In this article, I’m going to walk you through how to get started in Affiliate marketing. I’m going to talk about some different products you can consider selling, as well as three various affiliate networks that you can start using to make money right away.
What are the best reasons to start affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. In most cases, there is no overhead cost or minimal overhead cost to get started.
I love how affiliate marketing works because most people will ask me how do I make money online without having money? And most of the time, my answer is affiliate marketing.
You can start tomorrow and see money come in next week with zero upfront cost. You don’t have to buy pricey online courses to learn how to do this.
Affiliate marketing is marketing products for other people
You can market for a business or a person who is selling a particular product. When the business makes a sale, you get a cut of the profits. You will receive a commission of that sale.
For example, a company might say if you market this product for me, I will give you a 30% commission. The 30% you receive is for advertising and getting a customer to purchase our product.
Tracking all the traffic with a unique link
In some cases, customers may purchase the product the same day. Other instances they might buy in a month, three months, or even a year. There is something called a cookie. It will track this particular person for a certain amount of time until they make the purchase.
Say you’re promoting guitars and someone clicks on your link. If a customer clicked on your link in January but came back in April to buy without clicking your link again.
You still might earn the commission for that product. In many cases, affiliate marketing can be passive. You’ll get a unique link from the business that you’re marketing. Every time someone clicks on that link and makes a purchase from that business, you’ll get paid.
The Freedom that comes with affiliate marketing
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Affiliate marketing allows you to travel, spend more time with your family, gives you the freedom to have more choices in your life and, not be tied down to a single source of income.” quote=”Affiliate marketing allows you to travel, spend more time with your family, gives you the freedom to have more choices in your life and, not be tied down to a single source of income.” theme=”style1″] You don’t always have to be at a computer to make money with affiliate marketing.Once you build your traffic and automate your system, this gives you the ability to step away when you want. Success is all about the work you put in. Having extra spending money versus being 100% financially free is all based on you and how you scale your business.
Making money with Amazon Associate
The first affiliate network I want to share with you applies to anybody. I think it’s one of the best ones to start with and then you can branch out once you get a little bit of experience under your belt. I’m going to show you a strategy that you can use to start implementing this week to make money using Amazon Associates.
Using a youtube channel to generating traffic
You can do review videos and place your unique Amazon Associate link in the description area below the video. Many YouTubers use this method as an additional source of income on youtube.
The Modern Builds YouTube channel uses this technique. When Mike is doing a renovation project, he creates a unique link for each product he uses in the video.
Then he puts all the links in the description below the video. You don’t even need to get that complicated. You can also review everyday household items that you like or recently purchased.
Then you can look for the same product on amazon. Create your unique affiliate link to it and then promote your video by sharing it to build your traffic. As long as the product stays relevant, it will make money for years.
Click on Amazon logo to see a full list of affiliate commissions.
You don’t have to start a YouTube channel. There’s a lot of other options on how you can get people to click on your link. Maybe you want to consider starting a blog or perhaps promoting your link on your social network like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. Email lists are mighty too.
You need to find a way to start building an audience in one way or another so that you can start promoting these products to these people.
Promote what you use and believe in
Before we go to the next affiliate network, I would like to stress the importance of not promoting something that you don’t believe in, or you haven’t used. If I use a product and I don’t think it’s that good, then I’m not going to promote it. I believe that is one of the downsides of affiliate marketing and the reason why it gets a bad rap from some people.
There are people out there who will promote anything and everything. They will start throwing their link out there saying buy this digital course or product that not a good product. They say it’s an excellent product buy it through my link.
Please don’t be that person, that’s not cool. You’re not going to last very long in affiliate marketing doing that because people are not dumb and will catch on very quick. Just be honest about it.
If there’s a product you don’t like, don’t promote it. Don’t use the affiliate link or say anything to manipulate people into buying. You will build your longevity as an affiliate marketer. And you will be around for a long time if people trust you.
Making money with CJ affiliate
CJ affiliate is one of the largest affiliate networks on the internet. What’s incredible about this network is the number of companies that you’re probably already familiar with that uses this affiliate network to do the marketing for them. You can become an affiliate for them, or if you have a business, you can use them to make other people market your product.
There are a bunch of companies on CJ Affiliate network.
So let’s say you selected a company like 23andMe from the list of companies from Cj.com. By the way, the service 23andMe provides a similar service to ancestry.com. You can find out where your ancestors are most likely from or your heritage by taking a DNA test and sending them a saliva sample.
You can make a video comparing the ancestry.com DNA test with the 23andMe DNA test. Then you can say by the way if you want to take these tests for yourself here’s a link to it in the description below in this video or this blog post. It’s that simple! Every time someone makes a purchase, you get a commission.
You literally can get commissions that are 50% or more on some products that you’ll be promoting. I’d suggest at the very least open up an account with CJ affiliate and see the products that are available on there even if you’re not at a point right now where you have an audience build-up.
I would still recommend just taking a look and getting familiar with it. Finding programs that will fit your niche will help you plan for the future. The last one that I want to show you is ClickBank.
Making money with ClickBank
Clickbank has its pros and cons. You can start for free, and there are a lot of great products there to promote. But ClickBank also has less desirable products. Sorry to sound like a broken record but don’t just promote a product just because the commission is high. Do some recon on the product. Visit the website, research the product, and see if they had any other products.
Research past products and see how people liked it before you promote it. You don’t want to waste your time promoting a bad product that can potentially ruin your reputation. Customers are smart, and they have ways to find out who you are and never buy anything you promote again. Protect your reputation with a sword and shield.
Conclusion
There are tons of affiliate networks on the internet. No matter which affiliate network you choose, you should always conduct yourself with integrity. The name of the game is longevity. And if you can honestly conduct yourself, people will trust you for a long time.
Don’t just signup for every and any affiliate program. Pick a niche that you enjoy discussing. Make sure it’s relevant to the types of products you usually review. You can segue to things outside of your niche. Just make sure the transition makes sense. Your audience will grow to trust you.
You may be using an affiliate network that’s not on this list.
Which affiliate networks do you use?
