The Ultimate Step by Step Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Jun 27, 2022
35 min
The Ultimate Step by Step Guide to Affiliate Marketing

If you want to easily make a few hundred dollars per month then affiliate marketing is the tool you might be looking for.

By recommending genuine products and services that can bring value to your audience, you can generate passive income, and potentially even make a full-time income from your recommendations.

Indeed, partner marketing is a powerful tool that content creators and influencers can use to make for a living.

If you want to harness this power you should be asking yourself, “How can the product or service you recommend make your audience’s life better?”

And there’s a real reason behind this:

With so many products out there, deciding on a product that best fits your needs can be a challenging task. Thus, people need help organizing and understanding all of the options.

This is where you, as a content creator, comes in. You know what people want and how they can actually benefit from using these products. Being an expert in your field means you can filter the noise, eliminate misconceptions and find the best products for them, saving their time and getting them faster results.

It’s a great strategy to make money online without much investment with a little bit of initial effort. Make money by marketing top-notch products and services without getting into the hassles of creating them.

From this ultimate step-by-step guide, you will learn to get started with affiliate marketing and find the right products for your audience, even if you’re a complete beginner.

You will also learn the techniques for promoting products in a way that your readers and viewers will thank you for the time and effort you put in to help them make a buying decision.

Without further ado let’s dive right in and see how affiliate marketing actually works and how you can benefit from it.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

First, let’s define what affiliate marketing is.

This is a marketing technique by which you, as a publisher and content creator, can earn a piece by promoting another company’s products and services. You find a product that you think your audience might love, promote it by strategically placing it on your blog, website, social media channels, or YouTube channel, and get a small commission for each sale that you make.

Although it is often similar to a salesperson earning a commission based on the number of sales they have made, the main difference is that affiliates don’t work for a particular company. Instead, they are rewarded for bringing in new customers.

To put it another way, when you help increase sales of a company, you get paid.

Becoming an affiliate also means you don’t have to invest money and effort to create products, because someone else has already done the hard work.

Another great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can start making money as soon as you have a platform to promote products, whether that’s a website, a YouTube channel, or an Instagram account.

However, there’s much more involved in partner marketing than simply sending traffic through a referral link to a product.

In fact, many affiliate marketers fail to generate substantial income online because they fail to build trust with their audience. A good thing to remember is that your audience generates income for you.

Adding value to people’s lives by producing high-quality content comes first. As soon as you establish yourself as someone who people can trust, you can add affiliate links. There’s no other way to succeed with affiliate marketing.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

To start with, you need to join an affiliate network and find a program that offers relevant products and services.

Once it’s done, you can generate a unique link to include in your promotional materials, such as your website or Instagram account.

Next, you need to place that link in the content you created for some purpose. Whether it’s a how-to guide, a tutorial, or an unboxing video, this link will enable your audience to click and purchase the product or service. When a brand confirms that a sale was made through your link, you get a small commission.

While there are many aspects of promoting a product, generally affiliate marketing involves four parties:

  • A brand;
  • An affiliate;
  • The customer;
  • An affiliate network.

Partner Marketing Model

Let’s take a closer look at each of these parties:

A Brand

As you might imagine, a brand owns the product or service that needs to be marketed. Brands come in all shapes and sizes and their products/services vary, targeting different audiences.

Physical products could be anything ranging from a microwave oven to moisturizing body lotion to a pair of sneakers. Digital products often include online courses, browser extensions, or web hosting services, to name a few.

For example, a brand could be a makeup manufacturer willing to expand their audience base by reaching more users through beauty bloggers whose readers can be interested in buying lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, blush, highlighter, and other product types.

An Affiliate Marketer or Partner

Beginner affiliate marketer or partner is a content creator who specializes in publishing materials through websites, social media, or even messengers like WhatsApp. It can be a company or an individual, but their final goal is to effectively promote the seller’s services or products on their platform to receive a reward.

Commonly, they achieve this goal by creating engaging content around the product or service and highlighting its benefits.

If their audience likes what they recommend, users can follow the link to check the product, and buy it. When these clicks convert into sales, the affiliate marketer gets a commission.

In order to become a successful affiliate marketer, you need to promote reliable and well-known brands that your audience can trust enough to consider your recommendations.

The Consumer

All your efforts, as a publisher, should revolve around your audience. The consumers can be the followers and subscribers who regularly check out your content or they can be occasional visitors who find your posts or videos useful.

Along with satisfying information needs you can complement your posts with relevant links to products or services.

The Affiliate Network

While contacting directly every brand you’d like to collaborate with can be time-consuming, Partner Network is dedicated to making the process less intimidating for publishers.

They act as intermediaries between the seller and the affiliate and handle things like product delivery and payments to make things easier for both parties.

Interestingly, some top brands run their affiliate programs only via Partner Network.

So if you know exactly what brand your audience needs, you need to sign up for their affiliate program by using the network.

Luckily, it gives you the opportunity to compare various options and choose the best one.

Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

A lot of marketers still wonder why they should join affiliate programs only to earn a small percentage of the sale they made. Is it really fair?

Can you really make decent money with affiliate marketing when there are plenty of other ways to make money online?

And the short answer is YES!

One of the main reasons why you should become an affiliate is that you don’t have to get into the hassles of creating a product/service and selling it on your own.

Instead, you just recommend it to your audience and make money. So simple!

Now it’s time to name some other benefits of partner marketing and how you can benefit from it.

Generate Passive Income Online

Instead of working a 9-5 cubicle job that requires you to work regularly to continue earning, affiliate marketing can be a tool for making money without any degree. Of course, you need to invest some time and effort in the first stage.

However, as long as you get a constant flow of traffic to your content and it sees clicks and sales, you can make substantial money without much effort.

It Doesn’t Take Much to Begin

Starting a business generally involves some initial investments.

In the same way, developing a new product, will require an idea, funding, a team for marketing and selling the product, and other investments.

Basically, you can get started with affiliate marketing without all these things. What you need is the willingness, some effort, and time to create content around the product and persuade people to buy it.

Become a Digital Nomad

If you have been dreaming about working from anywhere in the world, then partner marketing is the key.

Creating content and adding links doesn’t mean you should work from a particular place.

Feel free to work from anywhere under the sun for as long as affiliate links work.

There is Always Room For Improvement

While working a regular job implies being paid a fixed monthly salary, running affiliate links on your website or social media account is all about performance.

In other words, the more effort you put into creating content and establishing yourself as an expert, the more you can earn.

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Is Affiliate Marketing A Good Fit For Me?

If you own a website, a YouTube channel, run a blog on Instagram, or simply regularly produce content for your online audience, then affiliate marketing can be a great option for making money from home.

Content creators and influencers in any niche can choose products/services that their readers and viewers might be potentially interested in.

If this describes you, by promoting these products you can generate commissions every time people buy something through your links and make real money online.

Starting an online business and joining affiliate programs can be an especially good option if you can’t develop products and services on your own. Instead, you can promote other people’s products and bring value to your audience.

At the same time, you don’t need a huge following to get started with affiliate marketing because, with a wide range of programs in the Partner Network, you can find those that cater to narrow audience segments.

In addition, it doesn’t take much to promote products on your platform. And you are probably already doing it.

If you run a website, chances are you know a thing or two about search engine optimization (SEO), and if you are an Instagram blogger you definitely know how to engage with your audience.

If so, you only need to pick the right format for marketing products — for example, product reviews and unboxings.

Essentially, to succeed with affiliate marketing you have to be sincere and confident about the product you’re promoting.

In other words, promote it as if it were your own product. You’re not going to get rich overnight but you must provide value with your affiliate products/services to achieve long-term goals.

How’s an Affiliate Marketer Paid and How Much?

There are several ways how affiliate marketers can get paid:

  • Pay per click for redirecting customer traffic to a merchant’s website;
  • Pay per sale to earn a small commission of the product’s sale price;
  • Pay per lead to get paid depending on the total number of users who convert into leads (for example, by subscribing to a newsletter, or downloading a guide).

And still, there is something that interests everyone – how much I, as a publisher, can earn?

Infographics - Youtube

While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the profit you make depends on your effort, payment model, your niche, or industry.

In fact, there’s no limit on how much you can earn. It could be anything from a few hundred dollars to tens and thousands of dollars every month from your affiliate programs.

In addition, your monthly revenue depends on the number of affiliate programs you joined, the size of your audience, your engagement rate, and your reach.

Infographics - Instagram

Just to give you an idea of how much you can make per month with affiliate marketing – the average monthly income of affiliate marketers who joined Partner Network is around US$ 4,250.

How to Get Started With Affiliate Marketing?

How to Get Started With Affiliate Marketing_

If you want to start an affiliate marketing business, there are several things to keep in mind:

  • You need a platform to publish content;
  • Choose a product/service that is relevant to your niche;
  • Create a successful digital marketing strategy.

Getting started with affiliate marketing requires having a platform where you can publish content and interact with your audience.

With so many options to choose from, it could be anything ranging from your personal blog to an Instagram account to a Telegram channel.

Yes, you can promote products even on Telegram!

While it doesn’t take much to start a YouTube channel or Twitter account, creating your own WordPress blog requires some investment.

There are many benefits of having a self-hosted blog, but you will need to buy a domain name, and web hosting, and choose a content management system.

Choosing Products/Services To Promote

Once you have a platform, engaging content, and a loyal audience, it is time to choose products and services to promote. You can easily find relevant products by filtering out categories and options in the Partner Network.

When it comes to finding products your audience needs, you must keep in mind that these products should relate to your content. At the same time, promotional posts should be created around these products, complementing each other.

Partner Network has everything you, as a publisher, need to make a smooth promotion. You can quickly find a merchant that offers high-quality products and high commissions.

Partner Network is a marketplace that connects merchants and publishers so both parties can earn more money. Affiliate marketers benefit from joining such networks and make more accurate product selections to promote on their platforms.

Depending on your platform and content type, here’re Admitad products/platforms that are worth your attention:

One of the most important benefits of these products is that they provide data on how well a particular product performs. You should take advantage of that data to increase your affiliate marketing profits.

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In other words, you can easily optimize your affiliate marketing strategy and drive more sales by using that data.

 
Now that you know how to choose the right products for your audience, let’s take a closer look at how you can actually start making money with affiliate marketing.

How to Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned affiliate marketer or a novice, these affiliate marketing tips will help you make money online with affiliate marketing.

Find Your Niche

While it doesn’t take much effort to start with affiliate marketing, the market is saturated, and to stand out, you must be solving specific problems for your target audience, and therefore, recommend specific products for that purpose.

To succeed with affiliate marketing, you must find a niche you know and feel confident about. If you can do this, people will realize exactly what they can expect from you.

Thus, once they face an issue or seek guidance from niche experts, they will open your website or channel to find information or product recommendations and, eventually, click your affiliate links.

To give you an idea, you can choose fashion as a niche if you know a thing or two about the health and wellness industries. This involves reviewing relevant products such as food supplements, vitamins, shower and bathing products, and so on.

Find The Best Affiliate Programs

With plenty of various affiliate programs out there, you only need ones that are relevant to your niche and match your expertise level. Here are some examples:

  • High paying with low sales volume;
  • Low paying with high sales volumes;
  • High paying with high sales volume.

If you’re going to target businesses then high-paying programs with low sales volume can be your best bet because they are niche-based.

On the other hand, when you’re targeting consumers, you may opt for low-paying and high sales volume because you’ll promote products that appeal to a mass market.
 

Produce High-Quality Content That Generates Affiliate Revenue

Developing great content that converts is the cornerstone of any affiliate campaign. Whether you run a blog or create YouTube videos or shoot Instagram Reels, your content must offer a solution to a problem and add value to their lives.

Additionally, it’s a good rule of thumb that you only recommend products and services that you would use yourself. By doing that you show your audience you’re worthy of their trust.

For example, if you are blogging about technology, you can review a digital camera that delivered exceptional performance during your last trip to Thailand.

If you’re just starting out with partner marketing, it’s good to remember that simply publishing random content and inserting affiliate links is a road to nowhere.

Instead, you must ensure that the content you publish reaches your target audience. Since they need your advice and are still unsure about the product they need, it is you, who can help them make a purchasing decision.

Your content is an effective tool for achieving this goal. To put it another way, it should navigate people and trigger their minds to click your affiliate links to buy the products you recommend.

Drive Traffic

If you run a website and already see some results from your content, it’s time to drive traffic so that you can get more people to click on your affiliate links.

Here are the most obvious ways for achieving it:

  • Capture email addresses and build an email list;
  • Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to optimize your blog, so it ranks higher on Google or YouTube;
  • If you have a marketing budget, consider using PPC advertising to diversify traffic.

Join Affiliate Programs That Pay the Highest Commission

If your audience is looking for ways to solve their specific problems, turn it to your advantage, and benefit from it by offering products/services that can actually help them.

Partner Network is a digital marketplace that enables you, as a publisher, to connect to advertisers’ affiliate programs and create affiliate links, and promote products/services for a small percentage of profits made on such sales.

Becoming an Affiliate Marketer with Admitad Products is Easy

First things first, you need to sign up and go through the approval process. It is required to keep publishers and advertisers satisfied and ensure high-quality service.

For example, if you’re running a blog on Instagram or a channel on YouTube you will get instant access to 30.000+ top-notch brands and their offers coming from various niches when you join the ConvertSocial platform.

There are different payout models and commissions, different advertising models, that are available to residents from any country.

After joining a particular network you will get a unique publisher ID that you should attach to every campaign you launch to promote. When a conversion is complete, the ID allows the network and the advertiser to track that conversion back to you, and calculate your input and earnings!
 

 
On the other hand, if you’re an advertiser and looking for some exposure for your business, you will be offered a number of qualified marketers who are willing to help you promote your products/services by using top-quality content and materials.

This will ensure your credibility and maximize your reach.

As a merchant, you can track the performance of your offers and decide whether you need to propose special deals, add more offers, or not.

Promote Products Through Affiliate Links in the Content

Now that you have amazing content that solves people’s problems and revolves around their needs, it’s time to start inserting affiliate links.

Naturally, the way you do it will depend on the specific post you’re publishing. It just wouldn’t make sense to add affiliate links to an article that doesn’t target a specific problem, or add several links to different products if you’re writing a product review.

At the same time, you may want to adopt the principle of multiple affiliate links if you’re writing the “best of” article. This will obviously increase your chances of making more sales.

Achieving this goal requires a strategic approach to inserting links. Here are some tips for placing affiliate links:

  • Promote your links wherever you can;
  • Place affiliate links where they make sense. Adding irrelevant links may negatively affect the user experience (UX);
  • Put links closer to the beginning since most readers won’t take the time to read an entire post;
  • Use visual elements such as floating sidebars, inline banners, and footer area to promote your affiliate products;
  • When creating lists, make sure you add affiliate links in the first turn;

Make More Money from Your Existing Traffic

Once you’ll see your first clicks and sales, you’ll want to make more money with affiliate marketing.

That is where the Pareto principle comes in. While it originally states that 80% of outcomes result from just 20% of causes, in this case, works in a bit different way.

Namely, 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your content. Sounds great?

In order to succeed with this principle, you need to find your top converting content and figure out why it resonates with your audience.

Then, you may want to create similar posts and create new campaigns with a new experience in mind.

In addition, you can open a web analytics service to figure out your best-performing posts, and create targeted campaigns for those URLs.

5 Excellent Affiliate Marketing Strategies That Get Sales

Affiliate Marketing Strategies That Get Sales

There are a ton of strategies affiliate marketers use to promote partners’ products online. Here’re 4 effective affiliate marketing strategies you can use today to boost your income online:

1. Create Epic Posts That Will Go Viral

When it comes to promoting a product, creating a post that describes its features can go a long way.

But how to create an epic post?

An epic post describes your product’s appearance, attributes, and capabilities. It should clearly show why and how people can benefit from using it and why it is worth their attention anyway.

Such posts can come in many forms, ranging from how-to, FAQ, and best practices, to unboxing videos, to troubleshooting resources.

If you can persuade users that it actually solves their particular problem, chances are they will click your links and buy.

Additionally, the epic post becomes extremely shareable because of the valuable content it contains. It has the potential to rank high for the particular product keyword and get found by your target audience.

2. Create a Series Of Product Videos

Complementing epic posts with videos that help the audience make a decision to buy is a good rule of thumb.

This is one of the most important partner marketing strategies because it allows you to harness the power of the second most popular search engine in the world – YouTube.

Adding affiliate links to your video descriptions can drive more organic traffic to your products while benefiting from ranking both on Google and YouTube.

At the same time, creating multiple professional videos about a particular product enables you to include more relevant keywords, thus, improving placement in search results.

Make sure to include your affiliate link in the first part of the description. This would eliminate the need for scrolling and clicking to see it.

How to create a compelling product video?

Seeing a person in a video is always more compelling than just hearing a voice. That is why you may want to record yourself explaining the product’s features and weighing its pros and cons.

Once you have a video, break it up into chunks.

Since short videos are more effective, you can get multiple opportunities to rank for various keywords related to that product.

If you promote a digital product, start at the moment of purchase and describe the entire process. And if you promote a physical product, consider an unboxing video.

3. Host A Webinar

If you know that a particular product is in high demand then hosting a webinar is a great way to draw more attention to it.

Webinars can be an effective way to connect and interact with your audience. They don’t take much effort and can be done on a shoestring budget.

You can record your webinar to reuse it in the future, either by reposting it or repurposing it for different audiences.

If you provide something valuable, and high-quality, you’re both helping your audience solve a problem while simultaneously promoting your product. That way, you can achieve a way better result than just posting a regular affiliate link.

However, when hosting a webinar it’s vital to focus on your audience’s real — rather than perceived — needs.

4. Run a Giveaway Or a Contest

No doubt, hosting a giveaway can increase engagement, improve brand loyalty, and grow your following. But can a giveaway help you with boosting your affiliate sales? The answer is YES!

In fact, a giveaway is a powerful tool that very few seem to use.

In addition to promoting the affiliate product, offer a one-time ‘thank you’ bonus to all users who purchase the product through your link.

Since the competition is tough and so many affiliate marketers like you are trying to stand out with their own links, a small bonus may tip the scales in your favor.

Just make sure you know who exactly made a payment through your link. To figure out these people, ask for their emails before running a giveaway.

So what could that bonus be? The options are limitless:

  • It could be an in-depth tutorial on how to use the product with an opportunity to ask questions about it;
  • Or it could be a product or software that complements the affiliate product;
  • It could be a discount you work out with the owner of the product, one that provides additional benefits;
  • Or it could be a discount associated with a promo code;
  • It could be a PDF quick-start guide with instructions and best practices for the affiliate product.

 

… and the list goes on.

The main point of any giveaway is to add value to the purchase, make your audience feel comfortable, and show that this product is exactly what people need.

5. Create Product Reviews Containing Affiliate Links

Another powerful strategy is to create product reviews and comparisons. You can either create posts on your blog or film videos on YouTube.

When you create a review make sure to clearly point out who the product is for and why it is the best of its kind. Once you gave them your recommendation, include an affiliate link in the description section.

This strategy is so effective because people like convenience. By saving their time and effort, you make it unnecessary to carry out their search all over the web. Instead, you give people ultimate product reviews on your blog with tried and tested shops to buy stuff.

If you did your homework and gained your audience’s trust through content, then an in-depth review of different products of the same type can be a great way to drive affiliate sales.

In addition, you may complement your product review with special deals just for your audience.

Success Stories

Need inspiration? Here are success stories of the top publishers that work with Admitad:

Ivan Tannenberg of MindTheTravel has seen significant follower growth on Instagram throughout the 2010s, fuelled by powerful content and a spectrum of unique products and services, which have been effectively marketed across his social media channels.

A travel blogger focused on backpacking travel, he realized the value of partner marketing for bringing value to his target audience, especially before high season in popular destinations.

Since joining ConvertSocial monetization platform in 2021, he has been able to double his seasonal income by promoting products he personally tried and knows all the ins-and-outs.

In late 2021 he came up with a comprehensive partner marketing strategy, which included optimizing underperforming content, revising and replacing the old products, and adding new ones. The results have been incredible; 55% growth in affiliate revenue and higher spikes in online sales before peak season, compared to a year earlier.

Objectives

 

Strategy

  • Joining affiliate programs that offer competitive commission rates;
  • Checking Admitad catalog for such programs;
  • Collaborating with other bloggers for increasing audience reach and improving conversions;
  • Offering quality content for top destinations around the world;
  • Creating guest posts for reputable travel resources;
  • Publishing relevant posts with affiliate links on social media sites like Pinterest and Twitter.

Results

  • 57% publisher affiliate revenue growth year-over-year (YOY);
  • +24% sales YoY from 2 week period leading up to the high season in Europe;
  • +36% sales YoY from 2 week period leading up to the high season in Thailand.

AliExpress Pro Who Did Great on YouTube

A few years ago, AliExpress was at the peak of its popularity and many webmasters used this offer to make money with their cashback, coupon, showcase, content projects.

At the same time, FB groups were the lesser known but one of the most powerful places to share referral links.

Since Facebook traffic is relatively cheap, many webmasters created groups with names similar to the ones on AliExpress and then filled them with content. Once it was done, they invited followers to promote products and services.

Naturally, it couldn’t last for a long time, so this money-making method quickly became popular among webmasters. No secret, it became less profitable too.

By that time a lot of FB group owners were already working with Admitad. The company provided a number of tools for making money off FB groups and made an impressive improvement of CPA model.

One of publishers who work with Admitad decided to test CPA model on YouTube. They create video content about products on Aliexperess: unboxing, reviews, and tests. Today they have an exciting channel that boasts 186k subscribers and 33+ million views.

Numbers That Mean Success For The Publisher:

  • 2019 was the most profitable year;
  • Their month sales hit record in November 2019 (53.107 sales per month);
  • They earned more than $182k in sales from three main channels – AliExpress-Facebook-YouTube;
  • The average monthly sales were around $6k-$7k;

 
They did a great job promoting products from AliExpress and over time they started focusing more on direct integrations with different brands.

Top 5 Most Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Most Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Making money with affiliate marketing can be a daunting task, especially if you’re just starting out. Content creators have to decide on a profitable niche and choose suitable products to promote. This can result in a higher chance of mistakes.

Since not all mistakes are created equal, you may want to avoid the most common of them and mitigate the negative impact.

Here’re the most common affiliate marketing mistakes beginners should avoid if they want to build a reliable affiliate marketing income.

1. Choosing the Wrong Product

With so many affiliate products to choose from it can be difficult to find the one your audience needs. Figure out what your readers and viewers want because it will define your success in the affiliate marketing industry.

Once you have identified customer needs, you will be inspired to create relevant content around them and satisfy the needs of a certain group of people – your target audience.

2. Promoting Too Many Products

So, you have found the niche you know and love, now what? It is time to find relevant products for your audience. While it might be tempting to add hundreds of products to your website or blog, in fact, it is a big no-no!

Instead of wasting your time promoting too many products that might result in fewer sales, opt for promoting a handful of products, preferably just one, to ensure high quality.

When you suddenly start promoting too many products, users might think you’re just doing what you do for the sake of money with no intent to help them. To avoid this, take a step-by-step approach when you carefully add every product that brings value to your audience.

3. Knowing Too Little About the Products

Arguably, this is one of the most important points – you should know the product you promote to convince your audience to buy it. Otherwise, you will see no clicks and sales.

If you want to promote a product from a particular niche, test it before recommending it to others. Let people know your personal opinion, why it is worth buying, and what specific problems it can solve.

There are many ways how you can tell your personal story, for example, through how-to guides and tutorials, product reviews, or unboxing videos.

Viewers or readers will appreciate insights and in-depth information about the product. Those who listen to your opinion are eager to learn more about the product because they are comparing and want to pick the best option.

Explain how the product helped you, what are the ways of using it and are there cheaper alternatives.

People love watching and reading reviews. If you can create a genuine and authentic review, your audience will say “thank you” and you will see affiliate clicks and sales.

4. Choosing a Boring Niche

Another mistake many marketers make is picking a profitable niche they know little about.

Imagine you started a channel and created your first videos. Then, you want to scale up but have no idea about what content to create because you’re not an expert and know too little about common problems people face in a particular niche. As a result, it might seem boring and uninteresting.

At the same time, choosing a niche you know will benefit you and your audience. People will quickly realize you’re an expert who can solve their problems, and will be happy to interact with you and your content.

5. Creating Poor Quality Content

Seasoned marketers know that high-quality content is the main reason why people visit their blog or website. They also know that focusing on quality over quantity is a long-term investment.

For instance, publishing an in-depth and valuable post every week can benefit you more than posting a short article every day. In-depth posts require some research and you can include more information people need to make a purchasing decision.

To start with, consider brainstorming post ideas by focusing on value with questions such as, “What value will this post provide to my audience?”

Next, you may want to compare yourself to your competitors and ensure you create compelling content that generates leads and answers all questions your audience has.

Affiliate Marketing Tips

While you won’t get rich overnight with partner marketing, it takes time and effort, and a certain commitment to make it happen the way you want it to.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to get more clicks on affiliate links and increase your affiliate product sales.

In this section, you will learn valuable affiliate marketing tips and tricks that will earn you more money

Some of these are tips we’ve already mentioned but they’re definitely worth repeating! All together these tips

Even if you’re a complete beginner at affiliate marketing, these could be game-changing tips for you. You could even fall in love with your partner marketing business, take it full-time, or only opt for online side hustles. Before starting this journey, we’ll walk you through all you need to know about affiliate marketing.

12 Must-Follow Affiliate Marketing Tips For Beginners That Work:

  • Build trust and credibility;
  • Find a product you like;
  • Find a product that provides something of value to your audience;
  • Create content that converts for your affiliate marketing campaign;
  • Be ready to answer any questions;
  • Grow your audience;
  • Find the best ways to put affiliate links in your content;
  • Write affiliate links disclosure;
  • Start tracking clicks on your website;
  • Develop an audience-first marketing strategy;
  • Promote different products;
  • Be patient.

Being successful and productive in affiliate marketing requires a solid foundation. Here are the top tips you need to know as you’re getting started with affiliate marketing.

1. Build Trust And Credibility

It’s no surprise that you should first build trust before adding affiliate links to your content.

Since trust is the cornerstone of any relationship, you must spend a considerable amount of time building your community and fostering trust within that community first.

Once it is done you’ll receive feedback from your audience and boost your audience engagement.

How to build trust with your audience:

  • Give as much as you can. This includes content, information, freebies, and high-value stuff;
  • Collaborate with other content creators and influencers.

Check what your friends are into. Maybe they can help you get more exposure and connect even with new audiences.

Giving as much as you can be beneficial in many ways. For example, if you provide valuable content to your readers and it actually helps them, they will spread it by word of mouth, and, eventually, you’ll get even more affiliate clicks.

Building a relationship with your audience is extremely important to your success, and you won’t have sustainable income from affiliate programs until you earn your audience’s trust.

2. Find a Product You Like

Knowing too little about a product/service you promote is one of the most common affiliate marketing mistakes.

This happens because money-driven content creators focus primarily on building wealth rather than finding a product they know and can recommend to their audience. A big mistake!

While you, as a marketer, should know what the commission is and how much money you might earn per sale, what is even more important is to only promote products you would personally use.

You can’t recommend something if you don’t know what it is and how it could bring value to your audience.

If you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, research a product before promoting it. Get to know it.

3. Find a Product That Provides Something of Value To Your Audience

Another thing to keep in mind is that you should be promoting products that will actually help your audience.

Do you actually trust that advertiser? Are you sure they provide quality items and good service?

Since you will be sending people through your links to their website, you need to know how reliable this advertiser is.

On the other hand, after some time, people will be attaching you and your blog to that brand and that product, and if that product isn’t good enough for your audience, then it’s going to reflect ultimately on you. It’s a no-win situation

In the same way, you’ll benefit in case the product you promote becomes popular. It’s a win-win situation.

4. Create Content That Converts To Your Affiliate Marketing Campaign

In order to see more clicks on your affiliate links, you need an in-depth explanation of why this product is worth their attention.

Instead of writing a mere paragraph, create a post that fully describes the characteristics of the product and how people can benefit from using it

Explain how it can solve their particular problem, share some tips to make the experience of using that product even better, and give answers to the most frequently asked questions about that product.

An in-depth post about the product ensures your success and will make people more comfortable about clicking your links.

5. Be Ready To Answer Any Questions

It could happen that there are questions even after reading your in-depth post. In this case, you need to tackle these questions.

Establish yourself as an expert in your niche so that your audience regards you that way and you could become a valuable source of information to support them.

This can help in improving your click-through-rate CTR because answering even simple questions can get a person to click through your links and make a purchase.

In addition, your readers or viewers will feel more secure with their purchase because they know there is you to help them.

To show that you are ready to answer questions, indicate it in every promotional post you create. You want to say something like: “If you have any questions about the product, let me know. I’m here to help and I can show you how you can benefit from using this product.”

This will also build trust with your audience because people know you’re an expert they can address whenever they feel they need it.

6. Grow Your Audience

Depending on your niche and content, there are many platforms where you can interact with your target audience: on social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Snapchat, or via your own website.

Infographics - Facebook

Launching your own affiliate website is a great option if you’re serious about your affiliate marketing career and growing your audience.

Why? Just imagine what if these social media platforms were to shut down tomorrow?

While this probably won’t happen, you can potentially lose all your following!

At the same time, running your own affiliate website gives you full control over it and enables you to promote any product/service you want while delivering a custom experience to your readers and viewers.

Here’re a few reasons why you need to launch your own affiliate website:

  • Use it to build a high-converting affiliate marketing funnel;
  • Use it to engage with your audience. Tell a story. Show a picture. Make it visual;
  • Use it to build an email list.

 
Generally, a website gives you way more possibilities for promoting your partner marketing business and getting the most out of it. Since you don’t want to put all eggs in one basket, diversification is the key to success.

7. Find the Best Ways to Put Affiliate Links In Your Content

Sadly, many content creators and, sometimes gamers, are missing out on potential income merely because they put their affiliate links in the wrong place. Or give their audience only one opportunity to click on their affiliate links.

Instead, you may want to naturally place links where they feel appropriate – especially in posts where you explain product features and how to use them.

For example, when you write a blog post, put a link where you mention the product for the first time. A good rule of thumb is to put them somewhere in the middle of the post, and then again at the end.

While most users only click the first link in a post, those who continue to read are likely to be more engaged and take action.

Another way to place affiliate links is to link them with product images, video descriptions, or podcast show notes.

Your primary goal here is to make it as easy as possible for your audience to click your affiliate links. Play around a bit to figure out what works best for you.

8. Write Affiliate Links Disclosure

There are two main reasons why you should be having disclosures for affiliate links on your website:

  • According to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations, everyone who might be compensated for mentioning brands and products on the internet must disclose that relationship. In other words, if you live in the USA, you have to tell your readers and viewers that you are making money with affiliate marketing.
  • There is another reason, that is even more important. When you’re honest and sincere with your audience and create valuable content they will appreciate it by giving you more clicks eventually. In this case, your disclosure serves as a trigger and a good call to action for people to give back to you.

In addition, you should mention that you’re getting a commission, but at no extra cost to your audience. This will tell people you’re honest enough to buy stuff from you and help you make some cash.

9. Start Tracking Clicks On Your Website

Aside from placing affiliate links in the right corners of your website, it’s also important to keep track of them — how many clicks are going through each one, and what your conversion rates are.

It surely requires some effort but if you’re serious about affiliate marketing success it is worth spending some time to understand what works and what doesn’t.

You need to track your affiliate links if you want to know where you’re getting most of your sales from and whether your marketing campaigns are working.

With Partner Network you can easily track the performance of your links and quickly make adjustments if you need to.

10. Develop an Audience-First Marketing Strategy

When it comes to promoting a product/service that you want to sell, it’s imperative that you put the needs of your audience first.

It doesn’t matter what platform you’re blogging on or the content distribution strategy you use, you must be asking yourself how your visitors will benefit from using those products.

Wherever you can, let your audience know how the product will help them. You won’t make many sales unless you only tell people about features without mentioning the benefits they need. Focus more on benefits not just on features.

11. Promote Different Products

It could happen that you have amazing content, an incredible product you know will help your audience, but no affiliate clicks or sales.

You did everything right but people responded in an unpredictable way. Don’t worry, though. Of course, you need to figure out why it happened and evaluate the circumstances, and then try a different product.

Use the knowledge gained to promote similar products because affiliate marketing is always about learning and finding the right product for your following.

12. Be Patient

Becoming a successful online entrepreneur requires time and effort, and you need to realize that.

While things can happen pretty fast when it comes to online business, chances are you will need time to create quality content, make an impact, increase engagement, and build relationships with your audience to eventually make some money.

Over time you’ll see more traffic, clicks, sales, and affiliate commissions. Be patient if you want to succeed and keep learning as you go.

Wrapping Up. The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing

One problem that many people face when trying to make money online is the lack of possibility to be creative or to work with something that gives a sense of purpose.

In that sense, affiliate marketing is a process that can quench the thirst for creativity, while enabling the monetization of your channel, blog, or website.

In addition, you can easily choose products/services you want to promote and how.

Try our solutions now and make money while you sleep!

How We Can Help You Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

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Monetize your social media channel in a few clicks by joining ConvertSocial monetization platform. Create useful videos, add referral links to your description section and get a commission every time someone buys using your link.

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2 comments

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  • Robin

    Hi there 👋,
    I just want to say a Wholeheartedly 💓 Thanks to you because I know Affiliate marketing was a great way to make smart and passive income but your blog about Affiliate marketing explanation was really more Informative than I learned about AFFILIATE marketing here and there
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    [💖A.D.M.I.T.A.D💖]

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  • Abdul malek

    Good job

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