How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer

With the advent of the internet, many businesses and individuals have found niches to fill that earn them money. These can be anything you see online, with the most famous being content creators and influencers, but companies have also expanded into these areas as well.

Many simply use the internet for advertisement, while others engage directly with consumers online, making themselves a hybrid or totally online business.

How to be a successful affiliate marketer (1)

One of the most popular ways to make money on the internet is through affiliate marketing, and it’s not surprising given that once you reach a certain audience size or reputation, many companies will engage you to see if you will do affiliate marketing for them.

But what is affiliate marketing? And how would I become a successful affiliate marketer. That is precisely what we are here to guide you through today, as we talk about how to become a successful affiliate marketer.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is where content creators or publishers promote a product or service from a certain company and get commission depending on the result of that promotion given to them by said company.

The results can be anything, determined by the two parties themselves.

Often, though, the result will be a sale or something that leads to the company making money. There are other things that companies offer commission to the creator for, like the amount of free-trial users, downloads, or views they get on their website.

A good example of this in action would be to look at YouTube content creators. Let’s say that a YouTuber has put out a video with the opening 2 minutes containing a promotion.

They will mention that this is a promotion, then they will promote what they have been asked to.

The way the company will track how much commission to give will be by the promo code the viewers will be asked to use should they purchase a product or service.

This promo code will be unique to the YouTuber and for each code used, the YouTuber will receive a commission fee.

Affiliate programs are often free to join, so most of the time there will be little overhead. However, some programs will charge a monthly fee and in order to make money off those programs, you will be expected to be able to go over this money drain before making bank.

Types of Affiliate Marketing

There are three main types of affiliate marketing that can be done: Unattached, Related, and Involved.

Each of these three types help people make money online – whether it is ethical or not – and by examining them you can get a good idea of what type of marketing you want to do.

Unattached

Unattached affiliate marketing is just what it says: unattached. The person doing the advertising has no authority or really any affiliation to the product or service being sold.

There is also no connection between the marketer and the customer.

Most of the time, those doing unattached affiliate marketing are doing so through pay-per-click adverts that appear on websites with the marketer’s link attached.

Should the viewer click the link and buy something, then the marketer will earn their commission.

Affiliate marketing appeals to a lot of people because there is very little work that needs doing – just putting adverts on a page – and there is very little risk to the reputation of the marketer.

This is due to the fact that the marketer works behind the scenes and people won’t blame a website for adverts, as they are viewed as a necessary evil.

While it is not a long-term business model, it does generate revenue.

Related

Related affiliate marketing is where you promote products or services that are linked to your genre or niche, but they aren’t services that you really use.

A good example of this would be an educational YouTube channel that promotes Skill Share, an educational online learning platform.

The problem with this type of marketing is that you are directly linked to the product, even if you haven’t used it. If it turns out the product is terrible or broken, then you and your reputation as an influencer or promoter is directly in the firing line, and you may no longer be trusted.

Involved

Involved affiliate marketing is where you are promoting products or services that you have used in the past and trust in them.

This marketing is less risky, because you have reviewed the product and determined its value, meaning there will be very little backlash and a lot more trust built in.

However, to build credibility with your audience and to build a large enough audience for this to be a viable revenue stream takes time and effort. While it will steadily increase overtime, it just takes time to get this type of affiliate marketing working.

How to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer?

Now we know how affiliate marketing works, there are a few things you can do to make sure your marketing campaigns are successful and give you a revenue stream.

How to be a successful affiliate marketer

Choose a Niche or a Specific Area of Expertise

Most content creators, publishers, promoters, or influencers have a specific area of expertise that they have built their brand around.

If you are a beauty influencer, you probably know a lot about makeup and fashion, if you run a cooking website, you will have to know a lot about food, and the list goes on.

Once you have built your brand from this niche, you can begin marketing.

Analyze Market Demand

When you are picking something to promote, you need to know the public want it and – if you are becoming a related or involved marketer – that your audience want it.

You can use your own market knowledge or use online metrics like Google Trends, just make sure there is at least some demand for the product you promote.

Analyze Other affiliate promoters

Go and have a look at the competition and find the most successful and least successful. Think about what the most successful do right and what the least successful do wrong.

Decide on an Affiliate Program

Once you have done this research and built your brand, find an affiliate program that is right for you. You should never try promoting a product that you won’t get paid for or that will definitely involve backlash.

Instead, carefully scope out the potential programs that look reasonably trustworthy.

Choose your Marketing Method

Decide on how you are going to promote this product or service using one of the three types of affiliate marketing: unattached, related, or involved.

Then, think about how you will go about this kind of marketing. Will you use pay-per-click ads? Or active promotion from yourself?

Be Patient and be Consistent

Affiliate marketing takes time, determination, and constant uploads. You are going to have to wait before you start seeing results.

Conclusion

Becoming a successful affiliate marketer is a tough, but rewarding path, and going down could reap you an additional revenue stream and make you a ton of money.

Justin Shaw