We are living in an age of internet. People are making use of internet and various social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. to earn lakhs of rupees every month. There are many ways through which people earn money from internet and Affiliate Marketing is one of them.
If you want to know about Affiliate Marketing, how it works, what are the various requirements for it, and how to use it, then you are at the right place. Today, in this article, we will inform you about all aspects of this Marketing, and guide you regarding how you can start it in 2023 and earn huge revenue from it.
What Is Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is a business in which you get commission for every sale that a company makes through you. If you promote any product of any company, and people buy that product through a “purchasing link/Affiliate link” provided by you, then the company provides you a commission for every sale that occurs through that purchasing/affiliate link.
Such an opportunity provided by a company, because of which you can promote their products on commission basis is called Affiliate Program.
Example: Suppose you join an Affiliate Program of Company A and you want to promote their Product Y or Service Z with your audience. You will be called as an Affiliate of Company A, and you will get a unique link, for that product or service called as an “Affiliate Link“. You ask your audience to buy that product/service through your Affiliate link. Whenever any individual makes buys that Product/service through your Affiliate Link, you get a percentage of the total cost, and this is your affiliate income.
This is a very cheaper and risk free way of earning huge amounts of money. It is a win win solution for both companies as well as affiliates. People are earning lakhs from it, and you can do it too.
How To Start Affiliate Marketing In 2023
In order to start Affiliate Marketing in 2023, you need to follow the steps listed below:
- Build your Audience/Community.
This is the first step towards Affiliate Marketing. Building community is necessary because it is the only way through which you can influence people to use your affiliate link.
More the number of people that you can share your link with, more will be the number of sales and more will be your affiliate income.
You can make your YouTube channel, a blog, an Instagram account, a Facebook page and share your affiliate links there with your visitors and followers. - Search and join such companies that offer Affiliate Programs.
When you have made your community, next step is to search companies that offer affiliate programs with good commission.
Prepare a list of such companies that suit you and join their affiliate programs. These companies are usually retail or e-commerce sites. Examples are Amazon, Amway, Hostinger etc. - Select a list of products/services that you want to promote.
The owner of such products/service will provide you an affiliate code that you can use to send your visitors to the main site, where they are sold.
Make sure that you promote only such products/services that you yourself use, or would have no problem in using. Never ever promote any such products that are illegal, harmful or of low quality.
Affiliate Marketing is based upon trust, and if you shatter the trust of your audience, you won’t be able to grow in this business.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Affiliate Marketing works on the basis of commission on sales made through you. When you join the affiliate program of any company, you are assigned an Affiliate Code that is unique for each user.
This code differentiates one affiliate from another, and helps keep track of user-wise sales and commissions earned.
When you promote any product, you receive a unique code-specific URL/Link. This link is shared with the audience through youtube, facebook, blog, instagram etc.
Once any user clicks on the link, he gets directed to the main website selling that product/service. If he purchases that product/service, you get a percentage of that cost as a commission. This commission gets deposited into your Affiliate Account.
You can track the balance in your Affiliate account any time and once it reaches a threshold limit, you can transfer it to your bank account.
Best Affiliate Marketing Programs In The World
The best Affiliate Marketing Programs in the world are listed below:
1. Amazon Affiliate Program:
This is the largest affiliate network of the world. It allows you to promote consumer products like tools, gadgets, toys, books, household items and all other items available on it.
You can easily sign up for Amazon affiliate program, generate custom links to products and get revenue from sales.
2. Fiver Affiliate Program:
Fiver is the largest hub of digital services. It offers all kinds of digital services from logo designing to content writing to programming, among 250 other digital services.
If your audience is about digital services, you can join Fiver affiliate program. It gives affiliates an opportunity to promote individual gigs and their services, and offers them a very good commission as much as 15%.
3. Hostinger Affiliate Program
Hostinger is a very popular web hosting platform, which offers their affiliates a good commission on every sale.
An extra advantage of joining Hostinger Affiliate program is that its services are affordable and customer friendly, so the chances of conversion increase a lot. This in-turn generates good income for you.
4. VPN Affiliate Program
VPN means a Virtual Private Network and their use has increased in last few years, as people want to enjoy a secure connection over internet.
You can join any VPN affiliate program and generate custom links. Every time a user buys a VPN service through your link, you get a commission. In fact, some VPN affiliate programs offer you commission, every time a user pays fee towards the VPN service provider.
What Is An Affiliate Merchant?
Affiliate Merchant is a person/company that produces an item or sells a service. It is an affiliate merchant, who offers an affiliate program, and allows affiliates to sell the products and earn a commission.
If you want to be an affiliate merchant, then you will have to produce an item or a service, and list them for sale. Here, you must take care that you should offer only such products and services which are in good demand and profitable. Always look through the angle of a consumer. After all, he is a boss.
After production, keep a margin for affiliates. Find them, and they will sell your products and services. This is where, Affiliate Networks will help you.
What Is An Affiliate Network?
Affiliate Network is a group of individuals/companies that exist between an Affiliate and an Affiliate Merchant and provides an interface between them.
It is a place, where the Affiliates find all the Affiliate-Program offering brands under one roof, and join them. And, on the other hand, it allows the Affiliate Merchants to reach a larger audience of Network Marketers.
Pros of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has the following advantages;
1. Low Cost Business Idea
Affiliate marketing is the cheapest and risk free model of earning money. You need not to pay any fee to join the affiliate program of any company, and there are no other barriers to entry. All the risk involved in it is borne by the merchant and you don’t need to worry about whether the market goes up or down.
2. Big Business
Affiliate Marketing is a billion dollar business world wide, and you can earn huge profits from it. The added advantage is that you can sell products from international companies and your customers can be from any part of the world.
3. No Manufacturing Needed
This is perhaps the biggest advantage of affiliate marketing. You don’t need to manufacture a product to earn revenue from it.
4. No Experience Needed
This business can be started even with zero expertise in the field. All other businesses require some existing skills and experience, but this can be started without any experience and experience and learning will happen along the way.
5. Convenience and Flexibility
This business is convenient and flexible. You are not under any kind of pressure from your boss, and you can use it according to your comfort.
6. No Headaches
Since you just promote the product, its delivery and other customer service related aspects are not your responsibility. They are to be looked into by the merchant.
Cons Of Affiliate Marketing
The cons of affiliate marketing are;
1. Audience Building
This is perhaps the biggest con of Affiliate Marketing. You can’t jump into Affiliate marketing unless you have a good audience. The problem is that getting audience is a difficult and time consuming process.
2. No Control
Being an affiliate, you can’t dictate terms and conditions to the merchants. Rather, you have to abide by the conditions and rules of the merchant.
3. Highly Competitive
Affiliate marketing is very profitable and it has made it very competitive in nature. You might not be able to make significant sales for a good amount of time. However, with good skills and dedication, you can overcome the competition.
4. Very Tricky
It might seem surprising, but a lot of your audience members might get irked as soon as you start promoting any of the products. Chances are they might leave you and never return.
Further, if a person buys through your affiliate link, chances are high that next time he will directly buy from the merchant and not through your affiliate link.
Also Check: The best business ideas for 2023
These were some pros and cons associated with affiliate marketing. I hope that this article might have helped you in getting insights into various aspects of affiliate marketing. It might have also enabled you to judge easily, whether it is your kind of business or not, and whether you should jump into it or not.
If you are still confused, we advise you to give it a try, as its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. Further doing so, will help you get a practical experience about this marketing and raise your interest in it.