What is Affiliate Marketing and How You can Make Money

byCCJ

195 followers

Updated 10 years ago

You've probably heard of money making opportunities with Affiliate Marketing but you are not quite for sure what it is, how it works or how to get started. In this article I would like to share with you what affiliate marketing is, how it works and point you in the right direction in getting started with generating passive income through Affiliate Marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It is a type of marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought to them by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. There are primarily 4 core players in affiliate marketing and they are as follows:

1. The Merchant(also known as "retailer or brand")
2. The Network(that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments)
3. The Affiliate
4. The Customer

• The Merchant: The Merchant is relatively easy to understand. The merchant can be Amazon, Best buy, Target, etc. Not every company has an affiliate program though. One way to see if a company has an affiliate program is to type in the Merchant's name into a search engine like Goggle, followed by the phrase affiliate program, for instance you would type in amazon affiliate program. The search engine should list a link to Amazon's affiliate program. Follow this same procedure for any merchant in which you would like to see if they have an affiliate program.

• The Network: An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between affiliates and merchant affiliate programs.

• The Affiliate: You would be the affiliate, the person who would promote and advertise for the Merchant, thereby, you will receive some type of commission for recommending their products and services. In order to know what you can expect, for as compensation, you must read through the affiliate program for the merchant you would like to be an affiliate with. Some affiliate programs pay more than others. One very important key in deciding which affiliate program you would like to join, is to let it be relative to the content on your website. For example if your website is dedicated to electronic products then try to find affiliate programs that deal in electronic products and services. This is a must in affiliate marketing-you need a website, but don't let that deter you. It is quite simple to build website and I recommend____if you currently don't have a website or are new to building a website. I have detailed information below in the section entitled, "How to Get Started in Becoming an Affliate"
• The Customer: The customer is the one who will click on the affiliate link you posted on your website and hopefully make a purchase from a particular merchant.

The Benefits of Generating Passive Income as an Affiliate?

• You can potentially generate many passive income streams through joining several affiliate programs, just ensure the affiliate programs are relative to your content.
• Affiliate programs are legitimate and not scams.
• Joining an affiliate program is absolutely free.
• It is a very low maintenance way of generating passive income.
• You don't have to be present to make money.

How to Get Started in Becoming an Affiliate

You must have a website. If you don't have a website or have very little knowledge of how to build one, then you really have lucked up and came to the right place.

My recommendation is Wealthy Affiliate. This is my favorite company to join. I joined them and they have a $0.00 dollar starter membership, where they will literally hold your hand and walk you through the process of setting up your website. They will help you in choosing a niche, provide 2 free websites using the siterubix platform(with 100's of high quality and professionally looking themes to choose from) that you host on their servers, free support(The support is phenomenal-you get support from the very owners, staff and community), taught how to find and register domain names and how to get traffic to your site, video lessons, etc. I stand behind them 100%. The things that I've learned in developing and marketing websites is priceless.