If you’re looking to monetize the traffic on your website, then affiliate marketing could be the answer.
Despite there being quite a few myths about affiliate marketing and how it works, it’s an easy way to bring in revenue where you weren’t before.
Want to get started but you’re not sure how?
Check out our affiliate marketing guide below to learn more:
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The concept behind affiliate marketing is that larger companies provide a commission to independent websites and e-commerce stores for selling their products for them.
Individual’s and small businesses can partner with an affiliate network and by posting ads and products on their own site, create a stream of income.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to take advantage of traffic you already have on your website by monetizing it. Because of the nature of affiliate marketing, the more people who see and interact with your links, the more you’re going to be able to profit from it.
Alternatively, you can also grow your brand by offering the right products for your client base. If you’re starting out with a small audience it isn’t impossible to do well with affiliate marketing as long as you have a good grasp on who your audience is and what they want.
Ideally, you wouldn’t partner with too many affiliate companies. However, there aren’t really any rules around partnering with a lot of sites.
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
One of the biggest benefits of affiliate marketing is the fact that it’s a passive source of income.
Having a source of passive income is one of the best financial decisions you can make. In comparison to a source that requires active work, passive income allows you to get paid with almost no effort on your part.
Because affiliate marketing requires almost no work beyond posting active ads and links to your existing website, it’s an ideal source of passive income.
Another benefit of affiliate marketing is the fact that by choosing to work with partners that match your website’s voice and feel, you can establish more of a seamless brand overall.
Successful affiliate marketers are able to build their marketing into who their brand is and by doing such build a bigger audience.
How to Get Started
As mentioned, one of the biggest keys to success in affiliate marketing is choosing the right affiliate marketing programs for your audience and brand.
It wouldn’t make sense for a vegan blog to partner with an affiliate program selling leather products or a parenting blog to partner with an affiliate program that offers tech products. Generally speaking, find your niche and work it to your advantage.
To get a more in-depth idea of who your audience is, consider keeping tabs on the traffic coming to your site. Looking into demographic information can give you decent insight as to what will do well and what won’t.
Another good rule of thumb when it comes to affiliate marketing is to only sell products you truly believe in. The best strategy in affiliate marketing is to stay true to yourself and your audience.
The Best Affiliate Programs
With so many affiliate programs out there, it can be easy to get lost in the options.
Check out these top affiliate programs to start:
Amazon Associates
Amazon is a powerhouse in the e-commerce industry, so it only makes sense that their affiliate program is one of the best.
The Amazon Associates program offers one of the widest ranges of product options available. In fact, the affiliate program through Amazon has over a million different product options.
The commission potential from Amazon is around 15% per purchased item from your affiliate link or ads.
Rakuten
Previously known as LinkShare, the Rakuten affiliate program has been voted the best affiliate program for the last 6 years in a row.
This program sets itself apart from the rest by offering more support and services than many others.
When you choose to begin a partnership with their affiliate program you have access to over 2,500 outlets to sell from full of high-quality programs.
Google Affiliate Network
The Google Affiliate Network is slightly different than the others on this list as it is a pay-per-action network.
This means that rather than only making revenue from sales alone, the Google Affiliate Network also offers pay for clicks.
If your links and ads bring in more leads and promote conversion on the affiliate sites you’ll be paid a commission for those leads.
In order to be a part of the Google Affiliate Network, you’ll need a Google AdSense account that allows you to post the ads for the affiliate site. Your AdSense account will also serve as the way your payments will be processed.
ClickBank
ClickBank has been in business for over 17 years and is one of the biggest names in the affiliate program realm.
One of the biggest benefits of partnering with ClickBank is the fact that they offer up to 75% commission. This commission is available on thousands of products and is paid out weekly to their affiliates.
They also offer built-in analytics to help their affiliates thrive in their marketing efforts.
eBay Partner Network
The eBay Partner Network allows you to share items on a lot of different platforms from websites and blogs to social media.
This gives you the ability to hop on Twitter, tweet a link to a product, and then make a commission from the sales that tweet created. The e-commerce field is rapidly changing and this is a great way to take advantage of that.
Another benefit to the eBay Partner Network is the fact that you can make double in commission during your first 60 days after getting started.
Follow this Affiliate Marketing Guide for Sucess
With this affiliate marketing guide, you have everything you need to get started on building a source of passive income.
Choose your products and affiliate networks wisely and you’re sure to see success.
To keep up with your website stats and help you learn more about what your traffic could be worth, contact us!