Nowadays, there are many forms of making money online. So the question is, which is the reputable form that you should participate in? Affiliate Marketing is the answer! So what is Affiliate Marketing? Aspects of Affiliate in Global, how to do it… All will be shared in the article below!
With the development of the Internet and social networking sites today, The Affiliate Marketing Industry is becoming more and more popular, especially among young people. Many people consider Affiliate as their main job with a high income. So what is Affiliate Marketing? When participating in Affiliate, what knowledge do you need to know? As well as how to do Affiliate for those who are new to it?
What is the concept of Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is considered a model of promoting products and services. Including distributors (Affiliate/Publisher) based on their experience and knowledge to market, attract customers to buy and use products and services of suppliers (Advertiser/Merchant). From there, distributors will receive a commission from the supplier for each successful order or completed action.
To make it easier for you to understand, Affiliate Marketing is like a Collaborator Model, you can easily find it in online stores. In which the shop owner (supplier) is called Advertiser, the collaborators are Publishers whose main job is to find customers to buy, thereby receiving commission for each successful customer search.
As this business platform is gradually developing and becoming popular in Global, people are also getting used to online shopping, so Affiliate Marketing has soon been applied in the Global E-Commerce Market with Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, …
Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?
As a newcomer to Making Money Online (MMO) in general and Affiliate Marketing in particular, many people will surely wonder if Affiliate Marketing is a SCAM, is it multi-level marketing?
This is also understandable when there are many invitations to participate in jobs that do not require experience with attractive income, or multi-level forms disguised as Affiliate Marketing, which have unintentionally caused Affiliate Marketing to be misunderstood and deviated from its nature. When participating in legitimate Affiliate Marketing, you will realize some differences compared to multi-level, fraudulent models such as:
- Join Affiliate Marketing is completely free: Registration will cost you absolutely nothing and you will become an official partner and start making money online.
- By joining Affiliate, you will see transparency and clarity in the terms and conditions, how to calculate commissions for each product and service, as well as the clearest regulations when participating.
- Get commission based on real users: You can only get commission when users make a purchase or perform an action through the affiliate link you promoted.
*Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing is not a scam. This is a legitimate form of online money-making and has very high potential for development. Therefore, you can completely rest assured when participating.
4 Components in Affiliate Marketing Model
Supplier (Advertiser/Merchant)
- Individuals or businesses that are able to provide products and services from all industries such as: fast-moving consumer goods, food, time, electronics, etc. and services such as education, beauty, finance, etc.
- Suppliers must meet the requirements on product source and quality as committed according to the distributor’s policy.
From the perspective of the goods supplier, Affiliate Marketing is like a distribution channel but it is simple, the working steps are not complicated. Just a pre-designed banner with full information about the product is enough to promote your products and services. And only when the product is sold, do you need to share the commission with the distributor.
Distributor (Affiliate/Publisher)
- Organizations and individuals own websites with large, stable and reputable traffic.
- Organizations and individuals with the ability to run ads, have high conversion rates from CPM, CPC to CPA.
- Organizations and individuals who use MMO and want to earn more profit from Affiliate Marketing.
Distributors are the ones who understand the customer base – the people who visit their website the most, they know when traffic is high with the ability to convert effectively. Taking advantage of that, they access the supplier’s Platform and pull products and services that are suitable for their customer base to their website. When customers visit the distributor’s website and click to the distributor’s website, generating a purchase action, the distributor will receive a commission.
If one day, you are reading a book review on a website and suddenly see Amazon book advertising banners, it is very likely that this is a form of Affiliate Marketing. In which, Amazon plays the role of a Supplier and the Website you visit is a distributor.
Depending on the policy and conditions in the agreement, the payment method between the distributor and the supplier will be different (CPS, CPL, …)
Affiliate Network
It is an intermediary platform that helps connect distributors and suppliers together, helping distributors monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of advertising and sales, and is also a place to provide technical platforms such as advertising links, banners, … and pay commissions to distributors.
Customer (End User)
Are end users, those who use the supplier’s products, services or other actions required by the supplier.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing?
Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
- Low start-up costs: You will not need to pay any fees to join Affiliate. Most Affiliate companies will handle the services and products so you do not need to worry about inventory or sources of goods.
- Easy to Join: There are virtually no barriers to entry in Affiliate Marketing, you simply fill out a form and can start promoting products immediately.
- No worries about shipping, returns: You just need to promote your brand, promote your products, the rest of the shipping and returns will be handled by the supplier.
- No need to create products or services: All you need to do when doing Affiliate Marketing is deliver the products to clients and customers and then the supplier will do all the rest.
- No special requirements: you just need to promote products and services, no need to study or need any license.
- Make Money Anytime, Anywhere: You can make money from Affiliate Marketing anytime, anywhere.
Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing
- Building referrals takes time: To make significant money from Affiliate Marketing, you need to spend a lot of time generating referrals.
- You need to be good at Internet Marketing: Because no one is professionally trained to do Affiliate Marketing. If you want to be successful, you need to be good at Internet Marketing.
- Limited Advertising: Some Affiliate Marketing Programs will have advertising restrictions, for example you cannot do email marketing or use PPC advertising with certain keywords.
- There are requirements to get paid: Some Affiliate Programs will offer payouts after you reach a certain amount.
Forms of Affiliate Marketing in Global
Like the world market, there are 4 popular forms of Affiliate Marketing in Global including: Product Launch, Niche Site, Authority Site and CPA.
- Product Launch: As the name of this type of Affiliate suggests, it is used for marketing campaigns to launch new products with the goals of the supplier: attracting new customers, increasing revenue. Product Launch is the simplest of the types of Affiliate Marketing in Global today because there are fewer competitors, making money will be faster. However, due to the characteristics of the product life cycle, this form can only be applied within 10-20 days from when the supplier launches the product.
- Niche Site: Niche site can be considered the most popular, long-term and developed form of Affiliate Marketing. Distributors build a system of sites about a certain field to attract visitors who are also potential customers of the supplier. This form of Affiliate in Global is popular not only because of its development and effectiveness but also because of the commission received from the supplier from 5-20% of the order value.
For example: If you have a passion for books and are good at writing, you can write book reviews about the knowledge and skills you gain from books that make life better. Then, collaborate with Tiki’s book section and place books that are suitable for your readers on the site. This form is called a niche site or micro-niche site.
- Authority Site: Authority is similar to Niche site, the difference is that instead of writing a niche, a small niche, Authority site writes content that covers a more general field. In this form, the distributor must invest time to provide a large amount of information. In return, the amount of commission received will be very large.
- CPA (Cost Per Action): is a popular form on different advertising platforms. With Affiliate Marketing, when distributors join the CPA network, they will have their own link exchange links and use these links to promote and receive commissions when customers complete an action such as purchasing, filling out registration forms, participating in surveys. The amount of commission received depends on the policy specific to these actions.
How to do Affiliate Marketing Effectively for Beginners
1. Choose the right Niche
Before you start building your first website, you need to decide what niche you’re going to target. If you haven’t already decided on a target market, here are some tips you might find helpful.
- What topics am I passionate about?: Everything is easier when you do what you love. Moreover, when you have a passion, you will often be knowledgeable about that field. This will definitely help with Marketing and Sales.
For example, if you have a passion for “makeup”, your Niche could be related to makeup. However, consider the profit potential of that Niche. So, you may not necessarily have to understand your niche in depth. If it has the potential to make you money, you can always spend time learning more about it later.
- Does the topic allow me to easily write 25, 50, or 100 blog posts?: The topic you choose should have enough depth that you can create a lot of content for it. This is important for building an authoritative website, optimizing it for search engines, and targeting users. If you don’t have enough content on a topic, you won’t be seen as a reputable source of information, nor will you be able to convince someone to buy from you.
- Is there room for you in this niche?: There are some very popular and profitable niches in the affiliate market such as weight loss. Before choosing such a popular niche, make sure there is enough room for you in this area. Ask yourself, can you make money and compete with other affiliate marketers in this niche? If not, keep looking.
- Is there enough interest/demand for products in this niche?: The niche you choose may attract enough interest from your readers to read and seek knowledge, but are they willing to spend money on related products? Without consumer interest in the products, your niche won’t make much money.
- Is there an Affiliate Program available in this niche?: This is obviously an important factor to consider. You may have an idea for a niche you know well, but does that niche have an Affiliate Program? No Affiliate Program = no sales.
2. Research and join Affiliate Programs
Once you have decided on your niche, the next step is to research Affiliate Programs and products to promote. Choosing an Affiliate Program will take some time, but don’t be afraid to invest because your revenue will come from there.
- Amazon: sells almost everything, so chances are your niche includes products sold on Amazon. It’s a good place to start doing Affiliate Marketing you can sign up to join: Here.
- Clickbank: is a popular choice for many Affiliate Marketers. That’s because the commissions from the companies on that site are very attractive, you can sign up here: Here.
Most reputable companies offer Affiliate Programs that allow anyone to become a distributor for free. However, you will be asked to provide your bank account or PayPal information. Remember, this is not so the company can take money from you, but so they can pay you the commissions you earn on successful sales.
3. Build a Website
The above steps are at the research and learning stage. Now, it is time to start putting your research into action to implement effective marketing. If you are new to building websites or do not know much about websites, the easiest way is to use WordPress. WordPress CMS is very easy to use, most do not require any programming technology knowledge to set up a website.
You need to follow a few steps as follows to set up the web:
- Buy a domain name: A domain name is the address for your website. There are millions of websites on the internet, and it’s possible that the domain name you want is already taken. So make sure you explore some other options.
- Buy and set up Hosting: If the domain name is your address, hosting is like the storage where that website can operate. Nowadays, hosting is often affordable, so choose a reputable, reliable provider because your Affiliate Marketing depends a lot on it.
- Install WordPress: Once you have set up, you need to install a content management system (CMS) for your website. Most good hosting providers will have a built-in WordPress installation option. With just one click and a few minutes of setup, you have your WordPress site set up.
- Install a Theme: A WordPress theme provides all the colors and styles of your website on the front end. There are thousands of themes available, so choosing one quickly can seem overwhelming at first. It’s best to start with a simple, easy-to-customize theme. You can always change it later.
- Creating Content: Finally, once your website is ready, it’s time to create content for it. The content you create should be relevant to your Niche but also engaging and compelling enough to keep your audience coming back. You should also make sure your website content is optimized for search engines.
4. Produce High-Quality Content
Now that your website is set up and you’ve joined the Affiliate Program, the next step is probably the most time-consuming: Content Production . The goal is to establish yourself as an authority in your niche, and the key way to do this is to consistently create unique, high-quality content. Some of the types of content you can consider include:
- Product Review: Your affiliate website model can be based on writing reviews of different products or services. This is a popular model and if done well, can be very useful in generating revenue. Review websites often focus on the specific interests of a group of users. Some effective areas: Movie reviews, Restaurant and hotel reviews, Travel destination reviews, Course reviews (English, Marketing, …).
For example: MarkKnow, a website specializing in marketing, would be great if our website had articles reviewing marketing books for interested readers. As a website specializing in “marketing”, the sharing and credibility of marketing book reviews will be more highly valued and trusted by readers, so the possibility of making a purchase decision based on our review knowledge is also higher. In fact, we have had such articles.
- Posts that address common problems, questions, or issues that are relevant to your target market: When creating blog posts, you should do some keyword research to find out what your audience is interested in and searching for content. Additionally, research your competitors, forums, and social media to narrow down the topics for your blog.
For example, Security Guard Training HQ has a very extensive blog covering a wide range of relevant topics for anyone interested in security guard training, jobs…
- Evergreen Content : You can build a website with Evergreen content (content that never goes out of date and is always useful to your audience). It is important to do extensive keyword research before planning any Evergreen content, as your website can benefit from using the right keywords in that content.
For example, the content on Super Weddings is useful no matter what time of year you’re planning your wedding. All the content on the site is created around this topic. To make it easier for people, the site is divided into categories to help readers easily find what they’re looking for. This, of course, is also great for SEO.
- Informational Products: Offering free informational products such as an e-book, email series, or mini-course is a popular tactic used by many Affiliate Marketers. Typically, your readers will have to provide their email address to receive the product from you. You can then use this information to sell the product to them via Email Marketing. Additionally, an informational product can generate interest in the actual product you are trying to sell.
For example, DatingMetrics, where you are enticed by a free course called Texting Crash Course in exchange for your email. The real marketing strategies start when users download this course.
5. Build an Audience
An engaged audience will not only bring you traffic, but it will also bring you revenue. So how do you start building an audience for a brand new website? Here are some ideas:
- Promote Content Through Social Media: The most common way to start building a website audience is through social media. Depending on your niche, you can choose Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Maintaining interactions and interest on social media is a great opportunity to build relationships with customers. And once you have gained their trust, start promoting your products and services to them.
- Guest Posting, PR Articles on Big Blogs: Since your website is still new, you should start leveraging the audience of others. Continue to focus on building your own content, but also consider writing content for some of the big blogs that fit your niche. By writing content for a larger site, you can meet other customers and showcase your expertise on a particular topic. This will ultimately lead to more traffic to your website.
- Building an Email List: An email list is crucial for every Affiliate Marketer. You can start building your email list by targeting leads or encouraging readers to sign up for your latest updates. You can then push your content to this audience via email and also direct them to affiliate offers.
- Basic SEO Practices to Increase Traffic: Search engines are still an important source of traffic for any website. When creating content for your site, don’t forget to follow a few basic SEO principles.
- Invest in Paid Advertising: Many Affiliate Marketers use paid advertising to generate more traffic to their website and increase more sales. Some forms of paid advertising include: Facebook ads, Google ads, TikTik ads, banner placement…
6. Promote Affiliate Offers
There are many ways you can promote your offer. It will depend on the type of website you have built and also what you are selling. Some ideas include:
- Product Reviews: Write honest, factual reviews of your products. Build trust with your audience and remember that they rely on your opinions. Don’t just focus on the good things about your product and gloss over the bad. Honest reviews are appreciated, along with attractive images and mention of useful features, specifications, and other details. Your product reviews can then link to a page (with your affiliate ID attached) where your audience can make a purchase if they’re interested.
- Banner Ads: You can place banner ads on your website, to promote your affiliate offers. Most affiliate programs will usually provide their own ads when you sign up. All you have to do is insert the banner on the page (your tracking link is usually embedded in the code). Banners placed in the right places can do a great job of selling.
- In-text content links: This is a very common way to promote offers. For example, you will often see a blog post that has a link to a certain product or service. If a reader clicks through and makes a purchase, the blog owner gets a commission.
- Send Email Promotions: If you have built an email list, you can also promote your Affiliate offers through email promotions. Just make sure you build a relationship with your audience first. The emails you send should contain your Affiliate link to the product.
- Discounts and Giveaways: Many Affiliate Programs will often run promotions with discounts or giveaways that can appeal to your audience. For example, if you are using Amazon’s Affiliate Program during a major holiday season, it would be the perfect opportunity for you to promote a coupon/purchase to your website visitors.
When promoting Affiliate offers, just make sure you are fully aware of all the terms and conditions of your Affiliate Program. Some programs can be strict about how they allow you to promote their products.
For example, some may limit you to only banner ads and affiliate links. Or other programs will allow you to use paid advertising, but not email marketing.
Some sharing from the world’s leading Affiliate experts
Success in Affiliate Marketing doesn’t come from promoting as many products as possible, but rather focusing on building relationships with your audience and recommending products that are truly valuable to them.
Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income)
Content is king in Affiliate Marketing. Create quality, useful content that solves your customers’ problems. It’s the best way to drive traffic and increase conversions.
Neil Patel (Neil Patel Digital)
Don’t be afraid to experiment and find what works best for you. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for Affiliate Marketing, everyone will have their own approach and strategy. Keep learning and improving to achieve success.
Missy Ward (Affiliate Summit)
Conclusion
So above are the shares to help you understand what is Affiliate Marketing as well as the most effective way to do an Affiliate. Hopefully, this will be a document for you to refer to and apply on the path to Making Money Online (MMO).
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