It’s 2023, and people are making lots of money through different types of online businesses that most people are still unaware of. One of these amazing businesses that has become a sensation today is affiliate marketing.

These days, people pay as much as five hundred thousand Naira (N500,000) to take courses that will make them experts in this buzzing business. An average earning affiliate marketer these days makes up to two hundred and fifty thousand Naira monthly, working fully remotely from their homes.

Are you looking at becoming an affiliate marketer today? If yes, then this is the right article for you. Here, you’ll discover everything relating to the affiliate marketing business, you’ll discover if it’s the right type of business for you and how to start one today.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a marketing model in which an online retailer pays commissions to a person or an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.

Here, the third party person/website are called affiliates and the commissions they earn is what incentivizes them into promoting the retailer products.

Is affiliate marketing worth it?

Before you decide to do affiliate marketing or not, there are two very important factors that you should know about, then you can decide whether it’s worth your time or not

1) It’s a low cost, low risk venture

To start a business, you’ll definitely need capital as well as funding to get other things in place. However, with affiliate marketing, all you need is a website. In any eventuality that this business fails, the only thing you’d have lost is a bit of your time and very little money

2) It is very easy to scale

Typically, a salesperson can only sell the products of the company in which they’re employed, but not in affiliate marketing. Here, you can choose to sell products from as many retailers as possible and make as much as you can afford to.

Having noted these two important criteria, you’d agree with me that becoming an affiliate marketer is going to be worth the time right? You’re right.

How long has the affiliate marketing business been in existence?

Though this venture seems relatively new, affiliate marketing has been around for many years. With the emergence of digital marketing, the online referral model we know today was introduced.

You might not realize it, but if you’ve ever recommended a product or service to a family member or friend of yours, then you’ve been an affiliate, whether you got paid for it or not. However, in affiliate marketing, you earn money for every referral you make.

Types of affiliate marketing

There are 3 types of affiliate marketing;

  • Unattached affiliate marketing
  • Related affiliate marketing
  • Involved affiliate marketing

Unattached affiliate marketing

In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is unrelated to the item or service they are promoting. They do not represent an authority on its use or make claims about it since they lack any knowledge of associated skills or experience.

This is affiliate marketing in its most basic form.

Related affiliate marketing

Related affiliate marketing entails the promotion of goods or services by an affiliate who has some sort of connection to the product offering. Oftentimes, the relationship often exists between the affiliate’s niche and the item or service.

The affiliate is a credible source since they possess the authority and knowledge necessary to drive traffic. However, the affiliate provides no guarantees on the effectiveness of the commodity or service.

Involved affiliate marketing

Here, there is a closer relationship between the affiliate and the product or service they’re promoting because they’ve used or currently use it. Their positive experience with the products serves as advertisement, and they are confident that others will share their positive experiences.

The downside to this however is that their reputations could take a massive hit if there happen to be some form of problems or scandal associated with the product or service.

How to start affiliate marketing In 7 easy steps

  1. Choose your niche
  2. Decide on a content platform
  3. Find affiliate programs to join
  4. Create amazing content
  5. Drive traffic to your affiliate site
  6. Get people to click your affiliate links
  7. Convert your clicks to sales

1) Choose your niche

You need to decide on what you want to talk about, be very specific, and make sure whatever you choose is properly niched down, as you don’t want to start off by addressing a broad niche.

The easiest way to do this is by choosing something you love because you’ll need to be creating a lot of content around this, therefore, it makes it less overwhelming when you’re doing what you love.

Ask yourself;

  • What am I good at?
  • What do I like doing?
  • What am I curious about?
  • What do people say I’m really good at?

This will really help you make an informed decision on what niche to choose.

2) Decide on a content platform

Choosing a content platform will depend heavily on the niche you’re choosing. For example, if you want to focus on food, then Youtube should be your number one choice. If you’re going to be creating fun content, then maybe you should concentrate on Tiktok and Instagram.

Ensure however, that you have a website to rank your contents on search engines as well using SEO in order to get clicks on your affiliate links.

3) Find affiliate programs to join

There are several affiliate programs that you can join today in order to make commissions by selling their products. The top ranging affiliate programs you can choose from today includes;

  • GiddyUp.
  • DFO Global.
  • Amazon Associates.
  • Widitrade.
  • ClickBank.
  • eBay Partner Network.
  • Atera Nexus Program.
  • M4trix Network.

4) Create amazing content

Only high-quality content will help you become successful quite easily as an affiliate marketer. You need to distinguish yourself from the crowd by not just creating content for the fun of it, but rather, you need to be very intentional about creating content that solves your reader’s problems.

If you’re doing a review, ensure to buy the product you’re reviewing as this will help you establish your authenticity. Otherwise, you could reach out to the brands you’re doing a review for and have them send their products for you to help them review.

5) Drive traffic to your affiliate site

After you’ve set up your website and have found a suitable affiliate program to be a part of, the next step is to get people to visit your website and click your affiliate links right? Exactly.

You can get traffic to your site by using any of the following digital marketing tactics;

SEO – Optimize your contents for relevant keywords and hashtags in order to help your content rank organically on search engines.

PPC – You can run online advertising campaigns to direct traffic to your website where you have your contents and affiliate links in order to get more clicks.

Build an email list – Building an active email list allows you to communicate with your community anytime. You can always direct them to a new post and get them to click your affiliate links.

6) Get people to click your affiliate links

One very important thing to note while creating affiliate links is how and where to get them positioned. It’s very important to position your calls to action where they can be easily found on your website/blogs or contents.

Let your CTA be in the first 3 paragraphs of your contents to allow for easily visibility, and also, ensure that it clearly communicates the action.

7) Convert your clicks to sales

You need to be aware that in affiliate marketing, when people click on your link, they still have to get to the retailer’s product page before conversion occurs. While you can control the amount of people who click on your affiliate link, you really can’t control what happens when they get to the product/service page.

There are some tricks you can use to your advantage in order to not be in a situation where you’re working in vain. Click here to discover them

Conclusion

By applying the steps listed above, you should be able to launch a successful affiliate venture. It’s important to note however that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it might take a bit of time to fully start making a lot of money.

Therefore, you should concentrate on making your first sale, then with time you’ll make more and more.