. Easy Right!
2. Affiliate Marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. It will take a little time but the steps are very doable. About the only way it won’t work, is to get discouraged and give up.
3. Warning, Clickbank affiliate programs can pay high commissions, but these products also have high return rates. I have chosen not to work with Clickbank as any commissions earned are often withheld for long periods, this is because they don’t want to give refunds after paying large commissions out. Just a word to the wise; be careful!
Benefits of being an affiliate.
- Start it on the side and turn into a full-time income.
- No time clock.
- No one sets your hours.
- Work when you want to.
- Start with little to no money.
- Use as a stepping stone to start other projects.
- Work remotely while cruising the world on your sailboat.
And the list goes on…
How can you get started?
The resources I’ve used and had great results with is the training from Wealthy Affiliate (WA). This is the best training I’ve found and the one I recommend. These guys took me by the hand teaching me everything step by step; from making this web site, getting ranked for free on Google with keywords, to writing great blog posts (which I’m still working on). The thing I really like about (WA) is there’s no fee of any kind to check out their platform, no credit card asked for, and no time limit on the free membership. They’ll give you two free websites and the first ten video classes are free. This is a great offer! I’ve paid hundreds of dollars for what they teach for free!
Final word
This is a great business for someone starting out or on a limited budget, however, if you have more cash than time, you can outsource some or all of the work. This will really scale your business quickly.