Affiliate Marketing: The Original Way of Making Money Online

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest and most popular ways of making money online. I refer to it as the OG of making money online. According to Statista, business spending on affiliate marketing hit $8.2 billion in the U.S. in 2022 and Influencer Marketing Hub estimates that the industry will continue to grow to $15.7 billion by 2024. It is a simple and effective method of earning commissions by promoting the products or services of other people or other companies. Affiliate marketing is a highly lucrative online business model that has been around for quite some time. In affiliate marketing, you earn a commission every time someone clicks on your affiliate link and buys a product or service. The commission you earn varies depending on the product or service you are promoting, but it can range from a few dollars to well into the hundreds of dollars.

You can find affiliate programs for almost any niche or industry, from A to Z. You can join these programs for free and start promoting them on your website, blog, social media, email list, or any other platform where you have an audience.

One of the great things about affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to worry about creating a product or service, customer service, or processing payments. Your responsibility is simply to just promote the product or service, and the company takes care of the rest. This makes it an ideal option for anyone who wants to start an online business but doesn’t have the resources to create their own products or services.

The intention behind this piece of writing is to explore the basics of affiliate marketing, how it works, and why it is still a viable option for anyone who wants to start or grow their online business and bank account.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing has been around for quite some time and is considered the oldest way of making money online. It started in the mid-1990s when Amazon launched its affiliate program, wherein affiliates could earn a commission for promoting Amazon’s products. Since then, affiliate marketing has grown exponentially, and now almost every company has an affiliate program. Today, affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry, and thousands of people earn a full-time income through affiliate marketing.

The term affiliate refers to a company, business, or individual that is connected or “affiliated” with another organization or business.

In the context of marketing, an affiliate is someone who promotes and markets the products or services of another company and receives a commission for each sale or leads that they generate. This is known as affiliate marketing, and it has become a popular way for businesses to expand their reach and for individuals to earn income through promoting products they believe in. (This is an important part that I will explain more about later.) The affiliate does not own or create the product or service but simply acts as a middleman between the customer and the merchant.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

The process of affiliate marketing is quite simple. First, the affiliate would join an affiliate campaign, network, or program that offers products or services that are relevant to the audience they are trying to reach. For example, the affiliate could be trying to reach individuals or companies interested in gaming. So this affiliate would join an affiliate program that may offer some kind of gaming product like say a specific gaming mouse and keyboard. I will list a few of the affiliate sites and networks that I personally use later in this blog, but please note that there are tons of these that can be found by a simple Google search. Just note that some are more reputable than others, so it is always best to do some research before joining. And please, do not join an affiliate program that asks you to pay for something upfront. These are most likely a scam of some sort to steal not only your money but also your personal information as well. 

After joining an affiliate network, the affiliate would then search and choose the product they want to promote. Let’s keep using the gaming mouse and keyboard as our example. Once they find the product they are looking for, they would then get a special link, known as the affiliate link. This link is how the affiliate network tracks how many people purchased the product using your affiliate link, so they will know how much to pay you.

The affiliate, that is the people like you and me who are trying to make money, will have to promote this affiliate link through one of their platforms. This could be in a blog post like this one, on a website, a forum, social media, an email list, or any other sort of platform you use that has a following or audience. 

The Process of Promoting Affiliate Links

So what do you do once you join an affiliate program or network? Well, you simply just have to start promoting the link or links you have to start making money. 

The steps are pretty easy and are as follows:

1. Pick your platform and method. You need to decide where and how you want to promote your affiliate offers. You can use a website, blog, podcast, YouTube channel, social media account, or any combination of these. You also need to choose a method that suits your skills and goals, such as content marketing, email marketing, video marketing, or paid advertising.

At this point, you should also decide your niche and audience. You need to find a specific topic or market that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, and that has enough demand and potential for profit. You also need to identify your target audience and understand their problems, desires, preferences, and buying behavior.

2. Find affiliate products or services to promote. You need to research and join affiliate programs that offer products or services that are relevant and valuable to your niche and audience. You can use platforms like Amazon Associates, ClickBank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, CPA Grip, Digistore 24, Offervault, or Awin to find thousands of affiliate offers. You can also look for individual merchants or brands that have their own affiliate programs.  

3. Generate your affiliate link. The affiliate gets a unique link specifically made for them which is called an affiliate link, that tracks their referrals and sales. The product or service belongs to another company (the merchant or advertiser), and they provide you with an affiliate link that contains a tracking ID.

When someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase or performs a desired action (such as signing up for a free trial, downloading an app, filling out a form, etc.), you earn a commission from the merchant. The commission rate varies depending on the product or service and the affiliate program, but it can range from 5% to 50% or more.

The merchant tracks your referrals through cookies, which are small files that store information on the user’s device. Cookies usually have an expiry date, which means you can still earn commissions even if the user delays buying for a while after clicking your link.

4. The affiliate promotes the affiliate link on their website, blog, social media, email list, or any other online platform where they have an audience. Create and share valuable content that promotes your affiliate offers. You need to create content that educates, entertains, inspires, or persuades your audience to take action on your affiliate offers. You can use different formats like blog posts, reviews, tutorials, guides, videos, podcasts, webinars, ebooks, or courses. You also need to share your content with your audience using SEO, social media, email marketing, or paid advertising.

When a customer clicks on the affiliate link and makes a purchase from the merchant, the affiliate earns a commission. The commission rate varies depending on the product or service, the merchant, and the affiliate program or network. The commission is usually paid to the affiliate after a certain period of time or after a certain threshold of sales is achieved. 

5. Rinse and repeat. Find multiple offers and products and keep repeating the steps. The more links you put out there, the more money you have to bring in. Track your results and optimize your performance by using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or affiliate dashboards to monitor your traffic, conversions, commissions, and other metrics. You can also test different products, offers, content formats, headlines, images, calls-to-action, etc., to see what works best for your audience and niche.

Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It does require time, effort, patience, and persistence to build trust and authority with your audience and generate a consistent and sustainable source of income. 

Why Even Start Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing has many benefits for both affiliates and merchants. It is easy to start since you don’t really need any special skills, qualifications, or experience to become an affiliate marketer. All you need is a website, blog, social media account, email list, or any other online platform where you can reach your target audience. You also don’t need to create or own any product or service, as you can choose from thousands of existing products or services that suit your niche or interest.

It is also low-cost and low-risk. You don’t need to invest any money upfront to join an affiliate program or network. There is also no need to worry about inventory, shipping, customer service, refunds, or any other aspects of running an online business. Your only expenses are your time and effort to promote your affiliate links and generate traffic to them.

You can work as an affiliate marketer from anywhere in the world as well. As long as you have an internet connection, you can work from the comfort of your own home, and be your own boss, which is something I am a really big fan of, and you can also work at your own pace and schedule. 

You can also choose how many products or services you want to promote, and how much time and effort you want to dedicate to each one. You can also scale up your income by expanding your audience, increasing your traffic, optimizing your conversions, or joining more affiliate programs or networks.

Tips to Be Successful With Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has enormous potential to be a lucrative and rewarding way to make money online if you do it right. Although it sounds easy, and many people out there claim it is so easy, be warned that it does require a lot of time and effort to become successful with it. 

There are right ways and there are wrong ways, as with everything you do in life. 

Here are some tips and best practices to help you succeed:

1. Choose products or services that you trust and use yourself. This way, you can provide honest and authentic recommendations that resonate with your audience. Do not promote products or services that are in high demand and are the highest paying just for the sake of it. The perfect example of this would be anything in the weight loss industry. There are hundreds if not thousands of weight loss products out there to promote that can earn you loads of money. In fact, it is one of the most commonly promoted things out there. What happens is people will go and promote diet pills for example without using them themselves or even knowing anything about health and fitness. They simply just want to promote and make money, completely disregarding the health effects that their promoted products may cause. I cannot stand this type of marketer. 

This is why I advise that you stick to a product or service that you know and potentially even use yourself. You will have the knowledge to be able to write a meaningful and useful blog or review of the product, which your audience will see value in and help with your credibility. This leads me to my next point.

2. Focus on providing value and solving problems for your audience. Don’t just spam your links everywhere without context or relevance. Instead, create helpful and informative content that educates your audience about the benefits and features of the products or services you’re promoting. Don’t be someone who is a gamer promoting diet pills is what I am saying. Don’t go and promote a cookbook in a forum for people that like to play World Of Warcraft. Promote a game, promote a keyboard or graphics card, or subscription to an online gaming community. Help people, and you will see the rewards in it. 

3. Disclose your affiliate relationship with transparency and honesty. This is not only required by law in many countries but also helps you build trust and credibility with your audience. Many blog sites and social media sites and even influencers do not explain their affiliate relationships in my personal opinion. And this is probably one of the leading reasons why they are not as successful as the ones that do disclose their affiliate relationships. Again, it’s about credibility here.

4. Diversify your income sources by promoting products or services from different merchants and niches. This way, you can reduce your risk of losing income if one merchant stops paying commissions or changes their terms.

5. Lastly, keep learning and improving your skills and knowledge. Stay on top of your game and know what changes there are happening to what you are promoting. Maybe they are coming out with next year’s version of a gaming mouse and keyboard that has some additional features that the one you currently are promoting doesn’t. Update your links, update your blogs, and everything else to show you actually care and are providing your audience with the best value out there. 

Affiliate marketing is not that difficult to do, but it can be difficult if you don’t know what you are doing. Avoid the stress and frustration and follow these basic steps for your success in a short amount of time. Be patient though, don’t expect to see results overnight like some people may lead you to believe. It took a few weeks and a few different tries for me to see my first sales trickle through. 

Conclusions – The TL;DR Version

To become a successful affiliate marketer, you need to choose the right niche and products to promote. You should choose a niche that you are passionate about and that has a high demand. You should also choose products that are high-quality and offer good value to your audience. It’s also important to build a relationship with your audience and provide them with valuable content that will help them make informed buying decisions.

Although affiliate marketing may be one of the oldest ways of making money online, it is still a profitable and popular way of earning passive income. It is an excellent way for students, stay at home moms and dads, entrepreneurs, and hustlers to earn money online without creating a product or service themselves. 

In summary, affiliate marketing is a simple and effective way of earning commissions by promoting other people’s products or services. It’s a viable option for anyone who wants to start or grow their online business. With the right niche and products to promote, you can build a successful affiliate marketing business that will generate a steady stream of passive income. If you follow the steps and advice in this blog piece, you will be well on your way to success.

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, please check out my website, The Side Hustle University, which I created for people like you and me who are looking to start a side hustle to make some extra money or even to start a business. You’ll find similar articles and blog posts to this one, as well as reviews and ideas that could help you to become free from the rat race we all know and hate. 

To your success,

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any company, organization, or employer. The author has not received any compensation for writing this post, however, there may be some affiliate links throughout the piece. Individual results may vary based on effort and other factors. Any action you take based on the information presented in this post is strictly at your own risk. The author assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in the content of this post.